Throwback Thursday: A Baby on a Blanket 2

From my "old and known" file:

Boy—“Does anyone else think this is silly—me sitting on a wagon on a blanket on the grass?”

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.

Memory Monday: My Mother-in-Law

My Mother-in-Law

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW

I had a wonderful mother-in-law and I can truthfully say that I was her daughter. When my husband was born (he was a big, big baby and his mother was a small woman), the doctor told my in-laws that any other children they had would have to be delivered by c-section. My father-in-law didn’t want to take a chance on anything happening to his wife (remember this was back in the 1940s and c-sections weren’t as common as they are today). He said that they wouldn’t have any more children. My mother-in-law told him that she wanted to give him a daughter. He told her that when their son married that they would have their daughter.

Fast forward a number of years. I married that boy and got a wonderful second set of parents. The way they loved and treated me, I was truly their daughter. (Actually, when I was going with my future husband, my mother said that if we married, I would have the most wonderful mother-in-law in the world. And as we all know, mothers are always right, well almost always.)

Even though she has been gone for a number of years, I want to honor her this Mother’s Day and share a couple of her favorite recipes.

AUNT EMMALEE’S BROCCOLI CASSEROLE

2 (16 oz. each) pkgs. frozen chopped broccoli

1 stick margarine

1 can sliced water chestnuts

1 pkg. onion soup mix

½ cup chopped pecans

2 cup Rice Krispies

Prepare broccoli according to directions, drain. Mix in other ingredients, reserving ½ of cereal. Pour into an ovenproof casserole dish. Slightly crush remaining Rice Krispies and place on top of mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees.

(Emmalee was my mother-in-law’s aunt. Recently we learned the recipe was originally from Emmalee’s daughter, Gail. But since we have been calling this recipe Aunt Emmalee’s Broccoli Casserole for more than 40 years, the name of the recipe stuck.)

DOWN SOUTH BARS

2 T. butter or margarine

2 eggs

1 cup brown sugar

5 T. flour

1/8 t. soda

1 cup chopped nuts

1 t. vanilla

Powdered sugar

Melt butter in an 8”x8” pan. Beat eggs, combine brown sugar, flour, soda and nuts. Stir mixture into eggs. Add vanilla. Pour over butter. Do not stir. Bake 20 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool slightly. Cut into bars and sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Makes about 18 bars.

(These were my husband’s favorite growing up and I still have the recipe on my fridge.)

Do you have any favorite recipes handed down from your mother-in-law?

Throwback Thursday: A Baby on a Blanket

The latest from my "old and known" files:

“Mommy! Bug’s on the quilt!"

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.

Memory Monday: How Something Was Used Differently Over Five Generations

My granddaughter and her "rocket"

HOW SOMETHING WAS USED DIFFERENTLY OVER FIVE GENERATIONS

Years and years ago, my grandparents had a front parlor with a fireplace that had been converted with a gas heating stove in it. On the side of the fireplace, there was a set of brass fireplace tools. Years later, I inherited those tools from my parents. We used them whenever we had a fire in our fireplace—my children would poke and prod the logs, but the tools haven’t been used for several years since we very, very seldom light a fire anymore.

My grandparents never watched cartoons and while I grew up with Looney Tunes and Popeye (you know “I’m strong to the finish ‘cause I eat my spinach”). My children grew up with Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. Lately, our granddaughter has started watching two animated shows—Little Einsteins (which has a rocket ship in it) and Wonder Pets (which has a boat with a flag, actually it is a mast, but my granddaughter calls it a flag).

The other day, she wanted to build a “rocket” with a flag. I got out a large cardboard tray—part of the packaging from when I ordered several large under-the-bed storage containers. My granddaughter “needed” a flag and something to hang it on. I stapled a couple of sheets of printer paper together but needed something to tape them to. When we got back to the tray, I saw our fireplace tools on the hearth. The holder would be perfect, so I took out the tools out of it and put it on the cardboard tray. My granddaughter loved it. She stood on it with her hands on either side of the holder and “flew” her rocket. Later, she sat and tried to use the fireplace shovel as an oar--we had to stop that since the edge of her oar was digging into our carpet.

