Daughter Can Save Mother

1915

There Are Many Little Pleasures Girl Can Give Her Parents — Don't Talk Disrespectfully

There is so much a daughter can do for her mother that it is hard to know where to begin. Remember, girls, that all your lives your mothers have been sacrificing themselves for you. Now you have a chance to reverse things.

Your shoulders are young and strong; help lift the burden a little from the tired shoulders that have borne it so long. Let mother see that you appreciate all that she has done for you. Take the heaviest part of the housework off her hands. Make her stay in bed in the morning while you get the breakfast. Send her out to enjoy herself while you look after the children.

Of course you cannot do this every day, but you can do your share of it.

If you are a business girl you cannot do much of this sort of thing, but there are many little pleasures you can give her.

Something pretty to wear will please her. She likes pretty things as well as you do. Confide in her and tell her your hopes and ambitions. She is better than all the girl friends in the world and will never tell your secrets.

The trouble about mothers is, that we get so used to them that we don't half appreciate them until we lose them. Then quickly enough we realize what all that divine care and tenderness meant. No matter how much you do, you can't begin to return all they have done for you, but do the best you can. A little love and petting is always appreciated by mothers; try it with yours and see if she does not thrive under it.

As for the girls who talk and act disrespectfully toward their mothers, for them no criticism is too harsh. If only they knew what outsiders think of it I believe they would stop it.

The prettiest girl in the world is absolutely devoid of charm if she is impertinent to her mother.

Begin today, girls, and save your mothers all the worries you can; show them all the consideration you can, and give them all the love you can. — Selected.

Taught Daughters To Rob, Is Charge

1920

Mother of Girls, 8 and 10, Is Alleged "Fagin"

Children Arrested for Shoplifting

INDIANAPOLIS, Indiana — Indianapolis' most unusual shoplifting case came to light with the arrest of Mrs. Bella Goldfarb, 38, and the detention of her two oldest children, Minnie, 10, and Lillie, 8.

Mrs. Goldfarb is charged with child neglect, while the two little girls are confined in the juvenile home.

The woman was taken into custody after Minnie and Lillie were arrested in Pettis Dry Goods store. When questioned by woman Police Sergeant Clara Burnside and operatives of the Quigley-Hyland detective bureau, it is claimed they said their mother whipped them if they failed to bring home loot after a visit to the stores.

Police Find Stolen Goods

Investigation of the Goldfarb home, the detectives and Sergeant Burnside claim, reveals many articles supposed to have been taken from downtown stores.

Operatives of the Quigley-Hyland bureau picked up the two little girls in the Pettis store. After questioning, their case proved so interesting that Detective Martin Hyland visited the Goldfarb home with his operatives. The children then denied that their mother whipped them when they failed to bring home articles.

When they were found each child carried a bag. The children were taken in charge when Minnie, it is alleged, placed in her bag a piece of ribbon she had taken from a counter. In the bag were other articles. Lillie's bag contained a cap valued at $4,75 which, it is charged, was taken from the Pettis store, and a number of small dresses said to have come from another store.

At the home it is claimed there were many articles said to have been taken from different establishments. A number of pieces of silverware and boudoir caps were among these articles.

Mother Made Girls Thieves

Mrs. Goldfarb was not arrested at that time because she has three other small children. She was ordered to appear at police headquarters. When Sergeant Burnside brought the two children before her they again admitted that they were instructed to steal.

"Mamma whips us if we don't bring home something," one of them is alleged to have said.

Mrs. Goldfarb will appear in juvenile court soon. No charges have been preferred against the children, Sergeant Burnside being loath to arrest them because of their tender years.

Mrs. Goldfarb said her husband works as a shoemaker in Dayton, Ohio. She said he sent her from $20 to $30 weekly.

Advantages of the Spanking Machine

1905

"I see," said the mother of five, "that out in Peoria, Ill., they've invented a machine for spanking children. She cast a meaning glance at her son Willie, who shifted uneasily in his chair, but said nothing.

"I was thinking," she went on, speaking to no one in particular, "that I would send on to the inventor and get one of the machines. It would come in handy for me, and I could rent it out among some neighbors I know and make money on it. That is, of course, if I didn't use it all the time, which I might." Willie squirmed again, and thanked his stars the machine wasn't there yet. His mother went on.

"I s'pose they have various sized hands for the machine, to be used in accordance with the gravity of the spankee's offense and the spanking area presented to the spanker. For instance, for such offenses as hanging to the tall end of ice carts, about a No. 2 hand, with spikes in it would do. For riding up in the dumbwaiter and scaring the life out of the cook so that she gives notice, a No. 9 hand, with explosive torpedoes in the palm, wouldn't be any too big or heavy. If the machine works with a crank, as I imagine it does, the rapidity of the stroke could be regulated, too, and the severity of the punishment thus graded according to what the young man ought to have coming to him. "Of course, I'm merely talking from hearsay, now, but I think one of those machines on every street corner would be a good thing. They could build a little booth around it and charge admission. Then when a small boy, out with his mother, insisted on running across a crowded street ahead of her, and giving her heart disease by nearly getting run over by cars and automobiles, she could just lead him into the corner spankorium and attend to him good and plentiful. I think the city ought to know about this and provide such places.

