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THE SUN, NEWBERRY. S- C- FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 1938 Log Cabin, Soddy or House of Stone— All Have Been 'Home, Sweet Home' Celebration of "Better Home* Week" Recalls Evolution of American Houses from the Day* When the Pioneer'* Cabin Wa* Both a Dwelling Place and a Fortre** Down to House* of the Present With Their Great Variety of Architecture and Building Material*. €> Western Newspaper Union. By ELMO SCOTT WATSON AMONG the multifarious “weeks” we are called A. upon to observe each year is one that is associated with an idea very dear to the hearts of all Americans. That is Better Homes Week, April 24 to 30. For we Americans give to the word “home” a senti mental attachment which we bestov/ upon no other word, with the possible exception of “mother.” “Home Sweet Home” and “My Old Ken tucky Home” and “Old Folks at Home” are still among our best-beloved folk songs and “Tin Pan Alley” knows that the chances are better than 50-50 for writing a “sure-fire hit” if it can get “home” in the title of a new song or build the theme of it around that word. Has any popular song of recent years showed greater promise of enduring permanently than Billy Hill’s “Home on the Range”? Yes, we Americans love our homes, even though we are sometimes called “the most restless people on earth” who, in these days of the automobile and the hard road, seem to spend as little time as possible in them. 'Twas not always thus, of course, as a glance back A Typical Log Cabin Home of the Early American Pioneers. building log cabins in which to spend their vacations. Ernest Thompson Seton once wrote a magazine article in which he told how a group of men joined together to do that. Of the result he said: “And what had we got? Some thing out of the woods, conquered out of the woods by ourselves, a mixture of nature and human en thusiasm, a something which we could not but love, for it was a part of ourselves. We had con tacted the wild woods at almost every point without any inter mediary.” • • • When the frontier had been pushed beyond the forest-clad lands east of the Mississippi and began spreading across the great plains of the West, the pioneer had a new home-building prob lem. Timber was scarce and what there was, mostly cotton wood and elm, made poor lum- The “Soddy”—Frontier Home on the Great Plains of the West. through our history will show. If, as one of our popular modem writers of verse says, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ To make a house a home.” then we had real homes back in the days when our pioneering forefathers lived in log cabins. For they certainly did a “heap o’ livin’ ” in houses of that kind. Not only was it a place of rest for the pioneer after a hard day’s work clearing the forest, but it was also his bulwark of defense against one of the most redoubt able foes in history—the Indian warrior. Truly the log cabin was the American pioneer’s castle in a more literal sense than Sir Ed ward Coke, the famous English jurist of the Sixteenth century could ever have realized when he declared that "a man’s house is his castle.” For the story of the American frontier is a saga of the stout-hearted men and wom en who lived in this combined home and fortress against whose thick walls the tides of savage hatred beat in vain. By the middle of the Nineteenth century the log cabin had be come a symbol of American de mocracy. It, with its allied sym bols of frontier life, the coonskin and hard cider, helped send Wil liam Henry Harrison to the White House and long after the frontier era had passed, one of the sur est ways for a candidate for of fice to appeal successfully to the electorate was to emphasize the fact that he was “born in a log cabin.” Even in these modem days memories of the log cabin era survive in our everyday speech. When you invite someone to visit you, do you assure him that he will “always find the latchstring out”? Your log-cabin-dwelling grandfather used that term and he meant that a buckskin thong, pushed through a hole in the stout oak door of his home, would be hanging down outside. When the visitor pulled the string, it lifted the latch, a bar of wood, from its slot so that he could push the door open and walk in. Although that era is long past, it does not mean that it is for gotten. Significant of the fact, that Americans still cherish the log cabin as the symbol of a way of life that was somehow freer and happier than the one they know in this machine age, is the nostalgic attempt by many of them to recapture the past by ber, for it warped and twisted while drying in the sun. So, with characteristic versatility, he turned to the only material avail- sole and made it serve his pur pose. Thus came into being the type of pioneer home known as the sod house or “soddy.” Selecting a likely site for his new home he hitched his yoke of oxen to a prairie-breaking plow, the only implement that could cut through the tough sod with its interlaced