Happy New Year!

A friend posted this on Facebook.  I love the quote:

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."  Eleanor Roosevelt

Grandmother's Birthday

I was browsing my Ancestry.com family tree, trying to think of something new to write about Grandmother.  I saw my note that her marriage to my grandfather was nullified in 1943, a few years after she married her second (or possibly third) husband.  There's no doubt Grandmother was a complicated person who lived an 'interesting' life.

A few years ago I asked the Coal Country Genealogical Society for a number of marriage records, including one that showed her marrying someone I never heard of before I found it and noted the name Sartor.  They gave me the record and I was about to dismiss it as a coincidence involving someone else with Grandmother's name, when Bill pointed out that the name of one of the witnesses was my grandfather.  That's too big a coincidence in a small town in Oklahoma.  What on earth was she playing at, I wonder?  It does seem that it might have been some weird game or something.  Apparently that marriage was annulled - she wouldn't have been of legal age yet. A couple of years later she married my grandfather, Bernard.

I've not found the divorce record for them - he's pretty elusive in most public records - but she married her last husband, Larry, in Tennessee in 1939; her previous marriage was made null in 1943.  This would have been about the time she wanted to adopt children from Catholic Charities, which she did:  four children in fact.  The strange thing, well, one of them, is that both husbands Bernard and Larry were raised as Catholics and I'm pretty sure Grandmother was raised as a Baptist.  I never saw her attend either church, but her favourite TV preachers and her own - very strong - views were definitely along the Southern Baptist lines. And yet she married two Catholic men.  I know from experience this is marrying into a different culture.

The other thing I noticed on her overview was that she lived in a lot of places:  

Booneville, Arkansas (AR)

Coal Hill, AR

Comanche, Oklahoma (OK)

Lehigh, OK

Oklahoma City, OK

Shreveport, Louisiana (LA)

New Orleans, LA

Mabank, Texas (TX)

Ft. Worth, TX

Miami, Florida (FL)

Ft. Lauderdale, FL

She definitely got around. Happy Birthday, Grandmother!

Cornbread Dressing - Part of My Heritage!

This is for Julia, my lovely neighbour who actually reads this blog - I'm so honoured!  We had our Thanksgiving party last night and it all seemed to go reasonably well.  Twenty-one of us devoured the usual food and drink and there is the usual enormous amount of leftovers to go into the freezer.  As I sit nursing my second coffee, Bill is in the kitchen working his way through the stacks of dirty dishes.  I'm leaving him to it, bless him, and Sarah is helping him out. 

Thanks to cousin Sandra for sharing this on Facebook!

Jules said she'd dreamed of my dressing since last year and wanted the recipe.  This is the dressing I grew up eating at Grandmother's house and then at Mom's.  I was sure I'd published it somewhere on this blog, but apparently not.  So here it is:

First you make corn bread.  This is from my first ever cookbook (Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book, published 1976), a wedding present from my Grandmother:

Perfect Corn Bread
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/4 cup shortening

Sift flour with sugar, baking powder, and salt; stir in cornmeal.  Add eggs, milk, and shortening. Beat with rotary or electric beater till just smooth (Do not overbeat).  Pour into greased 9x9x2-inch pan. Bake at 425 degrees F (220 C) for 20-25 minutes.

Some small adjustments:
When it lives here in Britain, cornmeal is called polenta.  I buy it in bulk at the Asian shop in Brighton Grove, Newcastle; you could just come over and 'borrow' some of mine.

I have substituted a heaping tablespoon of soya flour and a tablespoon of water for the eggs, as suggested in The Tightwad Gazette - it works!

You can use oil instead, it's easier; or, melt the shortening in the microwave before adding, another thing that makes it easier.

I don't bother dirtying a mixer - I just stir it with a fork, which is do-able if you use oil or melted shortening.  I've poured this into cake pans, the recommended square pan, into muffin tins or whatever loaf pan was handy.  As long as it isn't too deep it cooks just fine.  Even over cooked a bit it's still tasty.  I recommend eating hot with butter on it.  But this is for the dressing...

This is where it's a bit hap-hazard, as I have always made dressing in quantities of 20+ cups. The ingredients are:

Cornbread
Stale bread 
Onion
Celery
Butter
Oil
Chicken stock cubes
Hot water
Salt, Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary (I don't like sage, but if you do, you can add it as well).

