The temperature has dropped into the single digits this week. It makes me happy I set my novel of 1867, Innocence to Love, in the southern states, or at least in the states below the Mason Dixon line.
I wonder how my heroin Sara would dress to stay warm. There would be flannel petticoats, not the thin flannel the stores sell nowadays, but the heavy two sided flannel from years ago. Her stockings, as well as her good dress, gloves and scarf would be woolen. She would have a top coat made of wool or some type of fur coat. Her good boots would have thick soles and would be, what we call today, high tops. Depending on the temperature, she might even wear a man's woolen union suit under her clothes.
Taylor, her son, would wear two pair of wool socks and two pair of wool pants with a union suit, a heavy wool coat, hat, gloves and scarf.
If they were traveling, there would be bricks that had been warmed on the stove tucked beside them on the buggy seat or down by their feet in the buggy to help keep them warm. They would heat their small house with the wood cook stove and the fireplace in the great room.
I believe I'm much better off in 2012 when I can turn up the thermostat and the furnace comes on or I only have to put on a sweater and my knitted house slippers to feel the warmth.
So stay warm...stay dry and have a prosperous 2012. God bless....
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