20 August 1956 “It’s Blackberry Season!”

Well, folks, here in 1956 it is Blackberry Season! Here you can see a lovely handful of these delicious fruit. I have bushes I have planted in my yard (still giving a small yield but will increase next year). The path we take to the seashore is also lined with blackberries. Luckiest of all, of course, was dear Gussie brought home a large bag full from our local farm where she works.
Now, I love blackberries. They are the perfect blend of sweet and tart. They always herald those late summer days, dining alfresco, and sweet mouthfuls of ripe berries and cream.
We have been Blackberry Mad around here lately. I have made countless batches of blackberry pancakes. Yesterday, I wanted to make filled crepes. I had some cream cheese in the house, so I simply popped some in the mixer, added some sugar and vanilla extract and whipped it smooth. No recipe here, just go for consistency and taste to your liking. You could have even added blackberries to that while you were mixing it to give it taste and color. Here they are. In all fairness, they are really thinner pancakes and I used toothpicks to keep the closed. Normally, when I make a crepe, they are much thinner and would have been easier to roll onto themselves and hold their shape. I simply made my usual pancake recipe and just reduced the baking powder. Normally, when I make crepes, rather they are sweet or savory, I use my recipe from the 1950’s Boston Cooking School Fanny Farmer cookbook.
CREPES

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup milk or meat stock (depending on sweet or savory of course)

Mix well, make thin pancakes.
Very easy indeed and savory crepes are a great way to stretch a food budget. Leftover meat and even potatoes and veg mixed with an easy gravy or sauce stuffed into crepes, topped with sauce and garnished. Looks lovely, very easy and tastes wonderful!
I also make some wonderful Blackberry scones the other morning. Some mornings when I get up a little earlier than usual, I like to bake for breakfast. I am a morning person and having the house quiet, the coffee percolating often sets the perfect baking mood.
This recipe is rather easy and makes a triangular scone.
Blackberry Scone
3 cups flour
1/2 cups sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
3/4 cups butter (cold and cut up, I keep my baking butter in the freezer)
1 cup butter milk (if you don’t have any buttermilk on hand, it’s easy to make. Add one tbs vinegar to each cup of milk needed.)
handful of blackberries (about a cup)
Mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and then cut in butter. I always use a pastry cutter so as to keep the dough cooler, like when you make a pastry dough. Gently stir in the blackberries. make a circular shape with the dough. Cut into triangles. Brush tops with egg white and sprinkle with sugar. They turned out rather well and were very delicious.
I also made some wonderful Blackberry/Blueberry Jam. I had blueberries left over from Gussie’s last farm gift of blueberries. A touch of lemon rind to this sort of jam does wonders to the taste.
Now, on the list to make still are some of the following. I found this great recipe in one of my magazines for a baked date pudding.I am just going to replace the dates with blackberries. And instead of just orange juice will most likely use less juice but put it in the blender with fresh blackberries to add more fresh flavor. (click to view full size)

And I would like to make a good Blackberry Roulade. THIS RECIPE is fairly good, though it is modern. Most likely I will end up tweaking it, as I do most recipes. I am not sure why this happens other than when I use a recipe now I have certain baking formula that flit about my head and recall things from previous recipes. Therefore such thoughts as “Oh, this would be nice with buttermilk” or “If I added some cocoa here and I could cut back on the flour here and make it a bit moister” come to me.
Now a Roulade is not only a dessert item. The word Roulade originates from the French word "rouler" meaning "to roll". Therefore meat lends itself well to this roll and fill food stuff. Duck is wonderful in a roulade, especially stuffed with pate’ (If you love fatty things as I do!) HERE is a great step by step for a meat roulade that uses flank steak. I often find this type of meal great for a cheaper cut steak, for when you slice it and pound it well (with your meat mallet or rolling pin) it really tenderizes it.
From one of my favorite cookbooks,     Betty Crocker’s Picture Cookbook, Is this recipe for Blackberry cream pie (click to enlarge and read) I love how this book is set up, as it gives you the guide to make a basic recipe and the suggestions to make variations, therefore teaching you how to make your own recipes. This is the page for the one layer pie crust.
Well, I hope whatever your current climate is, you are able to enjoy cooking and baking with some local fruits.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

