1. "Bridget & I Do The Dishes"
Posted by Kat on Apr-8th-04 at 1:34 AM

I was doing all the dishes by hand I had collected over a few days.  I have a dishwasher but I never use it.
It was 6 a.m. and I was keeping track of how long it took.  While I washed and set the dishes and utensils aside on a paper towel, in order to rinse them after doing a certain quantity, I kept thinking about Bridget and her job of doing dishes.
I have hot water on tap and paper towels and special "Tuffys" and sponges.  I also have stuff to clean the sink when I am done.
I pictured Bridget washing in cold water (We don't hear of her heating the dish water), wondering what kind of soap she used and how clean they could possibly get under those conditions.
I pictured soap residue and not quite clean dishes in cold water after serving mutton on them!
I also wondered how much longer it would take her and whether she daydreamed of me in the future dreaming about her! 
No, really, of what did she dream?

I thought about her wage, and the jobs she had after she came to this country.  What were her goals?  Do you suppose she saved her money up and would have been leaving the Bordens soon anyway?  Why would she come to Fall River?  Fate?  And was she satisfied with the work she got and what was her objective?  To save up and marry?  Would she want that?  I suppose her expectations would depend on who she knew who came here before her.  Do we know if she followed anyone to this country or just bravely set out on her own?  I think of Bridget now as brave- committing to coming to this country- a long sea voyage, jobs with strangers, eventually.  She seems adventuresome.

I realize Bridget never mentioned heating water to do the dishes with, but, I think she must have, perhaps it was so commonplace she didn't think to mention it?

I found this:

The very first thing that had to be done before all else was for a fire to be kindled in the cook stove. Then, the table was set, breakfast prepared, the family fed, and the dishes cleared. Without delay, the dishpan was filled with water which had already been warming on the stove during breakfast. Silverware was washed first, then glassware, cups, saucers, plates, and lastly, the more difficult or dirty cookware. To remove resistant residue on iron, steel, or tin, chain-mail scrubbers were used, or a bath brick (a solidified clay from the English River that served as a scouring powder). Wood ware and brass were cleaned, then the stove was wiped off, and finally, the floor was swept.

From this site: http://www.enoreo.on.ca/socialstudies/pioneer-virtual/chores.html

And I found this, Sapolio cleaner, states it can be used for cleaning dishes and silverware:


So, I guess there were commercial dishwashing soaps available to Bridget at the time.

I think this is a really cool topic, what did she dream about, what were her goals?  I imagine that she probably sent money home to her parents in Ireland occasionally.  Being raised Catholic, she possibly dreamed of getting married and having children.  Can you imagine though, she cooks, she cleans, does laundry and even does windows all in the hopes of one day marrying a man who will take care of her, so, she can cook for him, clean for him, do his laundry, wash his windows, etc. 

I do think our Bridget was quite adventuresome, I try to imagine being in her shoes going to a strange country where I might have some distant relatives that I don't really know who will put me up until I can find work.  And leave them when I do find work to live in some stranger's home while I work for them.  It must have taken some nerve for her to do all that.  I wonder if she enjoyed what she did or just took it as her lot in life? 

"All I want is a room somewhere
Far away from the cold night air
With one enormous chair
Ow. . .wouldn't it be lover-ly

Lots of choc'late for me to eat
Lots of coal makin' lots of heat
Warm face warm 'ands warm feet
Ow. . .wouldn't it be lover'ly!"

--My Fair Lady

Okay, it's a Broadway lyricist's idea of what a cockney flower girl might dream of, but Bridget probably had similar daydreams.

....did someone call for a lyricist??

Try this one for size....

“Each evening from December to December,
As she scrubbed last scraps of soil from dinner dish;
I wonder what we’d find upon maid Maggie’s mind –
What did she wish?
Did she dream of home in fair old Emerald Ireland,
Or wish that Lizzie wasn’t such snot…
O tell me mirror true, just what did Bridget do
While she washed their dish-ware up?”

(With profound apologies to Alan Jay Lerner.)

Doug

First of all.... I have 2 dishwashers and never DO NOT use them!

(with 8 people in the family we go through a lot of dishes at a meal!)

Didn't Bridget do the dishes in the "scullery" or the sink room?