You'll need to buy some cheap bread (I like whole meal) and pull it apart into bite-sized pieces. Most recipes seem to call for 'stale' bread, but I can't tell much difference.  Crumble the cornbread into similar sized or smaller pieces.  

Dice equal amounts of onion and celery and cook in some oil with butter added (butter burns easily so keep an eye on it).

Boil the kettle and make a cup or two of chicken stock and add a slice of butter.

In a large bowl, add equal amounts of the bread pieces, the cornbread, and the sauted fried vegetables. Gradually add the buttery chicken stock, mashing and mixing with a fork until the bread and cornbread are blended and mushed. You want it moist but not sloppy wet.  I tend to shake out each of the herbs into my palm - maybe a tablespoon of each? - at this point and add.  Salt to taste.  Mix it all up again.

My equal amounts are two-cup measures and then I start again adding more in these proportions until the bowl is full. I transfer this to an oven-proof dish and bake for about 20-30 minutes at about 180 C. It doesn't need cooking - all the ingredients are already cooked, but I like a crunchy top on my dressing.  It's a lot of work for one dish, but I think it's worth the effort once a year.

Health warning:  By my rough estimates using www.nutritiondata.com, a half-cup serving of this dressing might have as many as 500 calories!

Dye Project

One of the most intriguing projects we've done at the craft group is to work with Procion dyes.  Our first assignment was to gather natural fibres and stitch them together.  Many of the ladies just used strips and made fancy stitches between the them.  I say 'just'; some of the outcomes were spectacular. I don't have photos, but just imagine really vibrant layers of colour, shading from green for the ground into a multi-coloured flaming-sunset sky.  

One lady made a lovely lacy piece which she added to her current art project, a winding 'road' as part of a fairly-land scene.  Silly of me not to have taken photos...

I can however show you mine and Lucy's.  This is Lucy's:  

She put her collection of laces and fabrics into rows and squares that made me think of an allotment garden (where one grows fruit & veg), but of course you can see it is a lovely flower garden! She spent a lot more time than I did doing interesting embroidery on it, before and after the dyeing.

This is how her dye-job came out:

We both found the whole process quite addictive. 

Please pardon some of my blurry photos -
I'm still learning how to use my Samsung camera.

For example, adding bits onto the background is really fun; it's almost hard to stop!  

If you like hand-sewing, this is really fun and relaxing. Coming up with ideas about what else to add and where feels like a creative adventure. Many of the crafting ladies are members of the local embroiderer's guild, but they still use fancy machine stitches as well as handwork.

Then comes the dyeing part, which was a complete unknown for us.  We both erred in that we used water to dilute soak the fabrics in order to help the dye spread more easily. This made the dye more pastel than vibrant and we were both a bit disappointed by that.  

The water changes the chemistry of the dye...we should have soaked them in one or other of the two mixes that are used to make up the dye, the details of which I didn't catch.  

I have put a Procion dye starter kit onto my Christmas wish list, so I hope to learn more about it. You can do 'bucket dyeing' with this just like Dylon. I've no idea about the difference between the two products, except that with Procion you can mix up your own colours.  

Lucy lined her cloth with simple pockets and covered a wide elastic band with matching fabric to make a roll up bag.

This is my 'natural' colours project as it began.  I quite liked mine in its natural state before we did the dyeing.

I took an old linen napkin and stitched bits of cotton, burlap, broderie anglaise, lace, silk, velvet and various ribbons to it. 

We were given only basic primary colours to work with and had to figure out how to mix to get other shades.  I found purple amazingly difficult to nail down! The real adventure of the dyeing part is that different fabrics take up the dyes differently. Velvet soaks it up and concentrates the colour beautifully. Silk doesn't seem to need as much dye, but it travels along the fibres for quite a long time, revealing a lot about the weave that you might never otherwise see.  The most vivid colours on my project are the velvet patches.

Part of the £3 fee we pay each week goes to rent for the room, but a large part is to buy craft supplies and bring in the occasional instructor.  

People often have large stashes of useful material which they bring in a share.  

I had no idea what to do with this square bit of linen when it was done and I prefer to have useful outcomes rather than another thing I don't know what to do with.  

Others crafted theirs into pictures, a wide belt, book covers and zippered bags.  

Initially I backed the napkin with the stiff canvas you use to make latch-hook rugs (or proddy mats as they do here in the NorthEast of England).  



