HAPPY ANNIVERSARY MOM AND DAD

MEMORIES

A friend once told me that after her Mother passed away, she and her sisters were going through her cedar chest. Wrapped in blue tissue paper and tied with a ribbon was a bent table knife. None of the daughters knew the story of the knife or why it was so special. She determined that she would not make the same mistake and that her children would know the history of items that were special to her.

We have many things that are special. Family heirlooms, personal trinkets that I hope our children will think are special enough to save and pass to their children. My goal is to catalog them with their history over the next year or two.

As my mother and mother-in-law age I hope we have the presence of mind to know what they would want us to save and treasure and what to turn loose.

Susanna Holstein had a beautiful post in January on http://grannysu.blogspot.com/ I reprint it with her permission.

Granny's Front Porch

By Susanna Holstein

Memories for Sale

It was an estate sale, with boxes of old dishes, fabric scraps, and Christmas decorations piled on tables. Most items had no price tags.


I found a pretty dish, covered with years of dust, and a small ironstone platter - a plain beauty. Well-used and sturdy, it was the kind of dish you might use for everyday. Two women approached the table, apparently noticed that there were several people gathered there inspecting the merchandise.


"Can you tell me the prices on these?" I asked. One woman turned to the other.


"Sis, what do you think? Is that dish old? We can't tell," she said apologetically. Some of it was Mom's and Grandma's and is all mixed in. That platter, now that was Grandma's. Remember, Sis, she'd cook sausage and put it on that platter and just set it on the woodstove. I'd be there until noon dinner for anyone who wanted it. No one worried whether it was safe to eat." Her eyes clouded. "We can't keep it all. It's just the two of us, and we don't have room for it.


She looked helplessly at the piles around her. "Dad brought that little bowl to Mom from Germany, after World War II. I'd keep it for my kids, but they aren't interested in old stuff like that.


Yesterday morning I cooked sausage patties and placed them carefully on the little platter on my stove. The crystal dish is on my counter, filled with green grapes. The sisters sold the dishes to me, letting go of the memories they held. The platter and bowl, with their stories of a country woman cooking for her family and a war bride welcoming home the soldier who came bearing pretty gifts, came to live with me.


And so storytelling goes. This tale now passes from me to you. Perhaps there is something in it that will inspire you to tell it to someone else. Or perhaps you will find an old dish in your cupboard and remember the story of how it came to be there. Pass it on. It will be worth telling.


Thank you "Granny Sue" for allowing me to reprint this post.

NORTH IS UP

DH doesn't complain about much but the fact that my explanations of directions baffles him is an ongoing problem. I grew up in a farm house that faced direct West. Our farm was Up the road. That was self explanatory. To arrive there you would exit our driveway- go Down (west) the hill and turn right/north. Hence, Up was North and Down was West or South- depending. I don't believe in my entire 20 years before I married did I ever use the term "Turn Right" or Turn Left". More extraordinare was the fact that nobody I knew ever used "right" or "left" either. Not just my family, I mean the whole town.

This wasn't a problem in our early years because we didn't have money to go anywhere but when we started traveling one of us had to make some adjustments. He would drive and I would navigate. In my defense, I'm a very good navigator. Once I know which way is North I rarely get turned around. But the "turn up" meaning turn right, and the "turn down" meaning turn left became a problem. We decided that I must get with the program so now when giving driving directions I try really hard to remember "turn left at the second stop sign" and, well you get the picture. Occasionally when I lapse and throw in a left when I mean right he will say "Do you mean the other left".

Image by Google

THANK YOU

Thank you

Red Poppy by Google Images

FUN MONDAY-- CAREER'S PAST AND ?

Fun topic--What did we want to be when we grew up and if we could be trained and placed in any career tomorrow, what would it be.

From the age of 6-11 all I wanted to be was a Movie Star. Forget that I had No Talent, and lent a whole new meaning to the word Average Looking--- I wanted to be:

First----Jane Russell--O.K., O.K., even I knew I was reaching a bit high for that one.

And Second-- Betty Hutton-- If a circus had come to town when The Greatest Show On Earth was playing I would have been history----

Now lets get real-- I didn't realize what I would have been good at until I was about 40, so college would have been wasted. I probably would have got a degree in teaching and hated it. It was then I realized I could have made a good book editor. English was not my strong suit but I could have studied harder. People have also told me I would have made a good writer but talent helps in that department and I don't think I have what it takes. As it was I worked small part-time jobs after all of our children were in school and I was the Berry Fairy for 20 years-- don't ask, you really don't want to know and I haven't thought about it for 8 years. I also worked in a large independent book store for about 10 years and loved it.
My job for the last 8 years has been trying to make retirement as much fun as possible, take care of hubby, love our children and adore our grandchildren.
For more Fun Monday go to:
http://irishcoffeehouse.blogspot.com/

FUN MONDAY-- FAVORITE BIRTHDAY

Hands down my best birthday was the day I turned 50. Our first grandchild was
born on my birthday.

