The Blender of My Childhood

I just unpacked the boxes that contained the blender and mixer we used when I was a child in the 1950s.  The Waring blender was in the dining room closet along with 2 Sunbeam Mixers exactly where my Grandmother had stored them.  I guess my mother and grandmother both had a mixer.  I'm sure the one with a little more wear was my Grandmother's.  I'm keeping the blender - it is just so cool.  Note that the jar does not have a handle.  The jar was made by Pyrex for Waring and is so marked on the bottom.

Look how clean the bottom of the base is.  I don't remember ever using this for anything other than making malts or milkshakes.  The thing was that they never tasted like the ones you got from the soda fountain at the corner drug store.  But, it was still a big treat when we got to make them - usually on Saturday evening as a family.  My brother and I usually had the honors of making them.

You really had to hold the lid down tight when turned on as it did not fit tight like they do today.  It was so much fun to make the malts, but I sure didn't like cleaning the jar with those blades at the bottom.  I am just so happy to have this wonderful childhood memory sitting on my kitchen counter.

Maybe this summer when the kids and grandkids visit, we can make malts.  We will definitely be making malts when my brother and sister visit.   

Cowboys, Indians and Pony Rides

When did the guy with the pony stop coming around to take a picture of you sitting on the pony?  We would dress up in a cowboy outfit - it was so cool.  He was still coming around in the early 1950s when my brother and I were little.  By the 1960s, I don't think he was coming around anymore.  My sister never got her pictue taken on the pony.  So, what happened that ended one of the most wonderful memory makers for any city kid?

My brother and I are only 13 months apart so we were constant playmates when we were little.  We always combined playing house with cowboys and Indians.  I'm not sure that we knew there were girl's toys and boy's toys.  We wore cowboy hats and had guns and holsters around our waist.  Dolls were our children.  We used big cardboard boxes to make a fort around our "house" which was a card table with a blanket over it that also served as a teepee when we were the Indians.  The rocker with a padded seat was our stagecoach.  The curved wooden oak arms of the rocker were our horses.  The dolls would sit in the stagecoach and my brother and I would sit on our horses.  The harder you rocked; the faster our horses would go.  We used string to tie our horses to a post (the doorknob of the front door).  In the winter time, the floor register was our campfire.  It would get pretty hot when my mother would shovel coal into the furnace.  She wasn't real happy when the clay (our food) melted on the floor register.  Oh, and the time we spilt chocolate milk down the register - she wasn't real happy about that either.

So, when the man came around and asked if we wanted our picture taken on the pony, we got so excited.  Now, we didn't have much money and mother didn't splurge on frivolous things too often, but she ended up saying we could.  And, here we are sitting on our pony.  This was taken in 1953 at our house on State Street.  We were full-fledged cowboys and our pony was the most beautiful and best pony in the world!

Sitting on the pony and playing cowboys and Indians with my brother are some of my most wonderful childhood memories.  I'm so glad that we were children in the early '50s and didn't miss the man with the pony.     

Family Traditions Are For The Present

Thanksgiving will soon be here and for the past couple of years we have not had our traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the family members. With trips up to Indiana, our family traditions have sort of taken a back seat. 

Growing up, we lived with my grandmother off and on for much of my childhood.  She was the oldest of five children and grew up on a farm.  She taught me how to sew and cook and I was very close to her.  Family tradition was very important to her and that included birthdays.  We had quite a few birthdays in December.  My great-grandfather's birthday was on the 22nd and mine was on the 26th.  My youngest daughter was born on the 12th.  This picture was taken at my grandmother's house in celebration of our three birthdays.  My great-grandfather turned 90 years old.  I turned 24 and my daughter 2.  Yes, our birthdays were usually celebrated on Christmas.

