Now George’s mother was very handy at the spinning wheel and loom.  He remembers how the bunch of cotton was combed in preparation for spinning.  Cards with teeth were arranged on the spinning wheel and the mass of cotton was combed through it to separate it into fibers.  The fibers were rolled between the fingers and then put upon the spinning wheel to be spun into thread.  As it was spun, it was wound upon spools.  After the spools were filled they were taken off and put on the loom.  Threads were strung across the loom some above others and the shuttle running back and forth through the threads would make cloth.  All that was done by hand power.  A person working at the loom regularly soon became proficient and George’s mother was one who bore the name of being a very good weaver of cloth.  Most of the clothes the family wore were home spun.

Underwear and sleeping garments were made of the natural colored homespun cloth.  When colored cloth was wanted a dye was made to dip them in so as to get the desired color.  Dyes were made by soaking red oak bark in water.  Another was made of elder berries and when a real blood red was desired polk berries were used.  Polk berries made a blood red dye and was considered very beautiful.  Walnut hulls were used to make brown dye and it was lasting in its effects.

In making dye hold its color, the cloth and dye were boiled together.  After it had “taken” well, the cloth was removed from the dye and rinsed well, the rinse water was salted so as to set the color.

Tubs for washing clothes and bathing purposes were made of wood.  Some were made from barrels out in tew parts.  In cutting a stay was left longer on each side and holes were cut length wise in it so there would be sufficient room for all of the fingers to fit.  That was for lifting the tub about.

A very interesting side of George’s life was depicted in his statement of the longevity of his innocence.  We may call it ignorance but it seems to be more innocence when compared to the incident of Adam and Eve as told in the Holy Bible in the book of Genesis.  He was 33 years of age before he knew he was a grown man, or how life was given humans.  In plain words he did not know where babies came from, nor how they were bred.

Whenever George’s mother was expecting to be confined with a baby’s birth, his father would say to all the children together, large and small alike, “your mother has gone to New York, Baltimore, Buffalo” or any place he would think of at the time.  There was an upstairs room in their home and she would stay there six weeks.  She would go up as soon as signs of the coming child would present themselves.  A midwife came, cooked three meals a day, fed the children and helped keep the place in order.

In older times people taught their children to respect older persons.  They obeyed everyone older than themselves.  The large children were just as obedient as the small ones so that it was not hard to maintain peace and order within any home.