roots of grass and prairie plants. Setting his plow to a depth of about three inches, he ran a long straight furrow as near to the location of his soddy as possible so that he would not have the task of moving his “building materials” so far. Strips of sod a foot wide and three feet long were then brought to the site of the new house and the building begun. After the dimensions of the house had been a ridgepole was secured. It was usually a native tree, with other smaller trees or branches to be used for rafters or supporters. Brush was thrown over this, then a layer of prairie hay or straw, after which the sod roof was put on, the layers being leveled off and chinked up so that not a drop of water entered. Doors and windows were then made by the homesteader from native lumber or from the boxes. Few of the first soddies had glass in their windows. Oiled paper or muslin was used instead. The soddy was now ready for the pioneer^ and his family to live in. In many instances, to make it more attractive, a coat of whitewash was given the inside walls. It was made from native lime, which he secured from the hills along the river and burned himself. Most of the pioneer sod dies had no wood floors, the floors being made of clay which was dampened and tamped down un til it was smooth and even. With its walls two feet thick and its roof from eight inches to a foot thick, the soddy made a comfortable home for the pioneer family—warm in the winter when one of those terrible blizzards swept across the plains and cool in the summer when the hot sun beat down upon it from a cloud less sky and blistering winds swept over it. And, like the log cabin of his Eastern forefathers it was a veritable fortress which could resist Indian attack, espe cially when its defenders were armed with those straight-shoot ing Kentucky long rifles or heavy ^Sharps buffalo guns. * • • With the passing of the fron tier era on the plains, the pio neers and the sons and daughters of the pioneers who no longer needed to live in these combina tion homes and prairie fortresses, began building houses of wood, stone and brick similar to those in the East. Americans today—, East and West and North and South—live in houses as varied in architecture as this broad land of ours is varied in its soil, its climate and its traditions. While one style may predominate in one section of a country, you are quite likely to find examples of it anywhere in the United States— a New England type in Califor nia, a Southern Colonial in Min nesota, a Spanish type in Massa chusetts. With the growth of our cities came new housing problems and out of them were evolved apart ment buildings with many fami lies living under one roof. But there are signs that the tide, (Phot*, •ourtur Federal Honeing Administration.) A Modern Low-Cost American Home. decided upon, the ground was smoothed off so that a space was left for the walls, which were two feet or more thick. The growing grass was left on the sod and this formed the chinks be tween the layers, so that it was not necessary to chink up the spaces between the layers of sod. The walls were built up to a height of seven or eight feet, openings being left for the win dows and doors which were re cessed into the walls for a dis tance of a foot or more. After the walls were completed which swept increasing numbers of people into the cities and pro duced congested centers of popu lation, is now beginning to ebb and to carry some of these num bers out into the suburbs and into the smaller towns. More and more Americans are beginning to want to live in their own homes, individual houses with yards and gardens and “elbow- room.” And with that desire la coming the desire expressed in the week we celebrate from April 24 to 30—the desire for “better homes.” One of the finest tributes ever paid to American homes is this poem by Henry Van Dyke: THE ANCESTKAL DWELLINGS Dear to my heart are the ancestral dwellings of America, Dearer than if they were haunted by ghosts of royal splendour; They are simple enough to be great in their friendly dignity— Homes that were built by the brave beginners of a nation. I love the old farmhouses nestled in New England valleys. Ample and long and low, with elm- trees feathering over them: Borders of box in the year, and li lacs, and old-fashioned roses, A fan-light above the door, and little square panes in the windows. The wood-shed piled with maple and birch and hickory ready for winter. The gambrel-roof with its garret crowded with household rel ics— All the tokens of prudent thrift and the spirit of self-reliance. I love the weather-beaten, shingled houses that front the ocean; They seem to grow out of the rocks, there is something indomita ble about them: Their backs are bowed, and their sides are covered with lich ens; Soft in their color as gray pearls, they are full of a patient cour age. Facing the briny wind on a lonely shore they stand undaunted. While the thin blue pennant of smoke from a hearth and a cradle. I love the