There was not a sink in the kitchen, correct?  (Despite Emmma's claim that while doing dishes she could see and converse with a dress burning Lizzie)

The sink would have been a wooden sink.  I have seen and used a wooden sink.  There is one remaining in my childhood home.  It is very odd!  I think I might have read somewhere that they were popular as they didn't chip the plates as easily!



Bridget may have very well liked her job with the Bordens.  She did not have to "do the bedrooms" or the parlor.  She did not do the dusting or much of the shopping.

It is odd that she never went to the 2nd floor. 

She kept to the kitchen and dining room (when serving and eating) and her room on the 3rd floor.

I imagine that when she lived at home, with her parents-- that she may have worked harder!  She probably worked in and outside and had more people to care for.  Of course in her own home she would have been able to sit with the family in the evenings!

I agree that she probably sent money home. 

Could the Bordens have kept a large pot of water on the stove at all times to have a supply of hot water for dish washing?  From all I have ever read Abby kept a pretty clean home.  Dusting regularly, keeping an eye on the windows, etc.  I can only conclude she had pretty esacting standards for the dishes as well!

Emma does not seem "above" doing her share of the work.  She was doing dishes the day Lizzie burned the dress.  Of course her X-ray vision was also a gift... Seeing Lizzie burn the dress and all!







(Message last edited Apr-8th-04  1:36 PM.)

I was never in that situation, but I believe servants were generally excluded from the employer's rooms. Security and privacy, etc. Plus their job definition didn't call for it. (I wonder if any of the earlier maids did this cleaning?)
There was a place for everything and everything was in its place.
...
Is this a Gallicism? Double negative: "never DO NOT use them".
Didn't Bridget leave the household by Sat never to return? Emma had no choice, or it was her day to do them.

(Message last edited Apr-8th-04  1:44 PM.)

Ray.....

Servants were defiantly NOT excluded from the families bedrooms.

I never made my own bed as a child and every single day in the winter someone came in and lit the fire for me before I awakened. (there was not and is not central heat in my childhood home)  Of course, I was raised in Europe and it may have been different in America.

Servants fetched and carried hot water for baths, made beds, brought meal trays to the elderly and infirm.  Chamber maids were just that--- chamber maids!  They tended to the bedrooms and private rooms of their employers. They helped women dress and performed a lot of duties outside the formal rooms of the house.

Bridget was an "all in one".  The Bordens did not keep many servants.  But even so, her load was comparatively light.  (IMO)

She very well may have been expected to perform duties all throughout the house had she worked in a less suspicious, less door locking home...

Also-- as soon as you can fluently speak 5 languages-- please do continue with my English tutoring.

Perhaps Emma was accustomed to "picking up the slack" when Bridget was away.  My point was and is-- that she did this.  We never hear of Lizzie doing the same.

Bridget (to Mrs. Kelly's girl, August 5th):
I know Miss Lizzie did it!
She did it!
She did it!
She said that someone'd do it, and herself went wild!
But watch them misconstrue it,
And ask "Could she do it?"
While all the time she sits upstairs, 
That guilty child!
She should be arrested, and
Locked up without a key!

Kelly's Girl:
Oh, you don't know that -
Really know that!

Bridget:
Out of all the Borden clan
Who'd know as well as me?

Kelly's Girl:
Now wait, now wait,
That's just a lot of air!
It's not as though
You were standing there...!

Bridget:
Nooooo,
But nonetheless she did it,
She did it,
She did it!
She took that little hatchet!
There's no murder that can match it,
And the world should know that
Sheeeeee...did it! 

But THAT was in Europe! America has/had a republican tradition. But they did have "part-time" help in many cases. Often hired hands as well (harvest time requires a peak in man power).

You can read DeTocqueville on this. America did not put on showy expenses like European nobility (this changed after the Civil War), but were all very interested in getting money. (As I remember it.)

How many servants did your parents have? How many do you have now?
The point is that Bridget left the Bordens after the murder, and never returned. She also didn't do their rooms. Did they hire another?

(Message last edited Apr-8th-04  4:33 PM.)

I love the Lerner/Lowe parodies and all the cool photos!
My 2 cents worth: a country which had just abolished slavery, didn't lighten servant loads out of goodwill.  As Audrey suggests, I suspect it was decidedly odd.  I have never read of an American household having such exclusions; however, I know of no other family who kept every door hermetically sealed against each other.

