Lily’s rules for housekeeping

In her second book Half Broke Horses, best-selling author Jeannette Walls tells the story of her grandmother Lily Casey Smith, who was at times “a cowgirl, horse trainer, mustang breaker, jockey, airplane pilot and Chicago flapper as well as mother and teacher who helped her husband run” a huge ranch.

Lily was a character and had lots of adventures, but she definitely was not a good housekeeper. When Lily moved to a ranch in Arizona, she established a few rules for herself.

“One was to dispense with any unnecessary cleaning—no maid’s work,” Lily stressed. “Arizona was a dusty place, but a little dirt never killed anyone. That bit about cleanliness being next to godliness was a lot of balderdash as far as I was concerned. In fact, I considered it downright insulting. Anyone who worked the land got dirty, and in Chicago I’d seen my share of less than godly people living in squeaky-clean mansions. So I gave the house a going-over only once every few months, working myself into a frenzy and blazing through all the scrubbing and dusting in a single day.”

You can read more about Lily in this blog post.