Wednesday May 7th Orinthia went to Boston this morning
with Abby Torrey after she left I went into Olivers
on an errand and stopt a long while as I am
sure to do when I ought not and then went into the
other part of the house to bid Mrs Stetson good
by (as Mrs S Ames and Frank went with her to Bridgewater)
and Mrs Lincoln Drake rode up and saw me by
the window and I was obliged to see her, thus the day passed
and I accomplished very little Went with Mrs Witherell
to the sewing circle at Daniel Clarkes
The Sewing Circle held its monthly meeting today, this time at the home of Daniel and Elvira Clark. Roughly contemporary in age to Oakes and Evelina, the Clarks were members of the Unitarian Church. Daniel was a carpenter who occasionally did work for the Ames family. Elvira, like Evelina, was a housewife with teenaged children. She and Evelina visited together last Sunday during the intermission between sermons.
So much socializing went on today that Evelina had to chastise herself – “I am sure to do what I ought not” – when she spent too much time next door visiting her sister-in-law, Sarah Lothrop Ames. Sarah must have been feeling better; although she didn’t go with Evelina and Sarah Witherell to the Sewing Circle, she had improved enough not only to have a good, long chat with Evelina, but also to have an outing to Bridgewater, which she was “carried to” by her nephew Frank Morton Ames.
Evelina stopped in at Sarah Witherell’s to say goodbye to Mrs. Stetson, a friend of the family who was departing for Bridgewater, too. She then was spotted by Caroline Torrey Drake, a friend who stopped in for a visit. Mrs. Drake, a woman in her early fifties, was the mother of eight children: five girls followed by three boys. Her first child was born when she was 20, her last child when she was 45. Now that’s childbearing!
evelinaames 