Herstoryan's Hearth: Rural Life (1918) with Tyler Family Photos

Excerpt from Galpin, Charles Josiah. "Social Role of the Housewife." Rural Life. New York: The Century Co., 1918. 101, 102. Print.

Domesticity. The family is the rural institution par excellence, and domesticity is beyond doubt the leading trait of American country life. It may even be claimed without much fear of contradiction that home gathers much of its sweet fascination in the minds of men from the experience of the farm household. In this small landed cluster the housewife mother has retained her functions of guardian of her children, of preceptress, nurse, physician. Her presence - her own hand, her own smile, her own prayer - has been as constant as the familiar acres and the rising sun. She has presided over the kitchen and commissary. She has fed man and child. She has clothed them, tucked them away at night, met them in the morning. She is at home when the little ones come from school, when the farmer returns from town. If sickness or accident befalls the husbandman, she manages the farm and cares for the sick herself. If disappointment or disaster comes, she is the first to meet it. Whatever threatens the home, pierces her heart first and hardest. She is the nerve-center of the whole farmstead on the life side.

Dedicated to my great grandmother, Lillie Mae (Cross) Tyler who raised 13 children in a small rural farmhouse near Claude, Texas. She grew her own food, hung meat from the windmill out of the reach of flies, and her quilting frame from the living room ceiling. She nurtured a family full of love, honor, and respect. Everyone loved "Granny." She is pictured holding the infant, my grandfather William Eugene Tyler.

B. Tyler to Herstoryan, email, 11 April 2008, "2008 Tyler Reunion," photograph: Watt and Lillie Mae Tyler Family, c. 1930. Herstoryan's Family Files; Privately held by Herstoryan, Houston, Texas. 2009

 Facebook, The Watt and Lillie Mae Tyler Family Group, digital Image, (http://www.facebook.com: accessed 12 Nov 2009), photograph, "Tyler Family Farmhouse, c. 1930, Claude, Texas;" Privately held by Living Tyler Descendant. 2009