for me and holding back
every minute, took me to the city to learn the trade I had chosen. I was
through in six months and could do the heaviest work as well as the
finest. I wish you could see the fancy bosomed shirts I used to make
when I was fourteen! No one could beat me. I always had a pocketful of
money for I got two and six a day. That would be 38c now. I went from
house to house to work and always had the best room and lived on the fat
of the land. It was a great event when the tailoress came.

I came to Lakeland in 1855. The prairies around there looked like apple
orchards back home. The scrub oak grew just that way. I would bet
anything I could go and pick apples if I had not known. I had thought of
buying in Minneapolis, but my friends who owned Lakeland thought it was
going to be the city of Minnesota, so I bought here. I was a tailoress
and made a good living until the hard times came on. Money was plenty
one day. The next you could not get a "bit" even, anywhere. Then, after
that, I had to trade my work for anything I could get.

I brought a blue black silk dress with mutton leg sleeves among my
things when I come. It was the best wearing thing I ever see. Cheaper to
wear than calico because it would never wear out. I paid $1.00 a yard
for it. It was twenty-seven inches wide. It took twelve yards to make
the dress. For a wrap we wore a long shawl. I had one of white lace. We
got three yards of lace webbing and trimmed it with lace on the edge. Or
we would take one width of silk and finish that fancy on the edge. The
ruffles on everything was fluted. When you shirred them you would hold
them over the first and third finger passing under the second finger.
That would make large flutings. If you had an Italian iron you could do
it fast, but there wa'n't many so fortunate. An Italian iron was a tube
about as big as your finger on a standard. Two rods to fit this tube
come with it. You could put these heated, inside then run your silk
ruffle or whatever you were making over it and there was your flute
quick as a wink.

Mrs. Mary E. Dowling--1855.

As Miss Watson I came from Pennsylvania in 1855 and took a school to
teach back of Marine. I got $36.00 in gold a month and so was well paid.
Had from five to twenty-five children who came to learn and so behaved
well.

When I would walk through the woods I would sometimes see a bear
leisurely sagging around. When I did, my movements were not like his.
All ki