18 August 1956 “Those Who Have Gone Before Us: We Salute You.”

A recent comment from a long time follower really touched my heart:
Hey 50's Gal,
Sorry I haven't commented the past few days, we buried my Grandmother yesterday, a great lady at the age of 90, she will truly be a hard act to follow.
In the 50's she raised her family on a farm, helped my Grandpa out in the fields, took care of the barns, yet still managed to make homemade food and pies. Lunches were like suppers with meat, starch, veggie and dessert.
I don't know how she managed it, but she did and in my eyes she truly eclipsed the modern Superwoman by leaps and bounds.
I will also miss her for the rest of my life.......
Mom in Canada
It got me thinking how many statues of military figures or plaques to various men in history can be found everywhere. How documentaries and films are made about the lost hero of the past. Yet, where is the homemaker? Where is her memorial? How many of those so honored themselves had a loving mother making a home and family life for them.
The more I have come to be ingrained in the 1950’s role of Homemaker, the greater my admiration for those ladies grows. The silent proud casts of millions that for centuries, in various forms, made the world in which we live. So much had been discussed and hearlded when Women’s liberation became a topic and for some reason, that strongest female heroine of all time: The homemaker, was not lauded but instead tossed in the dust bin. How can we, as ladies, expect men to appreciate such a role when we, ourselves, call it foolish or old fashioned. Is it old fashioned to want a home of love and a place to grow and raise future members of communities? Is it not a certain strength to make the world nice for those around you, because you enjoy it (though it is work) and feel it is part of your role?
As those final ladies of the 50’s generation pass away and we are left with the Boomers as our new ‘old’, I feel an almost fear or panic. Nothing against the Boomer generation, but we must all admit that the war generation, those ladies who made and raised the boomers, were a breed of their own. And consider the stock from which they came: Laundry boiled in huge dangerous pots, everything made and grown by hand, child birth taking many without proper medicine.
The homemaker was and is an important part of our human history. Rather modern ‘libbers’ want to forget about the smiling mothers in aprons in kitchens or want only to herald the random ruling Queen’s or other wealthy Suffrages, lest we forget the common woman who, without her, the world would have ceased surely. And, now without her, with her role all but gone or a shambles, what have we now with the world?
So, I ask of you, any of you, if you would like to: Email me family photos and stories and I shall share them here as I can. Tell us now about that grandmother or great aunt or even mother, who selflessly made the world a beautiful safe and comfortable place where the meals were hot and nutritous, there was always the smell of something wonderful in the air, a dampened hankie was always available to make the wayward dirty face better and the prim hat, coat, and gloves were a badge of honor as proud and important as any military uniform that ever was.
Today, ladies and gentleman, I salute the Homemaker, the mother, the woman of the past who diligently and with great skill and courage, made our world better and stronger. I stand in salute to you great and fallen in my best Sunday hat and coat, my gloved hand at salute to those who knew that what might seem silly to us now, was not only important but was what gave we humans, Humanity. I salute you the unsung hero.
Here are an assortment of photos of such women. If these are from any of your blogs, I do apologize for using them, but I felt they deserved to be here.
 

17 August 1956 “Jackson Pollock: An Artist OF His Time”

On 11 August of this year, Jackson Pollock died from a car crash due to his drunken driving. He had his girlfriend (though he was still married to artist Lee Krasner) and her friend with him. The friend was killed and the girlfriend survived.
Pollock rocketed to everyman’s fame due to a 1949 3 page article on him. I won’t get into all the aspects of what I think of his work or the work of abstract expressionism at the time. What was happening was timing. Prior to this period Paris was the epi-center of art, but a group of Harvard educated art critics changed this. They presented the rough and tumble avant-garde American artist as the new voice (or eyes) of a new world. His connection with the wealthy gallery and art guru, Peggy Guggenheim didn’t hurt. In many ways Pollock is a good example of life and art mirroring one another. We are coming out of the 1940’s into the post war 50’s and image, advertising, and persona are becoming more important than ever before. As TV will appear and magazines by the score, advertising will kick into full drive, so an artist who is all about HE is the perfect ‘Greatest Living Artist of Our Time” as the Life article told us.
His work, which is to me at best decorative, is certainly a good back drop for the time. Here one of his images from the 1951 Vogue is in perfect harmony with the early 1950’s color scheme of pink, black, grey and taupe.
His work even affected the interiors of the 1950’s and spatter painted floors were available on counter tops and floor tiles as well as ‘How to’ in ladies magazines. Many rumpus room basements received this treatment. Even ceramics felt the effect.
After his 1949 Life article he all but abandoned the ‘drip style’ and his work became darker and reintroduced the figure as seen in the 1951 piece.
I think his death of self-indulgence, alcoholism and sudden fame is very fitting for the coming decade. Many stars and singers will succumb to such. Too much too fast and already someone to step in and take their place was to be the new marketing of the human creative individual. Like the new paper towels, simply rip, wipe and toss away. In so many ways the roller coaster was beginning.
I shall return tomorrow hopefully with some images of my finished dress and some Blackberry Jam. I may have made my decision on a tenant and am trying to get as many things done along with that so as I do not focus on the frustration that is being a Landlord.
Until tomorrow, then, Happy Homemaking.

