On 14 June 1863 Lizzie wrote Fanny:
Mary left me about two weeks ago, finding my work too hard, and went to Mrs Mills to take care of babies!--where she staid 24 hours, and left. She is living now at the jeweller Roots, where they say the work is always hard. I was nearly a week without "help"! for though I had numerous applications, I would not take a woman without a good recommendation.
On 29 June she reported success in a letter to Augusta: "I have got a new 'help' as you know, and am more than satisfied with the exchange. The new Mary is a treasure, so far."
At the Mansion House Frances had to be dismissed in the summer, for unrecorded malfaisances, and Lizzie wrote sympathetically to Augusta on 16 August:
I am sorry that you have been obliged to dismiss your woman and wish much that I could transfer my Mary to you, but as she is a devout Catholic she would not be willing to go anywhere, where she could not worship at her own Church, and of course would not consent to have Willie put under other than Catholic influences. I do hope you will get a good "help" before long--should think you might perhaps, at the break up of the Saratoga season.
Servants were often portables, as is clear in Lizzie's thought of sending hers to Gansevoort.
In New Bedford Kate imposed her ways as best she could, as Helen wrote to her sisters at Gansevoort
(29 September): "Kate seems to be quite bright since the cook arrived, said cook is short & curly-haired, smart & active, and will do, probably, if she condescends to stay when the lady requires her sheets to be folded the lengthwise of the article, a thing 'never heard of in New Bedford.' Likewise the children's stockings to be stretched in the width before ironing, 'which no other lady in New Bedford would ask a girl to do!'"
No comments:
Post a Comment