Mom's Birthday

I've spent some time wondering what I might write about Mom this year. I feel I'm overlooking something that would be obvious had the world not gotten so weird of late, but there it is. Then I remembered a Facebook meme sent by my friend, Vivien. 

My reply was that either this was addressed to younger people or it was a British more than American thing. I could only identify a few things I remembered Mom as saying, and quite I few I couldn't even imagine her ever coming up with.  She may have said "Because I said so" or "Ask your Dad", I'm sure she said the thing about taking someone's eye out. 

Were you born in a barn?  This is a saying that circulated in the US not long before Mom died. She would have said "Shelley! Mind your manners. When ____ we do ____.

Move away from the TV, you'll get square eyes. She may have said I would hurt my eyes, but 'square eyes' wasn't mentioned. She often encouraged me to 'sit up straight'.

You wait until your Dad gets home. Mom was the primary disciplinarian in our house. She may have said something like Your father will not be impressed with this.

Who's SHE? the cat's mother? I think this is quite British. I gather - reading between the lines - that it's considered rude to refer to someone as 'she' if they are present. I am guessing they are supposed to always be referred to by name. No idea if this also applies to He. 

Do as I say not as I do. I think Mom may have said this a couple of times, but more along the lines of sheepishly acknowledging she didn't set a good example than to issue orders.

Eat your crusts, you'll get curly hair.  I'm not sure if this is a stick (that curly hair is bad) or a carrot (that curly hair is desirable). In any case, I've always liked bread crusts - in fact they are my favourite part - and I spent a good part of my childhood in hair curlers.

There is no such word as CAN'T  I don't believe she said this, but rather "You won't know unless you try."

Say 'Pardon', not 'What'  Pardon would have been considered an affectation where and when I grew up. She would have instructed me to say 'Excuse me? I didn't catch what you said'. I gather from various reading that here in Britain 'Pardon' is working class or perhaps regional (Bill's daughter Helen says it since marrying a man from Manchester). As I recall people here seem to say 'Sorry' for when they can't hear or when they bump into people. 'Excuse me' seems to be used when they want someone to most out of their way. We say that for the same purpose in the States, only followed by 'please'.

I've told you a thousand times   I'm sure Mom must have said this - doesn't every parent? - but I can't remember her saying it. She might ask me 'What have I said about...?'

What did your last slave die of? Mom didn't employ sarcasm, she was just straightforward. I do remember the first time she said 'Get it yourself'. I thought I'd die of shock, but at 12 years of age it was long overdue.

I want never gets  Not an American saying. However, I was definitely taught not to ask for things. I could say what I would like to have in a general way, or issue a wish list for Christmas or Birthdays, but not to whine and wheedle to my parents all the time - that was the surest way NOT to get something. And it was supremely bad manners to ask anyone else to give me anything; they had to offer first. When we were in funds I was allowed to chose one treat at the supermarket and I remember eating a basket of cherry tomatoes or a bag of cherries in the back seat on the way home. I expect I could have had candy, but I didn't like it nearly as much, which is very much down to the way they raised me. Being taught not to ask for things has sometimes proven to be a handicap. I have wondered, would  they would have trained a boy in the same way?

Back in my day... Mom's childhood was different - and in some ways far more privileged - than mine. Her father's family was well known and respected in southern Oklahoma. Her father was a road contractor and she and Grandmother travelled with him for at least the first five years of Mom's life - they lived in a tent until then. This sounds hard but they had servants AKA as 'coloured help'. I often heard about Gussie, who brought Mom a chocolate bar and a bottle of Coca Cola for her breakfast in bed. She said Gussie spoiled her. There were times when they were quite poor, but everyone was during the Depression. When Grandmother married a second time to an astute businessman Mom had quite a few luxuries again. But I always understood Mom made her own luxuries through her creative talents. I don't remember complaining about having it hard, because she was so clever about making things pretty or special in a way that other kids' Mom's didn't seem to know how to do. 

What's for dinner, mum? Shit with sugar on. Mom didn't swear beyond 'damn' or 'hell' and only then when really annoyed. She did sometimes fix S.O.S. which in military parlance was 'Shit On a Shingle' (meat in white sauce on bread). She never called it anything other than 'chipped beef on bread'.

No pudding unless you eat your dinner We rarely had pudding - dessert - and I don't expect there were many times I didn't eat my dinner; a lot of the time I asked for seconds. The only time we routinely had dessert was at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Sometimes she did make pudding (AKA custard in Britain) for a snack or a treat, but not as part of a meal.

