Thanksgiving Turkey

"Catching the Turkey" Grandma Moses 1940

More in the "Catching the Turkey" series here. 

Though I know little about Grandma Moses, primitivism, or art, I am a fan of Anna Mary Robertson, and enjoy looking at her work.

"A Blizzard" 1956

MOM

Books Bygone: “To Mother with Love, Mary and Bill”

Marica Bernstein

Despite popular belief, Mother’s Day was not cooked up by a greeting card company. On May 9, 1914 President Wilson, following the adoption of a congressional resolution, proclaimed that the second Sunday in May be celebrated as Mother’s Day. He called upon government officials to fly the American flag on all government buildings, and asked that Americans display the flag at home as “a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.” The idea had originated some years earlier in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania). This bit of background comes by way of an old favorite, “Anniversaries and Holidays: A Calendar of Days and How to Observe Them” (1928). Though not the subject of this essay, if you ever come across “Anniversaries and Holidays”-- which was written primarily for librarians and teachers— add it to your home library.

Concluding a list of supplemental materials on Mother’s Day, the author notes, “There have been many poems written in praise of and in memory of ‘My mother’.” Wouldn’t you know, I just happen to have a collection of poems and prose about Mother: “Far Above Rubies: My Mother” compiled by Mary W. Lightfoot (1970). Lightfoot begins the collection with lines from Proverbs “Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies” (31:10-12). “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her” (31:28).  

This short book is divided into three sections, Abiding Love, Lasting Influence, and Gratitude, and each has selections that will pull at your heartstrings, and make you laugh. For example, a story titled “The Door to the Heart” tells of a young woman who left her widowed mother for a “gay and dissolute life in a big city.” The mother prays she will return home someday and after many months she does! She returns in the middle of the night to find the door to her mother’s home unlocked. She asks why it had been left open “this late at night.” To which the mother replied that she’d not locked it since the daughter went away “so that no matter the day or the hour you might know you were welcome to enter at once.”

Here’s a funny story. Two women are sitting on a bench. The one’s three children “gleefully tumbled and cavorted while the other woman, who was childless, looked on and said: ‘I would give ten years of my life to have such wonderful children.’ After a moment’s reflection, the mother said, ‘Yes, three children cost just about that’.”

The poetry selections are likewise sentimental and lovely. Edgar Allen Poe’s “To My Mother” was written for his mother-in-law! “But you,” he says, “are mother to the one I love so dearly… .” There’s another by Alice Allen comparing … well, Alice says it better that I: “Her heart is like her garden, Old-fashioned, quaint and sweet, With here a wealth of blossom, And there a still retreat.”

There is something about this book—this particular book on my desk right now—that I find sad. Clearly it was marketed—no doubt in a greeting card store—especially for Mother’s Day. A corner of the title page has lines for “To,” “From,” and “Date.” This particular book is “To Mother with Love, Mary and Bill, May 14, 1972.” It’s in beautiful cursive handwriting with flourishes on the “Ms” in Mother, Mary, and May. Tucked away inside the pages is a little piece of light blue paper with pasted-on cut-out yellow flowers and another pasted-on smaller piece of paper on which is again written “To: Mother. From Mary & Bill.” Between the beautiful handwriting and the childlike decoration, I can’t figure out how old Mary and Bill might have been when they gave this book to their mother. Nor do I know how this book (and the corresponding one from Mary & Bill to “Our Daddy”) found its way to a junk store. I just can’t imagine Mary & Bill not wanting to pass this book bygone on to their children. Can you?

“Anniversaries and Holidays: A Calendar of Days and How to Observe Them.” Mary Emogene Hazeltine. American Library Association, Chicago. 1928. Available at MSU Mitchell Memorial, West Point, and Aberdeen libraries and at online booksellers.

“Far Above Rubies: My Mother.” Mary W. Lightfoot, ed. The World Publishing Company, New York. 1970. Available at online booksellers. 

Brain Growth

Miss M read my most recent Books Bygone newspaper essay column this evening after supper.

For some reason, Miss M found "brain growth" highly amusing.

Here's what got her laughing:

... the questions must not be suppressed, because that means death to intelligence and to brain growth. ...