16 August 1956 “Housing then and now: The American Dream Home and a Typical Day in a 1950’s Town.”

Every so often my 1956 life gets thrust into 2010. There is no help for it, it just must be done. Recently, the past three days to be exact, I have had to have such a thing happen. Having to suddenly put our rental property back on the market and scramble to get a tenant by September first required it. Certainly, you might think, how has it really changed your 56 perspective and I can honestly say: Housing. My heart was breaking and I was also appalled by those multitudes who I showed through our shambles of a house.
The house was not left in a very good condition, though the tenants are still there through the end of the month. There was much unsolicited painting and random damages as well as a yard that, in one year, somehow looks as if it has been abandoned for 20!
Now, what has struck me the most by the people I have had to show my home to is that I was amazed by the number of multi-child families who are in desperate need of housing. These are families with children from teenager down to infant. Some even had children with special needs and they ALL had pets which were hard to find housing that accepted them. I am a softy, perhaps some would call me foolish, as I always take pets. I have dogs and appreciated my own landlords leniency in that regard when we lived in Boston, so I always figure, “Pass it on”. Pass the good luck forward for others. It, of course, usually gets me in the end. This last time in that their latest tenants dogs swam in my ornamental koi pond, shredded the liner and it is now devoid of water and all my many koi, frogs, tadpoles, frogs. It had evolved into its own ecosystem over the past few years and the Koi happily breed and ate from hands. But, I digress…
This left me wanting to look again at housing costs to median income in the 1950’s to today. For those of you not living in the US who may read my blog, our economy recently went through what we have ‘cutely’ referred to as the ‘Real Estate bubble’ which, though named after the circular shape it creates when mapped on a bar graph, makes it sound like a darling Japanese cartoon character. It is not darling and does not excite like bubbles on The Lawrence Welk Show.
Here are some basic numbers:
in the late 1950’s ( where I currently reside)
Median household income:        $5,620
Median home price:                       $11,900
Home price / income = 211 percent
(if this were adjusted for inflation to today’s money it would be $39,340 and $83,300)
In 2008 (the numbers are lower today but this is the most recent data for this article I found)
Median Household income:       $52,029
Median U.S. home price:             $172,600
Now anyone can see just by looking at the numbers the difference. And, in my area, the median price today is much higher than 172,00. You will be hard pressed to find a home, even in foreclosure, on Cape Cod under 200,000. And I know the median income here is lower than 52,000 as much of the income base here is retail or entry level healthcare which pays our minimum wage of 8.25 so for our area today it would look more like this
Median Household Income: $25,840
Median Cape Cod Home Price $ 210,000
I am sure it is different per state, but the average situation, even with prices falling sine the real estate bubble burst, is still much higher than in the 1950’s and that makes many of us ‘house poor’.
Now, add to this the other aspect I encountered in families that looked at my house.One of the families to whom I was showing the house had this scenario( of which I saw various versions over the last three days):  She works full time as a nurse. Her husband, who seemed fine and was walking about pulling on doorframes and telling me how he can build and lift etc, is on social security disability for sleep apnea. Their 30 year old son is also on social security, for what I don’t know, but she told me she has to make sure he gets 10 hours sleep a night! This son recently got his girlfriend with child. To which she said to me, “Now that we know it is his child she is moving in with us” and she, too, will receive government money. They drove to my house in a brand new shiny SUV. So, this family gets money both from the woman’s full time job, her son and husbands and now live in girlfriend and new baby government assistance as well as receiving 100% rental coverage through section 8 ( a government assistance program that pays your rent for you.) This is a hard pill for me to swallow when I am scrambling to get a tenant to pay only the cost of my mortgage ( I make not one cent from my rental) so I don’t have to take money out of our savings to keep paying the mortgage for the house and therefore depleting our recent ‘new roof savings’ for the home we currently live in. We have kept this home going with no income from it as we considered it part of our retirement. Because we, as many did, fell into the lie a few years back that homes are always investments and not just a place to live. The idea being it would have greater value as the years went on. However, since we bought it, the house went up in value almost 100,000 (which we should have sold then) and now is back to almost what we paid for it.
We work very had and pay our taxes and scrimp and save and yet we get no actual outcome from our taxes, except the roads and garbage pick up. We have no children and would not send them to public funded school if we did have them. This might just sound as if I am simply bitter or jealous of their set up. In fact, I am sad for their set up. This systems in place seem to be there to take government collected money (mainly from the middle class) and allow the recipients enough ease to then go and put that money into the private sector such as Wal-Mart and the Mall.
