A Pre-Christmas Memory

I'm thinkin' it must have been about 40 Christmases ago... (Which is completely impossible, of course, because there's no way 1974 was actually 40 years ago. My math must be off somewhere.) Anyway, somewhere along in through there...

My mother, an accomplished and professional seamstress, sewed many of our Christmas gifts when we were growing up. Her project that year was to make five large rag dolls... one for each of us, boy dolls for my brothers, and girl dolls for my sisters and me. This was the pattern:

These were very large floppy dolls... about 2 feet long... so you can see it was quite an undertaking too make five of them, including the clothes. It seems Mother was sequestered in her bedroom with the door closed for days. We children had strict instructions not to go in there because she was working on "Christmas presents." Once our Christmas break from school started it was so hard to obey and not bother her.

One morning, shortly before Christmas, a friend of my mother's stopped by our house. Janie brought with her five large, flat wrapped gifts... and five much smaller ones. Even though it wasn't yet Christmas we were allowed to open them! Each of us received an over-sized Christmas coloring book and a box of crayons! We didn't even have to share our crayons with our brothers and sisters because we each had our own!

Probably a little birdy had told Janie that the preacher's kids needed something to do while their mother sewed. In any case, we happily gathered around the dining room table and spread open our new coloring books. I don't know how many days or hours that kept us occupied, but my mother still gratefully remembers the thoughtfulness of her friend that year.

I'm pretty sure I still have my doll from that Christmas packed away somewhere, along with other cherished rag dolls my mother made over the years. I would have liked to find her and take a picture to show you... but "ain't nobody got time for that" today. (I just Googled the pattern picture above.) But here's a snapshot from that era that I already had scanned. Obviously, it wasn't taken at Christmas time... but oh-so-definitely mid-1970s!

And yes, dear friends and readers, I do have good intentions of getting back to blogging! Maybe that will be a good New Year's resolution!

Merry Christmas to all!

Home Movie Stills

Among the "thou-shalt-not-touch" treasures tucked away in the secret storage places of my parents' bedroom was a movie camera. I don't remember where it came from. Perhaps my mother got it with S&H Green Stamps or something. What I do remember is that we had no projector for watching any home movies that had been filmed on it, so on the rare occasions we were able to borrow a projector, watching Our Movies was a Big Deal.

There was the reel of my parents' wedding (taken, I'm sure, on someone else's camera)... and the reel of me as a baby... and then a gap of about 5 years. The third reel starts when my youngest brother was a baby. Now that I think about it, that must have been about when we got our own movie camera, because there's a good bit of footage that year, relatively speaking.

I was five that year, and utterly convinced that if the movie camera was recording, I should probably perform. That is to say, show off. The footage of my newborn brother has me turning somersaults in the background.

The footage of the five of us children playing on our swing set has me running around like a maniac, "checking" on the baby, picking up the ball, prancing here and there. It's down-right embarrassing is what it is!

Fifteen or twenty years ago we had our old home movie reels transferred to VHS tape, and then later on to DVD. I was very surprised to discover that the full length production of the home movies from my childhood only amounted to about 20 minutes of footage total. That would be because, while we did have a camera, movie film was costly... and having the film developed was costlier still. Not only is the footage very brief, it is also very poor quality as a result of the film being left in the camera too long before developing.

(I know it makes me sound like an old woman to marvel at how far technology has come in my lifetime... but I can't help it. It's true.)

My parent's 50th anniversary is coming up in a few months, so I've been working on a PowerPoint presentation for the occasion. I was looking for some pictures of a particular period of time and couldn't find some that I thought we had. Then I remembered that it was actually footage on our old home movies. So I popped the DVD in the computer and attempted to capture some screen shots. That worked out okay except for the poor quality of the original, but there's not much I can do about that at this point.

The funny thing was, though, I found myself deleting the stills of me showing off. "Silly little girl!" I thought. "I'll teach her a lesson. If she's going to show off like that, she can't be in my PowerPoint!" And then I literally laughed out loud at myself. Not only was the "silly little girl" me... that was more than 40 years ago!

Yeah. Turns out I didn't grow up to be a movie star.

Vintage Valentines

 Vintage Valentines cards are so much fun. I think my favorites are from the mid-20th century. The artwork is so sweet, and the puns are so lame!

Here's a darling one I came across recently and "sent" to my husband, just because of the vintage car and trailer. I have no idea what the message means: "...I'd trailer all around." Is that supposed to be a pun for "trail her"? I dunno. But check out the license plate: "ME4U"! Too cute!

Here's another car-themed one that I saved. It's much more straight-forward in its message: "Let's go together!" Yes, let's!

