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I opened my mailbox yesterday and discovered a heavy envelope with my cousin Candy's return address. Inside of that package, I found an old textbook: Halleck's New English Literature. The copyright date is 1913. Daddy was probably using this book in high school in the late 1920’s.

Daddy's name is written boldly (in more than one place) and his younger sister May's signature appears as well. I imagine that their sister Margaret probably used the book also, but unlike the others, she didn't leave any evidence.

It is interesting to see the immature signatures which are younger versions of the handwriting of the adults we grew up with. Daddy, who admonished all of his own children that we were NEVER to deface a book, left notes and drawings throughout the text. He added his own "credentials" to those listed by the author. He also inserted his own editorial comments. Underneath the writer's heartfelt dedication and thanks to his wife, whose assistance, he said, was invaluable, Daddy scrawled one word: "Bologna”.

#old books #1920s #textbook doodles #bologna

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Ernie Kovacs had a riverboat in his dining room.

Ernie Kovacs, born on January 23, 1919 #botd

#ernie kovacs #wallpaper

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A housewife taking frozen long johns off the washing line, 1940s.

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Every year throughout our childhoods, Mother and her Australian penpal mailed Christmas gifts to each other's children.

Mollie and her husband Jack had become close friends with Daddy when he was stationed for a while in Australia during the Second World War. Mollie and Mother had started corresponding when Daddy was stationed in Brisbane . Their letters started when Mollie sent Mother a slice of the birthday cake that she had baked for Daddy and her son, both of whom had birthdays in July. Knowing how long packages took to move between countries, I asked Mother what she did when the moldy cake had finally arrived. She was astonished that I could even ask and replied,"Well I sat down and ate it, of course."

Their friendship was no less real because they had never actually met.

In those days, there was no Overnight Delivery, or even affordable airmail. All their packages went by surface which of course meant on ships. Mailing dates were months ahead of the holidays. Everything was further complicated by how expensive it was to mail even a small package so the two women were limited by the weight and size of the gifts. Mollie was very good at finding gifts that would appeal to children and were also lightweight and small. Mother who had several more children than Mollie and not quite so organized felt the pressure each year as we approached the Mail By Date.

We always loved the Australian packages when they arrived. My own favorite was a kitchen towel with the picture of a kookaburra printed on the front. I tacked that over my desk and enjoyed it for a long time. Years later, I was thrilled when I finally went to Australia and saw my first real kookaburra. It was even perched, just like in the song, on an old gum tree!

Here are a couple of Mollie's gifts which have survived since the 1950's. She sent napkin rings (yes, Mother used linen napkins)to several of us children made from Eucolyptus wood. They graced our dining room table for years.

Also pictured is a scarf. The napkin rings were small, so they fit the size requirements and the scarf was not only colorful, but it weighs practically nothing so it added almost nothing to the parcel when Mollie took it to her post office and placed it on the scales!!

#vintage #1950s #ww2 #wwii #australia #napkin rings #vintage scarf

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For years, Mother had used a desk that had belonged to our Grandmother. When my brother and sister in law brought the desk to me, they left Mother's papers in it and I tucked them into a box and made a plan to "deal with them later."

Well, today, later finally came.

Among all the postcards, coupons and letters which she had saved, I found this box of unsent cards. In looking through them, I am pretty sure that these cards were in the desk when Mother moved the desk from her own Mother's house to our sun room. Mother saved them for sentimental reasons.

Grandma's cards would have taken a 4 cent stamp, so these hot air balloon stamps are from much later.

But she had a sentimental reason for saving these too! Mother and Daddy were born about a month apart. My youngest brother and his wife (the ones who later brought me the desk) arranged for us kids to chip in to give Mother and Daddy a hot air balloon ride to celebrate their 70th birthdays.

Daddy was delighted. Mother, though, was much more cautious and was not convinced that this was such a good idea. She was astonished when Daddy said that he understood her reservations, but that if she didn't want to go, she could wave to him as he sailed upward.

Mother thought about his determination to fly. Her mental picture of his being lifted off the earth, while she stayed on firm ground was too much for her to bear... If he was determined to go, she decided that she was going along! They had a wonderful time and used the photo taken at their takeoff as that year's Christmas card.

She bought many of these stamps herself and received countless more as gifts. It gave her a lot of pleasure to use them to commemorate the time that she decided to throw caution to the winds.

