Despite the inauspicious street name (Manhattan’s Bowery was a slum district), the apartment offered consolations. It had a private bath, a bonus in those days, and the kitchen—“the center of home life here,” Elizabeth wrote—had a new linoleum floor, a new stove, cabinets, and sink.63 She soon realized that in Iowa City, “the love of the spotless stove and kitchen floor is infectious.” Willing to do her part to maintain appearances, she drew the line at other “native folk ways, such as doing your husband’s shirts.” To Eleanor Taylor, Elizabeth professed being “quite content” with “the calm, sober, quiet life,” though “it is impossible to speak of liking Iowa,” where there were no bohemians.64 The other families in the Lowells’ building were always asking her if she had done “the week’s baking yet and other normal and embarrassing questions.” Even the students—“stolid, dependable people”—were married; husbands hung out at the Laundromat while doing the family wash.