Here's a patriotic Valentine... probably from World War II, wouldn't you think? I'm not sure. But look at the pun on "US"! With red, white, and blue stripes even. So creative!

The cards above are ones I have come across on the internet and saved just because I like them. I also have a few that were among my Grandmother's scrapbook and letters that my mother saved and has let me archive. Here's one from 1934 that she received as a teenager from one of her Sunday School pupils:

It's actually a pop-up card. The lower part folds down and the other pieces then separate for a three-dimensional affect. Pretty elaborate for a little Sunday School boy! Wonder if he had a crush on her?

This one is from probably the late '50s or early '60s when my grandparents had young children at home. It's personalized! Towards the bottom of the heart on the left is a little penciled notation "Daddy" with an arrow pointing to the boy, and just above the heart on the right is the corresponding notation "Mother" with the arrow pointing to the girl.

It looks like Granddaddy's handwriting to me (but I have to admit, it's kinda hard to tell, being so small and light)... so I wonder if he chose it from a box of Valentines that one of the children had to give their classmates, and labeled it to give to Grandmother? It seems like something he would do. They called each other "Daddy" and "Mother" for as long as I remember... and for much further back than that, I'm sure.

Happy Valentines Day!

The Antique Buggy

Imagine, if you will, a young mommy in the late 1960s out for a walk with her baby. In your mind, what does that baby stroller look like? Maybe bright and plasticky, with shiny chrome metal bars and such? Yeah, me, too. (Go ahead. Google "baby stroller 1960s" and you'll see what I mean.)

Whatever you had pictured, it was probably not this, huh?

 Believe it or not, that picture was taken in 1966... and the dimpled little charmer? Yep, that's me!

You see, by nature and of necessity, my mother has always been quite frugal. When she needed a stroller for her firstborn baby, she and Dad went to the auction house to look for a bargain.

Alas, there were no strollers to be found. The only thing available was an antique wicker baby buggy circa 1925. Since it was forty years old and so shabby, they were able to get it for $10. Mother declared she liked it better than a stroller anyway, so they brought it home... and plopped me in it for many a happy walk.

I think I remember Mother telling how she used it to cart her wash from their apartment to the laundry room on the premises. She would set me in the back, and put the basket of clothes in the front.

 It was a very generous buggy. Plenty of room for two happy tots. In the picture above, aunt Rachel and I are considering how I should scoot over and make room for her.

See there? This arrangement works out nicely!

 Here I'm sharing with my twin cousins. The girl twin gets to ride in the buggy with me, while the boy twin demonstrates his strong muscles by "pushing" us. I wonder how far he managed to get us on the grassy surface. Looks like some wise adult had probably lifted the buggy over off the sidewalk to slow his progress. Runaway babies would not be good.

 And then, a year or so later, we had twins of our own! Girl twins. So Mommy pushed the baby sisters in the buggy while I pulled a wagon for the puppy to ride in. I wonder how far we got with that set-up? Looks to me like that puppy required a good deal of cuddling and not so much riding in the wagon.

 Not quite two years after that we got a baby brother, and he had his turn in the buggy. Some teens from our church came by to help with the little ones, and took us all for a walk. I remember we girls had strict instructions to hold on to the buggy and not let go.

Regrettably, I couldn't find a picture of my youngest brother in the buggy... because yes, the following year, there was still another baby. Probably we didn't have a camera, or maybe couldn't afford film for the camera, during his buggy-riding days.

After that, the buggy went into storage for many years.

And then, in the 1990s, my mother got it out again. By then it was too wobbly and delicate to be used in any practical way, but it made a perfect photo prop for those grandbabies!

My firstborn baby...

...and then my second one...

...followed by nine cousins over the next few years.

Mother finally relinquished the buggy to my care not too long ago. I am very happy to have it in my living room. We've had a "family" of porcelain dolls cuddled together in it for awhile. I think I'd like to put something different in it now. I'm not sure what, but I'll think of something.

So, for this week's Vintage Thingy Thursday, that's the story of the second half of the life of my antique wicker baby buggy. I'd be very curious to know the stories it could tell of the first half of its life, wouldn't you?

Christmas with the Bearsaltandpeppers

Bernadine and Beauregard Bearsaltandpepper here, but you may call us Bernadine and Beauregard Bearsaltandpepper.

You probably haven't met us before, but you may know our more famous cousins, Brunhilda and Borris Bearsaltandpepper. They even have their own blog. While we love reading about their antics, we don't have any such ambitions. However, when Miss Karla asked us to do a guest post showing some of her Christmas decorations, we couldn't say no. After all, it gave us a chance to venture out of the downstairs "north woods" bathroom where we live-- which badly needs to be dusted, by the way-- and see all the pretties in the upstairs living room. And goodness knows, she hasn't been doing a very good job of blogging this month!

