June 22, 1852

1852

Tuesday June 22d  Worked in the garden again this

morning untill about ten.  My garden

takes up quite too much of my time.  This afternoon

carried my work into Olivers.  Sewed the skirt

on to my brown muslin and worked some on the waist

of my purple cambric dress  Catharine here again

to day but it is of no use for me to have her.  Have had

a very heavy shower with thunder & lightning

Evelina complained that gardening “takes up quite too much” of her time, but she did seem to love it. It and sewing were her especial interests. From the two occupations, we can derive the fact that she loved many colors. She didn’t just choose one or two colors, she chose all of them. In her garden we see blossoms of pink, purple, red and yellow in many shades and sizes. In her wardrobe, too, the spectrum is broad. On this day she worked on both a brown muslin and a purple cambric dress.  Just recently, she had finished a green gingham dress, and before that there was a black silk. She had sewn pink aprons, blue silks and plaid skirts, and many of her outfits had bonnets or ribbons to match. Her taste was all-encompassing, it would seem. Did her color selection reflect the styles of the day, or her personal preferences, or both?

While the colorful garden was apparently thriving under Evelina’s careful attention, her sewing projects were not. The new servant, Catharine Middleton, who had been hired primarily to assist with sewing, was not working out. She was “of no use.”

Old Oliver, the family weatherman, was unusually chatty about today’s weather.  He was excited about the rain, but feared it had come too late for certain patches of hay. He wrote: “it was fair this forenoon + cloudy in the afternoon the wind was very high all day from the South west + towards night + in the evening there was a shower of nearly half an inch, but the grass on gravely land is to far gone to be helpt.”