The Reporter

Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio

October 18, 1888

ADVICE FOR WIVES

  1. Be gentile and firm with children.
  2. Beware of the first disagreement.
  3. Beware of meddlers and tale bearers.
  4. Learn to deny yourself and prefer others.
  5. Avoid moods and fits of sulkiness.
  6. Never charge a bad motive, if a good one is conceivable.
  7. Learn to govern yourselves and to be gentle and patient.
  8. Learn to say kind and pleasant things whenever an opportunity offers.
  9. Never speak or act in anger until you have prayed over your words or act.
  10. Remember that, valuable as is the gift of speech, silence is often more valuable.
  11. Never retort a sharp or angry word. It is the second word that makes the quarrel.
  12. Study the characters of each and sympathize with all their troubles, however small.
  13. Remember that you are married to a man, not to a god; be prepared for imperfections.
  14. Do not neglect little things, if they can affect the comfort of others in the smallest degree.
  15. Don’t be always teasing him for money, and keep the household expenses well within your allowance.
  16. Once in a while let your husband have the last word; it will gratify him and no particular loss to you.
  17. Do not expect too much from others, but forbear and forgive, as you would desire forbearance and forgiveness yourself.
  18. Read something in the papers besides fashion notes and society columns; have some knowledge of what is going on in the foreign countries.
  19. Even if your husband should have no heart, he is sure to have a stomach, so be careful to inbricate the marriage yoke with well cooked dinners.
  20. Guard your tempers, especially in seasons of ill health, irritation and trouble, and soften them by prayers and a sense of your own shortcomings and errors.
  21. And first be as kind and courteous to your husband as you were when hew as your lover. Then you used to look up to him; do not now look down upon him.
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Taken in the 1880s a year or two before the one below. The house is unknown, perhaps the Kittelberger home that sat on Front Street between Moe’s and Lambert Buick. Some of these girls’ names are Minnie and Rose Kittelberger, Ella Loomis, Mabel Parks, Mary Shumway, Maude Parks and Ida Brown.
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Photograph taken in the Taylor Garden on July 16, 1889. This group is gathered where the Cuyahoga Falls Library now sits. From left to right: Row 1, Seated – Mary Parks, Mary Sackett Smith, Mary Shumway Hall, Lizzie Thomas Kerhes, Rose Kittelberger (b. April 1864), Grace Heath Taylor, Ella Kittlelberger Grant. Row 2 – Lillian Loomis, Mable Parks, Emma Reid, Gertrude Lake, Ella Lewis Scriven, Mable Edsill Babcock, Maude Parks Heyner. Row 3, Standing – Ella Thomas Graham, Lena Peebles, Fanny Babcock, Minnie Jones Reed, Minnie Kittelberger Spenzer (b.17 Sep 1869), Myra Standish, Nellie Weidner Wilsdorf, Ida Brown Graham, Laura Hall (b. 6 Apr 1869), Eliza Haley Grant.

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