Infant wear from Godey’s Lady’s Magazine, 1851
Sat May 22d
1852 Mrs Paterson here again to day and has cleaned
Susans chamber, windows & doors in Franks and
taken up the carpet and cleaned the front
chamber except the floor Lavinia & Orinthia
came about eleven, Edwin & Augusta here to tea
and went home with Lavinia Mrs McHanna stood
godmother for McCabes child
Spring cleaning continued. Mrs. Patterson returned to help Evelina clean, and the two women worked hard. Windows, doors, carpets and more were scrubbed, wiped or beaten, as appropriate.
Jane McHanna, the Ames’s regular servant, must have had time off today. She attended a baptism, presumably at the little Catholic church on Pond Street, to act as a godmother for a child of the McCabes. About this time, there was an Irish family in Easton, Bernard and Hannah McCabe, who had young children. Perhaps Jane became a godmother for three-year old William McCabe or, more likely, a younger sibling. There were several McCabe families in Bristol and Plymouth counties at this time, however, so we can’t be certain who this young child was.
The baptism or christening of infants was an important rite for both Catholics and Protestants. They had different approaches, certainly, but the intent was the same: to bless a child and erase its original sin. Unitarians differed from the Catholics and Calvinist-based Puritanism on this latter issue, as Unitarians didn’t accept the notion that children were born depraved. It was a critical doctrinal point. Jane McHanna would have accepted the more traditional view, and probably considered it an honor to have been selected as godmother.
evelinaames 