Women’s Page

When I was a girl, my favorite section of the newspaper was the “women’s page.”  In addition to the fashion news, it included recipes, information for both flower and vegetable gardening, suggested “to do” lists for seasonal tasks (such as, take down storm windows), sewing tips, ads for sewing patterns, and child rearing advice.

And then, it happened.  The women’s pages started disappearing.  To broaden their appeal, the pages that had once catered exclusively to women, started becoming “style” or “lifestyle” sections.  Slowly but surely all of the advice started disappearing in favor of feature articles about restaurants and thinly veiled advertisements.  Recipes morphed into yuppified “nouvelle cuisine” with ingredients that had to be special ordered instead of everyday foods that would nourish the soul as well as the body after a long day at the office.

And then the internet came along and people stopped subscribing to the print editions of their papers and relied on the electronic version.

I just did a quick search of major online news sources.  There really isn’t anything there for new homemakers or mothers or a woman wanting to engage in the feminine arts.   Fortunately, though, The Farmer’s Exchange, a paper I read when I lived in Northern Indiana, still offers Elsie’s Kountry Kitchen.

I am sooooooo grateful for blogs.  Since losing my job at the university, I have had the time to find likeminded women–women who are also committed to living by the old-fashioned value of creating a home, a safe-haven, if you will, for the people she loves.