"It would be a great machine to act as a deterrent. If a boy was bad you could say to him: 'Be good, now, or I will put papa's hand with the cast-iron fingers on it into the spanker and turn it loose on you.' That would do some good, and I don't think the small boy would think it a bluff either."

—Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA, Dec. 2, 1905, p. 7.

The Lullaby Song Mother Used To Sing

1911

The Lullaby Song

Some time ago a western contemporary gave utterance to this practical, prosaic and unemotional declaration: "Another very pretty sentiment that should be exploded is the lullaby song. Did your mother rock you to sleep and sing while doing it, and you recall the song? As a rule, a woman has so many children they are hustled off to bed without being rocked, and what mother ever knew a lullaby from start to finish?"

There are some things that are too sacred for alleged humor or wit and the above is an instance in point, as there are many who will not accept it as either, for as observed by an exchange there are those whose years have exiled them to dreamland, who can call up tender recollections of childhood and remember the songs that mother used to sing.

There are plenty of old men living who had mothers who could sing in low, tender, though uncultivated, tones the lullaby song, and its melody is still enshrined in the heart and thrills in memory. The old man of German stock especially can remember the simple folk song of the Fatherland that his mother sang above his cradle. Long ago its music came from over the sea, and at last has incorporated in the runic rhymes the old colored nurse crooned or warbled to woo sleep to infantile eyelids.

It may be that in later years we have been privileged to hear the great voices of the day. But all their grand arias never so touched our hearts as when in an encore they gave us a melody that had been dedicated to babyland and which thousands of mothers had sung to the cradle's rocker beating time.

It is strange what a hold these simple melodies of childhood retain in a life, however long, however filled with changes and vicissitude. There is something in their joys though they be ever so fleeting, that remains indelible. Every now and then, in quiet hours, the heart will hark back over the intervening years and remember it with reverence. And who will say that we are not better men and women for such moments of reflection, even though they do bring back the sound of voices that have long been silent, and the touch of hands that are dust?

And can you recall the song? Of course! You hear the familiar notes again in the midst of other surroundings, and instantly the scene is changed about you. You are a child again, just for a moment, and you look up, as you did in days gone by, into a face you love — oh, it may be aged and wrinkled and homely now, but it's still to you the sweetest face in the world.

You look again into eyes that are eloquent with a mother's unspeakable love — the purest, sweetest, holiest feeling the human heart may know. You feel again the comforting presence of her who guided your first uncertain footsteps, who heard you lisp your first little words, and whose tender solicitude for you has never ceased in all these years.

Can you recall the song? A generation may have passed since you heard it. Perhaps, in the corner of some quiet churchyard the singer lies asleep. Years and experience may have come upon you since you heard it last from her dear lips. Scenes may have changed, and your feet have wandered far since then; but never, never have you forgotten.

Life has brought you discords, but they can't erase it. After it may have come the other songs of other days. but the echo of those earlier ones is with you always. Childhood can never die.

No, do not tell us that the lullabies have gone out of fashion, after all these ages in which they have been sung over cradle and couch, in hovel and palace, and been remembered by millions in whose hearts remained an echo and a light of other days. The childhood that never heard a mother's lullaby is not apt to have a manhood of wholesome sentiment or that reverence for womankind which ennobles the heart and uplifts the soul.

—The Mansfield News, Mansfield, Ohio, Feb. 28, 1911, p. 6.

A Puppy Adopts a Brood of Chickens

1896

Rather a pathetic story comes from a small town on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the truthfulness of which is vouched for by a prominent citizen of the place.

This P. C. is an extensive chicken raiser, and some time since set a favorite hen upon a nest of eggs, expecting them to hatch in the usual period of three weeks. Three, four and five weeks passed and no chickens, and it was not until the end of the sixth week that the new poultry appeared, but with them came the demise of the old hen, presumably as a result of her unusually long continued sedentary occupation.

The chicks, not knowing, of course, that their mother was dead, attempted to crawl under her wings and keep warm. Their owner, seeing the trouble they were in, pressed a small Newfoundland pup into service, and, placing it in a closed coop, put the chicks in after. The soft fur of the pup made a pleasant retreat for the little ones, and now pup and poultry are inseparable. — Philadelphia Call.

Society Mom Objects to Wedding, Splits Up Son, Bride

1909

ODD MARRIAGE CONTRACT

After Honeymoon Couple Will Separate Till June to Test Affection

With his mother absent from the ceremony to which she was opposed, Mason M. Wilson, reported to be heir to much money, was married the other afternoon in Philadelphia to Miss Nellie M. Kernan. Their honeymoon is to be short lived, in accordance with a plan proposed by the bridegroom's mother.

When the couple return after a two weeks' honeymoon Wilson is to live with his mother at 2111 Chestnut street and the bride is to go to the home of her parents at 2412 Catharine street. This arrangement is to continue until June. If then they will care for each other Mrs. Wilson has promised not to disinherit her son and will help him to go to housekeeping in the fall.

Mrs. Wilson objected to the marriage on the ground that Miss Kernan was not her son's social equal. Miss Kernan was formerly a salesgirl in a department store.

—Printed Jan. 15, 1909.