Week 10 - Strong Woman
Week 10 - Strong Woman
This challenge was an easy one for me. It always brings to mind my grandmother, Emma Lovinia Nemitz Wimp. Born in 1885 in Stiles Iowa, she went to the one room school house in the community until she completed 8th grade. At that point, she could be a school teacher. She balked at that prospect, because she was very good at math and envisioned a job as a bookkeeper. Her father,
however, thought that was man's work, and worse, would put her in a man's world. He made her take a job as a school teacher just across the county line in Missouri. He drove her there in a horse and buggy.
Some of the boys in her class were bigger than she was, and hard to handle. She was miserable. So she saved her money and when she had enough, she did two things. She bought a beautiful watch (which I still have) and she moved to Burlington, Iowa where she got a job as a bookkeeper at the Drake hardware store. The sign for the store is still there, over 100 years later. The building currently houses a restaurant and a hardware and software business.
While she was living in Burlington, and made her own money, Emma lived a very good life. She bought beautiful clothing, jewelry and hats. She had girlfriends, and they spent a lot of time together. And she belonged to the local YMCA, once participating in a debate entitled, "Resolved that a business life unfits a girl for the home." She took the opposing view and won the prize, a 1/2 dollar gold piece. I still have it. And she was active is pursuing the women's right to vote. She was always adamant that a woman was at quite capable of holding her own in the business world, and making decisions when it came to office holders.
Emma met my grandfather when she was just fifteen, prior to moving away from home. . He courted her for many years, fifteen, to be exact. When she was just a few months shy of being 30, the magic age when one became an old maid, she accepted his proposal. He was living in Oregon at the time. He came by train, they were married in her parent's parlor. The next day they were back on the train to The Dalles Oregon, then by buckboard to Redmond, where my grandfather was a caretaker at a small electric dam on the Deschutes River. The year was 1914.
And thus began a life of isolation from her family. Her family was Mennonite and I would imagine theyhad many difficulties with the choices she made, first to become a "professional" woman in a town far away, and then to marry a man outside the faith. She was virtually disowned when she married. She only made one trip back to Iowa to see her family, but her mother had died in the meantime. One of her fondest memories of that trip was sitting on a stool in her father's blacksmith shop and having a long conversation, which resulted in their reconciliation. Ironically, her father had not been born into the Mennonite faith either, but had somehow been accepted by the community.
My grandmother and grandfather moved eventually to Nyssa Oregon, where she took a job as a bookkeeper at the Deseret Seed Company. They bought a five acre farm about a mile from town. Grandpa opened an electrical shop. He was a good electrician but a terrible businessman and he never liked to charge for his services. Grandma did her best to bill people for his services and keep his shop going. She was very good at adding up figures in her head. We would watch her add up a column of numbers 4 across and 20 down in a time much shorter than we could do it on paper.
Before purchasing the farm, they had lived for a time in a small hotel, and grandma took in laundry to make ends meet. When they moved to the farm, she would get up before dawn, milk the cows, feed the chickens, tend to her garden, which consisted of vegetables, fruit trees and flowers, mainly roses, and then dress and walk the mile to work. She never learned to drive, and grandpa was apparently unavailable to drive her. She canned fruit and vegetables. She rung the necks on chickens, plucked them, and took them to the local butcher for sale before going to work. She also sold eggs, and milk, for which she had to drag the heavy metal cans to the road for pickup. She would go out to the irrigation ditch on days designated for water flow and open the gates to water her garden.
In her spare time, she embroidered, crocheted, cross stitched, and quilted, many skills she had learned growing up. She was good at baking and made wonderful fruit pies, biscuits, etc. She practiced her faith in private, never attending a church. There was no one of her faith in their small western farming community. However, she held quilting parties and sewing bees and the women talked of many things, including religion, as they did their handiwork. She had bible readings and discussions, for which she was very well versed, given her Mennonite background and regular reading of the Bible.
Women would bring their ballots to her when it came time to vote, and get her advice. And they poured our their hearts about their own troubles. I met a friend of hers in a nursing home, long after my grandmother died, who told me how she had helped her through tough times.
She lived 26 years after my grandfather died. Being single allowed her to do many things she loved to do. She kept the farm and lived there alone until a short time before her death in 1980. She was 96 years old. She has always been my inspiration, and as I read her debate notes from 1908, I am reminded of how women like her paved the way for the right to vote, work outside the home, and fight for many other changes to society that occurred for women during her close-to-a- century lifetime.
