Howard Courant
December 11, 1913
Note: This is just a small one paragraph that happened to be on the same page as the Elk Falls Mill story and I got a big laugh out of it.
A Chautauqua county woman wants a divorce from her husband and among other things, she charges that he was in the habit of bringing in dead chickens which he found lying around and compelling her to cook them and the day before Thanksgiving he brought in a turkey for her to cook, which said turkey had been hurt or injured and would shortly have died from its said injuries. And when she flatly refused to prepare such a lame turkey for their thankful feast, he slapped her and threw slops on her. Now we are ready to hear HIS side of the case.
After he slapped me..................
I'd of cooked that turkey for him......
uh huh.....yesireeee.... I'd of cooked that old turkey reeeeaaaallll good for him..
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It sounded like to me that the husband was just too lazy to do his own hunting. I believe the women in earlier times were more subservient than what we are now. Don knows that if he ever hit me once, that it would be the last time. But......we don't know the husband's story of that marital dispute, so that may cast a differnt light on the squabble.
But the mental visions in my head, of the hubby dragging home some already dead chickens (who knows how long they'd been deceased) struck my humor bone.
Maybe you girls don't remember the depression days when you made the most of what was available. I can remember my parents bringing in a chicken that had been hit by a car if they could get to it before it died. Food was too precious to let any of it go to waste. Besides when you had hatched the egg and raised the chick for food, it was hard to just let the scavengers have it. Or maybe it was a hen that had been laying and still had eggs in her. I am sure things in Elk County were just as hard as they were in Sedgwick county.
But if this were true road kill, the old man would have to eat all of it.