Getting ready for the move

 We are moving to a retirement community, and frankly my dear, I'm pooped.  And so is my husband. On Friday we had a quick trip by ambulance to the ER because he was wrestling a painting off the wall which got tangled in the wire and he became short of breath.  He has 4 stents so rather than self diagnose, I called the squad. I had been at the bank depositing cash I'd found around the house (over $3,000) and had gone downstairs to enter the deposit.  Then I noticed he was on the floor "resting his eyes." We were discussing the seriousness of his symptoms and just decided to call rather than be sorry.  So our daughter, son-in-law and I spent the day in the ER admittance with him, and got home about 4 p.m. Today he feels fine and went to church, but I'm still a bit frazzled so I stayed home.

We had 34 paintings on the first floor and 260 total.  That's a lot of wrapping after deciding the locations for safe keeping (our apartment, our daughter's home, or put up for sale). We have not found 3 floor living a problem until this move prep.  We were always careful and limited our ups and downs to about 3 or 4 trips during the day. But the move has put that at more than 30 trips a day. This is definitely not good for either of us.  Today I was moving our emergency food to the kitchen to be disposed of.  I'd carry up a can of tuna, a can of soup, and a can of vegetables.  Then I'd sit down and do something else, or talk to a neighbor.  Then I'd make another trip. I've been emptying them and running the disposal before getting rid of the cans in the recycle bin.

Our wonderful neighbor Barbie brought us dinner last night--a scrumptious Salmon salad and wedding soup with warm bread.  The salads are so large we'll have two meals from that, and we had the soup for lunch after church. She may even help us with some things to take to Indianapolis because she goes there every week to babysit her grandbabies! I've got some genealogy to share with our niece who has shown some interest in that area.  For years people--Aunt Roberta, Aunt Babe, Cousin Jim--have been sending me stuff, now it's time to pass it along.

Today some of our neighbors have been coming by to see if they want to purchase the paintings we don't have plans to use.  My parents 1947 maple twin bed suite with a chest and a dressing table with all the bedding have been given to friends of ours who have lots of grandchildren who come to visit. They were so kind and helpful when Phil died 5 years ago, we know it is going to a loving family. That set started out in Forreston, IL, then moved to Mt. Morris, IL, then to Franklin Grove, IL, then to Columbus, OH, then to Lakeside, OH, then back to Columbus.  A well-travelled bedroom suite. They were also able to use the quilt rack that held Phil's quilt for 5 years that cousin Jeanette made for him shone in the lower photo on the futon.  

kitchen  

Office/den 

A big move to a smaller space

 We are downsizing for a move. I expected a lot of dust, mustiness, foxing, mystery computer and TV cords and clothes that will never fit again, but was unprepared for grief, sadness, and bewilderment on what to do with "treasures" no one wants, or things we want but can't store. How can 2 people have 70 photo albums.

Baby new year 2019—Monday Memories

My mother kept a "commonplace book," in which she pasted poems, cartoons, articles from magazines, and things she'd hand copied or typed from books. I see familiar names--McCall's, Chicago Daily News, Farm and Ranch, Christian Herald, and Rockford Morning Star. As a child I would sit and look through it often--a small, 3-ring black leather notebook. I particularly enjoyed the poem, "For a female cat named Horace," because it reminded me of my friend's cat "Butch" who populated Forreston, IL with kitties and the one about how to make a recipe taste like mother's--walk 5 miles before dinner. She may have been saving clippings in a box for years, but the first item was the baby New Year 1946 with a broom greeting old man 1945 giving him a terrible mess. So here it is again, Mom, for 2018-2019. The world is still a mess and we need you.

I wrote about her commonplacebook in January  2010, and noted:

“Her final hand written entry (in the scanned copy) is undated; but it was near the end of her life--perhaps the end of 1999. She died in January 2000. There is no attribution other than her name.

If
Each day we fill a page
The year a volume makes
These last ten books are very full
of joys
changes
sorrow
growth.
Gently place this year on the shelf--
if there is room.
Close the decade.

Eight little Indians series by Platt and Munk

Generally, I would never deface a book, but I have 8 of the American Indian books by Platt and Munk published in the 1930s. I loved them as a child (also published in one volume) and purchased them as used books about 20 years ago. I'd like to mat and frame them--just a touch of rubber cement on mat board to hold them in place. They are not rare or valuable. Beautiful illustrations by Roger Vernam. 

 

I think for the most part they are very authentic and wouldn't cause hysteria in today's PC atmosphere. Vernam was a wonderful illustrator. He was the subject of my blog 10 years ago. http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2007/05/roger-vernam-illustrator-some-of-my.html

 

Each book is 12 pages,  both color and b & w, ends with a poem on back.

