Editor’s Note: Debbie Eistetter is a member of the Clayton Historical Society board of directors and has been writing Clayton’s history column for the past eight years. This will be her last column as she moves on to new endeavors. We thank her for her wonderful contribution to the Pioneer and wish her well.
CLAYTON, CA (July 7, 2025) — This charming piece was written 20 years ago by Janet Easton, former president of the Clayton Historical Society and a fifth generation Clayton resident.
Take a step backward. A step in time. The year is 1900. It is not quite daylight but the hills are tinged pink with morning. A rooster crows and another rooster answers. You’re in downtown Clayton.
People rise from their feather beds. The men and children go out to tend the livestock in their midst. Cows need to be milked, eggs gathered and every living thing fed. The woman of the house stokes the wood stove and prepares to fix breakfast for the humans in her life. All over Clayton smoke is rising through the chimneys as the town begins to wake.
Cows, chickens and horses live on nearly every parcel of Clayton land. Pungent smells fill the air. But from the house is the smell of bacon from the smokehouse, fresh biscuits baking and coffee brewing … and there’s a woman in there making it all possible. Mother is packing the children’s school lunches in former lard pails – they make handy lunch buckets. Everyone has chores to do.
No one is in a hurry to go anywhere.
The men amble off to their various callings. In town, they are the blacksmiths, the harness maker, the hotel keepers, the saloon proprietors, the livery stable workers and the brewers. Some men head out for the hayfields, the vineyards and the orchards of walnuts, almonds, apples and pears, to plant, harvest and prune.
When a harvest is in progress, the women deliver meals to the fields so that the men can work from sun up to sun down. Other men tend cattle, sheep, pigs and horses on the ranches not far from town.
The school bell rings from the top of the hill. The teacher has been at the school preparing for the day. She has started the fire in the wood stoves to keep her students warm. The floors have been cleaned. The dreaded cleaning of the outhouse has been accomplished. Remember when you took this step back in time that there is no electricity, no telephone service and no indoor plumbing.
The children go to school on foot or on horseback. There is a barn at the school to house the horses.
Houses all to themselves, the women perform tasks such as laundry, (by hand), then hang the clothes on the line to dry and finally, ironing with very heavy sad irons heated on the ever –burning wood stove.
The mending basket is overflowing. There are buttons to be sewn on and socks to be darned. The vegetable garden needs weeding. The baby is squalling for a diaper change. Midday dinner for the men who come home is leftovers from last night’s supper. It always tastes better the next day.
The children come home from school to the smell of something delicious baking in the over. Mother bakes every day and it is always something good. Today’s treat is blackberry pie made with berries shared by a neighbor.
Too bad the weather is too cool for the youngsters to go swimming in the water tank. The children do their homework. Men come home from their various endeavors.
The smells from the pots simmering on the stove make mouths water. The livestock needs tending once again this day. Cows are milked, eggs are gathered and every living thing is fed.
The sky turns pink and the mountain purple with sunset. The family gathers around the table and exchanges their news of the day.
The next morning a rooster crows and another one answers . . . enjoy your step back in time.
Debbie Eistetter
Debbie Eistetter has been a resident of Clayton for almost 30 years. She serves on the Board of the Clayton Historical Society and believes that history shows us the way to a more enlightened present and hopeful future. For more information about the CHS Museum please visit claytonhistory.org
