Pioneer history of Ingham County, compiled and arranged by Mrs. Franc L. Adams, secretary of the Ingham County pioneer and historical society.

WILLIAMSTON TOWNSHIP AND ITS HISTORY

853

In case of sickness there was no trained nurse at $15 to $25 per
week. The neighbors performed that task and did it cheerfully.
Those were the days of industry, economy and contentment.
This 1916 is in the age of short skirts, high heels, high topped
shoes, hats of every conceivable shape, furs in summer and peeka-boo waists in winter. Joy-rides, divorces, white slavery, pegleg pants, cigarettes, forgery, bank defalcations, holdups and
penitentiaries.
Today we step to the telephone, order our groceries and they
are delivered to us at our homes in paper cartons, tin cans and glass
bottles, and when we have paid for the containers and delivery
we have very little to eat for the money invested, and this is
termed progression. I have not been a drone in the hive of industry, but have been active through my 80 years of life and kept
reasonably up with the procession, but have never been a fad
chaser.
I saw the following statement in one of the Detroit papers purporting to have been made by the general manager of one of the
leading mercantile houses in that city: "Clothing and shoes
highest ever in Detroit." This general manager's birth does not
date back far enough or he has a very poor memory. But this
statement was passed on from one to another who knew no more
about facts than did this general manager, and it had a demoralizing effect."
There are very few people in active business today that were old
enough in 1864 to realize business conditions at that time. Many
of the people of today remind me of the wolves in Michigan.
Seventy-five years ago you could sit out in the summer evening
and very soon you would hear a lone wolf howl, then one in
another direction, and soon every wolf in the woods would be in
the howl, and not one of them knew why. It is the get-richquick scheme and reckless extravagance that the people have
indulged in, not the high cost of living, but the cost of high living,
that has created the present spirit of unrest in America.
A home with the earth for foundation, be it ever so humble, is
safer than a castle in the air, and the sooner the people awake to a
realization of the fact the better for all.