 

Monday Memories--Mom's crystal goblets

We've been moving and shifting furniture for about a week, redistributing books to various resale locations, removing our huge cabinet for the TV, hanging different paintings, digging things out of cupboards, and washing what has been stored for years. None of this would have been possible without our son-in-law who not only has a dollie, but knows how to move furniture. The huge TV entertainment unit which had 6 pieces was the biggest challenge--two parts are in the garage awaiting a new home, and four have been rearranged for our living room. Yesterday I was explaining various pieces of glassware and china to my daughter, and which belonged to whom, me, my mother, grandmother, or great grandmother, my in-laws, or what country the memorabilia from our travels came from and what I found at garage sales 45 years ago.

 

 All I had was family lore for my mother's crystal water goblets. I knew my father bought the dozen for her at an estate sale during the Depression. Not sure she was thrilled since they had one baby and one on the way, but the goblets always had a place of honor in their home, and were rarely used. Now they are mine, and rarely used. My daughter sat down at the computer and in a few minutes had identified them as Cambridge Caprice clear, 1936-1958. Cambridge is in Ohio so I've been browsing the museum website and looked at the latest newsletter. Churches and community organizations would die for this sort of support. Hull Pottery which was also produced in Ohio and closed its doors years ago (I have a number of pieces) also has a very strong association with conventions and media. http://www.cambridgeglass.org/articles/ecb/ecb201611.pdf

 

Thursday Thirteen—what I uncovered in my office

Today we’re having new carpet installed in my home office and the stairs to the upper level and the lower level and the upstairs hall (same pattern).  But everything had to be moved out of the office (not things on the wall shelves).  To move the desk, everything had to be taken out of the drawers and I found a rolling 25 gallon tub for that. To move a 3 shelf unit for photo albums, all had to be moved.  The computer, modem, wifi, phone, etc. had to relocated temporarily. It’s just amazing what turns up in a move—even a move from the office to the dining room.

1.  A birthday letter to me from my mother from 1996.  She died in 2000, and I didn’t pack away that letter, but wasn’t real sure where it was.   Like having her here to tell me about the day of my birth and why my nickname was “Peachy.” 

2.  Lots of homemade cards from my friend Lynne.  We’ve been friends since high school.  I have a scrap book for her cards and poetry, but somehow a little sack of them stayed behind in my desk.

3.  A box of note cards with a Frank Lloyd Wright design, plus lots of miscellaneous cards, many as mementoes from museums and travels, from the days when I did less e-mail and more personal notes.

4.  A little stamp with my name on it from when I was a Slavic language cataloger at the University of Illinois library. I think the main entry card was stamped with the cataloger’s name in case there was a problem.

5.  A set of weights my daughter gave me for Christmas 2 years ago, 3 lb.., 5 lb., 8 lb.  Almost like new.  They were hard to move.

6.  The first issue of George magazine.  I collect first issues of serials, and this one didn’t get into the storage box when I rearranged my collection 2 years ago.

7.  Scissors for crafts.  Zig zag, shaped patterns, etc.  I’m not crafty, so not sure why I bought them. It was probably either a good deal or I had a flash of ambition that dissipated before I got home.

8.  Pennies, twisty ties,paper clips, mystery keys to suitcases I no longer have and rubber bands too brittle to use.

9.  A letter with the last 41 cent postage stamp on it (I’d made a note on the envelope).

10. A photo of my sister and me from 2002 printed from my computer, but I don’t seem to have either a digital copy or print of it.

11. Lots of carefully saved instructions, guarantees, warranties, for digital stuff I almost never use or have replaced.

12. A very nice, never used color coded notebook with 3 x 5 cards. 

13. A faded poem on yellow lined paper from my husband written in 1960 on the anniversary of our first date.  It was probably in the desk because I repacked that box of memorabilia when we moved here, and so it surfaced 11 years later.

If you’d like to play Thursday Thirteen, or read along, you can join in.

Family Friday Photo—Third Cousins once removed

About a decade ago Jeanie decided to research her roots, and discovered the George family of Pennsylvania from which I am also descended.  Her great-great grandfather Cornelius and my great grandfather David were brothers and both settled in Illinois.  Their sister Mary Anne lived in Iowa in the mid-19th century,  and in the 1990s her granddaughter wrote a huge family genealogy.  Jeanie’s family wasn’t in it, we think because her grandmother married outside the culture, and we knew nothing about her branch of the family tree.  But we’re all connected now, in part because of the internet which makes things much easier.  I had some family memorabilia from Cornelius’ family (the woven blanket, pottery from the 1840s, 1850s) and a pastry wheel from the early 19th c.  that was made for Mary Knopp George, a Danner descendent, the brothers’ mother.  So I gave them to Jeanie and she has two small museums in mind for them. We had such a delightful day together looking over old photos and comparing notes.  She’s a much more determined genealogist than I am and actually goes to historical sites, cemeteries, and court houses—and to distant cousins several states removed.