About the soap.  She COULD have bought it, but Abby was a Borden and might have preferred cutting corners.  Two items from the BUCKEYE:  on p.993 it suggests that "A soft soap for washing dishes can be secured by placing in an old dish, and occasionally adding water, all the scraps of soap which are too small to use for the washing."

If she wanted to be even MORE economical, she might justify doing so by this statement:  "The use of soda in cleansing our wares generally diminishes the quantity of soap needed.  As a general thing, too much soap is used in washing dishes.  Many good housekeepers do not allow soap used in washing dishes at all, except to clean tin and ironware, dish cloth and sink." p. 980  (Probably soda would still be used and, quite certainly, very hot water from the stove.)

--Lyddie

New Englanders were/are proud and tough, they didn't have maids to
make fires for them before they woke up.  The maid did kitchen duties and cleaned the downstairs rooms. A family like the Bordens wouldn't
have a "chamber maid"!  New England stock was so very different from
the rich of where Audrey is from in another country, it is silly to compare.  I didn't also not ever never use my dishwasher neither.  

The fires in summer would be used for cooking only. The central heating coal furnace would be banked for the night in winter. Did their old house have central heating? One of the modern advantages. In older times only the fireplace / stove would be used in heating; one reason for one-room cottages.

I agree, Lyddie, love the song parodies, they're great!

I found this bit about Irish women servants:

"The tendency toward delayed marriage or nonmarriage was one of the reasons that Irish women, by contrast with Italian and Eastern European women, became domestic servants. The Irish were the only immigrant group in which women migrants outnumbered men. Unlike the culture of middle-class American women, Irish culture fostered female self-assertion and social independence. On the other hand, the social world of Irish men and women was based on firmly bounded "separate spheres." Therefore it was not a problem for single Irish women to migrate, delay marriage, and accept the relative isolation of jobs as live-in house servants. And though it was hard work with long hours, domestic service was alluring because it paid relatively well. Not only did Irish women need their wages to survive, they also frequently assisted relatives left behind in Ireland. One study indicates that Irish workers from New York City alone sent over twenty million dollars to their families back home in the decade following the famine."

From this site; http://www.nps.gov/mava/mvwestp.htm

It is much more common in Europe, then and now to have household help. 

Most everyone I know (from home) has a daily.  She generally makes the beds, does the dishes, cooks and cleans.  She may also do laundry. 

Ray, my father is dead and my mother remains in the house alone.  There is no way she could maintain it alone, even if she were a robust 20 year old accustomed to such work.

Perhaps it is silly to compare European habits with "Yankee" ones. It is also silly to assume a family who has servants is neither proud nor tough.  It may be safe to assume they are lucky! 

I do not have numerous servants.  I am very Americanized in many ways.  I do however have a word for someone who scrubs and cleans her house when she can afford to pay someone else to do it.... Foolish.  I have a housekeeper.

I lived for many years in Boston.  I knew many people who had help.  They all went all throughout the house, making beds, delivering laundry, cleaning bathrooms, etc. 

I do not think the absence of help in the "private" rooms is a Yankee or New England thing at all.  I think the Bordens were secretive, suspicious and paranoid.  I think that is why Bridget was kept from their rooms.

Wow, this became a very creative topic!  I was only gone a few hours!
(Taxes).

I got goose bumps reading your last info post Susan.  That those Irish women were helping their race to survive in their homeland!

My original question was what was Bridget's objective in coiming to Fall River and the Bordens.  I think that idea was somewhat answered.
I take it that she would delay marriage and she expected to work, and work hard. 
I thought she might save some money and I see that she probably also sent some home.
Her culture would expect, and she too, that she would eventually marry.  So it might be her goal to save for a dowry.  Something to bring to the marriage, and also show she was worthwhile and could keep herself, in case of widowhood or if/when children came along.
She is not the best window cleaner we know and that's where I get my impression she might not be thorough with the dishes.  As I said, she doesn't report boiling water to do the dishes.  She may just not have been asked- but didn't she do dishes, stop, do other things, and then do dishes again?
That water, if hot, would not remain so, unless she kept adding hot water, which she doesn't report- the fire would have to be kept up for that and she said after the breakfast she didn't have anything to do with the fire.

