A Trip Down Memory Lane--90s and 2000s Version

I continued my sewing for my girls. I made t-shirt dresses and skorts, and skirts for every day. My favorite was making Sunday dresses. These aren't in any order. If I made them for Lorene, very likely Lynette wore them in her turn.

Velvet--Lorene

Daisy Kingdom--Lynette

Both girls

Lynette--when sheer fabrics were in.

Lynette's velvet

Daisy Kingdom--Lynette

Cape--Lynette

Made from a chenille bedspread when making teddy bears and things from them was also a thing.

Bonita made this dress for Lynette

This was a hand-me-down

I bought this one after seeing an ad in a Penney's catalog, (yes that was a thing) featuring a little girl with blonde hair just like Lynette's. That was before her front hair was cut off by her brother. 

She was two.

Another Daisy Kingdom for Lynette. I did the smocking and made a doll dress just like it. 

Daisy Kingdom patterns came with a doll pattern.

Bonita made these for Lorene and Nathan

Lynette--I was into smocking and I don't remember how aggravating the piping was. I really dislike making piping, let alone sewing it on.

Lynette--I bought this one. It's a beautiful thin dress with tucking and embroidery. It's a pale blue. 

Bonita made this lacy dress and smocked bonnet for Lorene.

She made this dress as well, the matching one for Lynette is at her house for her girls.

Lorene--her sheer dress

I made two of these. I got the trim as a "free gift" from a sewing company that sent catalogs.

One was for Lorene and one for a friend. 

It seems like the preponderance of dresses here were Lynette's. Some of the ones I made for Lorene I passed on to Paislee. I'd like to take pictures of those.

I'm keeping the really fancy ones.

The rest are going.

 

A New Year For Oldish Stories

I started my new year by throwing away some old things.  I've been going through closets and deep cleaning and today I finished the bedroom. Today, finishing the bedroom means taking photos of these dolls and handmade clothes to remember.

I made this doll years ago, for I don't know what reason, except I was into dolls at the time and had a pattern and no kids. Dorothy named this one Emily Margaret and she's the only rag doll I have. She has little pantaloons under her dress. 

This china doll was put together by my Aunt Barb. I carefully played with it all the times we visited my grandparents and I loved it. I'm glad to have it in my possession. She is named Rebecca Ann. I wish I had thought about using Anne before I embroidered on her quilt. The dresses were adapted from some American girl 8" doll patterns. I don't know why I don't change her dress to the pink one, once in a while. Making doll clothes is a challenge. Working with small pieces can be a pain in the neck, but I've made smaller. When I was young and playing with Barbie dolls, clothes for them was too expensive even then for mothers with 4 children and little money, so she sewed them. Many of them. What patience!! It must have taken a lot of time, as well. I appreciate her hard work more now than then. And I didn't make Barbie clothes for my girls.

The stroller this doll is in belonged to my Aunt Wanda, who got it from a friend who had two. Originally it had a maroon vinyl body and when it wore out, Grandma made a new one out of some hideous looking ticking type material. That didn't matter to me one bit as a kid. I loved it because it was old. I replaced the stripe with this maroon fabric, but I wasn't able to figure out the double hood apparatus, so it's not done right. I have photos of how it looked originally and of the material Grandma used. It may be in this blog and it may not.

The coat and hat live on this doll so I can admire my handiwork. It's made out of material I used for a suit for myself back in the day and it's made for an 18" doll, who lives now down in the doll area because I have grandchildren. That is another story. There were two dolls that belonged to Jim's sisters and they were named for two of our friends, Jason and Holly, no matter that they were both girls dolls, and Jason and Holly they still are today. 

In my cleaning out, I found these old skeleton keys and Grandpa's first glasses. The house I grew up in had skeleton key locks that didn't work anymore and I saved them because they were old. It's the same thing with the glasses. They are old and they were Grandpa's. 