If your mate asked you to jump off a cliff, would you? She may have said this, I don't recall. What I do remember was complaining about what other kids were allowed to do. Her reply was that I wasn't Jill or Sarah, I was Shelley J__ B___. I recall one time when she was trying to get me to conform to something she said, Why not be more like Joanne or Mary? My smart reply was because I was Shelley J__ B____... She laughed.

It'll all end in tears  She'll have said something to this effect, but not these words. 

It's like Blackpool bloody illuminations in here.  I'm sure I never heard of Blackpool until moving to Newcastle - and having been once I can report that there are a lot of neon lights there. I'm guessing this is a complaint about too many lights on in the house. I don't recall us being very conscientious about the electric bill in this way, though I expect we should have been. 

Mom wasn't at all like the person described in these sayings. She was tough as nails in a determined sort of way, but decidedly a Southern lady in all her endeavors. Her hardest battle was to try to make me into one. 

Grandmother's Birthday

It doesn't seem a year since I last 'celebrated' Grandmother's birthday. I guess that is a sure sign of my own increasing age.

Last week a cousin - a third cousin to be more precise - posted a video on Facebook. It was by a group called Anthem Lights and the song was 'In the Garden'. Though hymns aren't at all my thing, this took me back quite a few decades to my childhood and I was surprised at remembering all the words - to the first verse anyhow. 

I commented that it reminded me of evenings in Grandmother's kitchen. She would be puttering around making cherry pies or boiling minced beef (for her dogs) and all the while she'd be humming hymns. I particularly remember 'Rock of Ages'. 

To be honest, I always thought the words were a bit strange: wanting to hide inside a rock? And lots of stuff about blood. Never mind, she sounded content and so all was right with the world, for the moment. Until something happened like a dog peeing on the floor and then she'd screech and swear at it. That was a good time to quietly back out of the room. 

I grew up knowing that a very scary lady loved me an awful lot, but it didn't pay to push ones luck. Happy birthday, Grandmother!

Rita's Birthday

Today should have been my Aunt Rita's 75th birthday. As it was, she died in 2007, not long after her 63rd. I'm conscious that I have now outlived Rita as well as my Uncle Bernard (57) and my maternal grandfather (56). I hope to live a few more decades, but I'm beginning to feel I've about had my share of life. Many early deaths are tragic and unfair whereas mine probably couldn't be considered so. Of course I say that about my demise with the detachment of relative health.

Bill and I were noting recently how easily my hands and arms are marked with bleeding under the skin. Any little knock or scratch will do it: pushing my arm through a backpack strap or a light scrape with the corner of a cereal box and I look like a victim of domestic abuse. I don't know what this condition is called, no doubt something beginning with 'senile', but my mom also had it.

Rita in the 1970s.

I was telling Bill about Grandmother's crazy, stupid German Shepherd dog, Duke. He was neurotic and undisciplined, like all of Grandmother's dogs, but because of his size he presented a real hazard in a house with two frail old women. At the end he was also ugly and in pain from a tumour that had stretched his skin to hang off the side of his head; a nightmare for all of us. Worse, he would jump on the couch with Mom, barking in her face. Her best defence was to spray him with hair spray to make him go away. Her arms were constantly marked with bruises from these encounters. This was in the days before pet health care insurance and their vet didn't do house calls, although I think he must have eventually.

Rita is part of this story because she lived closest to Mom and was often called out to do battle. The vet finally provided tranquilizers that were supposed to help get Duke in the car to bring him in. Instead they made him angry and even more unpredictable. I think the vet must have come out to put the dog down. Of course Grandmother insisted Duke be buried in the back garden with a small concrete angel to mark his grave. 

I remember Rita as unflinchingly brave and practical, always available to step up and deal with problems. She was fiercely loyal to her family and we were blessed to have had her. I think of her every time I sit down to sew.

Grandmother's Birthday

I didn't forget, I just couldn't figure out where to squeeze it in and there were no new thoughts immediately springing to mind. So this post remembering Grandmother's (good heavens, 120th) birthday is late. 