 Our first stop was at the Christmas barnyard on top of the "school shelf." The barn and trees are ceramic, but most of the animals are from Becky's Schleich collection. We are kinda out of proportion to the other animals, but that's okay, because they aren't exactly in proportion to each other either. I mean, those chickens are practically as tall as the calves.

 Next, we popped over to visit the Sarah, Plain and Tall village on top of the piano. This special set was a gift from Miss Karla's friend, Kay Conner, who has been in heaven for several years. We are even taller than the buildings there.

Here we are, swapping howdy-dos with the Precious Moments people. Miss Karla has had the shepherd boy with his lambs, and the little Santa pets on the bench for many years. The little girl reading to her dolly and the little boy warming his backside by the wood stove are "new" to her this year. Can you believe she found them at a garage sale this summer for just $1 each? The lady was selling them real cheap because they had broken off their bases. That didn't bother Miss Karla any. She just glued 'em back together. She's frugal like that. Plus she's always loved Precious Moments figurines.

 Our favorite stop was getting to worship Baby Jesus in the stable. This is Becky's toy "Timothy" set. Of course, we know that there weren't any Bearsaltandpeppers in Bethelehem. At least, the Bible doesn't mention it if there were. But since this is the Reason for the Season, we wanted to worship, too.

 Just for fun, we stopped by Santa's workshop, which he set up on the edge of one of the bookshelves. The Victorian hardbacks in the background don't exactly fit in with the North Pole theme going on, but whatever.

 Time for a quick cuddle on the couch with Miss Karla's Christmas throw pillow. Her kids gave it to her for Christmas a few years ago because the cute little pets look an awful lot like Cookie and Tabitha, the real-live animals who live with us.

 Our next visit was with the Freaky Dolls on the mantle. They were given to the girls several years ago by their great-great-aunt (originally belonging to the great-aunt we used to live with-- but that's a story for another time). The girls like the dolls and enjoy putting them on display each Christmas, but they call them the Freaky Dolls because they move. You see, they are mechanical and their arms move in and out... and when visitors first notice them they usually say, "Oh, that's freaky!"

Time for a cuppa Christmas cocoa! Miss Karla got this beautiful Christmas cup-and-saucer from Miss Farrah at the tea-themed gift exchange during the Christmas Baking Day a couple weeks ago.

The Cook family received this pretty basket with a trio of holiday cocoa from some other friends. The basket was so pretty that Miss Karla has made the family wait until Christmas Eve to enjoy the special cocoa. That's today... so it's time!

And speaking of time, now that we've had our adventure, it's time for us to scuttle back down to the bathroom to "settle our brains for a long winter's nap!" Maybe we'll see you again sometime.

"Happy Christmas to all! And to all a good-night!"

The Eldorado Courier

My grandparents and their children moved away from Eldorado, Oklahoma in 1958. Many of our relatives still lived there, so my grandparents had a subscription to The Eldorado Courier (pronounced "Elda-ray-duh Coo-yer") to keep up with the happenings in their hometown. Sometimes Grandmother would include a clipping from the Courier in a letter to Mother when I was growing up.

When I walked into the Eldorado Historical Society Museum the other day, and saw the Courier masthead on the wall, I had my hopes up that I would be able to pore over the archives of the small town newspaper. I love family history and research.

One issue from 1929 was lying on the table. As you can imagine, the pages are very brittle and crumbly. I lifted the first page carefully and just peeked at the next page. I wondered where the other issues were. I hoped they were micro-filmed somewhere.

So I asked Mr. Goodin, the man who had opened the museum for us, if he knew where the archives were for the Courier. He knew exactly where they were. There was a door I hadn't noticed before just under the masthead (in the first picture). The archives are behind the door!

However, due to extreme brittleness of the paper, we wouldn't be able to take them out to look at them-- which is completely understandable. Mr. Goodin didn't know if they had ever been microfilmed or not. One of my cousins said he would try to contact the district library to find out, or to see about having it done.

I hope they are able to be preserved some way. After all, tidbits like this (from 1934) are just priceless...

...even if they did misspell Grandmother Ernesteen's name!

For more posts about vintage treasures visit Vintage Thingie Thursday at Colorado Lady.

The Home Demonstration Club Quilt

As far as I could tell, downtown Eldorado, Oklahoma only has two or three "inhabited" buildings. There is the community building, where we met for our family reunion Labor Day weekend... an apparently current insurance office... and across the street, the historical museum. All the other buildings are vacant.