#family stories #vintage #1950s #stamps #stamp collecting #vintage stamps #greeting cards #vintage greeting cards

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You may be wondering what a recent flood in my basement could possibly have to do with my childhood, but read on!

During a recent debacle, my basement flooded and many boxes and storage bins were saturated. My daughter helped me to haul the sodden boxes off the floor and we took out countless books, photos, clothes etc. For most of the soaked items all we could do was spread them out on towels and turn fans on them to dry. But I simply tossed the clothing into the washer. I wasn't sure if all of it was washable or not, but by this point it was too late to worry about these items were going to react with water.

To my surprise, almost everything emerged, a little wrinkled, but unharmed. When I pulled this bed jacket out of the dryer, I could hardly believe my eyes.

I believe that it is the bed jacket that Mother was wearing in this photograph that was taken of her as she held me, on my second day home from the hospital in September of 1946.

During the Second World War, while all of their husbands were deployed, Mother, one of my aunts and one of their friends had shared a house. While he had been in the service, the husband of the friend had been trained in photography and he decided to set up a studio when he returned to civilian life. When I was born, he schlepped some of his equipment upstairs in the house my family had recently bought to take pictures of Mother and her new baby. It’s a good thing that I can identify the wallpaper because my older brother and I looked so much alike as babies that in some baby pictures even Mother incorrectly identified us!

Over the years, the picture may have faded, but this pink satin bed jacket is the very bed jacket that the flood just unearthed in my basement!

#1950s #vintage #family stories #bed jacket #satin

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In olden days (before we used Kleenex and other throwaway paper tissues) we used pieces of thin cloth when we had a cold. Men and boys used larger, thicker handkerchiefs. Women and girls used pretty daintier ones, Some of them were plain white, without decoration, oftentimes they had embroidery or lace edging .

I have hankies from grandmothers and great aunts that are printed with flowers, seasonal themes, animals and birds. Some are brightly colored and I have even uncovered one plaid one.

Mother carried this one with its wide lace edge as a bride.

My grandparents who spent many winters in Florida brought souvenir hankies as gifts along with carved coconut "heads" for the boys and tiny bottles of orange blossom perfume for the girls. Of course they also brought back oranges and grapefruits and even small pots of tropical plants for Daddy's plant room.

My sister contributed these hankies that are printed with a view of some impressive houses along one of the canals that were built for boats and recreation.

We girls often tucked several handkerchiefs into our small purses. Our motto was "Carry one for Show, One for Blow and One for an Emergency."

I suppose that our handkerchiefs were less immediately hygienic than tissues that could be thrown away along with our germs, but washed and freshly ironed, these hankies could be used (and enjoyed) over and over and over again. No waste to be disposed of either.

PS Here is a handy hint for anyone who may still be using hankies. If you wash them out in the bathroom basin and then spread it out on the wall over the bathtub (to contain the drips) they will dry looking neatly pressed.

#family stories #1950s #vintage #hankies

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I know, I know, this looks like a more modern picture than I usually post, but bear with me.

When I was little, I loved to watch Mother as she poured cream into the bowl of her stand mixer, lowered the beater into the bowl and turned the mixer to high. We kids watched, spellbound, as the cream gradually began to thicken and Mother added Confectioner's Sugar a little bit at a time as the mixer whirred on. Mother was very good at desserts and her kitchen- produced whipped cream almost always came together. This process was probably even more interesting to watch as we knew that at the end, once she had scraped the newly whipped cream into the serving bowl, we would be given the mixer and bowl to lick.

But even for Mother, the process was not foolproof and occasionally she would be distracted (certainly not by us) and little yellow globules of butter would emerge.

Add to this the fact that this method had to be performed at the very last minute (between dinner and dessert) with Daddy waiting impatiently at the dining room table.

In 1954, when I was 8, a wonderful product was brought onto the market. The canister contained what was promised as real whipped cream, that was packaged under pressure. By gently depressing a nozzle supported by a short spring, we were promised that fully whipped cream would emerge.

Daddy's Mother and our own Mother were absolutely delighted with the promise of this new product. They planned a family meal the culmination of which would be homemade pie topped with this new miracle product. Mother had promised Billy that he could be the first to dispense this treat. Everyone was still seated around our large dining room table, all of us and our grandparents primed for this wonderful new experience.

