Good evening, Friends.

Let's lay the cornerstone tonight for the stately "column." Come to think of it, one column doesn't have a cornerstone. You would think I was planning a second Parthenon. Apropos of this grandiose plan of architecture, let us reflect on the various attitudes of the workmen who were helping build the great St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome. Three men were asked what they were doing. One said, "I am doing what the boss tells me to do." The second one said, "I am cutting and fitting stones." The third replied, "I am building a cathedral." If we think in terms of "building a cathedral," then each day's chore takes on a "glory." Before I start on the Curiosity Shop, I want to share a Success Story with you. It came in the mail today, in one of those quarterly letters from my sister, Mary. (By "quarterly" I mean four times a year, or thereabouts). I couldn't begin to tell you how wonderful she has been through her bereavements and the economic struggle that followed. Mary has many gifts not allotted to her sister, but the one that pays off is her cake-baking ability. Her business has grown so that she must expand, with two bids for partnership. One store alone buys eight of her chocolate angel food cakes a week. Cousin Knox will tell you that particular cake is out of this world. Bless her old heart! ***

Hereafter I'm not going to promise you a certain story the following week; for "Time makes ancient good uncouth." Not only that. Something new comes up that simply cannot wait another week. On this Tuesday night, after a big evening of ironing, I am so full of enthusiasm over my new labor-saving appliances that I must share the good news with my sister women. Dear friends, you are about to read a new Emancipation Proclamation. Emancipation from household drudgery. I hope this news reaches you before all your spring housecleaning is done. When Dr. Phillips asked Virgil and me to come and share his home, we agreed that we would have to have a cleaning woman at least every week, send out the laundry, etc. The cleaning woman has been here twice - while I was at work. She left the really hard scrubbing for Virgil and me - but collected her $6.25 just the same. We wrote her name off the books. Our personal laundry, including Charlie's, with shirts at 18c apiece, would cost us over $2.00 a week. Charlie and I bought a dandy second-hand washing machine for $35, and brought it home on the rear bumper of our "Rolls Royce." It is a honey, and I wouldn't trade it for any other. Then came the problem of ironing. Virgil Jr., with his two jobs, was having a sorry time of it getting his laundry done. Anyway, I wanted to do it. "Where there's a will, there's a way." I put in an order for a very practical gift from my family for my forthcoming birthday. A new, light-weight iron. Two days later it came home with Virgil, my new, shiny talisman of victory. I hope every one of you may have or does have one of these light-weight irons. Why, it's child's play. I sit on a kitchen stool, and do my whole ironing - faster, better, with a minimum of effort. It is unethical to mention the name of the company in the column, but if anyone is interested, send me a self-addressed post card, and I will be glad to tell you. Also, I will be glad to tell you of a sponge mop, that takes all the drudgery out of cleaning. We can clean a kitchen wall (I mean one side) in ten minutes. I do my kitchen floor in five minutes. This is a great age that we are living in, isn't it? Yesterday we saw the quaintest old car - just like a rickety old buggy on rubber tires - and gas-propelled - ambling along a main boulevard. It was painted pale green, and across the back, in bold letters "ATOMIC POWER." We are truly living in an age of atomic power. It is for us to decide how we shall use it.

Yours for less work and better living,
Florence B. Taylor

Next - 5/6/48 - Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe
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