This challenge was an easy one for me. It always brings to mind my grandmother, Emma Lovinia Nemitz Wimp. Born in 1885 in Stiles Iowa, she went to the one room school house in the community until she completed 8th grade. At that point, she could be a school teacher. She balked at that prospect, because she was very good at math and envisioned a job as a bookkeeper. Her father,
however, thought that was man's work, and worse, would put her in a man's world. He made her take a job as a school teacher just across the county line in Missouri. He drove her there in a horse and buggy.
Some of the boys in her class were bigger than she was, and hard to handle. She was miserable. So she saved her money and when she had enough, she did two things. She bought a beautiful watch (which I still have) and she moved to Burlington, Iowa where she got a job as a bookkeeper at the Drake hardware store. The sign for the store is still there, over 100 years later. The building currently houses a restaurant and a hardware and software business.
While she was living in Burlington, and made her own money, Emma lived a very good life. She bought beautiful clothing, jewelry and hats. She had girlfriends, and they spent a lot of time together. And she belonged to the local YMCA, once participating in a debate entitled, "Resolved that a business life unfits a girl for the home." She took the opposing view and won the prize, a 1/2 dollar gold piece. I still have it. And she was active is pursuing the women's right to vote. She was always adamant that a woman was at quite capable of holding her own in the business world, and making decisions when it came to office holders.
Emma met my grandfather when she was just fifteen, prior to moving away from home. . He courted her for many years, fifteen, to be exact. When she was just a few months shy of being 30, the magic age when one became an old maid, she accepted his proposal. He was living in Oregon at the time. He came by train, they were married in her parent's parlor. The next day they were back on the train to The Dalles Oregon, then by buckboard to Redmond, where my grandfather was a caretaker at a small electric dam on the Deschutes River. The year was 1914.
And thus began a life of isolation from her family. Her family was Mennonite and I would imagine theyhad many difficulties with the choices she made, first to become a "professional" woman in a town far away, and then to marry a man outside the faith. She was virtually disowned when she married. She only made one trip back to Iowa to see her family, but her mother had died in the meantime. One of her fondest memories of that trip was sitting on a stool in her father's blacksmith shop and having a long conversation, which resulted in their reconciliation. Ironically, her father had not been born into the Mennonite faith either, but had somehow been accepted by the community.
My grandmother and grandfather moved eventually to Nyssa Oregon, where she took a job as a bookkeeper at the Deseret Seed Company. They bought a five acre farm about a mile from town. Grandpa opened an electrical shop. He was a good electrician but a terrible businessman and he never liked to charge for his services. Grandma did her best to bill people for his services and keep his shop going. She was very good at adding up figures in her head. We would watch her add up a column of numbers 4 across and 20 down in a time much shorter than we could do it on paper.
Before purchasing the farm, they had lived for a time in a small hotel, and grandma took in laundry to make ends meet. When they moved to the farm, she would get up before dawn, milk the cows, feed the chickens, tend to her garden, which consisted of vegetables, fruit trees and flowers, mainly roses, and then dress and walk the mile to work. She never learned to drive, and grandpa was apparently unavailable to drive her. She canned fruit and vegetables. She rung the necks on chickens, plucked them, and took them to the local butcher for sale before going to work. She also sold eggs, and milk, for which she had to drag the heavy metal cans to the road for pickup. She would go out to the irrigation ditch on days designated for water flow and open the gates to water her garden.
In her spare time, she embroidered, crocheted, cross stitched, and quilted, many skills she had learned growing up. She was good at baking and made wonderful fruit pies, biscuits, etc. She practiced her faith in private, never attending a church. There was no one of her faith in their small western farming community. However, she held quilting parties and sewing bees and the women talked of many things, including religion, as they did their handiwork. She had bible readings and discussions, for which she was very well versed, given her Mennonite background and regular reading of the Bible.
Women would bring their ballots to her when it came time to vote, and get her advice. And they poured our their hearts about their own troubles. I met a friend of hers in a nursing home, long after my grandmother died, who told me how she had helped her through tough times.
She lived 26 years after my grandfather died. Being single allowed her to do many things she loved to do. She kept the farm and lived there alone until a short time before her death in 1980. She was 96 years old. She has always been my inspiration, and as I read her debate notes from 1908, I am reminded of how women like her paved the way for the right to vote, work outside the home, and fight for many other changes to society that occurred for women during her close-to-a- century lifetime.
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