Billy, standing at Mother's place at the table, slowly lowered the canister, pointing it toward the first piece of pie. All of us held our breath, the adults as primed as the kids.

It turned out though, that Grandma, who always seemed unflappable to us kids, was the most excited of us all. Acting completely out of character, she stepped forward .

"This really should be done by a grown-up." she announced, as she took the can out from Billy's outstretched hand.

She quickly lowered the can, disregarding the fact that the can was no longer aimed downwards. She pressed down on the nozzle and a stream of whipped cream shot across the table and landed six feet away in Daddy's lap.

This was met with dead silence. Inwardly we children might have been cheering her performance, but outwardly we were braced to see how Daddy would react. We could well imagine what his reaction would have been if Billy had done this…

But Grandma was his own Mother and he simply began to laugh. All of us delightedly joined in. Even Grandma was laughing as she shook her head ruefully and handed the can back to Billy.

The event still lives in family stories long after the novelty of whipped cream in a can has worn off.

#family stories #1950s #whipped cream #reddi wip #1950

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This is a picture of a yardstick that my younger brother and I found at an antique mall over the weekend. Younger people might have never seen one of these before but in the 1950's most households would have had at least one and maybe several. These wooden sticks were passed out as advertisements at fairs, by political candidates and in stores. We kids could put them to use as short poles on which to hang banners during the parades we organized. When we placed them between chair backs and hung sheets from them, they could support our tents. And, of course, they could always be used as weapons during the battles that we were constantly staging. But, except for measuring things, we kids had absolutely no idea what an adult might do with them. . . . until this one night.

Mother and Daddy didn't go out often but when they did, Mother was usually able, through the local YWCA, to find an older woman who for a small remuneration was willing to feed us dinner, read us stories and put us to bed. Mother always wondered why so few of these women returned for a second evening.

My older brother could put me up to no end of mischief. We weren't bad exactly, just annoying. One of our favorite targets was babysitters who were, as I said, elderly and, unlike our Mother, didn't know when it was absolutely necessary to draw the line.

On this one night, we were especially annoying. When Mrs. Shafer, that evening’s sitter, finally got us to go upstairs and get into our pajamas for bed, we began our game. I'd rush over and jump into Billy’s bed and when she dragged me back to my own room, he'd hide and pop out at her from under either my bed or his.

Billy's bedroom was at the back of the house and mine at the front and in each of our rooms, our beds were placed so that they faced each other (well, technically I suppose it was our feet that faced each other) We started a new game then. First Billy would sit up in his bed while I lay flat and then he'd lay back down and I would pop up. I don't know how long it took us to tire of this game, but I do remember the babysitter, that poor hard-pressed older woman sitting grimly in the hall between our rooms clutching a yardstick in a very threatening way. I don't know if she would have used it if we had pressed her but in the actual event, she didn't. Either we got bored and fell asleep or our parents came home.

I don't think that we saw Mrs Shafer again, but at least we had finally found out something an adult could do with a yardstick when they weren't using it for measuring.

#1950s #family stories #yardstick #babysitters

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This is a picture of an old milk safe or milk chest that we found at the museum. Our family had a milk box like this one except that inside the galvanized frame, the inside of ours was lined with a thick padding of shredded wood. The milk delivery companies supplied these chests and they were placed on a step or porch outside the house. The "milkman" placed a standard order into the box at each delivery. This system saved the delivery man from having to wait at the door for each individual customer. It worked out well from the homeowner's perspective as well because no one had to wait at home for the milk delivery. We placed the emptied bottles into the box and the delivery man took them back to the dairy for cleaning and sterilization. The lining in our box was there to insulate the milk from the summer heat and freezing temperatures in the winter.

The system wasn't foolproof however. In the winter, we kids were in school, so by the time we got home sometimes the milk was frozen and had popped the cardboard disks out of place as the frozen milk bulged out of the top of the bottle. In the summer, or course, we weren't in school, but we didn't always remember to do our job and occasionally the got warm before we brought it into the house. We kids had learned that it was better to drink the slightly sour milk without complaint in order not to call attention to our dereliction of duty.

One of the dairies delivered milk from a truck, but the other still used a horse drawn car. Since the "milkman" was the husband of Daddy's secretary, he often bent the rules and let us stand in the cart and pretend to drive Prince, his long suffering horse. Prince had delivered milk along this route for most of his working life and he preferred not to come to a complete stop. Mr Shaw stepped nimbly off and back onto the cart as it moved along.