Kurt Cobain lunchbox

It's in the 90s today, but I decided to bike up to the train station (Lakeside, OH) for the Archives sale. On my way there I looked at the last hill and decided it was too hot, so I turned around, and as I did, I saw the sign that said it was at South Auditorium rather than the Train Station, so I was already there. Nothing much to interest me, but maybe the good stuff was gone. I thought everything was over priced, using the Volunteers of America store as my guide. I did see a Kurt Cobain lunchbox ($3.00)that really puzzled me. I tried to imagine who in the 1990s would have bought a kid a lunchbox like that. When I got home I googled it (mainly to see what the going rate was). It wasn't issued until 2006 or 2007 when his widow, Courtney Love, sold the rights to some songs and his image. Probably only women bought such an item, and showed it off at work once or twice then put it away.

So I read through his biography. What a sad, sad, empty life. Proof, if you needed it, that money can't make a person happy who's taken a bad situation and made it worse with drugs.

On e-bay someone wanted $50.00 for a Kurt Cobain lunchbox. Good luck--it's going for $3 in Lakeside, and even then, had no takers.

A new blog coming on?

Sometimes it's like an itch you can't scratch, but I've been thinking about a new blog--would be my 13th I think. However, I have several I've not been keeping up, like my hobby bloggy on first issue magazines (I must have hundreds), what's on my bookshelves, coffee shop conversations (some are too wild to repeat), and the class reunion (it was 2 years ago).

The other day I scanned something for the class reunion blog. It was an award I'd earned in 8th grade for reading and was given at graduation. I had no memory of this or the books we read, and no one has responded to my questions. Surely I wasn't the only kid who got one of these? Total silence. But while I was rummaging around in the basement storage area, I again pulled out grandma Mary's box of clippings, papers and scrapbooks. And I could feel it coming on. . . a web log devoted to paper memorabilia.


Also just this morning I found a really nice blogger dot com template web site. I haven't looked at all the possibilities yet, but lots of variety and good design.

Maybe I could do it just for a month the way I did Memory Patterns in November 2005.

Friday Family Photo

It's a dictionary! Merriam-Webster's New International Dictionary, Second Edition, unabridged (1948) Here's the story of Merriam-Webster. My recollection is that this was a gift from my maternal grandmother Mary to our family for Christmas 1949, with a set of encyclopedias the next Christmas, although it's possible they were together, perhaps a 2-fer special. It remained in my parents' home for over 50 years, and was often used because my father was a cross-word fan, and they both would turn to the dictionary to answer questions just like we might use google today. Dad died in 2002, and I was probably the only one who requested this--at least I don't remember anyone else asking for it. It is sitting in my dining room on my mother's sewing cabinet, which she probably gave me sometime in the 1970s. Behind the sewing cabinet are the sliding glass doors for my early 1960s Paul McCobb china hutch which I don't use anymore, but didn't know where to put them. Ordinarily you don't see them, but they show up gray in the photo.

The last time I used this dictionary was this morning about 5:30 a.m. Here is the sentence that stumped me: "Psychopannychia emerges as relevatory of the young Calvin's thought." I had never seen "relevatory" before. Neither had Mr. Webster. And if it isn't in Webster's 2nd, I don't need to know!

The puzzling media frenzy

The hype about Ms. Smith's death has really puzzled me. She had a talent only for getting herself in the news, even at the end, so I suppose that's something. I'm guessing that a few more potential dads will step forward for the riches of her daughter, but then DNA will show she wasn't the biological mother, so the brainless, aimless coverage will heat up even more. Still, it seems unfortunate to be a blonde celebrity, or at least one who posed for Playboy. Jayne Mansfield. Marilyn Monroe. Anna Nicole. All dead before 40. And the earlier blondes didn't fare all that well, either. Jean Harlow dead at 26. Betty Grable, bless her beautiful legs, did make it to 56.

These paper dolls I think may have belonged originally to my sister Carol, who passed them down to me when she moved on to movie magazines and photos. Also, they are pretty beat up--there's ancient scotch tape holding some of the limbs together. I've also got Mary Martin and Marguerite O'Brien, but as collections go, it's pretty sad.

Betty Grable, paper dolls, celebrity, Anna Nicole Smith

Friday Family Photo

Yesterday I decided to banish some old, old warrantees and sales slips (there's not much else to do when the weather is this cold.) They really didn't need to be in the kitchen (prime real estate), but I had the cutest little red notebook that stored them. Most instructions for modern appliances, even a watch or a TV remote are so large and printed in multiple languages they won't fit in that little notebook. But it was fun looking through it. For instance, I found the warranty for "Counselor," my bathroom scale that weighs 3 lbs light. It is now almost 47 years old and I remember the couple who gave it to us--who were from Indianapolis, but it was made in Rockford, just up the road from where we were married. It even shows who printed the form.