So, what I get from all this is our country believes in ‘socialism’ when it is rewarding socially negative behavior or to keep the ‘very old’ in privately run nursing homes through Medicare, but for the hardworking middle class citizen, we are left to not only fend for ourselves with healthcare and education, but to also foot the bill for those who have children without thought, manage to drive expensive SUV’s while ‘we’ pay for their section 8 housing. It seems increasingly, as the middle class grew from the 1950’s, that we are the new work force for the country as corporation.
  When I think of the 1930’s paintings often done representing the working class as being tread upon by the factories, I have to envision a new image (as we have almost no production in this country any more) with the middle class being tread upon by the corporate run government and the government subsidized social security classes. Yet, where is this pictured today? The plight of the poor seems to leave out the hard working law abiding tax paying middle class. Even our artists care little about the plight of the common man and more about their own identity as art moves towards more and more installation work often obscure and not easily understood by the general public.
Even banks now are not lending with their own money and if they did the housing cost would reduce pertinent to that. Here is a quote from an article I read:
“Home prices have gotten more expensive because the crony banking system is hungry for more and more profits.  If banks had to lend their own money, home prices would automatically adjust lower.  Is that necessarily bad?  This would provide more mobility and less of a focus on homes as commodities and more as a place of shelter.  Take for example the current bust.  Say someone in struggling Detroit finds a job in New York but can’t sell his home.  Say that new job utilizes their skills more effectively.  How is their inability to move helping the overall prosperity of our economy?  It isn’t.  Yet this is the position millions now find themselves in.”
Again and again I find that to live a truly Vintage life, that is to say to look to the past for the good as well as the fun and beauty of it, we must be aware of the social and financial changes that have taken place. To be aware of what we once had and what we could now enjoy for the benefit of all, is so much more important and much MORE vintage to think about others as well as if we can ‘go buy more stuff’.
What is the solution, then? I haven’t a clue. This one really stumps me. I feel increasingly in charge of my life as I begin to take on the role and skills of a 1950’s homemaker and I grow my own food, sew my own clothes, manage money better and buy what is needed and enjoy what I have rather than need more. Yet, here I am in a situation and a country that seems to gladly trade our old dreams and values of even 50 years ago for a fast buck. And what worries me most of that is that most of the people this negatively affects are too easily swayed by media talking points of one being a Republican or Democrat or Socialist or a Capitalist. We need to stand up and be the smart party. The party that sees things for what they are, call a duck a duck. Policy and spending should be viewed on an idividual basis not to cater to a party platform. If things are not working, they need to be fixed. Ah, if only there were  a Vintage Party, I’d join up. Yet, I find no affinity with either of our two political parties as it has just become a sort of scary machine.
I do hate to get too political, but in some aspects this post is about getting LESS political. About forgetting those terms Socialism, Capitalism etc, we need to worry about the future our children will inherit. I feel a sadness and remorse for a country I would have been proud of in 1956 and hate to see where we have come. I am not anti-American but perhaps, “Early American” in that I believe in our people and our personal rights for the good of our people and not the pursuit of the mighty dollar. The American Dream of small business ownership is gone, it seems. The dream of a happy simple life of choice has been replaced by the bloated final days of Rome where we have become so placated and easily led, we simply wait, like lambs for the slaughter. Perhaps I am being overly dramatic, but I do honestly fell sadness and frustration. This only cements my need to withdraw to 1950’s more and more. I only wish I could take some of you with me and we could claim some small bit of some state for our own independent world. The Vintage World, where common sense and the betterment of people and life comes before the dollar. A gal can dream, can’t she?
So, back to my initial point. It seems it is very hard for many families to own homes as their income to housing cost ratio far exceeds what is good for home ownership. Even those who struggle to hold onto their homes are still very ‘house poor’. It is a sad state indeed. And all this from three days of showing my sad little rental property. Lessons, it seems, are always lurking around every corner.
And many banks would have us believe that today if we had such a low income to house price ratio it would be bad for the economy. This, of course, is also nonsense, as all you have to do is look back to the 1950’s! In the 1950’s when this was the case the BEST GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth! This article HERE is very good at explaining it more than I could.
Now, I don’t want to end a post on a negative or sad note. So, here is a video I once showed in 1955. It is a typical day in a 1950’s town. A town I would like to see return to our country. One in which things are made and sold and done locally. No Wal-mart or mall. Milk at the door, safe streets full of happy healthy children, affordable housing but clothing and food expensive enough to make sure we don’t overbuy nor lose our own abilities to make these ourselves. Could this ever be again?

