*
Sunday Nov 28 Went to meeting this forenoon
came home at noon and did not return wrote
some & read and was doing some other things
that perhaps would have been as well to do
another day Augustus & wife & her sister &c
called and we went into Olivers with them
this evening found quite a party there.
Mr Dows family Cyrus Elizabeth and all of
our folks except Frank
Evelina spent this Sunday in her usual manner, although she attended only the morning service at church. Once home, she “wrote some” letters to friends or family and read – always a favorite leisure activity – and then probably did a few chores that may or may not have been permissible for the Sabbath. Every so often, Evelina would work on a Sunday and feel guilty about doing so.
She had no guilt about spending a sociable evening next door, however. The high activity that had begun the week before around Thanksgiving continued at the Ames compound as friends and family gathered. The evening seemed to be impromptu, influenced in part by the continued presence of visiting family members. Sarah Lothrop Ames’ bachelor brother, Cyrus, and her widowed sister-in-law, Elizabeth (Mrs. Dewitt Clinton Lothrop), were still on the premises, as was the Dow family. Evelina and her own crew of relatives – nearly “all of our folks” – found their way to the party, too. Much tea would have been consumed (although the setting would have been minus the samovar in the illustration above.)
It seems only fair that this Sunday was so lively and fun, for bad news would arrive within the week.
*T. Myaghov, Russian, Family Portrait with Samovar, 1844, courtesy of Wikipedia, accessed 11.27.2015
evelinaames 