As I was looking at some of these old pictures and thinking about earlier memories of our family - (this picture is my grandmother, mother, me and my brother), I was thinking how safe I felt as a child.  I had both my grandmother and mother to talk to about anything.  Sometimes I miss her so much.  Then the phone rang and it was my oldest daughter.  "What are you doing for Thanksgiving", she asked.  She was going to have to work part of Thanksgiving day (retail never sleeps) and then go in early Friday morning.  I hadn't had Thanksgiving dinner for two years.  I have 3 grown kids, 7 grandchildren and a great-grandson and they all live close to me.  That certainly isn't very common in this day and age.  So, our Thanksgiving tradition is returning this year.  Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade on TV in the morning!  Football the rest of the day!  All the traditional foods including my grandmother's pumpkin pie.  Although I know the recipe by heart, I will get out her hand-written recipe and read it.  At the end of the recipe she wrote "Good pie" and that will make me feel safe.  I will feel her love and I will smile. 

"Over the river and through the woods, to Grandmother's house we go"  

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone  

Memories of Childhood

Picture taken in 1955 of my mother, baby sister, brother and I. I sometimes forget how pretty my mother was and how much she loved us kids. I love this picture of us!

This is my first attempt at blogging. I have been selling collectibles online for 3 years now and have decided that I really need to keep up with all the networking that one needs to do to get buyers to their store sites. With 3 1/2 years until retirement, I have finally found what I would like to do when I grow up - selling memories online. I love old carnival glass and being from Greentown, Indiana, I am also a collector of Greentown glass.

For now I am going to attach something I wrote on Mother's Day of this year about my Mother. Along with talking about the treasures we are finding, I will be sharing some of our memories that come with the treasures.

Mother's Day For A Special Mother

My mother is no longer with us but will live in my heart forever. She passed away September 9, 2008 at the age of 87. She had suffered from dementia with lewy bodies. Her happiness was her home, being surrounded by her "pretties" and her privacy. This disease took that away from her.
My mother's greatest gift was her unconditional love for my brother, sister and I. She raised us kids on her own, working in a factory until she retired. Growing up as young children in the early '50s, it's amazing what she accomplished through hard work and perseverance. Although, she had to work outside the home, the rest of her time was devoted to us kids. She loved us and talked to us about everything. She would buy records (45s) and play them on our record player. We'd sing and dance in the living room. She would read to us from the Bible, especially stories about how Jesus loved little children.

She was also very creative, making up her own stories and telling us - I loved listening to her stories when I was little. We could play with our toys in the living room - I don't think she ever told us not to mess anything up. We were poor, but we didn't know it because of her unconditional love for us. Did she ever get mad at us? Well, the only time she would get mad was if my brother and I would fight. She did not like fighting at all. Oh, and maybe the time I cut my sister's hair that had never been cut before ..... we'll just leave that for another story.

My mother enjoyed collecting things and going to auctions and never, never threw anything away. She had always saved newspapers even when we were little kids. She'd like to cut out recipes and fashion advertisements - well, just about anything that caught her attention. When grocery stores started selling dinnerware in the '50s and '60s, she started buying dinnerware - she liked every pattern! When she retired, that's when she started going to auctions and really started collecting. In her eyes, anything old, especially glass, was beautiful and special. I don't think any auctioneer had to put back a box due to no bidders if she was in the audience. Most items are still in the boxes that she brought home from the auctions, still carefully wrapped in the same newspapers. She also loved to read and belonged to about every book club there was. And, I would almost bet that her Avon rep received sales awards having my mother as her customer. She saved all of our clothes, our toys and school papers as we were growing up.

It is taking us quite a while going through all her things and to be honest, I don't know when we will be done. She had always said we would have fun going through her things. Wasn't convince at the time, but she was right. My brother, sister and I have found a new closeness that we had not shared in a long time. Not only are we finding our childhood memories, but we are also finding things including her written personal thoughts that bring awareness about how unique and wonderful our mother was.
At times there are tears, but then there is laughter, so, yes Mother, we are having fun going through your treasures. You see, these "things" are our memories, too.