#1950s #ohio historical society #milk bottle #milkman #1950 #vintage

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Reblogging to add this video visual aid, thank you @bringmesunshineinyoursmile for providing the link in the comments!

We found this mangle ironing machine when we toured a museum over the weekend. My own Mother had a much larger version of this machine which we always referred to as her "ironer." In days before permanent press, just about everything had to be ironed.

When the machine was closed, we used the top as a shelf for things like cook books, school projects and wet mittens. But when it was time to iron, Mother cleared everything off, tipped the lid back, placed a comfortable dining room chair in front of the machine and got ready to iron.

There was a heated electric plate in the front of the ironer. This got very hot and heat radiated out all around it. After that metal plate was heated, Mother placed one edge of the wrinkled item against its edge.. There was a lever underneath that Mother could press with her knee. This caused the padded cylinder to be lowered down against the curved heated plate. By pressing another button, Mother could start the cylinder turning and as it turned it pulled the cloth across the heated plate and laid it in neat folds onto the back of the machine.

She loved her ironer and found the rhythm of feeding the mussed material through the machine and producing a neat ironed item very soothing.

Mother eventually became very proficient. She started on sheets (yes she ironed our sheets), moved on to napkins (yes, we used linen napkins) and then onto tricky things like Daddy's white shirts. Occasionally, when she was pressed for time, Mother delegated me to iron what she referred to as "flats" (sheets and napkins and linen handkerchiefs) while she raced around picking up kids from school or starting dinner.

Permanent press has all but eliminated the need to iron our clothes, but mangle ironers are still being produced. I have a friend who uses one and testifies that she gets the same feeling of peace that Mother described all those years ago.

#ohio historical society #decade: 1950s #1950 #ironing #chores #Youtube #1940s #decade: 1940s #relaxing #satisfying

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We found this mangle ironing machine when we toured a museum over the weekend. My own Mother had a much larger version of this machine which we always referred to as her "ironer." In days before permanent press, just about everything had to be ironed.

When the machine was closed, we used the top as a shelf for things like cook books, school projects and wet mittens. But when it was time to iron, Mother cleared everything off, tipped the lid back, placed a comfortable dining room chair in front of the machine and got ready to iron.

There was a heated electric plate in the front of the ironer. This got very hot and heat radiated out all around it. After that metal plate was heated, Mother placed one edge of the wrinkled item against its edge.. There was a lever underneath that Mother could press with her knee. This caused the padded cylinder to be lowered down against the curved heated plate. By pressing another button, Mother could start the cylinder turning and as it turned it pulled the cloth across the heated plate and laid it in neat folds onto the back of the machine.

She loved her ironer and found the rhythm of feeding the mussed material through the machine and producing a neat ironed item very soothing.

Mother eventually became very proficient. She started on sheets (yes she ironed our sheets), moved on to napkins (yes, we used linen napkins) and then onto tricky things like Daddy's white shirts. Occasionally, when she was pressed for time, Mother delegated me to iron what she referred to as "flats" (sheets and napkins and linen handkerchiefs) while she raced around picking up kids from school or starting dinner.

Permanent press has all but eliminated the need to iron our clothes, but mangle ironers are still being produced. I have a friend who uses one and testifies that she gets the same feeling of peace that Mother described all those years ago.

#Ohio historical society #1950s #vintage #ironing #mangle

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Fascinating color photographs capture Christmas winter scenes in the United States during the 1950s.

#decade: 1950s

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Souvenir collectable dolls of and Earl and Countess from the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, purchased in London by our neighbor Mary L. Beech. Tiara removed from countess during heavy play by little sister Kate. Earl’s felt vest missing in action, possibly disintegrated.

#coronation #queen elizabeth ii #vintage doll #1953

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Here I am as a baby in 1946, lying on the lap of one of my Great Grandmothers. She herself was the mother of twelve, so she’d had some experience in managing babies. She and her husband owned a sheep farm in northern Ohio. Although they became pretty successful over the years, in the beginning they worked hard together and poured every bit of extra money into improving their stock. She was born in 1859, 87 years before I was born. I was lucky enough to know her through the first few years of my life.