 

Time For School

My dad was  into models for a few years. He made ships and airplanes that are still around and we don't know what to do with them. I remember the painstaking gluing and painting and stickers. I don't remember how or where I got this old fashioned desk to put together. I've always been interested in old fashioned things. I loved the Little House books and they influenced me. I don't know if it came from Dad or not. I know he encouraged me in the making. I had to sand and stain the wood and glue it together. I took it upon myself to make the pencil, slate and books. I had two of these for some reason or other. This one I'm keeping for now. 

 

I Remember...

I remember...

Coming home from my paper route at 7 am and Mom would be weeding in the garden. 

Mom sitting in her chair by the dining room bay window reading and eating the white from the inside of orange peels. 

When Mom made fried chicken and milk gravy, we ate the gravy on slices of bread, not mashed potatoes and I thought that was the best thing ever. I didn't miss the potatoes. 

Roast beef nearly every Sunday for dinner and I made the gravy. Sometimes, I mashed the potatoes.

Potato soup, thin, poured over a slice of Velveeta. Or peanut butter popcorn, or fried egg sandwiches and sometimes waffles for Sunday supper.

Winter evenings at home with all of us in the dining and living rooms, reading, playing or doing homework. (We only ate in the dining room on special occasions.)

Pulling out the couch so we could play behind it, or piling up the cushions to ride on.

Andy making train or race tracks from the encyclopedias that took up most of the living room. 

Mom letting the boys make a horrendous amount of noise banging on pans. 

I remember...

Dad had a glass of Pepsi every day. We got some if we got hurt.

Dad sitting in bed having a bowl of ice cream and doing the OWH crossword before he went to sleep.

Playing catch with Dad.

I remember...

Learning to make tuna casserole and burning the onion flakes the first time, like Mom always did. Mom's tuna casserole had peas in it and biscuits on top. 

And making peach cobbler. About the same as the tuna without the peas and onions. Or cherry cobbler. Dad always poured milk on his helping. 

Making Dad's coffee, just so, with milk and sugar. And the way he always stirred sugar into the milk before adding cereal. 

Making fried eggs for Dad. We carried the water in the lid to dump in the egg pan so the yolks would be covered. 

I remember...

Black walnut and lemon custard homemade ice cream with the hand crank until we got an electric one. 

Andy having a huge bowl of chocolate malt-o-meal cooked cereal for breakfast and Mom letting me eat leftovers on days I couldn't face an egg for breakfast. 

Leaving with Dad at 7:30 to ride to the high school instead of taking the bus. Dad taught social studies there for 34 years. 

Teaching Tim his letters and numbers and how to ride a bike. 

I could go on an on.

I Never Thought I Would...

If there was one place I loved more than home it was my grandparents' ranch in the Sandhills.  We visited twice a year, in summer and during Christmas vacation, since my dad was a teacher and those were the easiest times to go.

The memories from those visits still give me those "feelings" in my heart that can't be explained.  I was remembering one about my grandpa the other morning as I was drinking my hot weak tea.  Grandpa didn't like mushy things and I took after him, but as he got older he would eat his morning burnt toast with hot water poured over it.  I thought then and for several years, that I would never drink only hot water. 

Well, I do, because after cancer surgery and treatment leaving me with a dry mouth, warm water feels a lot better and goes down a lot easier than cold. 

A New Bedroom

 When we first moved into our house on West Park Street in 1969, my sister and I slept in the south bedroom upstairs which was dark with paneling.  Outside the windows was the porch roof on which I daringly sat a few times, but never without my parents knowledge -- maybe.  And, that would have been after we moved to the north bedroom and it belonged to my brothers.  The middle bedroom was Dad's "study", in there he had the chaise lounge we loved to lay on, and his TV.  It was that year, that we watched the moon landing.  When that room was turned into Mom and Dad's room, Dad having moved his books and TV to the basement, we chose the north bedroom. I think we chose it only because it was not the room we were currently in.  My brothers used the south bedroom after they were born anyway, which was after 1969.