FUN MONDAY- FISHING STORIES

My Dad and his family are legendary fisherman. This picture was taken in 1934 with a "small"

catch. I'm sure they were caught either on the Provo River or at Strawberry(My cute Aunt called me yesterday and told me she's pretty sure this photo was taken on a trip to Yellowstone in the mid 30's, Thanks Antie, love you). As a small child

the only place I remember fishing was Strawberry, a large lake in the Wasatch Mountains. In the summer it is hot and there are "No" trees in my child mind closer than a mile to the water.

Most extended family reunions are still held there. I don't go. But I love this picture and

I love the taste of mountain trout. My Mom would bottle fish in a pressure cooker and the bones would dissolve and they tasted like salmon. My Dad and Uncle Shirl loved to ice fish right up until the week he passed away.

For more fishing stories go to:http://urolive.blogspot.com/

VINTAGE THINGIES THURSDAY- 100 + YEAR OLD DITCH

Monday was our 3rd annual Family History Trip. All of our family and some cousins walked into the Springs and had a snack and talked about the history of the ditch. All the grandchildren got small booklets with pictures of their ancestors ending with their picture and a history and photo's of the falls and ditch. Thanks to Scott, my cousin, who is the Ditchmaster for spending a good part of a Saturday earlier in the month so we could have this fun day.

My Great-Great Grandfather and his three brothers all homesteaded in the same area in the valley where we have lived for 6 generations. They decided to grow fruit along with running a logging mill at the canyons entrance. With help from some men from town that owed them for lumber they staked claims to 3 water sources in the canyon and formed The Smith Ditch Company. Over a period of 3 years with picks, shovels and a homemade level made of string and a bottle, they dug a ditch from the Upper Falls to the Lower Falls to the Springs and approximately 3 miles around the mountain to service several farms along the east bench of the valley. Over that 3 miles the ditch drops approximately 30 feet and runs entirely on gravity. Most of it is now piped but a short distance still flows above ground.

Both waterfall sources are up in these cliffs. Yes, I did go to the base of both of them. O.K. I rode on Scott's fourwheeler to the base of the second one but then took the "non-path" to the base of the upper fall.

Non-path between falls. Shortly after Scott told me he had forgot to bring his pistol, he told me he had seen bear scat on the "path" a couple of weeks ago. Last year there was bear in his peach orchard. Bears have only been seen in the area in the past 15 years.

Scott cleaning out the screen at the bottom of Upper Falls

View from bottom of Upper Falls into the canyon below


Lower Falls



Beginning of the "Spring"

40 feet from the beginning

100 feet from beginning

Is this what you call "A Hot Dog".

Scott's and his puppies

For more Vintage Thingies Thursday stories go to: http://anapronaday.blogspot.com/

FUN MONDAY --- Clothes that must be kept

I have kept several pieces of vintage clothing that I can't part with and did throw away several more that I wish I had kept. This is a photo of hubby in his college cheerleading sweater and me in my pep club sweater and poodle skirt(except it had a fuzzy cat instead of a dog). The full net slip isn't my original but one I found in an antique store in San Diego. And Yes, this picture was taken 100 years ago.

My Wedding dress is also downstairs in a box. When I was working after high school the really nice dress shop down the block from my office always had a "Wedding Dress of the Month." This was February's dress and I fell in love with it. I wasn't even dating anyone at the time. I put it on lay-a-way and paid small amounts on it for a long time. Two years later I wore it when I married in the month of February.

To see more great "can't throw away clothes" go to
http://hulagirlatheart.blogspot.com/

PHOTO HUNT SATURDAY WATER

Our Lake

Water running in the 3 mile long irrigation ditch that my Great-great grandfather and his brothers dug over 110 years ago. It is still in use for several farms and properties.

To join Saturday Photo Hunt go to: http://www.tnchick.com/

FUN MONDAY

I missed last week so I hope to get up to speed this Monday. Our assignment this week is to tell about a happy childhood memory.
I grew up on a farm and had dogs, horses and hills and fields to play in. Our house always welcomed our friends and my mother was always cooking for more than our family. My grandparents were close and I had lots of aunts and uncles and cousins. Many of the things we did as kids in the early 50's would be so dangerous in this day and age, but at that time were just things everyone did. I had good friends and for the most part good experiences.
We had a huge cottonwood tree that we called "The Big Tree" and we built a haphazard tree house in it and would sit by the hour and talk and make plans. We would have neighborhood summer slumber parties and all sleep on our front lawn or our neighbors lawn (boys and girls) and the worst thing that took place was the boys would sneak off and try to scare the girls with scarry sounds. We had a canal that we would ride tubes down. Forget the fact that I didn't learn to swim until I was pregnant with my second child. I had a couple of girl friends that also had horses and we rode by the hour on the hills behind my house. We came home when we were hungry. We had a huge grain field in front of my house and we would pull up clumps of tall grain and stomp down huge "houses" that we would play in. There is a subdivision with huge houses and a large church house on the property now. The "Big Tree" has been gone for a while and the canal was piped about 10 years ago. Growing up in the 50's was really as idyllic for me as most T.V. shows say it was.