14 August 1956 "I'm no Ethel Mertz"

I am a horrible landlady, well horrible in the sense that I hate doing it. I always end up with the worse tenants who make a mess, destroy the house (doors unhinged, glittery stars spelling out a child's name that are glued onto the drywall, and my prized koi pond I had for 10 years completely dry and uncertain where all the dead fish ended up) Lucy and Ricky they ain't.
Although technically Ethel and Fred were the building Super I believe, not the land lady. All I know is I spent the day showing a house that was filthy, piled so high with boxes you could not enter certain rooms and a destroyed pond with no yard maitenance. Needless to say, I had no takers today for the house.
So now tomorrow I have to be there from noon until 5 showing potential new tenants who hopefully will not become more destructive then the last. If our real estate market hadn't had a meltdown I would consider selling, but that seems hardly an option at present.
I therefore ask you forgiveness for now proper post these past two days. Maybe someone will feel sorry for me and leave me some comments of encouragement and joy to placate my sad soul. Nothing makes me despair more of the human animal than my continual trust of people's innate goodness only to be proved wrong every time a tenant leaves the house in shambles with seemingly no remorse. I have to accept that others Won't do as I would do.
Maybe I should do as William Holden did in this episode of Lucy and turn the tables. I could go to the tenants next house and knock holes in their walls, destroy their garden and paint their rooms hot pink and see how they like it.

Of course we know what happens to Mr. Holden in the end of that scene. I suppose I will go on being the patsy from my tenants and hoping, somehow, that people do have some goodness deep down inside.
Until tomorrow, Happy Homemaking.

13 August 1956 “Gone Sailing”

I am sorry for no post today. I have only just got back home now (10:00 p.m. my time). I spent the day with our family sailing. It was wonderful, nice and cool and good wind.

I shall share pictures tomorrow but have to show our rental house tomorrow and Sunday, so they shall be shorter posts.

I hope are all having a lovely weekend and, as always, Happy Homemaking.

12 August 1956” Budget article concluded, My Financial Budget Recipe, and a New Dress”

Now, I know there is much in this article that one could protest, but honestly there is some sound advice as well. And as far as the husband, “Opening his wallet and laying down a 20” in our household and indeed in many if not most 1950’s household, the woman handed out the money. Managing it and budgeting the inflow of money was her job and one she took seriously.
I also think the image of the bad wife running about dress shops is funny to me, because I would say today it is both the husband and wife who are running about spending. And with no task master at all, we can sometimes be like great children with play money. The use of electronic money makes it even easier, as if it is some magic card that gives us what we want. The use of cash is really utmost in a proper homemaking budget duties. You cannot overspend what you do not have in your hand, the store won’t allow it. But, the credit cards and banks will and they even encourage it. When your 4 dollar latte costs 100 down the road with interest, you would have been glad to have to say, “Oh, I only have enough for a small coffee”. Something to think about anyway. So, how did any of you think of the article overall?
I thought we could discuss budget making a little. I often get letters from readers asking me about my own budget. Obviously each individual will need to cater their money situation to their own personal needs, but really I use a sort of ‘formula’ that came from my vintage books on housekeeping and trial and error.
For the overall budget of the household I break it down into three categories:
1. Set In Stone: This first bit is what we HAVE to pay each month or we get into trouble. These include

• Mortgage/rent
• Taxes
• Utilities (phone, electric, fuel oil, internet services)
• Car Payments (which I am lucky to be without)
• Insurance costs (home, auto, health)

2. Elastic: This second set of items are NEEDED but can sometimes be tweaked if there are unforeseen circumstances that money needs to be shuffled about.

