My mom had one in Finland where she grew up until she was 7. I know their house had a separate servants staircase. It’s now a school or daycare. When I inherited a 200-300 year old dresser of theirs it had the old maids uniforms in it. I’m not sure if they hosted parties where they would make women wear those or if those were relics from the old world.

My mom and her parents came down several rungs on the social scale by the time they moved to the US though.


My folks hired a Gardner out by the time I was about six, and when I left for school my parents hired a maid for about ten years til they retired.


"For some unfortunates, poisoned by city sidewalks ... the horn of the hunter never winds at all" Robert Ruark, The Horn of the Hunter