That may or may not have worked otherwise, but once it all got wet with the dyes and it all went through the laundry, it went completely shapeless. Bill came to the rescue, cutting me a piece of board to fit and I stitched my linen napkin with pockets (which limited what else I could do with it) and pieces of lace and you can see what it is used for. This is maybe 1% of my jewellery stash, thanks to my Aunt Rita. 

I didn't have a plan and in hindsight I might have used fewer pockets, put it on the board later and done more fancy embroidery post-dye. I did do a little bit of very rough gold thread stitching here and there but figured the 'bling' would be from the jewellery itself.

I got a lot of compliments on this from the crafting ladies...then again, it's one of the few projects I've actually finished. I definitely would do another project along these lines!  

Alive and Well, Busy!

Cousin Sandra got in touch via Facebook to ask if we were OK, it having been a couple of weeks since my last post. Given that I did the Halloween post in advance, it has been even longer since I actually wrote a post. It's easy to lose your confidence once the habit of posting is dropped. What have I been doing instead?

Trying to get the running habit again. I try to get out four days a week:  a long run, a track session and a couple of short runs. I'm taking baby steps with this as it is easy do too much and get discouraged. So far, so good.

Crafting - The Thursday night craft group does a wide variety of things, but often the projects can't be completed in a couple of hours. Even when several sessions are devoted to a project, there is sometimes preparation or finishing off work in between. Two of my favourite things from recent sessions are a pumpkin pin cushion and a jewellery holder. More about that last item later.

The large one at the front is mine!

Knitting - I've moved on from knitting little hats for bottles. I know it sounds mental, but it's part of an advertising campaign and the company that sells smoothies gives 25p to Age UK for every hatted bottle sold. I made forty of the things when we were in France this summer. 

I'm now knitting sweaters for children at a hospital in Nigeria, with a knitting group that meets at Age UK. I think it worries Bill that I associate with so many older ladies; but they teach me cool things and they make me laugh. The local Rotary club collects donated yarn and we knit or crochet the stuff into sweaters, hats, blankets, socks and sometimes toys. This has been a great way to improve my skills. I'm now doing the much easier Continental style of knitting and getting better at correcting mistakes. 

A dead simple pattern, kindly shared by Vivien.

I'm not very fast, but it doesn't really matter;  and knitting a sweater that will be matched to a child that it fits is so much easier than knitting one for a certain person.

Dressmaking - Lucy and I have taken on a dressmaking course that meets once a week. I've been making a shirt with princess seams from a Butterick pattern (5526). 

Pattern selection inspired by Goodbye Valentino.

I've started with  a trial garment first, which is probably just as well, as I've made tons of stupid mistakes. Can't say I've learned a great deal I didn't already mostly know, but I desperately need to practice!  The class forces me to make time for sewing as well as provides some protected time within the class. It is a long time dream to develop my sewing skills, something I can imagine regretting on my death bed if I didn't ever give it a go. Sounds a bit weird perhaps but given the excellent sewing my Mom and my Aunt Rita did, I feel that I'm supposed to try to do this. I'm not sure if I'm going to like the shirt when it's done, but I'll show it to you all the same.

Thanksgiving - We are having 20 people so far (might be as many as 32, RSVPs not due for a few days) for our Thanksgiving party on the 30th. We've been doing some extra cleaning in preparation for this. I've got to get my sewing room sorted back into a guest room in case one of Bill's kids wants to stay over. Sarah and/or Simon generally do this when they come.

More Sewing and Crafting - As usual I've managed to leave my gift-making til late and am frantically working on two main projects to give as gifts. Can't say more about those just now of course but one of them involved working out my own pattern and did my head in, but I found a solution that I can live with. Luckily I have plenty of practice fabric - old sheets and curtain linings - and lots of ideas for using discarded scraps. My gifts for folks in the US are actually ready to go to the post office. It's so early for me to have them ready I can almost worry there is something wrong!

Our WI craft group is going well and though it only meets once a month, the few of us who run the thing still have to make sure there is a presenter ready to lead a project each time. We made felted ornaments last time and will be tackling origami Christmas cards next time.  

Champagne Sub-Group - This is just a small group of friends who all happen to be in the WI. When Vivien kept winning the raffles that included bottles of champagne she insisted that we get together and enjoy them together. Jules dubbed us the Champagne Sub-group. We get together a few times a year for days out, evenings in, visiting other WI groups and just generally having a laugh (with or without champagne). It's lovely to finally have re-built my social life.  We're going to Blyth this Friday to check out a couple of sewing and consignment shops as well as charity shops and probably have lunch somewhere.