• Savings-now savings ARE important and need to be addressed each month. I like to attempt to keep these in the above list, but really they belong here, because if one needs to for one particular month or week, this can be lessened. Perhaps with an attempt to make up the difference another month when there is a surplus. We should be saving at least one weeks salary a month. (If both couples work, yes that means both. With today’s housing market I know this is not always easy but it is a specific amount to work towards.
• Groceries-Here I try to keep this budget down to the penny, but if something comes up, I will cut back in favor of savings. So, if an unexpected car cost or something arose, I would steal from groceries first and then allowances before Savings. Having one member of the couple home makes this aspect perfect. It is part of my job to economize here, so if this needs to be lessened one month, then soups and other things I may have prepared and froze come into play.
• Allowances-I allot a weekly allowance in cash in hand for both hubby and myself. Hubby gets 10% roughly of his weekly pay. I take 5%. When tweaking needs to be done and the groceries have been done then allowances would come next affecting mine first. This is a decision I made as I feel it is important for my hubby to have a steady weekly cash flow, since all the money he earns comes straight to me. He is a marvelous saver and spends only from this allotment. He does not even have a Debit card from our main checking account.
• Auto Fuel-This may seem odd to have this placed in elastic, but for us it is. Hubby needs to drive the same amount each month, but as we now only have one car, I do not need to take it as often. My having the car on a day he works involves double driving. This is an expense easily done away with. I use the car often when he works an odd day or when he is off. Careful planning of shopping trips avoids the need to say, “Oh, I forgot this I better hop down and get it” Before we went down to one car, I would often do this, but slowly learned how easy it was to make do. When it is there, you will use it, that is just human nature. And the reduction in gas cost, insurance and excise taxes means more savings or an increase in allowance.

3.Extraneous-This encompasses anything outside of the other listed items. Including clothing. I maintain and repair husbands clothes. I make my own clothes. My fabric and notions come out of my allowance/pin money. If hubby needs clothes, he informs me and I buy them for him. I am lucky as he never fluctuates in size so I can buy him shirts/trousers or shoes and know they will fit. Part of his last birthday gift from me was new shoes from my allowance.

•   Entertainment-movies, theatre
• Dining out-restaurants or even stopping at our local cafe whilst on our bikes
• magazines/books etc (we get free magazines by checking them out of our local library. We often find great books for free at our local dump swap shop and hubby downloads endless free books for his nook (paid for out of his cash allowance).
• clothing

So, I know this is a very large overview and one’s savings should be really broken down into weekly allotments ( I find saving that much easier when it is a smaller amount each week) but this gives a general guideline that I think most anyone could apply to their own budgets. And those of you who have children have to add much more, such as college savings, etc, but children's clothing could certainly go in the elastic section. The worst situation, of course (which I had before 1955) is to not have any budget at all. There really is no excuse and it is not hard to do . The less we consider our spending the easier it is to over spend.
Now, onto sewing. I do not have a photo of my latest dress (the blue and red and white dotted number I showed on my manikin a few posts ago) but I do have another dress I made. I had not documented it, as I became rather lazy in my posting after our satiation week.
This little number is definitely a summer and also spring dress. It is of seersucker. It looks lovely with a vintage lavender sweater I have with pearl beadwork. The colors are so close it is uncanny. I didn’t have the cardigan in mind when I bought the fabric, either. My hat is vintage, of course and is of white straw with a grosgrain ribbon on back. I cut the bodice of the dress (which has a separate piece for the waistline) out of a sold blue seersucker and then embossed it with two fancy stitches using the ‘discs’ in my Singer Rocketeer. I also tripped the bodice top in bias tape to match the the blue midriff. It is a comfortable summer weight dress and seersucker is a dream for ‘carefree’ summer fabric.
I am really getting into changing and altering the style of the dress by using inlays of different fabric. I did this even more so in my latest dress that I will post about at some point. I have been good enough to stick to my ‘one dress a month’ so far. Now I need to schedule more ‘doll making’ into that sewing time. It’s lovely when your job is so elastic to encompass so much creativity and you pile more and more on. Yet, rather than feeling too overwhelmed (though I can sometimes) you feel mostly lucky and happy and almost never call it work (well, maybe cleaning the bathroom I call work!)
Well, until next time, Happy Homemaking!

