An article in the October 1926 FARMER’S WIFE MAGAZINE advises farm women to “take time” to live – an adage Gladys Taylor remembers from her college days. She advises women to take time to teach and enjoy their children. Take time to read good literature and listen to good music. Take time to keep up on current affairs and to be a responsible voter (a newly won right for women). Take time to care for oneself. Take time for fun family activities. Take time to take photos (a popular new hobby after WW I). Last but not least, take time for spiritual life for these things are not just for time but for eternity.

Old fashioned wisdom that still has relevance today. Happy Sunday!

~ Elaine

“Take Time”

By Gladys E. Taylor

ONE of my professors at college once said that he could preach a sermon on the two little words, “take time.” I do not know what he might have said in such a sermon but I have often thought of this counsel and have tried to adopt it into my own life.

The life of a farm woman is of necessity full. I have learned this from experience and yet my advice to all farm women is, “take time” to live! Learn to work for speed and efficiency in your housework. Drain your dishes instead of wiping a presumably unsanitary towel over them. Use a pretty oilcloth table cover that can be wiped off after every meal. Teach the children to put things away after using them. Do not spend the time to iron common sheets, pillow slips, and other articles which are just as well—and some maintain—better without it. These are but a few of the time-savers which can be used and thus permit us more time to “live.”

Take time to get acquainted with those children of yours. They need your comradeship and sympathy, whatever their ages. Show an interest in the things which interest them. Learn their strong points and help to develop them. Remember that you are their most influential teacher. Give them daily lessons in honor, kindness, and justice.

Teach them to like good books and good music.

Take time to read. As a voter, it not only is your privilege but is your duty to keep posted on current affairs. Do not vote for a certain individual because he runs on the ticket of the party to which your husband or father belongs, but vote for him because he is the best man! Read the classics. Good literature will both rest and uplift you.

Take time to care for yourself. Be as careful to make yourself attractive in the eyes of your husband as you were when he was your lover. Pay especial attention to your hair, your nails and your clothes. Have outside interest which will take you among women who have something else to talk about than their neighbor’s affairs. Active thought stands off old age.

Take time for picnics and pleasure excursions with your family. Take time to get “snaps” of your children as they are growing up. They will mean much to you in later life.

Take time for spiritual life. Your soul needs food even more than your body.

So, I might go on and on saying take time to do these things which, after all, are not for time but for eternity. Think them out for yourself. FWM

The above article was originally published in THE FARMER’S WIFE – A MAGAZINE FOR FARM WOMEN October 1926, page 510; Webb Publishing Company, Saint Paul, Minnesota