[Desdemona]

I find this very implausible. My great-grandmother was still alive when I was young, and I assume I am roughly the same age as you. She was a farmer's wife and still lived on a farm where she had a coal stove, a small orchard and was raising several grandchildren into her nineties. She never wore pants until the day she died.

You didn't know my great-grandmother. She kept a seven bedroom farmhouse on over 40 acres, milked cows, did the chickens, etc. The orchards actually belonged to her sister, but I think the orchards were bigger than the farm was. And all the women wore pants.

And unless i miss my guess, I'm at least 10 years younger than you are. Probably closer to 15.

[Maximilian]

And all the women wore pants.

This is certainly interesting from a cultural perspective. Was this St. Louis and what decade would it be? If your recollection is from your childhood, and you're as young as you say, then it would have to be the eighties, by which time virtually everyone's great-grandmother might have been wearing pants.