11 August 1956 “Nuclear Warheads, Vintage Food Packaging, Hats, and A Great Car”

This month in 1956, not far from where I live here on Cape Cod, a missile will be developed. The Polaris missile developed at the Woods Hole, Mass., Oceanographic Institute can be launched underwater from submarines and carry a nuclear warhead. The cold war marches on.
Just for fun, some vintage food stuffs. What I might see in the aisles of local grocer.
You will notice that we are not afraid of the word Sugar in our cereals. It is still in there today (when it is not corn syrup of course) but if we don’t write it on the box, I guess it doesn’t count? This advert offers miniature Grandma Moses prints. I need to do a post on Grandma Moses. I have a wonderful copy of House Beautiful with an article on her and a cover. She was quite the ‘it’ artist of the homemaker set and the middle class.
And though I would be suspect of cake mixes, I am sure by 56 I would use one in a pinch. Here is a fun commercial for Betty Crocker Cake Mix.

And I have to admit, when I buy bread at my grocer (I usually make it as well, but sometimes I need it in a pinch) I get Sunbeam. It is entirely because of the packaging. It is the same as it was in the 1950’s and there is something about unpacking that when I get home and putting it in my vintage bread box. Advertising really works, I suppose, but it doesn’t always have to be bad. In fact, in a pinch, it makes quick and yummy French toast or stuffing.

It was nice to see in this 1956 ad for Max Factor make up that her hat is very similar to the pattern for a hat I just purchased. It seems got very close to the head, almost like large headbands, and are now moving up a bit. This will eventually become the famous ‘pillbox’ of Jackie Kennedy in the early 60’s. Then hats will become larger versions of 1920’s cloche’s but worn atop the head rather than down over it such as this. 1965 vs. 1925. Then, of course by the late 60’s they will become big and floppy and then just, poof! Disappear. Such a sad shame hats are no longer des rigueur, as they can add so much style so quickly to even the last minute thrown together outfit. 
And to close, in a purely selfish, American consumer way, this would have to be my current dream car. A 1956 Mercury Monterey woody station wagon. Oh, gals, imagine the groceries I could haul and the tailgating and rambling down the old road with a lovely vintage chair in the back from the local antique store. A gal can be a little greedy sometimes, can’t she?
Until tomorrow, then, Happy Homemaking.

10 August 1956 “Patti Page, Woman’s March, Some New Patterns and More of our Budget Article.”

This week in Tv here in 1956, we can look forward to seeing Patti Page sing her heart out. I love that her ‘fuller arms’ are not hidden. There is no Photoshop here in 1956, and it seems she was merely cut out by hand by some lower rung ad man in the arts department. There is a lot to be said for the naiveté’ of our times here in the 1950’s. A genuine rawness even to something as simply as our Tv guides.
Here she is on the Patti Page Show this year (56)

This is a new song by Patti Page for this year 1956. (this tune “Nevertheless” is a great one to clean to)

The young Elizabeth Taylor is on the cover of this month’s Cosmopolitan. I adore her hair this way, short and so chic’.
Yesterday, the 9th of August 1956, South African women marched to petition against legislation that required African persons to carry the "pass", special identification documents which curtailed an African's freedom of movement during the apartheid era. It is held as a public holiday to this day. Read more about that HERE. For those Homeschoolers out there, it would be an interesting topic. Women’s rights and minority’s rates are beginning to have a move to the forefront as the decade ends. Oh, if only we could really go back and handle things differently. But, we can move forward and I think women are always the best at understanding both sides of an argument. I am sure most women have to do it daily with their children.
I just purchased two new patterns. I know, I know, I need another pattern like I need a hole in the head, but a gal must be prepared. These are both very crucial to my future sewing ventures.
The first is this wonderful hat and collar pattern. How cunning is it that there are collar patterns! I can already imagine more of my dresses and tops becoming ‘new’ simply by adding these collars. (Although the pilgrim version might have to be reserved for only trips to Plimoth Plantaion) The striped dickey top with the button and peter pan collar is adorable. And the basic beret/pill box is going to be glorious in wool and felt.
This second pattern made my heart skip a beat. I have been trying to find a pattern for the dresses I see that have  the sleeve as part of the bodice. Some of my faithful readers will recall my own attempts at my own pattern for this. It worked rather well, but I am dying to see how and where to put darts and such. I like the second version because I really like finding new vintage ways to wear scarves. Isn’t it just ducky peeking out like that! And pickets are always nice in any dress/skirt.
And, for those few of you who have been faithfully reading this very long column on Marriage and Money, here is the next installment. And NO it still is not all of it! There was always much more writing in old magazines than what we are given today. As I said, modern ladies magazines are like an elementary school second grade primer: See Jane Shop, Look Jane Look, there are some dishes and sheets, Buy Jane BUY. But, I digress.
Simply click on them to read and enjoy!

