Alas, no blocks to show this week, but there is hope for next week, I think. Meanwhile, I can sit back on the chuck wagon bench and marvel at your blocks. Wonderful color to see, great form on the blocks, and stories update by Honchey. Although, the price on the harness and buggy seem to be too much for that era. Good income then was about $2.00 a week. It was not until 1940s that the school teacher was paid $40.00 a month and boarded with the trustees of the school. Men were preferred over women and were paid more than the unmarried woman. No married lady could teach because they might get in the family way.
Check the old 1909 Sears catalog and harnesses and saddles, I think, were not that high in price. GGGrandfather Benjamin H. was a harness maker (and horse trader) and I have riveted by share of bridles and harnesses in my youth. Never made a saddle, but have looked pictures of making a saddle.
We missed the preacher who was pre-arranged to marry us in the Ozarks, because I insisted on stopping in Cuba at the Mexican Import to buy my three year old niece a birthday gift, small pony saddle, about 12 inches from saddle horn to back rest of the saddle. But. alas, the time elasped, the preacher had given up on us and left his home to do other things. All other preachers were at a convention in St. Louis. We rode around the hills and curves with our best "man"( and his wife, dressed for a wedding and had marriage license in hand) trying to find another preacher who would marry us that Thursday evening.
DH family lived in Iowa and had said they could not come for the wedding, and my Grandma (who lived with me as a chaperon) said she would not attend, either, in that case, but fed us supper after our workday, before we headed out to get married. We were finally blessed and married by Rev. Priest at his home in the small town on Route 66 in March 1966 where we taught school.
We all journeyed back to Iowa that weekend to see his folks and take my Grandmother back home. And delivered the saddle to my favorite niece, who saddled up her pony (about 30 inches tall) and rode around with a big smile on her face.