The thing is, she is never very far from my mind. When catching up with comments with Jean from Delightful Repast, I was reminded of the time Grandmother made a cherry pie and offered me a piece. I wasn't a fan of the sweet / tart filling and said no, thank you, what a shame that I couldn't just eat the crust which was my favourite part. She said something like, Well then, honey, just you go ahead and eat as much of the crust as you like. I remember the guilty but delicious feeling of breaking off the buttery, crispy edges, decorated with the tines of a fork, all the way around the pie. It was heaven. I remember it as one her best proofs that she loved me. (She could be quite cranky and critical at other times, but she treated me better than most I must admit).

Grandmother and my cousin J.J. - who just turned 50!

Just this morning Bill and I were reminiscing about the various heating systems in the houses where we had lived. He grew up dressing in the mornings in front of the gas fire in his parents' bedroom while his dad went down and got the coal fire started in the kitchen.

My parents' house had an open gas fire in the bathroom - as did both my grandparents' houses - but the rest of the house was heated by two floor furnaces, one in the hall and the other in the dining room. Mom and I both had cross-hatch marks on most of our shoes from standing on the furnaces.

I lived in two houses with central heat, but never one with central air conditioning, unless you count the swamp cooler in Salt Lake City. Our house here is heated with hot water radiators. 

I remember the floor furnace in the centre of the open plan living / dining room at Grandma and Grandpa's house (I still have the key that Grandpa used to adjust the heat). But I cannot remember how either of Grandmother's houses, on 31st and 34th Street, were heated. I know that both had gas fires under a mantle in the living rooms but I can't recall ever standing on a furnace at either house. I'll have to ask my Uncle Pat if he remembers. 

I think of Grandmother when I do my family history, when I open my wardrobe and see her brooch, when I sit on her love seat or at her dining table, when I make cornbread dressing for Thanksgiving, when I debate with myself whether to hold my tongue or speak out, when I hear hymns she used to hum, when I think I'm tired from standing all day, when I bake pies, when I consider buying shape wear, when I remember collecting pop bottles to cash in at the convenience store across from her house, when I remember tap dance lessons with Uncle Bernard, when I feel rebellious at rules applied to old ladies, when I think about how to treat myself with respect in hopes it will encourage others to be respectful as well. 

Grandmother was definitely a role model for me in both bad (she was never very smart about money) and wonderful (she was never anyone but her own true self) ways. How can I not remember her for the rest of my life - hopefully until she'd be at least 150!?

Rita's Birthday

Today should have been my Aunt Rita's 73rd birthday. Hard to believe she's been gone 10 years next month. If I think of Grandma and Grandpa when I putter (American) / potter (British) around the house, I think of Rita and Mom when I sew. Mostly Mom when hand sewing, mostly Rita when I run the machine. I'm still using thread, buttons, fabrics that came to me from them.

About this time last year I found a 'sewing bee' run by a couple of ladies in Felling, only about 10 miles away, but across - actually, under - the River Tyne, so a bit of a nuisance - actually, £1.70 expense. I go a bit out of my way and loop through Newcastle for the return, crossing the river via the Tyne Bridge. Traffic is heavier that way, but I never fail to appreciate the wonder of this amazing bridge. 

The 'sewing bee' is just three hours of protected sewing time in the presence of some serious dressmaking expertise to bail me out when I get stuck. At £10 a session, I think it is a bargain. My initial visits were sheer hell, given that the other women (and, for a while, a man) seem to go there as much for a chat as to sew. 

I selected a shirt/tunic pattern that was by no means a beginner's pattern and the instructions seemed to be in Greek at first read. I had to work hard to shut out all the distractions and focus on what I was doing and I left the first sessions completely drained by the effort. I explained at the end of one session that I was quiet not because I wasn't interested in the conversation but because sewing was damned hard work for me and it required all my concentration not to make a hash of it. I was surprised to hear that some of them didn't even like sewing, just the outcome. I am pleased to say that I love the process as much as the product, maybe even more.

Of course patterns are made for women with B-cup sized boobs and mine are some double letter I can't even believe. I'm sure it's a made up system to keep me confused. So I had one of the ladies help me with fitting. She mutilated my pattern, cutting, taping and re-cutting until the darts were deep enough to fit my particular curves. Of course we had to take miles off the shoulders and arm lengths. Petite patterns are a rarity these days it seems.

I went to South Shields market one Saturday and bought 10 metres of plain white cotton (£2/metre) for making toiles (practice garments to work on fit). I think I made two or three practice bodices to check various things. I still need to copy the final pattern back onto paper. The white cotton can become a bag lining or something...