I do plan to keep blogging, I just need to figure out where to fit that in...

Happy Halloween

This photo is from 1990, the year my Mom died. My first Halloween without her to help with costumes. Lucky for me, my Aunt Rita was also a great sewist and she loved kids, particularly adorable 4-year-old ones. 

He doesn't have a pumpkin on his head - it's on the fish tank behind him...

She and her husband, Jack, had attended a Halloween costume party the year before, dressed as leopards. I have to smile at what sort of 'discussion' it must have took to get Jack to do that. He never really had a chance, though, Rita just didn't do 'no'. She loaned us those costumes and let me tell  you I looked great with a black nose and whiskers (and piles of eye make-up). I know I have photos somewhere, but they were pre-digital and while I may have scanned them, I haven't got all my photos scanned / organised. I'm getting there.

Rita pointed out that baby leopards have different spot patterns than their adult parents, so it didn't matter that she couldn't match the big costumes exactly. I don't know if that is true about leopards, but it sounded good to me. This was the last year I attended a Halloween party as part of a trio. Thereafter, costumes were just for the kid.  

Wearing 'onesies' is somehow popular here in Britain amongst the 20-somethings at university. I've not worked out what that's about, but I can tell you they are very comfy, at least from what I recall...

Nella Last's War

Nella Last'sWar:  The Second World War Diaries of 'Housewife, 49'.  The Trustees of the Mass Observation Project.

Just the title and the authorship need explanation I think!  To start with, Britain undertook to do some social research beginning in 1937.  The organisation was, and I guess is, called Mass Observation.  It stopped sometime in the 1950s but picked up again in the 1980s.

One of the initial projects involved asking about 500 volunteers to keep diaries and to submit them to the organisation periodically.  In addition to diaries there were specific questionnaires sent out and all sorts.  The variety of topics they asked people about is hilarious.

Anyhow, Nella Last was one of the volunteers and when she sent in her diary pages she identified herself by her age and occupation: 'Housewife, 49'.  This identifier was later used by actress, writer, etc., Victoria Wood, in a 2007 television drama based on Nella's diaries.  Which gives you a hint of how interesting they are. [If you've not run into Victoria Wood, you missed out.  She's a national treasure.]

I loved this book for many reasons:

• It is a first hand account of a civilian's experience of WWII, including being bombed and living in shelters, rationing, etc.
• Born in 1889, she would have been about my Grandma's age, but she was far more exuberant and determined than Grandma ever was - she reminded me quite a lot of my Mom.  
• Hearing all the things she did (cook, clean, run a charity shop, run a canteen, organise a wartime sewing circle) between the ages of 49 and 56 reminds me how lazy I am.
• She - even more than most women of her day apparently - was really good at being frugal.  She had a limited housekeeping allowance that remained the same all through the war.  
• Through the diary, you see her attitude change and her confidence grow.  She stops being a doormat for her husband (who sounds a bit of a lump) and begins to appreciate her own worth. 
• She was clever and creative and she made important contributions to her community just by doing what she loved to do:  cooking, crafting, recycling - and being very organised.
• She talks about anything and everything in a down to earth way. Her husband worked for in a family owned business and they ran a car, which makes them fairly prosperous. People above her on the social ladder clearly turned to her competent and practical ways for aid just as much as those below.
• She always served her husband a hot lunch, which he came home for.
• She felt the most thrifty means to feed her family was to do what they called 'hotel meals', consisting of 'a soup, a savoury dish and a sweet'.  Of course soup can be made from yesterday's left overs; her savoury dishes tended to be casseroles made up of small bits she gathered.  The sweet was often something make shift involving gelatin, tinned fruit, evaporated milk or cream, if she didn't have the means to bake an actual cake.
• She always hid her 'economies' until the war forced everyone to be more careful; then she discovered her frugal skills were much envied and her advice sought.
• She clearly adored her two grown sons, but she wanted them both to live full and fulfilling lives, even if it meant they might not always be safe or near to her.
• In short, she had stacks of character.

If any of these ideas interest you, can I suggest you put your hands on this book?  It isn't indexed as I'd like it to have been, but I found a link that includes some of my favourite quotes.  It doesn't include any of her funny recipes, but you'll get a flavour of the kind of person she was.

Family, friends, woman's role

In these extracts, Nella writes of moments in her family life during the war. She reveals her feelings towards her husband, her sons, her past life and her anger at the limitations that society imposed on women at this time.