As I watched my granddaughter play, I realized that the fireplace tool tools had been used by five generations. I wonder--will they be used by a sixth generation? Or a seventh? And what will they be used for?

Throwback Thursday: Man on a Boulder

From the latest in my "old and known" files:

Man—“Look at me! I’m King of the Hill!”

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.

Memory Monday: Easter and Our Family

My son with paper bunny hat and ears

EASTER AND OUR FAMILY

Easter is next Sunday. Growing up, we didn’t have a lot of Easter traditions. We went to church every Sunday, so going there for Easter was not anything different—although we often had a new dress, or something like that. I even have some pictures where my sisters and I wore those cute little girl hats. We always ate Sunday dinner together at the table and my mother always had roast or Swiss steak (her version), or fried chicken. I don’t ever remember having an Easter egg hunt at home, or anywhere else, growing up.

Things weren’t much different for my children growing up—church every week, Sunday dinner at the table, and sometimes a new outfit. The biggest different with our children is that we had Easter egg hunts in our back yard. My husband would hide the eggs, the children would find them, then they would hide the eggs and he and I would find them. Sometimes we repeated the whole thing again.

In the picture above, my son is wearing the bunny hat with ears that he got from Sunday School. I think I still have that hat in my craft pattern box. Maybe I’ll make one for my granddaughter.

What traditions do/did you and your family have for Easter? 

Throwback Thursday: The Torn Picture

From my "old and known" file:

How do you think this relationship ended?

That's my caption. What's yours? Leave it in the comments.

Memory Monday: Why Did They Do It Like This Back Then?

My Great-grandmother Emma

WHY DID THEY DO IT LIKE THIS BACK THEN?

While I was doing research for my historical magazine, Worbly’s Family Monthly Magazine (if you haven’t seen it, here is the link http://worblysmagazine.com/ ), I came across a cookbook that left me wondering a bit. It had an interesting section titled: MEDICINAL AND MISCELLANEOUS. Now I might be a bit odd at times, but normally I would put medical recipes and miscellaneous recipes in different sections—who knows, I might skip a line and bathe my feet with toast and cider if I didn’t.

Anyway, I wanted to share the names of the recipes that were grouped together in this section. Do you see any problem with the way it was done (the rest of the book was done as a traditional cookbook—meats, vegetable, pies, cakes, etc.)? The name of the book is The Improved Housewife, published in 1855—the same year my great-grandmother Emma was born.

Here are the recipes—in order—from the section MEDICINAL AND MISCELLANEOUS:

831. For Sprained Ankle.

832. Roast Apple Tea, and Acid Jelly.

833. Toast and Cider.

834. To Bathe the Feet.

835. R—f and R—y's Cure for Corns.

836. Mild Cathartic for Dispepsia.

837. Mustard Drafts.

838. Dropped Eggs.

839. For Teething Complaints of Children.

840. For Over Dose of Laudanum.

841. Chicken or Cracker Panada

842. For Prickly Heat.

843. Red Mixture, for Summer Complaint.

844. Ringworms.

845. Runaround.

846. Tobacco Salve. Royal.

847. For the Tetter.

848. To Stop Vomiting.

849. To Cure Seed Warts.

850. Toast Water.

851. Cure for Wens.

852. Cheap Cement for Bottles and Jars.

853. To make French Pomalum. Nice.

854. Southern Yellow Pickles.

855. Virginia Temperance Preserves.

856. Charleston Pudding.

857. Norfolk Spoonful Pudding.

And then they added these final two in the section—the only two that are not recipes:

858. General Rule

If a thing be worth doing at all, it is worth well doing:—best done, by self.

859. Punctuality

Fifteen minutes before the time.

Please help me—do you see the logic in this grouping? By the way, I just love this picture of my great-grandmother. I wish that I had known her.