The shirt was a challenge. I remember thinking their method of doing the plackets on the sleeves was akin to origami and I spent one whole three-hour session sewing, unpicking and re-sewing - I lost count at 6 times - the collar. Then I had the idea of tacking it in place by hand and it went so much smoother I kicked myself for not having done that sooner. I bought some good quality (Gutterman) thread but only used buttons I already had in my stash. I wasn't bothered that they didn't match, in fact I kind of enjoyed that.




I hated the tunic when it was finished. I'm not happy in loose clothing with no waist. We did all sorts of darts to take in some of the bagginess, but it never looked right to me, a light weight white cotton tunic over thick black leggings. So we chopped it off into the shirt length. Only somewhere in there we didn't measure the front and the back, so the front ended up longer. I was sick of it, so put it aside. I learned a great deal from making it so I couldn't consider it a waste of time. I will go back and fix that, probably before next summer when I'll be wearing it again. 




I had bought some nice grey chambray from The Sewing Box in Morpeth, but I wasn't going to cut into that fabric until I was confident of the outcome. The next practice shirt was from some print fabric I loved. No idea where it came from. I'm sure it's polyester, which I would never buy these days, but I thought I would enjoy a shirt from this anyhow. The print makes me think of a party with streamers and confetti; Bill says it reminds him of something French in the 1950's. 

Clearly, I need a different set up for photos, one what doesn't include the shadows from the window frames. Sorry about that.

I used some clear buttons I had in my stash, including a couple of glass buttons on the middle of the sleeves where they could be rolled up and held with a tab. I had this feature on the white shirt, but later realised that a) I was never going to roll up the sleeves above my elbows and b) I hadn't made the plackets large enough to roll up that far anyhow. 




So I just removed the tab and button and the cotton fabric sleeves stay rolled just fine anyhow. The polyester sleeves needed that tab, which I now knew to place lower down. See? I learn a lot by doing. Except that I cut the opening before sewing on the placket, which is wrong, and not only that, I cut in the wrong place. However, the print being as it is, I just stitched up those cuts and carried on with the right method. I can't afford to be a perfectionist just yet.

Taking these photos I see that there are still a million little threads to be cut. Also that the front of the print blouse is also slightly longer, but I can live with this. I have worn both the white and the print shirts several times this summer, more as 'jackets' than an shirts, unbuttoned with white jeans and coloured tank tops (American) / vests (British). I don't like bare arms (unless it's really hot) any more than baggy clothes. I had a brief attempt at making a vest just before we went to France, but it didn't turn out well. The result was much tighter and low cut than I would care to wear in public. However, neckline aside, this may turn out OK after all. Vests are put off until next spring.

Since I've been losing weight slowly - about 10 pounds now since the first of the year - I'm sure I need another fitting session before I make the grey shirt. I was kind of tired of doing shirts for the moment. Winter is Coming (yes, I have read the Game of Thrones, but not seen any of the TV stuff since I don't do Sky and probably never will) which means I will live in long sleeved t-shirts and wool cardigans, probably with jeans and with something thermal underneath.

I have a knack for getting tiny stains on the front of my tees and whether bought new or thrifted I was loathe to toss a whole t-shirt just because of one speck of discolouration. I have plenty of renovation ideas, but needed to hone some skills. 

I attended a weekend workshop at The Centre Front a few months ago where we learned to copy garments without dismantling them. I managed to make a pattern for a t-shirt and a sweater-jacket. I made a toile for the t-shirt out of a couple of Bill's old technical race t-shirts and was amazed it fit just right. Not wanting to chop up my own tees just yet (exactly the right colours are hard to find), I thrifted 100% cotton t-shirts in mens' sizes L and XL for £1 each. I keep uncovering old (ie 1999) cotton race t-shirts in the attic and so have an ample supply of practice fabric. 

My first real t-shirt is made from (the reverse side) a L navy t-shirt and part of said 1999 Coastal Race tee in an almost white marled grey cotton. Sewing a contrasting neck band proved a major challenge, but I aim for a balance of my Mom's extreme patience and Rita's race-along 'it'll be fine' approach. I must admit I'm more on the painstaking side, but hope for more of Rita's confidence as I improve. 

Neither of them took quite the frugal approach I do, though Mom made many of my grade (American) / primary (British) school shift dresses from my aunts' hand-me-down circle skirts. Mind, dressmaking fabrics, patterns and notions weren't as expensive back then nor did the concept of 'disposable clothing' exist. I have my own ideas about natural (biodegradable) fabrics and about as-near-to-zero-waste as I can get. I think Mom would be proud of me, but Rita would think I was crackers. Rita didn't do frugal.

