A Tuesday "Towering" Texas Tea

[Draggingtree]

 

A Tuesday "Towering" Texas Tea

 By DBF Monday at 1:37 PM

Today our teatime looks at the ladies of Texas and how they coped with life during the war as they watched some 65,000 of their men march off to fight. That number constituted almost 10% of the population for the entire state. When the men exchanged civilian clothes for gray, they left behind their wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters to hold down the home front.

Mollie Fanning Mann (1846-1894) was a young wife with an infant son when her husband, Rufus (1832-1909) marched off to Arkansas to begin his military service. Her husband had been a teacher at the local academy and therefore she had to deal with less money coming in to help with family finances. Now Mollie has the responsibility for the household duties once handled by her husband. Soon she faced the struggles that were to come when the Union blockades limited the items needed to help feed her family and provide medicines when it was necessary.

Mollie was not alone in her challenges. Although most of the ladies in Texas never saw one soldier in blue during the war, they were aware of their presence. Such items as pins, needles and candles were no longer available. Information was difficult to come by as newspapers were gradually forced to close their doors as even paper to print became scarce. They were unable to get basics such as shoes and salt which went to their soldiers.  https://civilwartalk.com/threads/a-tuesday-towering-texas-tea.201465/