I also found my Lifetime guarantee for my Community Silverplate, 52 pc. set, Coronation pattern, which the Bruce aunties and uncles gave us as a wedding gift. Aunt Marg, who never had children, made sure that her nieces and nephews always knew their roots, despite the many divorces in the family. The booklet that came with it reprinted endearing remarks from long-married couples probably from the 1940s and 1950s--none as long as us today however. So I e-mailed the company and let them know that although they no longer make my pattern, it still works great for family dinners. Who knows? I might appear in an advertisement some day! Only one piece is damaged--in 1986 we had a break-in and the burglar bent a fork to see if it was sterling (but he did steal my ugly high school class ring and some other gold jewelry).


Update: If you click on the label below "family photo A" you will find other photos of us. A means our little family of 4, B is for the larger Bruce family, and C is for all my relatives. I haven't gone back and relabeled every thing yet, but it really works well.

Monday Memories

Backed up by my family

Today I'm going to identify what's in this photograph--a lot of family history. Certainly, I'm in it, dressed for my painting workshop in my black cat apron that my sister gave me for Christmas about 8 years ago.


On the bottom two shelves is my premiere issue collection of magazines. About two years ago I put them into subject groups--women's, men's, sports, technology, science, etc., but they are all messed up again. My blog about this hobby, In the Beginning, is only occasionally updated. It feels too much like work, I suspect. The red and green box on the right of the bottom shelf contains a rug hooker [Griffin Rug Machine] with the printed instructions which was my great-grandmother's. I think it would have been high tech for its day since most people probably crocheted scrap rugs in the 1880s. The green is actually tape to keep the red box together. On the left below the corner of the red bag I'm holding is a narrow wooden box of children's blocks, with a woodburn design crafted by my Uncle Leslie when he was a little boy.

On the second shelf are two etched glass jelly jars with glass lids that belonged to my grandmother, and the jug behind them stored some kind of liquid on her parents' farm. It probably came from Adams County, Pennsylvania which is where they grew up. In front of the jug being used as a book end, is an old black iron--probably weighs about 10 lbs and is made of iron, with a removable wooden handle. It was heated on the cook stove and used to press clothes. It was also high tech for its era, because it caused much less damage to the hand of the presser than the "old fashioned" irons made completely of metal.

On the third shelf is a small music box my mother gave me perhaps in the late 1980s. Behind me (you can't see it) is a iron shoe form for a child's shoe--apparently my great grandfather used it either to make shoes for his children or repair them. There is also his rolled up tape measure--he was a carpenter in Rockford when he first came to Illinois in the 1850s and used his wages to buy acreage near Ashton. And there is a metal dough punch with four blades he made for his wife.

On the fourth shelf over my left shoulder is a photo of my parents taken in 1991 about a decade before they died. I think this was for the church directory--there must be millions of photographs like this spread around the homes of America. Over my right shoulder is a thread spool holder with a pin cushion on top, also made by my great grandfather for his wife. It's pretty handy, and I assume some of the thread is over 100 years old. Next to it is a brass trivet I found in 1968 buried in the dirt at our house where our children grew up. I cleaned it up and have used it for a variety of tasks--now it just holds a book. I think it is brass.

And of course, behind me are lots of old books from four generations. They look like they have fancy bindings, but books of my grandparents' era had a lot of chemicals in the paper, and disintegrate easily. Like me, they bought for value, not for quality. I think it is funny that I saved a book from my childhood called "Bruce" about a collie, never imagining someday it would be my name.

The shiney white, blue and green box on the far left of the 5th shelf contained a card catalog of my grandparents' library, assembled by several members of the family when they were closing up their home after their deaths in the 1960s. This list of books, found by me in the late 1980s, launched several publishing projects, including a spin off into agricultural magazines used by farm families in the early 20th century and women who wrote for Ohio farm magazines in the 19th century.

You can barely see the top shelf, but that holds children's books, some old, some from my childhood--mostly horse stores--and some I purchased because I liked the illustrations (from the days when I wanted to write a children's book).

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My visitors and those I'll visit this week are: Anna, Becki, Chelle, Chelle Y., Cozy Reader, Debbie, Friday's Child, Gracey, Irish Church Lady, Janene, Janene in Ohio, Jen, Katia, Lady Bug, Lazy Daisy, Ma, Mrs. Lifecruiser, Melli, Michelle, Paul, Susan, Viamarie,