I've meant to learn dressmaking for absolutely ages and I'm really excited that this dream is finally unfolding. Rita loved clothes and sewing for all the years I knew her and I know she would be pleased that the dressmaking bug has at last bitten me. 

Rita's Birthday

Still in Germany just now, but today is my Aunt Rita's birthday. With such  limited internet - this is my first session in over a week - I've caught up on magazine reading, list making and scribbling down ideas. I almost feel as though the creative blood is trying to flow back into a deadened limb, having bee cut off by Ancestry addiction!

So it has been good having this break from the screen.

Hard to believe Rita's been gone 9 years already. She would have been 72 today. I know she'd tell me that though family is important, so is sewing! So I'm determined to get back to it more regularly...and I'll be thinking of Rita when I do!

She doesn't have her own listing in the index, but her other posts can be found under Remembering or Mom's family.

Mom's Birthday

As I've mentioned, I've been immersed in family history and it does funny things to my head. On one hand I feel very fortunate to have made it to the ripe age of 60; then again I'm thinking we should plan our funerals!

One gets a strange view of people's lives from the skeleton created by records. Some folks marry and stick; other have scrappy lives passed from household to household as children. Some have long obituaries full of prestige, others seemingly evaporate into thin air.

Today is Mom's birthday. I woke up yesterday thinking about what a person would derive from her records:

• 1918: born in Lehigh, Coal County, Oklahoma. The doctor who completed her birth certificate was pretty much illiterate. Who spells 'Abigail' as Abbiegail? No wonder she denied having a middle name all her life.
• 1920: I've never found her in the 1920 census. She said she lived in a tent until she was 5 years old, since her father was a road contractor. Perhaps the census never found them.
• 1930: She and her brother live with their maternal grandmother, in West Monroe, Louisiana. Grandmother says she's 'widowed' but this isn't true, they've just parted company'. I've never found my Mom's parents in the 1930 census either. Guess they were still out on the road...
• 1933: She lives in Shreveport, Louisiana. She's in the Latin club at Byrd High School.
• 1935: Graduated high school.
• 1937: Mom's married to her first husband, Bill Linxwiler. He's a clerk at Magnolia Packaging Co in Shreveport.
• 1938: Still married, but now he is a salesman.
• 1939: Mom has her maiden name again, she lives with her brother and her mother. Grandmother has a beauty shop in Shreveport and Mom is listed as the manager. I think grandmother and my grandfather are now divorced.
• 1940: Mom and grandmother live in Miami, FL. Grandmother is married to her second husband and I'm guessing he was stationed at a Navy base near there. Mom is working as a cashier in a beauty shop, but it doesn't say grandmother is running a beauty shop, so it might be someone else's.
• 1942: Mom lives with her mother and step-father in New Orleans, Louisiana. 
• 1944: Mom and Daddy marry in Ft. Smith, Arkansas. She lives in Muskogee and works at a photography lab, processing negatives into printed photos. He is sent to Italy a week after they marry. The marriage license says she lived in New Orleans, and I'm guessing Grandmother still lived there.
• 1947: She and Daddy have gone to live in Madison, WI, near his parents.
• 1951: They move to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, to be near Grandmother. It's cold up north! They have a little house built in a new housing estate called The Village.
• 1956: I come along.
• She lives in the same house until her death in 1990.

Mom seems to have done all her travel in the early decades of her live and then been stationary for the remainder. I lived every minute of my life in OKC for decades and have hardly stopped travelling in the latter half of my life.

Cemetery Day

Across from Sharkey's Bar was the Catholic church (the only kind I was interested in this trip) named St Mary's Star of the Sea. Lovely name, eh? I was told it had been built in the early 1900s and that the older church was at Kincasslagh.

St. Mary's Star

So one day that is where we headed. We found a small graveyard with some conveniently placed boards on the front listing who all was buried there. Actually, it probably only listed those whose burials were in the records and/or had a marker. Funny how we take things at face value and don't question the details. There was no one on the board with the name I wanted. A nice lady there asked who I was looking for, then explained that this was the new Kincasslagh cemetery and directed us to the older cemetery at Kincasslagh, on the other side of the old church up the road.