She only had to sweep the front foyer every other week- so that sounds like the questioner was surprised at that.  I wondered if a servant, in August, who was used to a family- if the mistress did not ever critisize her work- if that maid would slack off?
I also wonder if at 25 or 26 Bridget ever taunted Lizzie with her being an old maid and that she herself, Bridget, who got to go out at night and see friends and had had a boyfriend earlier, claimed she, herself was ripe for marrying, and that Lizzie never would?  If Lizzie P.O.'d Bridget off enough, they might have words like that?  Bridget may even have a beer out at night for all we know.
Basically i guess my point may evolve into:  Bridget knew what her life would be because she had control of it- and Lizzie didn't.
..........
There was a sink in the sink room.  There was a pantry there and the ice box as well, whoever asked about that.  That was nearest the side door.
........
And Bridget left the house Thursday night, returned Friday, stayed Friday night, worked Saturday, left Saturday night, did not come Sunday but did come to work Monday, Ray.

(Message last edited Apr-9th-04  12:44 AM.)

I know, isn't it amazing?  I love reading about things like that that we were never taught in history class.

Bridget appears to be much more modern than Lizzie in that capacity, she earned her own wages, was not kept, could come and go as she pleased, spend her wages how she pleased, etc.

I don't think Bridget would have ever taunted Lizzie, I think she actually liked her.  But, Lizzie may have felt animosity towards Bridget because of her having her life mapped out.  There may have even been animosity towards Andrew.  Bridget controlled her own life, Andrew controlled Lizzie's to some extent and he definitely held Lizzie's future in his hands.

My impressions are that the Bordens were kind to Bridget.

They were considerate of her... They left a lamp burning in the kitchen when she was out and they had all gone to bed.  Pretty generous of Old Andrew to allow considering he sat in the dark himself!

I wonder if she had a curfew?

The day of the murders she testified she woke with a headache and was sick in the yard-- yet she did not "call in".  She got up and made breakfast.

That could mean several things.  That she knew no one would care if she was sick so she didn't bother to try to take the day off.  That she knew that it was custom for a  servant  to work despite their ill health or that she was so dedidcated she didn't dare let Abby down.


I think Bridget got along well with the women in the house.  It is Andrew I wonder about. What was their relationship like?

http://www.thelondonhouse.co.uk/index.html

Although it is based on things in London.. It is very interesting!

My grandmother had a strainer type thing that was round on a handle.  This held tiny slivers of soap that you could not longer wash with and they were saved up and placed in this containter (which had holes) and swished in the dish pan to make suds for dishes.  It kinda looked like an egg slicer that was two pieces half round that snapped together.

She was his girl on the side & Abby was having an affair
with the butcher and/or pool boy. Lizzie was running
around with Dr. Bowen & Emma just stayed in her room all the time. 

That sounds like some sort of tea strainer, Tracie, very ingenious of your grandmother.  With Andrew's known frugality, I would think that old soap bars would be saved like that and used.  Bridget never mentioned what she did use to clean those dishes, store bought, homemade, improvised?  It must have been something so common that she didn't even think to mention it, I think. 

I posted quite a while ago about the "Diary of a Maid" from the
late 1800's. She worked for a wealthy family here at the New Jersey
Shore.  She only tended the kitchen and cleaned downstairs. Her "mistress" took care of her own rooms and worked hard too in the
house, so much to do. The attitude here of these "sea faring" types is
the same of Boston area and Fall River.  Tough stock, hard workers.
After living in small town Vermont for 25 years, I sure know how tough and stubborn New Englanders are, they are one of a kind.  
I can picture Abby and Emma doing their part, and see Lizzie as a spoiled lazy brat regarding chores. She was the "dreamer" of the
family and broke away...  

Or that's like the wife cleaning house before the hired maid shows up, to tell the world how clean her house is?

The practice of middle-aged or older women to have a part-time maid (not live-in) was in use in the 1930s. My aunt did this for the older couple who lived down the road. (Too much gossip for a live-in maid?)

Bridget's practice of working before marriage still goes on today, if you haven't noticed. Living at home has advantages, but you won't really learn to handle money that way. Then you will appreciate living at home until marriage. Alternately, living away at school also can do this.

What I read is that Bridget got along well with Abby, but not the others. She moved out after Abby's death, and never returned.
The stories about Andy & his girls make them appear greedy or snobbish or both.