The 1930’s Homemaker's Kitchen

Welcome to the 1930’s Homemaker's Kitchen.

I am bringing to you once again advice from the early 1930’s recipe book that I have inherited from my mother. I’ve tried copying my photos and then scanning them, neither turning out to be very brag worthy. But it is what it is.

If you are inclined to be interested in the history and  the lifestyle of this eras homemaker I think you’ll enjoy it…. Let’s start with a few pictures:

 

Cut off says: Cook the bacon 10 min. in frying pan.

Now there you have it!

What do you think? Have you ever heard of shad roe or alligator pears? I know haven’t. And I feel certain that it would be nearly impossible for me to get either of these meals finished in 20-25 minutes! At least in any kind of edible condition.

Could you?

I have to confess that my admiration for the 1930’s homemaker continues to increase the more I read from this recipe book. I’m thinking that Mabel Claire (the author) is the embodiment of the Psalms's ‘virtuous woman.’

Uh-huh. And you know now why I'm hiding this book from my hubby!

 

If you read through this please tell me your thoughts and reflections on the writer or her recipes. It's so fun to hear what you are all thinking too!

 

How to Make Cloth Flowers

Good Morning Friends!

Today I want to share with you my very first of Spring Flowers.

 Yes, it’s not just you Southern ladies who have beautiful flowers to lift their spirits after this longggggg Winter.

 

Okay, these are my Spring flowers!

I have decided that since it will be three months before I get to see any real Spring flowers, I will make my own.

 

 

This is what I started with.

I luckily stumbled across a Quilt shop a couple of weeks ago in a small town that’s an hours drive from where we live.

First I made two flowers by cutting several different sizes of circles. Some I folded over twice, some four times to add together to form the top flower. Then I cut the under flowers each a little larger until I had four flowers atop one another.

Very easy!

 

I added a swirly in the centre of each.

 

Lastly I created a vase, which I decorated with leftover fabric, ribbon, and buttons.

 

 

The final result is another t-towel pillow to add to my t-towel pillow shams.

And an easy way to brighten our Winter bedroom.

Now I have all kinds of ideas for creating Spring flowers for our home.

I got the idea from a shop on etsy.com called Tracy B Designs.
This ladies work is so.... pretty and imaginative and reasonably priced.
 

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 I am partying here:
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Under-100-link-party










 

Brag Post

I hope you don’t mind if I do a brag post today.

I am super, duper busy around here for the next couple of days, but I will be back on Wednesday to fill you in on some news!

Until then, here are my most recent photos of some of our grandchildren.

 

                                    Conner, Lexy, & Camden

This is my oldest sons three youngest children.

You can't tell by this photo, but the youngest, Camden inherited my sons gorgeous blue eyes!

They moved from Michigan to Alberta last year.

 

This is our birthday girl, Lexy.

She will turn six on Thursday.

Lexy definitely is pretty in pink!

 

 

Here we have our middle son’s two boys.

They live in Michigan.

Aren’t they cute with their matching shirts?

 

 

Little Brig just had his first haircut last week.

He is the youngest of our nine grandchildren.

Looks like the hairdresser did a spike on top!

I think Briggie likes it.

I know I do.

 

 

I believe this must be Captain Hook.

I never knew he could look so sweet!

Reece likes to dress up even when it isn’t Halloween.

I think Briggie is thinking he can't wait until he can grow into big brother's suit.

 

 

Ha! And who might this be?

I needed a up-dated photo for my new blog.

I think I put the camera too close to my face….

 

You think?

 

I can see every wrinkle, the hair in my nose, and even the hair above my lip.

Nope, this ones not going to work.

That’s for darn sure!

I guess I'll be trying again...

 

Hope you all have a Wonderful Wednesday!

The Ghost and Mrs. Muir’s Granny Squares

Two evenings ago Tim and I were watching the 1947 version of ‘The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.’

It featured the very handsome Rex Harrison and the beautiful Gene Tierney.

It was such a good old movie and we both enjoyed it so much that I can highly recommend it to you.

 

But what I really wanted to share with you was how surprised I was when the Maid came into the bedroom/sitting room where Mrs. Muir was napping to cover her with guess what?

A Granny Square Afghan!

 

 

Now, be honest and tell me.

Did you know that women were crocheting Granny Square afghans way back in the early 1900’s, which was when this movie was depicted from?

 

I sure had no idea.

 

And now this has set me to wondering how many times Granny Square afghans have gone in and out of style over the last several years.

 

Do you know?

 

Both of my older sisters are great at crocheting and I do remember them making GS afghans in the early 1980’s as gifts for many of the family members.

 

In fact it wouldn't surprise me to learn that some of you may have one or two hiding away in your closets yet.

 

Then you didn’t see them around for a long, long time.

 

It seems to me that the Granny Square became a fad again after they were used as a part of the bedding in the Nanny McPhee movies of recent years.

 

 

Well I don’t know when or where or why Granny Squares originated ever, but I do know that I love them and I have promised myself that someday I am going to learn how to crochet them if it takes me a million years.

 

And yes, I am counting on being able to crochet when I get to Heaven!

 

Please check my Pinterest square labeled Granny Square Love for all sources from my mosaic if you want to be referred to the original source.

 

 

Partying Here:

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A 1937 Kitchen

I was browsing through several cook books I had inherited from my mother, who passed away a year ago this month.

The oldest one I inherited is from 1937. What’s so interesting about this particular book is that it doesn’t just contain recipes, it has all sorts of information that relates to the lifestyle of a early 1930’s housewife.