For such a tiny, dying town, the museum is quite impressive and full of interesting artifacts from the pioneering days of the community. It is open by appointment only, but one of my cousins who lives there made arrangements for the man to open it for us the afternoon of the reunion.

The most exciting discovery (for me) was a quilt made by the Midway Community Home Demonstration Club back in 1934-1935. Each member embroidered her name on a block. It was folded on a quilt rack hanging on the wall. My grandparents lived in the Midway Community (out in the country) when they were teenagers. I remembered reading about the Home Demonstration Club meetings in Grandmother's diary which she kept in 1934 and 1935 as a senior in high school, so I was pretty sure she had worked on this very quilt.

The name showing on the display just happened to be "Liffa Shumaker"-- my great-grandmother.

 Pinned to the quilt, just below Mother Shumaker's block, was a list of the other names on it. "Ernesteen Shumaker" (Grandmother's maiden name) was on that list!

My cousin asked the man if we could possibly take the quilt down and unfold it, so we could see the other names. He kindly consented, and helped us with it.

 Mother recognized quite a few of the names on the quilt, as she was born about 5 or 6 years after this quilt was made, in the Midway Community, and lived there until she was 17.

And sure enough, there was Grandmother's square!

Another square of interest was Aunt Thelma's. She was Granddaddy's sister and also Grandmother's best friend when they were teenagers. She ended up marrying Grandmother's brother, so their children were double cousins with my mother and her siblings.

I love that it was a friendship quilt, so each person's square featured their name in their own handwriting.

I could have easily spent several days in this little building, poring over records and documents from earlier generations.

For more posts about vintage treasures visit Vintage Thingie Thursday at Colorado Lady.

Beautiful Hand-Stitching

 This past spring when my mother fell and broke her ankle so severely, I knew she would have a hard time "just sitting" for 2 months while it healed. She likes to be active and doing, and has never been one to sit idly.

Instead of sending her flowers I tried to think of a gift to help her wile away the long hours of being immobilized. She has always enjoyed embroidery, so I chose an embroidery kit for this set of pillowcases. I thought the lacy ferns and Queen Ann's Lace flowers were so pretty. Mother's favorite color is green. Not only that, the kit was on sale, which I knew would satisfy her frugal heart!

I selected the skeins of DMC floss the pattern called for, and took the kit along with me when I went to stay with her. The minute I presented it to her, she sent me off to hunt for an embroidery hoop in her sewing room. I never did find the one she described, but I found one that would work, so she got started on them right away.

Being such a detailed, intricate pattern, it turned out to be quite time-consuming. But that was okay, at first, because Mother didn't have much else to do besides just sit. She was still working on the second one when they came to see us earlier this month (though she had been back on her feet for a month or two by then).

She finished that second pillowcase while they were here, and then she presented the set to me! I hadn't meant for her to do that, but she said they went with my quilt so nicely that she wanted me to have them.

I have to admit, they really do. I think they are beautiful! She does such exquisite stitching.

Thank you, Mother, for re-gifting your gift back to me.

My Romantic Prairie Bedroom Makeover

This spring my homemaking focus has been on completing the bedroom makeover that has been in progress for several years. I finally have it put together the way I had envisioned it, thanks in large part to major contributions from my mother!

Three years ago I started planning how I would like my bedroom to look. The walls are knotty pine and I liked the pioneer cabin feel of that, so I decided not to change them. Saved a ton of work right there. Also, the carpet is in good shape, and fortunately for me, it's my favorite shade of sage green. So I decided on a rustic-but-romantic style in keeping with what was already there, and my own country-girl personality.

Not too long after that my mother asked if I'd like to have "Granddaddy and Grandmother's bedroom suit" which included a double bed frame, a pretty mirrored dresser, and a "chester drawers." Without even thinking about it, I immediately said, "Yes! Of course I would!" I wasn't sure it would even all fit in our bedroom, but the entire 25 years we'd been married I had never had "real" bedroom furniture. Sure, we had a bed frame to keep our mattress and box springs off the floor, but no headboard or footboard. And only odd tables or night stands to set things on. Clothes were stored in the closet in bins.

Anyway, Mother had inherited this beautiful set of furniture from her parents. She didn't really need it, and of my brothers and sisters one sister also didn't need it, and the others are too tall for the bed. They need king-size beds. Even at that, Lyle had to do some cutting and welding on the bed frame to make it long enough for our queen-size mattress.

