When Avarilla Hit the Dance Floor

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      There was an item in the Coffeeville Weekly Journal  about a New Year’s party in 1886, and to say Avarilla Patchett was not pleased is an understatement. 

     “As usual, the east end of our township gets the most fun,” the “country correspondent” wrote of Fawn Creek Township in Montgomery County, Kansas. “The five-cent cider, or something taken with it seemed to have an exhilarating effect.”

     The author went on to describe “old timers” such as Avarilla and five of her neighbors taking to the dance floor, a guarantee that the “house is bound to come down,” with the loudest call to the dancers, “Whoop ‘em up, ‘Liza Jane!” (Eliza may have been Avarilla’s sister-in-law, Eliza Corbin Patchett.) 

     Avarilla is my second great-grandmother. I always pictured her as conforming to the feminine ideal of her times: a dutiful farm wife and mother, quiet, proper, bowed down with farm chores, staying in her proper “sphere” of home and church, as women were expected to. She was 40 that January, and four months pregnant with her tenth child. Clearly, that didn’t stop her from having a good time out on the dance floor, and maybe having a bit too much cider. 

     Maybe she was a little miffed, too, to be referred to as an “old timer,” though it probably referred to length of time in Montgomery County. She and husband Enos came to Kansas in 1869 and settled in Fawn Creek in 1870. 

     The party was hosted by Hollis and Fatima Ford. Like Enos and Avarilla, they had come from Illinois, traveling by prairie schooner with three little children, staking a claim in Fawn Creek Township. Hollis built a 14 by 40-foot dance platform and enjoyed hosting his neighbors. These outdoor dances were known as bowery dances or platform dances. They were very popular in the 1870s and ‘80s. 

     The country correspondent went on with inside jokes and hinted at heavy drinking with hard cider, peach brandy and wine mentioned - most likely all homemade. This was after the passage of prohibition laws in Kansas, too. He concluded by saying, “Mr. Editor, when you want to see “old time fun,” come and go with us to east Fawn Creek Township.” It was signed “Joe,” which could have been a pseudonym.

     Whomever it was, Avarilla was furious and confronted him. She had been presented in an unflattering light, and it was embarrassing. “Joe” had a follow-up piece in which he said he had sore ears from dealing with her. He also retaliated against her, a bit. “Mrs. Patchett says we shan’t get her name in the paper again, “you bet.” We hope she will keep her good resolutions, and not give these youngsters a chance to play hoodlum again, “you bet we do.” Why cannot our country afford some other employment for the young people besides dancing?” 

     Certainly, in a mean-spirited way, he was letting her know that he decided whether her name got into the newspapers again - not her. 

     “Joe’s” next item also criticized the behavior of some at the West Brown schoolhouse, where Avarilla’s children attended. The teacher and students challenged neighboring schools to “an evening of spelling,” but the crowd got too loud and rowdy. “...they did not show the respect for the school that we expected,” Joe sniffed. “On their way home they threw snow, washed faces, and threw away hats and caps. One girl did not find her hat and shawl for several days. The noise they made was equal to an Apache whoop.”
     He had more to complain of. “Some of the same persons remain at the school house after singing school hours. If it is right for respectable young people to play cards in a schoolhouse during such late hours, why don’t the school board announce the free use of the house then?” He said if they had enough respect for themselves, they’d keep their names out of print. 

     Maybe “Joe” was a killjoy. I have a more well-rounded picture of Avarilla now. I bet she was a lot of fun. Possibly, she was someone you wouldn’t want to cross, either. 


Copyright Andrea Auclair © 2023

     

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