 

I don’t know about you, but I love reading  and learning about how women lived, cooked and decorated their homes in another era.

 

My mother, who’s name was Cledia Althea, was married in 1938.

But at the age of only nine years old her mother had passed away and she was in charge of the household.

She had a little brother who was four years younger she was also responsible for too.

They went to school everyday, then my mother would come home and prepared their meals.

I can’t begin to tell you how much I admire my mother.

 

Maybe someday I will write a book about her for my grandchildren.

I think it’s good for the younger generation to know the background of there ancestors.

 

I’m sorry I got side-tracked, now on to the book. I will let each page speak for itself.

 

 

 

 

Now, there you have it!

You were either bored out of your gourd or, hopefully like me, enjoyed a small look back into the life of a 1930’s housewife.

 

I am thinking of doing a weekly segment on days gone by….

 

What do you think?

 

Is this anything that would interest you?

 

I don’t want someone saying, “Oh no, today’s the day Kim’s going to blab on about all that old stuff”.

 

So be honest, I have thick enough skin.

I do live in the North, you know!

Partying Here:
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Do You Remember Flannel Graph?

Do you remember flannel graph ?
 I sure do!

 

I was recently reading a fellow blogger's post, Cranberry Morning, where she was sharing sweet memories of her Grandmother. She recounted her Grandmother’s work in Children’s Evangelism. This brought back memories of my own experiences attending a children’s ministry as a child called, “The Good News Club.” It seems this was also the ministry Judy’s grandmother was involved in.

Small world!

 

Once a week, I remember, a car load of us children would pile into our preacher’s wife’s car and then we were driven across town to attend the Good News Club. It only lasted an hour. The meeting started with us  singing the *Good News song. Next we would have a flannel graph story, then we shared a snack and lastly a prayer together. We all piled again back into the car and were driven home until next weeks meeting.

 

Doesn’t really sound like it amounted to much, does it?

But surprisingly, here I am almost 50 years later able to recount all the words of that little song. I remember the rather rotund lady that pounded the keys of her piano while we little children, who were all sitting gathered on her floor, belted out the word just as loudly and proudly as we could. I remember exactly where her house was located even though I was so young and it was all of the way across town.

But those where minor details…..

 

not me!!

 

It was there in that tiny little house, on flannel graph, that I had learn so many stories of the Bible.

 

Now fast forward several years later to when I was a young mother with four little children of my own.

My MIL, who is a preacher’s wife, gifted me with a suitcase full of flannel graph!

I couldn’t believe it. 

There inside the suitcase were many of the same images of Bible characters I had seen as a child at the ‘Good News Club.’

 

So, needless to say, my own children and those who attended our Sunday School classes had learn the stories of the Bible from flannel graph just as I had so many years earlier.

 

I’m not sure if churches use flannel graph anymore. With all of the technology we have today I assume they probably show movies.

Maybe I’m old fashioned, but I think children would still appreciate the old-time flannel graph stories.

 

It was interactive.

You could call the children up to help place the characters on the board.

 You could stop in any part of the story and ask or answer questions. I even let the children tell the story back to me using the flannel graph.

 You sure can’t do that with a movie!

 

I did a little research and found that they do still make flannel graph. It’s a little pricey, but I bet if you’re in an area where they have auctions you might just run across a whole suitcase full like my MIL had given to me.

If you're a young mother, try it!

Here's my song....

 

* The Good News Song

Good news, Good news, Christ died for you and me

Good new, Good news, If I believe

Good news, Good news, I’m saved eternally

That’s wonderful, EXTRA, Good news!

 

 

 

God Inspired Scripture

Friday’s Finds

How am I finding Friday?

I believe this picture paints a thousand words!

 

What am I working on today?

I’m working on moving.

No, not from my home!

I am moving my blog from Blogger to Word Press. I know I’ve threatened to do this for so long that you probably thought that I was just blowing off steam. No, I am serious.

 

I’m not going to re-hatch right now why I made this decision. We’ll talk about that another time. But, this is what I am busy working on all day today.

 

It will probably take a couple of weeks yet, so I will give you lots of warning of my change-over date.

 

Before I say goodbye…..

Do you remember this photo of

my birdhouse looking so sweet in the sunshine?

 

Here it is today.

 

Can you see it peaking through all of that white stuff?

It is there, truly it is. You just have to look really hard.

 

Now tell me my friends, did I actually write in fairly recent months that I loved the North?

I only have one question:

What was I drinking thinking?

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Please Don’t Say That Four Lettered Word!

 

Originally our plan for today was to hop in the car and drive a hour over to the big city of Marathon (population 4000) to shop.

 

 

But because of that four lettered word, which I refuse to say, I will now have to get  out of bed at the most ridiculous hour of 7AM so we can hurry to Marathon and back before we get a fresh dump of 15cm’s of ----.

 

Isn’t that just awful?

 

I heard today that this was the first time that the Great Lakes had all frozen over since 2009.

 

This is a photo taken from our home on Lake Superior last February.

If you look carefully you can see the trees from the Parisian Island that was eight miles across the lake from us.

 

This was all open water, not a Bay, and I can’t remember a year when the lake didn’t freeze across since we had lived there.

 

 

We never knew from one year to the other what our lake front would look like!

Sometimes it looked like an ice jam.

 

 

At other times it joins forces with the wind to create the most unusual shapes.

 

 

One thing for certain, Lake Superior is ever changing and ever full of surprises…

I love the mysterious!

Oh, about that four lettered word;

I sure pulled the wool over your eyes on that one!

 

Have a great Thursday!