We were able to pick up the furniture on our trip in March. When we got home and had time to get it set up, I was thrilled with how well it fit our room. The Irish Chain quilt my mother and I made fit the bed perfectly.

I had originally thought I would crochet a curtain... but it wasn't turning out like what I had in mind, so for now I decided to just go with sheers (and a mini-blind for privacy behind the sheers). I talked Lyle into putting up a bookshelf above the window for my collection of vintage novels, in lieu of a valance.

I added other little touches of personal and family treasures for accent pieces, including my vintage suitcase on my nightstand-- and a shabby little stepladder topped with an old packing crate that belonged to my other grandmother for a lamp stand.

So for now, our room is done. And it makes me happy. I smile every time I walk in there. I'm sure I'll make adjustments right along, as that's the nature of home decorating.

Oh, and one last thing! I wasn't sure what "style" to call this room-- as it's not quite "cottage style" yet not really "cabin style"-- but I came across a new magazine last week called Romantic Prairie Style. "That's it!" I thought as I thumbed through it. Would you believe most of the rooms featured in the magazine had knotty pine walls?

Too bad I don't have a better camera, or photographer--or both!--to do my beautiful room justice. (But you can click on the pictures to make them larger if you like.) And if you're not quite as enthralled with it as I am, that's okay. It's my bedroom and I love it! That's all that matters, really, isn't it?

Treasures in My Suitcase

I had hoped to have some nice pictures of my "Pioneer Cottage" bedroom makeover to show you by now... but the sun is still not cooperating. We've had some breaks in the clouds and some warmer temperatures, which is nice, but still no crystal clear days with bright sun. So my room pictures will have to wait.

However, the flash picture of my night-stand/suitcase turned out okay, so I thought I would show you those treasures for this week's Vintage Thingy Thursday post.

The suitcase is from my childhood... and it was vintage even then. My mother had a knack for finding really nice garage sale treasures, and she would save them for Christmas gifts. I think we were probably "poor," but we didn't know it. One year, she got this nice 3-piece set of Samsonite luggage and gave my sisters and me each one piece. I think she made us pajamas or something and "packed" inside them as part of the gift. I was about 9 or 10 that year. And those were our suitcases whenever we traveled.

I hadn't used suitcase in years, and somehow it ended up back in Mother's attic, but last month when we were in Arkansas I got it back. If you look close on the lower section right by the clasp you can see the red plastic label-maker tape with "Karla Denise" carefully spelled out on it. I don't remember why I didn't add my last name. Maybe I thought I shouldn't waste the tape since my last name would just change when I got married anyway!

The powder-blue gloves draped on top of the suitcase are from Mother's "going-away" outfit from her wedding. She wore a brown suit with a blue hat and gloves.

The vintage post cards pinned against the back wall are from a batch I found in the first house we bought about 20 years ago. They are from the early 1900s.

The stack of little books behind the lamp includes my diary from my teen years, my grandmother's diary from her teen years, and a little Gideon New Testament I received years ago when my children were little and we would go to MOPS once a month.

My sister-in-law made the "tussy-mussy" in the middle for me in the 1990s when Victorian decor was so popular. I stitched the "Count Your Blessings" sampler just about the time we got married in 1985.

In the front section is a vintage lamp I found at a garage sale a couple years ago, and some of the vintage hankies from my collection. Laying on top of the hankies is a mint tin with a Victorian picture on it that my mother brought me from England in 1995.

The little leather-bound dictionary is a family heirloom. It was presented to my great-grandfather by my great-grandmother in 1911 for his birthday before they were married. I absolutely love having it. I'll have to show it to you in more detail later.

The little black shoes are mine from when I was a toddler. Turns out my aunt Rachel coveted them at the time. She confesses that she actually still does. Sort of.

The glasses? Um. Yeah. They are for my vintage eyes. So they really have nothing to do with treasures, except that I do treasure my eyesight and the ability to read!

I hope to show you more of my "Pioneer Cottage" bedroom soon!

Spring Cleaning

All winter my office has been accumulating clutter. I've had other, more pressing projects that demanded my attention, so I've just had to ignore and work around the clutter. But I've also watched several episodes of Hoarders and Hoarding: Buried Alive this winter that have really inspired me to do some major decluttering. And so... this was the week to tackle my office.

I have to admit that it feels really good to get everything in order. Maybe when I'm finished I'll be brave enough to post a picture of my workspace. Having everything in it's place is it's own reward... but my heart gave a little skippity when I just now came across these 40-year-old pictures of the sweet little boy who grew up to become my husband!

I need to figure out the perfect place to put them where I can enjoy them every day. Not buried in the bottom of box!

I wonder what other treasures I might find?