To Join FUN MONDAY go to :molly's blog

SHOW AND TELL FRIDAY

The subject this week is "Childhood Keepsake". The picture frame below was made by my Dad when he was in New Guinea serving during WW II. Fortunately I had the presence of mind to ask him about it's history before he passed away. He and his best friend made identical ones to bring home. In the 80's when DH and I started collecting antiques we discovered that this type of item is called "trench art". Anything made of war materials during war time, more or less qualifys.

The base is made of New Guinea Mahogony which is extremely hard. The shells are 50 caliber machine gun shells. They form the sides that hold the picture frame. The back of the frame is pounded copper salvaged from a set of copper covered stairs dockside that were being replaced. The front covering over the picture isn't glass but very heavy plastic that was salvaged from the windshield of a plane that went down in the lagoon off shore. There is an Australian coin embedded in the base. The part holding the picture is curved. This is the picture of me that my Dad had in it when he came home.

To join Show and Tell Friday visit http://kellishouse.blogspot.com./

SATURDAY PHOTO HUNT

http://www.tnchick.com/ is sponsoring a photo hunt each Saturday and today is a photo of ourself or part of us'n. This is my hand over a plaster cast of my Dad's hand that sits on a table in my bedroom.





PhotoHunt

SHOW AND TELL FRIDAY

Thanks to Kelli for hosting Show and Tell Friday. To learn how you can join go to:

http://kellishouse.blogspot.com/

Man, I'm just going to get this one in under the wire. Totally spaced it plus main computer tanked tonight. DH finally got it up and running. I'm in big trouble in cyberland without him.

I'm going to show not only a great item but a great gift. Yep, that's right. A friend in our neighborhood called me about 6 years ago and said " I have this beautiful pedal organ and I've decided I'm not going to use it, but I want it to have a good home. You can have it if you want it." You have never seen me move so fast. Grabbed some cute neighbor boys that could lift and
we moved it from her basement to my living room. I love it.

The little blue china dishes on the top are identical to a smaller set my grandparents split between myself and a cousin when we were very little. I only have about 4 pieces of the original set and a couple of them have been broken and badly repaired. I looked for about 15 years for a complete set that I could afford and finally found them in a great little shop in Livermore, California. The red floral tea cup and saucer belonged to a Grandmother.

The little Roseville flower pot had been my Grandmothers but what I didn't know until reading my Mom and Dad's WWII letters last year was that my Mom had given it to her for Mother's Day in 1943. The dark blue teacup, saucer and dinner plate belonged to a Great-Grandmother. The little heart is a gift from Grandchildren.

Handpainted picture was done by my Mother and the handpainted tea pot and little dish under the creamer was painted and given to me by our oldest daughter for Christmas one year. She had taken china painting lessons from her Grandmother. The little "turning purple" creamer also belonged to a Great-great grandmother.

The green carnival glass? also belonged to a Great-grandmother.

MY DAD

This is my Dad.

The best dad anyone could ever have. I am the oldest of 5 children and the only girl and he always introduced me as "his baby girl". I was born while he was in the South Pacific serving in WW II in June of 1943. He didn't see me until I was 18 months old. My mother tells me the night he came home he watched me sleep most of the night with a flashlight in his hand. As I got older I realized it was important so I always told him I loved him, either in person or during a phone call. I often called to say "thanks Dad for my hair" because I inherited his natural curl. His Navy service was a large part of his life. Some of his best friends were other men he met in the service. He attended reunions until they ended several years ago.

I hope I always let him know how much I loved and appreciated him but the one thing I never did was thank him for fighting for his country. Several times I tried but couldn't get past the emotion of it. I need to tell him now. Thank you Dad for fighting in WW II and especially for being a wonderful example of "The Greatest Generation". I Love You.

MOTHER'S DAY OVER 80 YEARS

These are Mother's Day cards from my Grandmother's scrapbook, my Mother's scrapbook and my scrapbook. They start in the 1930's and go through 2006

My maternal Grandmother raised 6 children alone in the 30's & 40's.

She had a hard life and yet was one of the most gentle, loving, sweet ladies I've ever known.

My Mom at 20 and I'm 3 months old

Looks like this one got in the gravy

I'm 6 months pregnant with our first child, a beautiful daughter 1965

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL

but especially my

Mother and Mother-in-law &

my Daughters & Daughters-in-laws