To which I said:

No grownup in his or her right mind wants to stifle the growth of children’s brains, and so we look to encyclopedias for intelligent answers for our children and ourselves.

The Season of Promise and Hope and New Life

My latest Books Bygone column is out in our little newspaper. Also available here-- along with all of the others! Take a look!

It begins: 

Long, long ago, in a time far, far away—that would be before the days of Pinterest—crafty souls got their creative inspiration from magazines and books. These “idea” books often focused on a specific season or holiday and provided not just ideas but also step-by-step illustrated instructions on how to make, for example, an adorable Easter Bunny Centerpiece using little more than paper towels, crepe paper, and paste. As Easter is “the season of promise and hope and new life” which “each of us wants to celebrate in the spirit of love and kindness,” I’ve begun to look through the Easter Idea Book (1954) for inspiration.

A Preview

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 Aren't you lucky? [DRAFT version]

Books Bygone: It’s Almost Summer in Crockett’s Victory Garden!

by Marica Bernstein

We survived sixteen straight nights of subfreezing temperatures. We let our spigots drip and drip and still our pipes froze. We survived “snow days” without the pleasure of walking the dogs in the snow. But our seed packets arrived! And between dealing with all that the Southern Season of “Almost Summer,” and a pack of restless dogs, offer, we’ve still found time to start our heirloom tomato, pepper, eggplant, and celery seeds inside. But we cannot wait until we can play in the dirt, “as soon as the soil can be worked.”

While we’re waiting for that glorious day, I thought we might skim through an old favorite, “Crockett’s Victory Garden” by James Crockett (1977). Jim Crockett was the first host (1975-1979) of the PBS series of the same name. At that time the show first aired, Americans were still suffering from the effects of the Arab Oil Embargo. Gasoline had risen from $0.38/gal. to over $0.60 in a matter of months and was over $1.00 by the end of the decade. The first Energy Czar was appointed to fix things and gas rationing began. Times were tough. Says the show’s producer, “The timing for the show seemed perfect. … Self-sufficiency was both practical and fashionable, even if it meant digging up the front yard to plant tomatoes.”

The book begins with a nice dedication by Crockett, “May your garden, like mine, give you ‘Victory’ over the high cost of fresh vegetables as well as the joy and good health that come from living close to nature.” That’s a nice sentiment. Pass it along.

The television show ran in real time over the course of the year and so the book is organized month-by-month. It begins with March, though Crockett recognizes “the gardener’s year is a circle that has no absolute beginning or end.” He is opposed to the “boom and bust approach that leads to unmanageable surpluses” [cucumbers] “followed by bare or weedy ground for the rest of the season.”

Commenting on the vast number of vegetable gardening books available, Crockett claims “gardeners need more than clear how-to information.”  They need to understand the reasons behind certain practices and “logical explanations” for why gardening activities are done when they are. And “because time and the weather are critical factors in gardening” (you can say that again!) the book is designed to help you have “constant and bountiful production all year long.”

Crockett’s book is a clear explanation of common sense year-round vegetable gardening. But because he wrote from a New England Victory Garden perspective, we in Webster County will need to make some adjustments. For example, we need to back everything up by about two months. Crockett thins beets in May. Our beets are long gone by May. That space has been planted with peppers. And we don’t need to start Giant Red Mustard seeds inside. Sow them to the wind now.

These adjustments aside this is a great book for the novice and expert gardener alike. “May your garden, like mine, give you ‘Victory’ over the high cost of fresh vegetables as well as the joy and good health that come from living close to nature.” Pass it along.

Books Bygone: The Life of Anna Mary Robertson

 

Courtesy Wikipaintings.org

I have a new essay out in our little weekly newspaper. It's online at the paper's site but behind a paywall-- you may want to subscribe so you so you can keep up with what's happening. (Extra! Extra! There was an arrest made in the school flag theft!)

The essay is also available here, along with all of the others.

Daughter C did a dramatic reading last evening for our Cincinnati Friends.* She says this one is her favorite!

*below

Books Bygone: Washday

My most recent Books Bygone column, "Washday" came out in our little weekly newspaper yesterday. You can read it at the link or here where it's among all of the others.

If you read it at the newspaper, note that someone at the paper modified the title. I guess they needed to fill in some space. It's pretty funny what they came up with.

Feel free to pass along.