Found a cousin!

This postcard had been rattling around in the 'Ruth Berlin' pile for years, and it seemed to be just one more of her many pictures of various friends.
I finally looked at it more carefully.
1913.
This girl is not from the Olson/Krantz side at all.  She is Judith Kvick.  Mother's first cousin.
Born in 1895.
She sent the postcard to her father, John (Johannes), Grandpop Kwick's brother, who had come from Sweden without his family.

*Very* loosely translated, this says: Happy Birthday from daughter Judith.  I wonder if you know that I can ride a bicycle.  This is not my bicycle. My girlfriend took a picture of me standing beside it.

This is the first I have realized that we had any surviving communication from Kwick relatives in Sweden in Judith's generation at all.
We heard that Uncle John and Uncle Charlie (Johannes and Carl) had come over, but since they died around the time Mother was born, there has not been not much awareness of them.

Garage House - 1978

This was a major adventure.  We reclaimed the well*, put in the septic system, and built the garage (well, Max and Mike did)  to live in  for the summer while we started the house.  Alan was on sabbatical.  The house didn't  really get started until later.  You can see the foundation in one of the pictures.  

* there is another post about the well. http://stuffstories.blogspot.com/2011/11/meaningful-mineral-memento.html

Features of the garage:

• Wood burning cook stove, fueled by wonderful clean oak blocks which were available as scrap from a factory in Siren. Took the chill out of mornings, made good cookies.
• Propane stove for more serious cooking.
• Electricity, but we used oil lamps, too.
• Water  "walked in and ran out".  Electric pump out back near the power pole.
• Outhouse with a real toilet positioned over the septic tank. Bring your own bucket of water for flushing.
• Cardboard "sheetrock" to keep wind and mosquitoes (mostly) out of the sleeping areas.
• Thunderstorms as multi-media experiences, with a tin roof to maximize rain noise and fiberglass garage door and south roof to emphasize lightning. Noisy enough that I would get up to look at the children to see if they were awake and/or bothered by the storm.  Couldn't have heard them.

The garden was not good.
There had been a schoolhouse on the front acre of the property, and when that building was razed, the topsoil wound up about three feet under clay.  We could see that when the area around the well was dug up.  A load of manure from the farmer across the road was not enough to make good soil on short notice, and we were not there long enough either to improve that soil or establish a garden elsewhere on the property.

What I remember is that it was LOUD

Ran across this program booklet today.
I know that we attended this.  I remember nothing of the displays or demonstrations.
It was a hassle to get there.
It was crowded.
It was the first time I had seen a sign saying "In Case of Fire Dial 999." (not comforting)
It was indoors, so VERY LOUD.
We didn't stay for long.

However, the booklet is full of photographs and short histories, and - especially - advertisements with a military spin.

Piggy Bank

This little guy has been with me since I was in grade school.
He is six inches tall.
I like him because he is just so much cooler than the plain pink four-legged plastic one that preceded him.  Unlike the plastic pig, this one has no plug to take out to empty him.
I remember pictures in books of children taking a hammer to their banks to get to the coins.
Unthinkable in this case.
However, if you are patient, you can stick a table knife into the slot and shake coins around until they line up on the blade and slide out.  Just be sure that you don't fill the pig to capacity, or there will be no space for the knife.
For the record:  He is currently completely empty.

Ruth worked for H.C.Frick at Eagle Rock

Cousin Ruth worked as a maid in several large houses in New York City in the early part of the century.  When the households moved to their summer places, she sometimes went with them.
That was the case with the Henry C Frick's. 
Ruth liked gardens, and she liked to take pictures.  Judging from the number of photographs taken in the gardens at Eagle Rock, the Frick mansion at Prides Crossing, she really enjoyed her summers there.

Here is a commercial postcard of the place.

And one of the gardens.

Ruth took pictures of the gardens, too.

And pictures of her friends on the staff...

And pictures of herself on the grounds...  there are a lot of these, most of very poor quality, so here are just two.

And one more commercial postcard

When she left the Frick house, Ruth got this form letter of reference.

When she got back from Sweden, she worked for John D. Rockefeller, H.H. Rogers, again for Frick, and several times for W.K.Vanderbilt, being laid off and re-hired as houses were closed and opened as seasons changed. These other families provided very positive references, which I may post in another entry someday. 

Toll House Cookies and me

 

I can smell chocolate chip cookies just looking at this jar.  It was always visible in the kitchen when we were growing up. I wonder if it was a wedding present to my parents.

Toll House is the only kind of cookie I remember being in it.

This is not a particularly large cookie jar, but then it used to be that a batch of cookies was smaller than we think of today.  A bag of chocolate chips was only 6 ounces.

Cookies - especially chocolate chip ones - seem to be a recurring theme.

I first made cookies by myself when we lived in Ohio in fourth grade.  I particularly remember measuring out six tablespoons of brown sugar.  Since brown sugar holds it shape, I could make it look as if there were half a dozen small brown eggs in the bowl  (hey, I was 9).