She had a brother who had become a medical doctor. The story we children were told was that he went to Alaska inspired by the gold rush in the Yukon and stayed to practice medicine. Family lore had it that he once reattached the ear of a man who had been attacked by a Kodiak or grizzly bear. As a child I remember thinking that it was amazing that that man had lived through his bear encounter and also managed to save his ear so that it could be stitched back on!

He wrote letters to my Great Grandmother, one telling the story of his trip to view the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes not long after its formation. This valley was a side effect of a gigantic volcanic eruption that occurred in 1912. Countless openings in the earths' surface adjacent to the eruption site sent up clouds of steam and gas, creating hundreds and hundreds of fumaroles releasing heat and vapor into the air.

Uncle John married and he and his wife had a daughter whom I was able to meet when I took a trip to Alaska. She was in her 70's at that time and although they lived in the city of Juneau in the colder weather, she and her 80-something year old husband still backpacked their groceries on a long hike to their cabin that was located high above an inlet of the Inside Passage.

Here she was as a little girl, probably in the late 1920’s or early 1930’s. She and her mother, Uncle John's wife, were on a routine dogsled trek, the most practical way of transport for them in the winter.

#alaska #gold rush #dog sledding #1920s #1930s #1940s #family stories #ohio history #alaska history

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I have just completed this painting which is my impression of how our house looked on a Christmas Eve in the 1950's. The car in the driveway is our 1951 (or was it '52?) Dodge Royale. The parrot in the window is Polly whom we inherited from Daddy's Godmother. His cage was perched on a radiator so he never seemed to be troubled by his location near the window.

The large gray tree on the left of the painting represents an American Elm. It truly was in the front yard of the house that was next door to ours, but in this painting I have replanted it nearer to our house so that I could pay homage to those wonderful huge trees. This one was at least 3 feet in diameter. Where they had been planted on either side of a street, their branches extended high above the sidewalks and pavement. When we walked underneath them, it was like walking through a very high tunnel. We lost all of our elms to the Dutch Elm Disease in the late 50's and early 60's.

People were just beginning to display outdoor Christmas lights in our small town during the years when we were growing up. Instead of the multicolored lights that were becoming popular, Mother substituted her own personal touch by buying strings of lights and replacing the many colored bulbs with these pale blue lights. In the years before my brothers were old enough to climb a ladder, she and Daddy themselves draped them along the evergreens in front of our house.

But our indoor tree (which was always too large for our living room) still had multicolored and bubble lights. The lights on the tree in our living room were only multicolored, that is, until the year (around 1955 I think) when Daddy walked past a store that was selling tiny clear lights that seemed to twinkle by blinking on and off in sequence. This was the first time that he (or any of us for that matter) had seen this new variation of holiday lights. That year, of course,our family had already spent hours hanging all the colored lights and decorations on our tree as usual. But Daddy, who always held on to his childlike view of Christmas, couldn't resist this new effect. He bought those new lights and secretly brought them home. On Christmas Eve that year, after we children had gone to bed, with Mother's loyal assistance, he painstakingly removed all the decorations and colored lights from our tree. Then they strung the tiny white lights on the denuded tree, rehung the colored lights over them and replaced all the ornaments so that they hung from the branches just as if they had never been moved.

My brothers and sister and I remember being stunned and enchanted by the magic of those twinkling lights that seemed to us had magically transformed our Christmas tree overnight.

#1950s #elm trees #family stories

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This small jam pot came to me from one of my great aunts. Her husband was Daddy's Mother's brother so I guess that this made her his aunt by marriage.

The writing on the bottom is in English, but blurred. After looking online I think the words say Maruhon Ware. Apparently, this was a Japanese company that made ceramic decorative objects for export, starting, I learned, in the 1920's. There is a K in a circle which makes it seem like an early piece. But it has only the single word "Japan." which I read indicates that it came from after the occupation of that country following World War II, which would date it in the early 50's.

I don't really eat jam or jelly so this pot is usually displayed in my large china cabinet. Then this morning, since my grass was going to be mowed this afternoon, I picked a handful of violets from the hundreds that grow in my lawn. As I searched around for a vase that had a small enough opening to support the tender stems, my eyes landed on this elegant jam pot. So now I am enjoying my violets (and one rogue grape hyacinth) in this unique way courtesy of my Great Aunt May.

#vintage #1950s #japanese pottery