She Wore the Pants in the Family

This week's Historic Pinole is both interesting and fun in several respects. It's about a woman who swore never to wear dresses again after her husband complained about how much she spent on her wardrobe, including trading chickens for a bonnet. The story made its way into a Los Angeles newspaper, presumably because of the woman's fiery independence. It mentions some of the day's leading women of a dress reform movement.

This is the same woman we previously presented in a as a "wealthy former belle" who wore "sacks" and dug for clams in an article first published seven years after this one. A third article, from the San Francisco Call newspaper, spelled her name "Kreigher."

The writing is dated, charming and entertaining, from a time when people sometimes started sentences with "Say,...."

The storied incident could have been on San Pablo Avenue. We dredged the tale from the 1890 archives of the Los Angeles Herald, aparently reprinted at the time from the San Francisco Examiner.

SHE WEARS TROUSERS

A WOMAN WHO HAS NOT HAD A DRESS ON IN FIFTEEN YEARS

Her Husband Complained That Her Clothes Cost Too Much, and She Resolved Never to Wear a Skirt Again — lt Is No Jenness Miller Business with Her.

"Say, what kind of people are those folks on the ranch about three miles back?" asked a dusty stranger as he drove into San Pablo.

"There are lots of ranches three miles back," answered a resident.

"Well, I'll tell you what happened to me and maybe you'll know the place. I was driving along about a mile this side of Pinole and I saw somebody in a blue jumper shoveling just inside the fence by the roadside. He didn't pay any attention to me and landed a shovelful of dirt right in front of my horse. The horse reared back, and as soon as he got quiet I started in to curse the shoveler. He didn't pay any attention to that and I got out to lick him.

"Well, I didn't do it. That fellow just looked into my face, and if it wasn't a woman I'll eat a house and lot. She wore trousers and a jumper and a man's hat, and she was spading up the soil in great shape; but her long hair was flying about her head and her face was as placid as any grandmother's you ever met.

"She wasn't a prize beauty by any means, but — well, you can fancy how a fellow would feel after swearing and jumping out of a buggy to lick a woman."

"Oh, that was Mrs. Kreiger. She always dresses that way," said the resident. "I thought everybody in these parts knew her."

SHE USED TO WEAR DRESSES

Mrs. Kreiger has lived on a ranch on the San Pablo road for over fifteen years, and during that time she has never worn the ordinary apparel of woman. So accustomed have the people of that vicinity become to her and her strange dress that they no longer notice it.

Still, Mrs. Kreiger is no woman's rights apostle, nor advocate of dress reform. It is doubtful if she ever even heard of Mrs. Jenness Miller or Mrs. Bloomer, and if you mentioned Lady Habberton or the divided skirt to her she would not know what you were talking about.

Up to fifteen years ago Mrs. Kreiger wore skirts and dresses like any other of her sex. Indeed, it appears that she had more of them, and that they were of more varied forms, textures and colors than are usually possessed by farmers' wives.

It was shortly before the change in her manner of dressing that she married William Kreiger, a thrifty German farmer and a widower, and went to live with him on the ranch.

For a while there was absolute peace and concord between them, but it did not last. Mrs. Kreiger had just laid in her winter's supply of tea gowns, walking dresses and dinner toilets, not to mention some ducks of wrappers, and pretty soon the bills began to come in.

Crops had not been all they might have been, potatoes had gone down an eighth of a cent a pound, and an epidemic of pip had swept over the poultry yard.

HER TERRIBLE VOW

Kreiger did not mind paying $16 for a poem of red silk, and a pea green demi-toilet for $13 did not shake him, but when one after another the accounts for yellow calico, blue gingham and other tokens of vanity and pride were rendered he began to grow gloomy and taciturn, to lose his appetite and sleep uneasily.

But it was not until the returns from the milliners came in that he complained. After, however, giving the price of three spring chickens for a darling of a bonnet, and a whole sack of turnips for a mere spot of a straw hat, with some ribbons and other fixings on it, he ventured to expostulate.

He told how the Mrs. Kreiger that had been had worn the same calico dress for Sundays two years, and how the same dress had served as second best for a like space, and then lasted at least a like time to work in, and that there was even then enough to make over for the little girl. He pointed out how the paragon that had been wore the same hat she had when he married her during all the years of their wedded life, and had never breathed a demand for another.

Mrs. Kreiger stood it meekly for a while. Then she blazed out and declared that since he was so stingy about it she would not give him any more chance to complain about her dresses. Then she made a dreadful vow never to wear dresses again.

And she hasn't.

The bright hued garments were packed away in two trunks, and they are there yet.

The Kreigers are well off now. They have a fine ranch of eighty or one hundred acres and money in bank. More who know them say that Kreiger is worth at least $20,000. Mrs. Kreiger during all these years has kept house and helped on the farm, in men's garments. Her usual costume is a duck "jumper" and a pair of her husband's worn out trousers.

TRUE TO HER RESOLVE

She is not proud and works in the field as well as her husband. Naturally she does not go into society much. In fact she is rather retiring. She has few if any visitors, and never goes to town. When she wants the butcher or any other tradesman to call for an order she hangs out a flag on the road. This signal they all understand and drive down to the house to find what is wanted.

A reporter drove out to the Kreiger ranch the other day. It is about a mile from Pinole, on the left side of the road. The farm house is back several hundred feet from the highway, an avenue bordered by poplars leading from the road to the door. The house is a little white cottage. The place is not particularly tidy, and there appeared to be nothing living about it but a vicious little yellow dog. Just inside the doorway, however, a strange figure was seated. It was Mrs. Kreiger.

She appeared to be about 45 years old, and was engaged in some knitting or similar work. She wore her customary jumper and a pair of trousers patched in various places with pieces of grain bags.

She was not disturbed at all by the visit, but merely ran her hand through her tousled hair and indicated that she did not speak English.

Whether she could not, or merely did not care to, she did not, and presently she went about her housework without even a second look at her visitor.

The neighbors say they have frequently expostulated with her for her outlandish garb, but she only answered that she had made her vow and did not propose to break it.— San Francisco Examiner.