I've been a hard worker all my life, but 'most all my work has been the kind that 'perishes with the usin'," as the Bible says. That's the discouragin' thing about a woman's work....if a woman was to see all the dishes that she had to wash before she dies, piled up before her in one pile, she'd like down right then and there. I've always had the name 'o bein' a good housekeeper, but when I'm dead and gone there ain't anybody goin' to think o' the floors I've swept, and the tables I've scrubbed, and the old clothes I've patched, and the stockin's I've darned...But when one of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren sees one o' these quilts, they'll think about Aunt Jane, and, wherever I am,
I'll know I ain't forgotten.
Aunt Jane of Kentucky, ca. 1900 - from the book Anonymous Was a Woman, 1979, Mirra Bank, St. Martin's Press.