stately Southern man sions with their tall white col umns. They look through avenues of trees, over fields where the cotton is growing; I can see the flutter of white frocks along their shady porches. Music and laughter float from the windows, the yards are full of hounds and horses. Long since the riders have ridden away, yet the houses have not forgotten. They are proud of their name and place, and their doors are al ways open. For the thing they remember best is the pride of their hospitality. In the towns I love the discreet and tranquil Quaker dwellings. With their demure brick faces and immaculate marble door steps; And the gabled houses of the Dutch, with their high stoops and iron railings, (I can see their little brass knobs shintng in the morning sun light) ; And the solid self-contained bouses of the descendants of the Pur itans, Frowning on the street with their narrow doors and dormer win dows; And the triple-galleried, many-pil- lared mansions of Charleston, Standing open sideways in their gar dens of roses and magnolias. Yes, they are all dear to my heart, and in my eyes they are beau tiful. For under their roofs were nour ished the thoughts that have made the nation; The glory and strength of America come from her ancestral dwellings. • • • Most famous of all songs with the “home motif” is John How ard Payne’s “Home Sweet Home.” And it is an ironic fact that the man who wrote it never had a homel Payne was born in the village of East Hampton, Long Island, in 1791. He was a boy prodigy who won fame on the stage, then went to England where for a time he was a great success as a dramatist and actor. But his good fortune did not last long. He became hard pressed finan cially and to escape the debtor’s prison, he fled to France, where he lived in the garret of a lodg ing house. One day while gazing from the window of his “sky parlor” at the gay Paris throngs, the discour aged young man began thinking of his boyhood home on Long Island. As he pictured to him self those happy days he had spent there he found himself writ ing down the words which were to make him immortal. They were the words of “Home Sweet Home” which he made the theme of a play, “Clari, the Maid of Milan,” that was successfully produced in London in 1822. It was not until 1832 that Payne returned to his homeland and when he did so he was again in poverty. His friends gave him a monster benefit at the Park the ater but the proceeds from that did not last long. He drifted from one unsuccessful occupation to another and finally in 1842 President Tyler appointed him United States consul at Tunis. He lived there “an exile from home” for ten >ears, dying April 9, 1852, a melancholy and broken man, and was buried in the Eng lish cemetery. His body lay there for 30 years until admirers in the United States started a move ment to have it brought back to this country. So in 1883 John Howard Payne came back to his homeland at last, never to leave it again. Star Dust ★ Ash-Sifting Diva ★ Jolson, Model Mayor ★ “Beau Geste" —— By Virginia Vale- C HARLOTTE LANSING, whose lovely soprano voice you must have heard over NBC, has become an ashes-sifter. When she’s not singing, she’s sifting ashes in Princeton, N. J., and holding her breath. You see, her home burned to the ground in January, just after she had collected all her worldly goods under one roof. And she had about $4,000 worth of jewels in the house. Hence the ashes sifting. She estimates that she has gone through about two tons of ashes up to date, and she has found riffgs and pins which she values at $2,000. —* Irene Wicker, radio’s Singing Lady, accidentally cut down the high cost of living the other day. She was walking in Central park or Irene Wicker her way from one side of New York to the other when she saw a tiny patch of chives. She dug them up, went home, chopped them up with cottage cheese and ate them. And the friend who’d asked her to luncheon in one of the town’s smart est hotels worried all afternoon be cause Irene had no appetite for the chef’s masterpieces. —* Some day A1 Jolson may abandon radio and the screen, bnt there’s one job he’ll always have, if the inhabi tants of Encine, Calif., have any thing to say about it. Since he’s been their mayor he has secured for the town a system of street lighting, many miles of paved streets and the promise of an up-to-date fire department. —*— Rochelle Hudson is making the most of her vacation. She has taken an apartment in New York and is seeing the town as if she’d never seen it before. The town’s appre ciating her too; New York univer sity made her “Queen of the Prom.” * Olivia de Haviland avoided report ers when she sailed recently from New York for England, by using the name “Lavinia Halliday.” She also gave her friends something to think about, before she left, by intimat ing that she was going abroad to see someone quite special—that someone being her fiance, according to good authority, who is a foreigner and has a title. —*— Gary Cooper Perhaps a wave of