'New' Kincasslagh cemetery

While we were there, Bill said he saw a truck driving across the wide sands that connected the sides of the bay. 

'Old' Kincasslagh cemetery

Later, I saw someone walking across. I discovered that the vast stretch of sand that separated land from sea was called a 'strand' (not a term commonly used in land-locked Oklahoma). I remembered the stories that long ago people used to walk across the River Tyne at low tide, between North Shields and Sound Shields, near where we live in England. I found plenty of names on stones and on the board for this cemetery. There were also a number of stubs or wooden crosses which couldn't be read. 




There were loads of people around doing various things related or not to the cemetery. A couple of men came up and asked whose graves we were seeking. One man, named Logue, recounted the Ballymanus mine incident  - about which I'll write later - and said he'd attended the recent memorial service. 



Another man, Gillespie, seemed to think we were 'chasing straws' - true enough - but then he thought the census began only in 1901, which is wrong. 




He talked a bit about Rannyhual as having originally been communal cattle grazing in the hills outside Annagry. Some of his family were from Rannyhual as were some of the people whose names interested me. He said it was where people moved for cheap housing after all the seaside land was taken. 





He also told us there was yet an older cemetery on Cruit (pronounced something like critch or crutch) Island, so we went there, driving over a small bridge beside which children and dogs were playing in the beautiful blue-green water. The cemetery there was called St. Bridget's (Cill Bhride). 

St. Bridget's cemetery on Cruit Island

Bill pointed out the large bare area at the front of the cemetery, with no markers in sight. We guessed that this area may have been where the famine victims were buried. If you can't afford to buy food, it seems unlikely you can afford an engraved stone marker. The board listed a few burials as old as 1830 so the time frame seemed right for this cemetery. 




After examining the board by the gate we walked over the field towards the sea. 






It looked like green grass, but it was spongy, like moss and wonderful underfoot. 






There had been a runner on the worn paths earlier and I envied him his route. We were passed by a man driving a car with a trailer that Bill thought looked full of sand, probably not a legal enterprise.

Errigal Mountain in the background!

One thing I noticed in several of the cemeteries was mention of family members in Australia, America or Scotland. In fact a number of head stones were placed by people from those places.



And then, since we were passing anyhow, we went ahead and visited St. Mary's Star of the Sea cemetery to collect names there. The graves were all so close together, it was hard to navigate. I have a feeling they'll be needing yet another cemetery soon!

Grandmother's Birthday

I confess that I'm cheating here: creating a post and back-dating it. I've not posted here mainly because we were full of Thanksgiving preparations, hosting 30 people. It all went well - as it should do after nearly 20 years' experience - but there is always some hiccup or other. This year the pumpkin pies tasted good, but weren't very pretty. Never mind. Preparations also included a lot of sewing for the house, which I'll share another time. There is still a lot of sewing and crafting going on here for Christmas! 

My final excuse is that I'm full of cold. At least four people who came to Thanksgiving mentioned they had colds so I have no one in particular to blame. It's that time of year anyhow. We normally come down with something in January; maybe I'm ahead of the game and will stay well in January...fingers crossed.

Anyhow, Grandmother's birthday was a few days ago and she would have been...116! I'm thinking it's a sign of my own age when I can make ridiculous statements like that! I think one of the reasons why I love the interwar years is that they would have been the heyday of my grandparents, and to some extent of my parents, though they were born at the end of WWI in 1918. This Grandmother would have been 16 when WWI began (though the US didn't join in until three years later). She was 41 when the second world war started (though the US didn't join that one until two years later). 

I like to read both fiction and non-fiction relevant to the first half of the 20th Century and often calculate how old my parents and grandparents will have been, wondering how they perceived the events of their time. I think it helps my brain absorb the historical information I'm reading; and to enjoy the background information about the setting of novels.

I like my posts to have photos and I've used most of the ones I have of Grandmother, so I'll show you a brooch I have that belonged to her. I've no idea how old it is, but I'm guessing it dates to at least the 1940s. That is when she had the most money to spend and I certainly remember seeing it as part of her things from my earliest memories. There was a matching set of clip earrings, but over the years one has gone missing. 



I always think of it as green, but it's really more beige and brown, isn't it? Then again, carnival glass flashes is all sorts of colours. I once looked up those dull cream coloured stones to learn the name, but I've forgotten what I found...must do that again sometime, not in the middle of the Christmas season!

