Pioneer Profiles – June 2021
Our March Pioneer Profile focused on “Hired Girls,” described by Helen Colvig Cook as an institution of the “by-gone era” when she was growing up in Jacksonville’s Colvig household in the late 1800s. In a letter written in 1959 she noted that hired girls “could not possibly be put in the same class with servants or “maids” of today. They were big, healthy, buxom, willing country girls who … came as sort of green apprentice(s) to learn from the Lady of the house how to cook, sew, and tend babies in between chores of washing, ironing and scrubbing….”
The Colvigs’ hired girls shared a room with Helen and her sister Clara. One particular hired girl, Hattie McComber, who joined the family when Helen was about 10, made such a significant impression that Helen could vividly recall her some 60+ years later even though Hattie had been fairly new to the household at the time. I’ll let Helen tell you about Hattie.
“The hired girl always got up and lit the candles in our room quite sometime before Clara or I could get up enough courage to emerge from under the snug covers. Anyway we weren’t required to be down stairs as soon as she was. The first thing Hattie did after she lit the candles was to take a big wad of gum from the shelf by the bureau, put it in her mouth and begin to chew ecstatically and happily while she hooked her whale-bone corset into place and donned the rest of her clothes; but when her rapid toilet was completed and she was ready to rush down stairs to the kitchen she would take the gum from her mouth and tenderly put it back on to the shelf, her reason for discarding the gum was not entirely motivated by Mama’s disapproval of a gum chewing hired girl, but because, to Hattie, this quid of gum was a very special, if not sacred, thing, and the chewing of it the first thing in the morning was a sort of loving ceremony with which she always started the day.
“She had told me all about it on the first day of her arrival at our home when I had escorted her upstairs, and, with childish interest and curiosity, watched her unpack her meager belongings. When she produced the gum from the side of her mouth and placed it on the corner of the shelf that day she not only warned me never to touch or displace it, but made me give my sacred oath of honor that I never would. This was the first time that anyone had taken me into their confidence about their love affairs and I was much awed, impressed and interested in this piece of gum, for it was a symbol of everlasting love, both to Hattie and to me.
“She told me that she was very much in love with a young farmer who lived up Talent way. He had been courting her for two years, but had never approached her with an offer of marriage in all that time, then a little over a year ago he had taken her to a Fourth of July celebration up at Ashland, and while there, sometime during the day when they had sought seclusion on a park bench, he opened up his heart and asked her to marry him. He explained that at the present time he was unable to support a wife and it looked as though it might be quite a spell before he got his farm paid for and could claim her for his own. Would she wait for him, was his plea.
“She promised she would wait, no matter how many dollars or years away the wedding might be. O, yea! She would be true to him.
“To seal their vows he produced a full package of gum, divided it with her (two and a half sticks per person) and holding hands they each chewed their portion to the proper consistency for comfortable mastication (at that time Mr. Beeman had not perfected his product and it always crumbled when first put in the mouth). They then solemnly exchanged cuds, swearing that every day until the wedding bells rang for them—no matter how far apart they might be—they each would chew the gum which the other had started, and remember their vow.
“If Hattie had shown me a thousand dollar diamond ring as a pledge of her betrothal I couldn’t have been more impressed. It was so beautifully romantic—and O! the wonder of it. Just think keeping a piece of gum for over a year and thinking of him with every chew.
“I used to stealthily take Maggie Krause, Ollie Huffer and other girls of my age up to the room to show them this wonderful piece of gum, and relate the romantic story of its origin. It never entered our heads, nor Hattie’s either, that it was quite unhygienic to chew the same piece of gum every day for a year, especially when it laid around in the dust, attracting germs, between mastications.
“The very antiquity of Hattie’s gum gave it value. You know a piece of gum gets lost or mislaid so easily—almost mysteriously at times. You even forget what piece of furniture you stuck it under—or, maybe, someone else discovers it and appropriates it by the time you do remember. The very marvel of being able to keep a piece of chewing-gum for over a year’s time strongly appealed to Marie (Nickell) and me so without any romantic reason, whatever, we decided to get some gum, chew it and keep it in our possession even longer than Hattie had kept hers.
“Marie’s father owned a general merchandise store and among the ‘general’ was a small confectionary department. It was a good thing for our proposed gum-chewing marathon that he did, for Marie swiped our gum from her father’s store, and although we started out with the grimmest and best of intentions, after a few days or a week we had mislaid or lost our gum and would have to begin all over again. The carelessness on our part necessitated other raids on the store, and if we had not finally given up the idea or exchanged it for an easier or more exciting venture Mr. Nickell’s entire gum stock would have been mysteriously depleted.
“I am sorry that I cannot tell you whether Hattie ever married the young farmer from down Talent way or not. Maybe she is still hopefully and desperately chewing that cherished piece of gum and waiting for the wedding bells to ring.”
Pioneer Profiles is a project of Historic Jacksonville, Inc., a non-profit whose mission is to preserve Jacksonville’s Historic Landmark District by bringing it to life through programs and activities. Join us for A Virtual Walk through (Jacksonville’s) History—now a video as well as a blog! Follow us on Facebook (historicjville) and Instagram (historicjacksonville) and visit us at www.historicjacksonville.org for virtual tours, blogs, upcoming events, and more Jacksonville history.
By Carolyn Kingsnorth, with special thanks to Tim Colvig for sharing his great-aunt Helen Colvig Cook’s letter!