remakes has hit the Hollywood studios. “Beau Geste,” one of Ron ald Colman’s most beloved pictures, is to reach the screen again, with Gary Cooper in the title role. If you have any old favorites that you’d like to see screened with new actors, why not write the studios about them? Many fans have wondered why some company hasn’t done a remake of “The Cop perhead.” As a silent years ago starring Lionel Barrymore, it is re membered as one of the most ef fective pictures of the time. ✓ * ODDS AND ENDS—Trained carp ap pear in “Marco Polo"; they had to be taught to eat out of Sigrid Curie’s hands . . . Republic has actually found a story for Gloria Swanson’s attempt at a come back—usually, after companies signed her, they couldn’t get a suitable story ... RKO is grooming Mitzi Green for stardom, ap parently . . . The next De Mille spectacle will be based on the story of the Union Pacific . . . Anna May fPong is selling her collection of screen souvenirs to raise money for the Chinese victims of the war with Japan . .. Gary Cooper plays a scene in straitjacket in “Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife”: he was wearing it one day when the whistle blew for lunch—and his co workers got a laugh by going off and leav. ing him in it . . . Paul Taylor, director of numerous radio choirs, decided to be a singer when he was fourteen years old, and sang before an evangelical convention of 6,000 people . . . Thirteen-year-old Junior O’Day, of the “Big Sister” program, began his career on the air when he was seven . . . Joan Blaine, chosen as radio’s best- dressed woman, declares that her most fashionable hat is made from an old one of her brother’s . . . Frank Black and his wife have adopted a baby boy. C Western Newspaper Union. Italian Hemstitching for a Chair Set T HE chair set shown here is made of an even meshed cream linen, marked off in squares of Italian hemstitching. Tiny scrolls in outline stitch with two diamonds in satin stitch are embroidered in all the outside cor ners. The scroll motif is shown at lower left. The tassels are made by raveling strips of the material and then rolling them. The chair back piece measures 15 by 10 inches finished, and the chair arm pieces 7V4 by 7% inches. Allow %-inch at all edges for the rolled hems. The hemstitched squares measure 2Vi inches. Mark them in pencil. The method of hemstitching the rolled edges is shown here at A and B. Remem ber that a moist thumb always helps in rolling an edge evenly. Italian hemstitching is really just two rows worked together as shown at C and D. To prepare the rows, draw two threads, skip four and then draw two more. Readers who have received their copy of Mrs. Spears’ book on Sewing, for the Home Decora tor, will bit pleased to know that Jlsk Me ^Another A General Quiz The Questions 1. How is the date of Easter determined? 2. By what name is the Chinese philosopher K’ung Fu Tze usual ly known to the Western world? 3. What were the “Three Es tates” in France prior to the Rev olution? 4. Who makes the laws for the District of Columbia? 5. How many lawyers are there in the United States congress? 6. How much raw silk does the United States import? 7. What is the greatest depth to which a diver has descended? 8. How can Anna May Wong be a citizen of the United States when she is a Chinese? 9. How much steel was used in the United States during 1937? The Answers 1. It is the first Sunday after the full moon on or next after March 21. 2. Confucius. 3. Nobles, clergy and common people. 4. Congress. 5. Seventy-one out of the ninety- six senators and 249 out of 435 rep resentatives are lawyers. 6. During the calendar year 1937, 57,815,573 pounds of raw silk was imported, with an import val ue of $106,594,358. 7. The greatest depth reached by any diver was attained by Dr. William Beebe in his bathysphere, in which be reached 3,028 feet below the surface, August 15, 1934. 8. Anna May Wong was born in Los Angeles, Calif., and is therefore a citizen of the United States. The only Chinese who can be citizens of this country are those who are bom here. 9. One billion tons of steel in all forms was in use in the United States during the past year, ac cording to the Scientific Ameri can. This total represents an av erage of 17,800 pounds in use for every man, woman and child. THE CHEERFUL CHERVD I/forft We nwcH society, ^friends ere very &vt*t(*b±V ike wey I S et of life liy ^§ vi\bvb-£fe'd[ view) mr. Book No. 2 is now ready. Ninety embroidery stitches; fabric re pairing; also table settings; gifts; and many things to make for yourself and the children. If you like hand work you will be pleased with this unique book of complete directions for every article illus trated. Postpaid upon receipt of 25 cents (coin preferred). Just ask for Book No. 2 and address Mrs. Spears, 210 South Desplaines St., Chicago, 111. Fingerprints Felted French police are baffled over a demonstration in Paris of a meth od of faking fingerprints. 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