Can't say I wear this much: it's rather large for me, not in my best colours and I worry about losing it. Still, I take a lot of pleasure in seeing it each time I happen across it in my jewelry collection. 

Happy Birthday, Grandmother.

1927

The Poncan Theatre was built in 1927. 





My uncle Pat took us on a tour. We’d been before, but only when he was doing a play there. He was pretty excited about the place then, so you can imagine how nice it was to be the Director, and he could give us the whole tour. We also learned about the ins and outs of running an operation like this. There are a lot of different groups to keep happy: board members, sponsors, volunteers, not to mention actors, directors and I don’t know who all. Sounds like it requires far more patience than I'm likely to ever have. 

It's at its romantic best at night,but then it's tough to get good photos.

Also, a building this old needs constant attention. The interior is something Italianate and seems like a theatre prop itself, never mind what’s on stage. 

It sounds like a juggling act to me, but he seems really happy with it all. Short of perhaps becoming a world famous, rich movie or stage star, I’m thinking this is perhaps his dream job.

I was in heaven poring over celebrity photos of the 1920s and 30s. 

Helen Ferguson; never heard of her, but she was a beauty - and check out her stationery!

Pat pointed out a number of the wonderful old movie posters, unusual in that they are double printed to look better in the lit boxes. 

I so loved Loretta Young when I was a child!

There are hundreds of such posters – mostly more modern ones – up in the attic. No one seems to know what to do with them.

Another amazing feature was what Pat called the ‘Black Stairs’. I expected to see stairs painted black, but instead it was a perfectly ordinary staircase rising from a separate front entrance door, now used by the radio studio that rents an upper floor. 

This photo of Ginger Rogers sure makes me think of |Meg Ryan (with different hair, of course).

He showed us the special closet used for a ticket office and the twelve seats in the balcony allocated for persons of colour. The twelve seats were the same as all the others, just that section at the back on the left side was the allocated space.  

1932: Edmund Lowe

Bill was aghast that they would go to the expense of building a separate entrance and stair well for the purpose segregation, and for no more profit than one could make from twelve tickets. 

A 1931 comedy...

Clearly the principle was larger than the profit motive. It’s completely crazy, but that was how things were back then. I can't eve begin to imagine what life in in that time with that frame of mind would have been like.

Another 1931 film: pre-code, as in before censorship!

We also got to see the attics and the storage cupboards, full of old costumes and props, posters and popcorn boxes, old films and projectors, amazing stuff. Pat needs a load more volunteers ready to do odd jobs if he’s ever going to shift some of these things, so it’s likely to all be there when we next visit. I saw some amazing purses that had been donated…. And a great view of the stained glass window from the inside. So that's the part I remember from my photos. 

This is more of the official version:

The Poncan Theatre had to make the transition between live performance and the ‘new talking pictures’. Built by the Boller Bros of Kansas City who were known through out the mid and south west for their theatre design and this Spanish Colonial Revival was their specialty.  Several of their theatres, including the Poncan, are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The interior similates a ‘romantic outdoor Mediterranean courtyard’. Theatres such as this were very popular in their day because they helped audiences escape their everyday life and took them to exotic places.

One more poster; you know this lady, Gloria Stuart, even though you may not recognise her. 

Costing $280,000 to build, the theatre initially had special lighting effects and equipment used for vaudeville, singing, opera, drama and dancing in addition to silent movies. There was also a $22,500 Wurlitzer organ, two concert pianos and an orchestra.

The manager was Fred Pickrel, formerly of the Pathe Exchange in OKC. Because of his former position he was able to bring to Ponca City, a town of only 16,000 people,  the latest newsreels direct from New York, Chicago and the west coast, delivered twice weekly via airmail.

In 1929, because of the popularity of ‘talkies’ the theatre was wired for sound. The Great Depression hurt the ticket sales of theatres across the nation, but in the 1930s the Poncan featured Bank Night.  In addition to the film viewing, tickets included movie goers in a lottery. As you had to be present to win, the pool sometimes reached over $600 and not only did if fill theatre seats, sometimes the crowd had to stand outside to listen for the winning ticket.

Gloria Stuart played Kate Winslett's older self in Titanic!

Television again challenged ticket sales in the 1950s and the Poncan was remodeled, enlarging the marquee, replacing seats and updating the curtain. Musical instruments were sold. Still, it carries the grand atmosphere of the interwar years and continues to delights audiences with its dream inspiring decor.

Do you have any amazing historic buildings in your area?