I have also been really working on remaking the website again this week. I know I did it once before, but it was laid out in such a way that I could not keep up with that and all the other things I must and want to do. The new format will be simpler but easier for me to update so it can actually be a fun place to visit and share with all of you.
Until tomorrow, then, Happy Homemaking.
Because a Commenter said Allegheny Moon by Patti Page is her favorite, I edited this post to include it. This Record is from this year, as well, 1956. Here you can hear how we here in 1956 would hear it. There are no i-Pods or digital, but the lovely whirl and hiss of the Record adds something. Picture it on the large Hi-Fi the size of a sideboard. Wine chilling, the lights dimmed and you and your loved one (he in his white dinner jacket) dancing cheek to cheek. Ah…..

8 August 1956 “Budget: Your Paycheck and Your Marriage Article Continued and a Homemaker’s Poem”

I am continuing today with the article of yesterday “Your Paycheck and your Marriage”. This is a rather long article, so here is the next section, but I will conclude it on tomorrow’s post. There are some interesting bits in this article.
I think I will repost yesterday’s beginning of the article, in case you are just joining us now. You can click on each section to read or download full size.

This article is full of common sense, something I think sometimes is lacking in the 21st century. And, contrary to many conceptions of the 50’s Housewife, we can see presented here a very real ‘shared’ aspect of money and responsibility. I still get a little upset when I hear the accepted idea of the cowering 1950’s housewife doing her husbands bidding. Many homemakers were very much the financial backbone of a family. They did not feel the money being earned was ‘HIS’ and that her role was valuable and necessary and therefore had no problem spending and saving the money as a collective of two people. The concept of marriage as both a partnership of mind and body is equally balanced with one of shared financial goal and purpose.
Some might balk at the mention of the wife ‘wanting to live beyond her husbands means’ as a sort of bondage. “Why not have two incomes and then you don’t have to answer to your husband” I can almost hear modern women speak. Yet, they miss the very point. First off, there were working wives in the 1950’s but if a wife was a ‘stay at home’ it is silly to think of it as bondage. In many ways it is rather freeing and can require much more financial skill. The ability to budget and balance all that needs to be provided by she is tantamount to a good relationship as much as if both members of the couple like the same music or want the same number of children. It also forces one to pay more attention to spending when only one income is available.
It is also interesting that they mention a working wife should not feel that ‘His money’ is theirs and Hers only for herself. Equality is laid out here and though it is easy to put a blanket of oppression over the wives of old, I am always finding the contrary in my research.
The bit about the ‘no money down’ was very relevant. Though we here in 1956 do not have the potholes and trappings of easy credit cards and expected debt, the increase in ‘pay on credit’ could be a mine-field for the Homemaker. We can still feel the need to keep up with the Joneses. And our increasing advertising on television as well as the homes of TV homemakers and what we see in magazines can be a siren song to ill-spending. Yet, we do try here to address it from a very tactful matter of fact way.
I think one thing I have come to realize about the 1950’s (at least what I can garner from my research at least) is the emotions did not rule one as greatly as it seems to today. Though there may be jokes of martini’s and ‘we don’t talk about things or share our emotions’ from those times, in many ways it decreases over all drama and also prepares children for a realistic adulthood. One was not expected to have every whim met or to be the center of attention at all times. Of course, we do see that their own lavishing on their offspring made their Baby Boomer children have a more skewed idea of their own rights and privileges. (not all baby boomers mind, but just in a general sense). So, who can say, maybe their own hardships should have been passed down more. Perhaps given the children a little less and work a little harder, we can’t really change the past. But, we can learn from it, I think. At least I am now basing my entire life upon it!
I think the more we can divorce unnecessary emotions from things where they are not helpful, such as money and our budget, the better off we shall be. This idea of “Well, I deserve it” seems to permeate 21st century. Certainly we should spend on joy and fun, but I think it will be better spent and enjoyed if we do so within the framework of a budget that works for us. I love my vintage items and to buy something new can give one a lift, as long as we don’t use it to quell other suffering or as an excuse to be irresponsible. Spend, certainly, but as a team (if we are married) and with a budget.
So, we can continue this article tomorrow, as it is a long one. I am also always impressed with the length and thoroughness of articles in my old magazines. I picked up a modern magazine the other day and was surprised to see more ads, mostly pictures and writing more catered to a 6th grade level. It was like a picture book or early reader for adults. I suppose we get used to what we get used to.
I am going to close with this sentimental but darling little poem from the same magazine as this article.