The summer after that, back in Delaware, I made a lot of toll house cookies and sold them door to door in the neighborhood.

Fifteen cents for a quarter of a pound.  I think that some relatives must have bought some, too.  There was an option to buy a whole tin full for $3.  I really do not remember what the arrangement was for buying ingredients, but I don't think they just magically appeared.

In any case, at the end of the summer I bought a Brownie flash camera with the proceeds.

And yes, I still have the camera, though I don't know if it still works.  127 film.

I took at least one tin of Toll House cookies to Dr. and Mrs.Webber in the summer after 10th grade, when I audited a pre-calculus class Dr. Webber was teaching at the University of Delaware. It was a course designed to help incoming freshmen, and I aced it with a lot of maternal coaching on the trig parts.  Dr. Webber was just amused to have me in class since he had been Mother's advisor on her Masters Dissertation and thought very highly of her. I'm sure Mother asked him to let me sit in on the course to provide me with something productive to do with my summer.  

There were 18 year old boys in that class, too, but that is another story.

Toll House cookies also were provided to the Tower Hill Summer School faculty lounge in 1963, or whatever year it was that I took a small but arduous course in score reading and conducting from Mr.B.  I was no good at all at transposition, and only adequate at conducting.   The cookies, however, were well received.

At some point - after Deluxe, I think -  I started baking cookies to take to work.
Target(IBM), MSI, and a couple of customer offices all benefited(?) from my signature cookie*, plus experiments with other chip/fruit combinations.

*oatmeal chocolate chip with dried cherries.

January 16 - Grandmom Kwick's birthday

Gerda Augusta Olson was born in 1881. She is 18 in this picture.

She married Nils Kwick in 1902.


POST IN PROCESS...  More to be added!

Lunchtime Salt Curling

Ha!   I just found these four little plastic curling stone thingies in a box in the attic.  I bought them in the late 80's with some thought of playing with them at work, which never happened. They have a ball bearing in the bottom for easy sliding. You can use them for a bunch of different games, but the primary one is described on a board game site as:
"Based on Curling, players move their two Sliders across the table or another smooth surface. Score 1 point for being closest to the edge, 2 points for a 'cliffhanger'. First player to score 10 points wins."

This is exactly what we used to do with salt shakers at school!
I don't know that we kept score, but this game was definitely played by seniors at lunch.
Since seniors were first through the lunch line, we often had some time to kill while waiting for the underclassmen to finish eating and announcements to be made before we were dismissed.
Naturally we found a sophisticated game like this to play.
Perfect because the faculty didn't like it, but it really was not rowdy enough to warrant intervention.

January 11 - Grandmother Keen's birthday

Mary Emma Stuck Keen was born in 1893. This portrait was taken for a church directory in the 1970s.
I have recently found pictures that make me think I never knew her at all.

We grew up hearing fewer Keen stories than Kwick ones, and we spent more time with the Kwick grandparents.  I am only now coming to some understanding of the Keen side.
 .

Here is the woman I remember growing up.

The picture was taken at some Christmas in the 50's or 60's.

She was certainly pleasant enough, but less accessible, somehow, than some other relatives.  (I wonder if I am not somewhat like her in this regard.)

Here are a few of a number of rather solemn photographs of Mary taken throughout her life.

Age 8

Wedding

Age 19

And this quite scary family portrait from maybe 1927?

Marjorie, Mary, Newlin,Walter, Evelyn, Jack

But the pictures that  intrigue me more are the un-solemn ones that showed up.
I was surprisingly glad/relieved to see these.

Picnic with friends (including Walter)

Youngest son Jack was being funny?

If everyone threw a pebble into the Grand Canyon....

But what if everyone took pebbles out of England?

Somewhat amazed to find that these were brought home and kept.  From the writing on the envelopes, it seems clear that this collection is from the 1958 trip.

The majority are most likely from the beach at ?Lyme Regis? Bognor Regis?, site of a day trip with the Moore's. We were much impressed with the fact that this was considered a beach even though there was no sand, just pebbles.

Anne Hathaway's Cottage:  dunno.. from the parking lot? 

North Wales: either from the seaside at Llandudno or from near the tram stop at the top of Great Orm's Head.
(This is a place I would like to go back to and investigate further someday!)

Kevin's sheep

This little guy has been part of our Christmas creche decoration since Karen was in pre-school.
It is a small wooden spool, cotton, and paper front and back, only two inches high.
And, in little tiny letters on the inside of the back leg, it says,"Kevin."
I hope that Kevin's family has taken as good care of Karen's sheep as we have of his.

January 6. Grandpop Kwick's Birthday

Nils was born in 1875.

This picture of Gerda, Carl, and Nils was taken in 1904. 

 Grandpop was retired by the time I was born, but he was at one time a salvage diver. 

More pictures about the diving:

The dredge boat

The dredge at dock.  Maybe Nils standing there,

The diver being tended would be Nils.

Grade school kids buy presents at Mitchell's

Oh, my.

