Mending
1852
Wednesday 4th Feb Have been mending shirts and have
done up some collars & sleeves &c This evening
have been to Alsons with Mr Ames, met the
Pools Mr & Mrs A Howard & Harvey had a
pretty lively time. Edwin & Augustus with their
wives were also there It is a beautiful moonshiny
night and have had a pleasant ride. O A & Oliver
went to a ball to Canton.
Evelina sat with her sewing and mending for most of the day, catching up on some of the more ordinary aspects of keeping her family well-clothed. She was motivated in part by the need to prepare her son Oliver (3)’s clothes for his return to college. Her diligence was rewarded; she got a lot of work done, and at the end of the day she and Oakes went out for the evening. Right next door, in the other part of the house, Oakes’s youngest brother William Leonard was visiting, yet Evelina doesn’t mention him.
She and Oakes rode south to her brother’s farm, where they met with family and friends for “a pretty lively time.” They saw some of the Pools, an extended family in the area, and Asa and Henrietta Howard, another farming family. (A year earlier, Evelina had sewn a shroud for one of the Howard’s children.) The Harveys, from whom Evelina bought butter, were present as well.
The beautiful moon, not quite full, shone down from a starry sky on other winter gatherings. Oliver Ames (3) turned 21 years old today, after all; he celebrated the occasion with his older brother, Oakes Angier, by attending a dance in Canton. One imagines that they had a good time, too.
