May 24, 1852

May 24th 1852

Monday  We have carried on a large stroke of business

to day  Mr Healy helped put the oilcloth in the 

dining room plained the floor & fitted the blinds

for the side lights  Mrs Patterson & Jane washed

and we have taken up the sitting room & bedroom

carpets & cleaned the clothes closet  Mr Scott

had partly painted the dining room & Mr Burnham

had built the chimney higher in the cook room

After a day off for the Sabbath, the women in the Ames house went back to spring cleaning. Today there were men on hand to help.  Henry Healey, frequent carpenter for the Ameses, planed the floor in the dining room and laid down the new oilcloth that Evelina had just bought in Bridgewater. He also fitted the blinds for the sidelights of the front door; perhaps they had been damaged in the fierce nor’easter back in April, when water beat into the house. That, or he just put up something new over those side panels.

In the dining room, Mr. Scott was painting and in the kitchen, Mr. Burnham was raising the chimney, perhaps repointing some of the older bricks in the process.  How Jane McHanna and Mrs. Patterson managed to do the weekly laundry around that activity is a mystery. Perhaps they worked outside in the yard. It was indeed a “large stroke of business.”