“Women Don’t Reckon in At All:” Series 1, Part 3

As a new army bride, Martha’s first days with the Eighth Infantry were glitteringly happy ones that soon came crashing down to reality, if not quite misery.

Even though Martha was surprised by Fort Russell’s remote location compared to the grandeur of Germany (11), it wasn’t long before the ways of the Army captured her imagination. She romantically described her first few days on post as a blur of “bright buttons, blue uniforms, and shining swords” (14). The fact that the Eighth Infantry employed Italian musicians certainly helped Martha take Fort Russell to heart as “the dreamy strains of Italian and German music” formed the soundtrack of her life there (14-15). When not listening to beautiful music or exploring the post, Major and Mrs. Wilhem frequently entertained Martha in their home. These visits included a new experience for Martha – her introduction to “”the real old-fashioned army toddy”” (14). Martha’s own hometown avoided alcohol, except for those in the lower social classes or as taken medicinally (14). I wonder if she felt conflicted or freed by frequently partaking in a formerly prohibited beverage!

Soon, the idealized blur of army life came into focus when Martha looked at her new quarters. Furnishing this home was only the first of four challenges she would face in those early days of army life. The little home she shared with Jack was “one-half of a double house,” comprising “three rooms and a kitchen” (15). This, Martha thought, was unacceptable (though I’m sure the previous occupant, Mrs. Lynch, would have been all too glad to have those quarters once again!). On complaining of this to Jack, he replied: “”Why, Martha…did you not know that women are not reckoned in at all at the War Department?”” (15). To her chagrin, he then told her that their current quarters were already larger than the usual allotment given to lieutenants (15). Martha allowed herself to indulge “in some rather harsh comments upon a government which could treat lieutenants’ wives so shabbily,” but soon she dusted herself off and began the task of furnishing her home (16). This was done only with a great deal of difficulty. Jack had given her a frustratingly optimistic view of his furnishings which, when combined with the house’s rough appearance, caused Martha’s heart to sink (16). Employing the true spirit of the military spouse, Martha soon made the best of her situation and took Mrs. Wilhem as her example in creating a “cheerful and pretty” home from very little (16).

Martha’s next challenge came in the kitchen. Being from hardy New England stock, one might imagine that Martha would shine in the kitchen. Alas for her and for Jack, this was not so. Martha had little practical knowledge of how to cook, a fact which was complicated by the equipment she received for cooking (17). Jack assured Martha that the Quartermaster Department would give her everything she needed for a well-equipped kitchen “and, as his word was law,” Martha wrote, she followed his directions to the department (16). She was utterly mortified to find the only equipment they could give her was large enough to literally feed an army (16). Still, in either optimism or foolishness, Martha invited the Wilhems over for lunch. Between her lack of cooking skills, her hired soldier’s inexperience in the kitchen, and the absurdly large cooking vessels, the meal was an utter disaster (17-18).* Jack comfortingly told Martha the failure was due to cooking at a high altitude, but the Wilhem lunch was not the last “atrocious” meal Martha and the hired soldier, Adams, made (18).

At last, Martha was at her wits end and appealed to Jack for better cooking equipment. Jack had a great deal to learn about marriage, it seems. His response to Martha was, “”You are pampered and spoiled with your New England kitchens…you will have to learn to do as other army women do”” (18). And so she did! Martha waited till Jack left the house and then dropped in on Mrs. Wilhem and pleaded with her to see her kitchen. Rather than being stocked with Quartermaster Department things, it was beautifully furnished! Martha wrote, “”So!…my military husband does not know anything about these things” (19). As soon as possible, she went to a nearby town and bought appropriate kitchen equipment on credit, with the thought that she would “put off the evil day” of mentioning the cost to Jack (19). For as much as Martha had to learn about the army, Jack had much to learn about how army wives truly managed!

The third challenge Martha experienced was Jack’s first absence. In the spring, the Eighth Infantry was ordered to the Spotted Tail Agency on business relating to a treaty with the Sioux (20). This meant Martha was without Jack for six weeks, though she was not quite alone. Jack found Mrs. Patten, a laundress and “a dear old Irish woman” to keep Martha company while he was away (20). Martha’s time with Mrs. Patten was enjoyable and educational, as the laundress “was an old campaigner; she understood everything about officers and their ways” (20). Those six weeks were spent “pleasantly” enough with small amusements for the families left at Fort Russell, much as a modern-day FRG (Family Readiness Group) plans activities for spouses and children during deployments and field exercises. Jack returned just as the weather was becoming brutally hot and it was a good thing that he did. The heat required sleeping with their windows open, which once resulted in a wild cat sprinting through their home by way of a window in the middle of the night (21)!

The final and fourth challenge Marth faced was her first PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Arizona – “that dreaded and then unknown land” (21). Earlier, Jack had told Martha that they could only take one thousand pounds of baggage with them on a move, all of which had to fit in three large, army-issued trunks (17, 21). To this day, the Army weighs families’ belongings, all of which are to fit neatly within a prescribed weight limit. It’s easy enough to meet those requirements if you don’t have a book obsession or, as in Martha’s case, you don’t have a good amount of kitchen equipment! While the Army hires movers to pack for many families today, Martha was not so fortunate. Jack continued on with his work, leaving Martha “despairingly gazing into the depths of those boxes” without the slightest clue how to pack them (22). It was only thanks to the help of a kindly major’s wife that Martha finally got all their belongings packed in the trunks – and in a good many extra bags (22). Even though Martha had “put off the evil day” of the cost of her kitchenware, her day of reckoning with her surplus possessions came when Jack walked in from his work. In her memory, “Jack fumed…and declared we could not take it all,” but Martha held her own, saying “we must take it, or we could not exist” (22). As every military couple knows, grace, concessions, and compromise are key during a stressful move. And so it was with Jack and Martha. She wrote, “With some concessions on both sides we were finally packed up, and left Fort Russell about the middle of June” of 1874 (22).

In Martha’s first year as an army wife, she was introduced to some of the most common and timeless struggles of the military spouse. Martha experienced turning dreary army quarters into a home; she learned how to provide meals for her family through her cooking misadventures and also how to assert her own needs; she endured her first separation from Jack; and, finally, she moved for the first time. For all of that, Martha’s time at Fort Russell was just the start of her adventures. Many, many more trials awaited her in the deserts of Arizona, as we will see in the new few posts.

*Martha referred to her hired soldier as a “striker” (15). Dictionary.com defines a striker as “a private who acts as a voluntary paid servant to a commissioned officer.”

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Bibliography

Summerhayes, Martha. “Chapter 3: Army House-Keeping.” In Vanished Arizona: Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman, 14-23. Scotts Valley, CA: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2017. First published 1911.

The National Archives – Central Plains Region. “Primary Sources for Teachers 2006: A Report from the Spotted Tail Indian Agency on the Month of April, 1877.” The National Archives – Central Plains Region, Kansas City, MO. Accessed June 21, 2022. https://www.archives.gov/files/kansas-city/education/primary-sources/spotted-tail-agency-teacher-notes.pdf.