Victoria Balmoral: The laundry

She wished Cornelius could be more sensitive about the laundry. He simply had no idea how difficult a task doing the laundry weekly could be. It took the entire day, usually on Saturdays when he slept the afternoon away on his hammock out back or played touch football with the boys. Cornelius Jr. was exactly the same as his father. If Victoria hadn't been a staunch Episcopalian, she'd have divorced Cornelius long ago, just over the issue of the laundry.

Everything he wore, he put into the laundry. And in such a state! Armpit stains, tomato stains on his white shirts, crumpled sleeves, dirty stockings, underwear yellow in the front and (dare she think it) brown in the back. And Cornelius was such a sloppy shaver each morning that he almost always had dried blood on his white collars. Thank goodness he wasn't smart enough to have gone to college, because then he'd have to wear a tie to work and she'd have something else to worry about, laundry-wise. But, lucky for her, butchers were never expected to wear ties. And if they had, Cornelius was too clumsy and he'd always be chopping it off.

And thank goodness Cornelius wasn't smart enough to do the books. He gave her his weekly paycheck and let her handle the bills. So she did. And she kept money from him, because she knew he couldn't save a dime and everything he'd get he'd spend on British ale down at the pub at 34th and Market. That Cornelius! He didn't know that she was saving 20% of his paycheck every week and scrimping. The Berkowitz pharmacy across the street would be on the market before too long -- Mr. Berkowitz, old and infirm, could only last so much longer -- and she intended to buy it. She intended to buy it and run it herself. But, of course, she'd use Cornelius as the facade so that she could appear ladylike and supportive of her husband. Women in 1914 Philadelphia couldn't do otherwise.

She intended to improve their lot, send her sons to college, give them futures that neither she nor Cornelius ever had. Cornelius wouldn't do it himself, he didn't have the drive. He was too set in his ways, just like most middle-aged fat men with red faces. The little dears.