Somewhat remarkable that these are still in The Stuff. 

However, since Mother kept them, how can I dispose of them?

I don't think they were purchased for major occasions like Christmas or her birthday, but Mother probably got these for Mother's Day or maybe just because one of us really, really wanted to buy something, and these each seemed somehow wonderful at the time.

I mean,  that is truly a remarkable poodle, don't you think?  Clearly a treasure.

And the girl in the green (it used to be green, anyway) dress is a trinket box.  The lower ruffle covers a little dish, and the rest of her is the lid.  Pretty snazzy.

I look at these wonders and think "Mitchell's".

(And if you think, "Mitchell's", you start thinking about yo-yo's, and chewing gum, and candy lipstick, and candy cigarettes, and... never mind.)

Mitchell's Variety Store was in the Fairfax Shopping Center, and in those long ago days we were occasionally allowed to ride our bikes to it.  Traffic was the main thing to be worried about, apparently, and there was only the semi-busy Shipley Road to cross.  The rest of the route was through housing developments.  I think we just had to all three go together, and be home in time for lunch.

I'm sure that the boys were allowed to go without me at some point when I was old enough to be less interested in the trip or busy with other things, but I don't exactly remember that.

One of the stores in the Fairfax center had a soda fountain.  Hoy's 5&10, maybe?  Anyway, I know that we were known to buy root beer floats there at unlikely hours of the morning.

Mitchell's morphed into a train and hobby shop at some point, and is completely gone now.

You either got it or you didn't

To make any comment would be saying too much or not nearly enough.

This pincushion rocks!

More hobby woodworking.  This time Uncle Axel's.  There were several of these little rocking chairs in existence at one time.  

This remaining one is a bit the worse for wear.

The pincushion is fine.  You could still use the little slot in the top for scissors, I suppose. Four out of six pegs to hold spools are broken off, and the little drawer has a weak floor. 

But, hey, I don't keep it around in order to use it, do I?

Here's a picture of Axel for good measure.

Somewhere there is also a picture of the Santa and Reindeer wooden cutouts that he made for lawn decorations in the 1950's,  back before it was possible to buy all your Christmas decorations made of plastic with LEDs.

EDIT 1/24/12:

Now THAT's interesting.

I found the picture of the Christmas display.  It is not Santa at all!  Memory is pretty strange.

EDIT 6/19/2012:

HA.

My memory is not completely goofed up, after all.

There really was a Santa display at Axels' house.

 

Sisters with beaded bags

I have very strong memories of hanging around Grandmom's house while Mother and Grandmom and Alice and, I think, even Swea sometimes, were crocheting these bags. They each had one like this, and there were also a couple of plainer variations. 
I was at least occasionally allowed to string the wooden beads on the gold cording. Think about it.  All the beads have to be on the thread before you start crocheting.  So please notice that the bead colors repeat in strict order.

Meaningful mineral memento

When we built the house in Range, the existing well had to be reclaimed to make it useable.
It was re-drilled deeper and a submersible pump was put in.
Before the pump was installed, Max collected this little jar full of stones and water from the well as a keepsake.  And I've kept it for over 30 years now.

In the Doghouse

 

Does anybody use that expression any more?

Anyway, this is one of Uncle Ed's projects.  Apparently he thought it would be funny to be able to see at a glance who in the family was "in the doghouse," so he made these for several of  his relatives.
The one for his own family hung in the hall just outside their kitchen for as long as I can remember.
If ours was hung at all, it was someplace inconspicuous.

Ed made a lot of things.  I don't think we should remember him primarily for this one.

EDIT:  This treasure is no longer in The Stuff.  After consultation with brothers, I 'lost' it, so don't go looking for it.

Wilmington Dry Goods, bargains, and street names

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Before there were chains of discount department stores, there was Wilmington Dry Goods on Market Street in Wilmington from 1924 to 1977.  The Wilmington Dry stores in the suburbs after that just don't count.

This site tells more than you want to know of the history of the enterprise, but skip down to the pictures.  They are great.

http://www.oldwilmington.net/oldwilmington/wdg.html
Multiple levels, wooden floors, piles of things on tables.
Going there was always an adventure.

I hardly remember the Market Street entrance.  We always went in from King Street, which meant that if it was a market day, when we were really little, Daddy would buy warm roasted peanuts from a cart there as we left - a little bag for each of us. Surely we were not allowed to eat them until we got home, though. Peanut shells in the car are just unimaginable.

I do remember thinking it was pretty strange that all those farmers' trucks were on KING Street, when MARKET street was right there, one block over.  It was not so much that the trucks were in the wrong place.  It was more that the streets must have had the wrong names.

I was reminded of all of this when I put on this jacket this morning. 

Each of my brothers had one of these coats, bought at Wilmington Dry in the 1960's.  I still use them (coats, not brothers) as 'barn jackets' for outdoor jobs in almost cold weather. The inner lining in the sleeves is shot, but I would say that they seriously turned out to be a real bargain.