Monday 25 September 1939: I've got a lot to be thankful for. Even the fact - which often used to stifle me - that my husband never went anywhere alone or let me go anywhere without him, has settled into a feeling of content.

Sunday 8 October 1939: Next to being a mother, I'd have loved to write books - that is if I had the brains and the time. I love to 'create' but turned to my home and cooking and find a lot of pleasure in making cakes etc. He [her son Cliff] seems to have got the idea that I'll go into pants! Funny how my menfolk hate women in pants. I do myself, but if necessary for work, would wear them.

Wednesday 15 January 1941: I gave Cliff a very big helping as he had to catch the train back [to his base] after lunch. He said 'If you ever have to work for a living, Mom, come and cook for the Army'. I said 'What do you mean - work for my living. I guess a married woman who brings up a family and makes a home, is working jolly hard for her living. And don't you ever forget it. And don't get the lordly male attitude that thinking wives are pets - and kept pets at that.'

Saturday 24 January 1942: Nella had a huge row with her husband, over whether their son Cliff should volunteer for overseas service. Her husband wants him to remain at home in a 'safe' job, whilst Nella wants him to fulfil himself. Her anger seems to be related to her exasperation at her husband's lack of imagination and resistance to new ideas.

In the early years of their marriage, times were hard and her husband's family was of little help. Nella was still angry at their patronising and arrogant behaviour towards her in those times.

He went on and on about Cliff being a fool and if he had remained a PT instructor, he might never have had to go. Nella replied Would you cling so tightly to Cliff that you would kill all that was fine in him as long as he stayed in England. What about honour and duty. He said 'You always did talk daft, I want my boy to be safe'.

Nella replied angrily

I thanked God I was a fool... and had tried to teach my lads to be fools and if he had been a bit more of a fool, he would have been more of a man. His boy, indeed. He has never taught, cared for, tried to understand either of them - or ever thinks of writing to them - and is not always interested enough in their letters to listen if I read them. Cliff must live, and not shun Life and always be afraid of things and ideas.

Cliff told his parents that he had let it be known that he was willing to go abroad. He was taken aback by his father's face with tear-filled eyes, crying 'I want you to be safe'.

Nella said

Safe for what? Till his soul dies in his body... and bitter inward thoughts turn his blood sour and torment him.

Death, freedom and marriage

Wednesday 21 March 1942: Cliff's best friend, George, was killed. On Cliff's return home, Nella Last quotes his words.

'I never knew death before, that dreadful nevermore feeling. So much has gone. I cannot linger around a bookshop. I never cared for anyone as much as George. We belonged. Our friendship was one of mutual likes and dislikes.'

Nella Last writes:

So dreadful to see distress one cannot do anything to help or comfort. Words are hollow and brittle things. I could only hold him [Cliff] closely. So much passing that was beautiful and good

Sunday 12 April 1942: When I was a girl, it was considered very odd not to be married at 21 or 22, and my mother said 17 or 18 was the age most girls thought of marriage when she was young. Looking round friends and acquaintance's boys and girls, sons of 25 to 30 with no thought of marriage and girls who are going off to the Services and saying 'Oh we will wait till after the War to get married'.

I feel this conscription of women will be a backward step, for it is taking the best, most formative years from a girl's life and giving her a taste of freedom that many crave for. Will they settle later to homes and children?

Sunday 17 May 1942: My wedding anniversary - 31 years ago. I was married in blue but as no make-up was worn then by a respectable girl, it robbed me of what colour I had. I can remember my huge dark eyes, blazing in my poor white face and my attempts to rub and pinch a bit of colour into my cheeks. My mother thought I was lovely, my husband thought I looked white and afraid.

Thursday 10 May 1945: I love my home dearly but as a home rather than a house. The latter can make a prison and a penance if a woman makes too much of a fetish of cleaning. But I will not go back to the narrowness of my husband's 'I don't want anyone else's company but yours'.

I looked at his placid blank face and marvelled at the way he had managed so to dominate me for all our married life, at how, to avoid hurting him, I had tried to keep him in a good mood.

I know that I'm not the sweet woman I used to be but rather a frayed battered thing, with nerves kept in control by effort that at times became too much and nervous breakdowns were the result. No one would ever give me one again, no one.

Monday 18 June 1945: I can never go back to that harem existence that my husband thinks so desirable.