The only way to get into the upstairs bathroom was through that north bedroom, so Dad took out the door, closed in the wall and made a door in the room we called "the kitchen" because at one time the upstairs was a separate apartment and that was the kitchen. (The sink and cupboards were still there, and we used it for storage and a playroom) Mom let my sister and I pick the carpet and paint colors.  We chose gold high/low carpet and lavender paint.  Our dressers were painted purple and Mom or Dad made bulletin boards painted lavender with purple trim.  When we got along we put our beds together, when we weren't we made an imaginary line down the middle.  There were two closets in that room.  One was the product of the door removal and was a small ordinary sized closet.  The other one was big enough for me to get all the way in for a private space.  Eventually, I wanted a shelf, desk height, so my sister and I walked to the "lumber yard" 3 1/2 blocks away, and carried away a 1 x 12, after charging it.  I don't know how long it was, 8 ft. maybe, with me on one end and my sister on the other, we carried it between us all the way home. That board made more shelves than the desk and when I was feeling like I needed to be by myself I would work in that closet. 

When I was a girl I was enchanted by stories of the pioneers and wished long dresses were "in." In the 70s, mini skirts were out and our skirts fell just below the knee.  If Mom didn't make our clothes, we wore hand-me-downs. I had a long skirt made out of quilted material. It was long and just right for wearing in that closet in the cold upstairs. One winter mom made us "night caps" to wear with our long flannel nightgowns. Eventually, I suppose we grew out of flannel nightgowns, but they were warm on cold nights.

The upstairs in our house ran on a different thermostat than the downstairs and it was kept at 55 degrees in the winter.  Hot water radiators make the best heat, but it takes time to heat up. There were times when we'd turn up the heat to warm up our pillows and blankets before turning it down again and snuggling under our pile of heavy quilts for the night. 

Is My Memory Your Memory?

Remembering things is very important to me.  I have some strange problems with mine.  I don't always remember who people are by looking at their face, unless it's someone I know really well.  There are some things I don't remember because I don't have any photographs of the event.  For example, I went to Hershey, PA when I was 22 with a friend and took pictures.  I was told that I was at Hershey, when my family took the trip east to Washington, DC, when I was 20, I think, taking in Pennsylvania 

on the way.  I didn't remember. I still don't.  I remember the pictures I took of my brothers at the Gettysburg battlefield, but I don't remember being at Hershey.  I was there. Surely, the 5 other members of my family are telling the truth; surely they didn't leave me behind at the motel.  And there's the matter of the sleep shirt with Hershey on it, that didn't appear out of thin air.  

The reason I've taken thousands of photos over the years, is that I'm afraid I'll forget something.  This blog was made for that reason, so I can put snippets of my memories on here, fondly thinking that someday my children will be interested in my past life.  I have written down somewhere, the story of my beginnings, someday that may go in here as well

The February 2021, Reader's Digest had a little article on memory.  We may think that our memories are true pictures of what really happened around certain events.  That isn't true.  Here are some excerpts from that article: "So, how does memory work?... it is something like an old man sitting by a campfire somewhere deep in your brain. He means well and wants to help, but he doesn't show you your past like some wizard with a time portal.  The best he can do it tell you stories.  And like all good story tellers, he edits for impact, efficiency, functionality and clarity.  He  tells you what he assumes you need to know. Some times he may even embellish the tale by adding a bit of flavor," whether it's true or not. "there is no consistent, orderly or rational sense to it.  It's not like a computer hard drive..." with orderly files.  "human memory is not reliable...It's a documentary at best....When you remember, your memory tells your brain a story, and much is lost in transit."

Memories can get smashed together or pieces left out.  It doesn't always appear when we want it. We tend to remember the good things better than the bad ones, and change the bad ones, to 'not so bad.'

What is included in this blog are my stories, the way I remember them.