Make a Star Ornament from a Paper Bag

Post by Virginia Allain – This was an idea that I wanted to show Mom. I was sure she would be making these by the dozens in no time. These can go on a tree, decorate a package, or hang on the door handle.

Brown Paper Star Ornaments

Using a printable star pattern, trace two same-sized stars on a brown paper bag. Cut these out using pinking shears or craft scissors. Don’t worry, the pencil lines will be inside the star.

Glue the two stars together except for one tip. Leave an opening to put in the filling.

Pull apart a cotton ball so it’s loose and stuff it into the opening of the star. Use a pencil to distribute the stuffing the way you want. I like most of mine in the center. You could also use a bit of quilt batting or some used dryer sheets bunched up.

Cut a piece of raffia to loop at the top for hanging. Put the cut ends inside the opening of the star and glue it shut, securing the hanging loop.

Add that homespun, country-look with faux stitches around the edge. Use a black marker for these. Space them evenly.

Tie another piece of raffia into a bow and glue it to the front of the star. Glue some buttons to finish the theme.

Always save buttons for future use. (photo by Virginia Allain)

Anytime you discard a piece of clothing because of wear or stains, cut off the buttons and save them. A stash of buttons comes in handy to have for clothing repairs or for a craft like this.

Vintage Christmas Candy Figures

Many years ago, maybe as much as 50 years, I remember Christmas figures with candy in them. These plastic figures included a snowman, a Santa on skis, and a red horse with wheels.

Rosbro plastic snowman from the 1950s. A fun collectible.

They were fun to play with and pretty sturdy. Many are still around today. Often, the pipe breaks off the snowman and the reins of the horse are gone.

I happened to find some at yard sales and flea markets, some twenty years or so ago. They brought back childhood memories of 1950s Christmas times. Now, I use them in my Christmas decorating.

Rosbro Santa on green skis, snowman with a pipe, and red horse on green wheels.

You can find them on eBay at prices of $10 to $40 depending on condition and demand. Having the box adds to the value. My Santa no longer has the lightbulb and cord.

These seasonal figures were made by the Rosbro Plastic Inc. of Providence, Rhode Island. The company also made hard plastic figures for Easter, Halloween, and other holidays.

Rosbro Santa with original box. 

(all photos by Virginia Allain)

Other Christmas figures Rosbro made were white reindeer, a Santa on a bicycle, and Santa with reindeer and a wagon. Follow the link if you’d like to read more about collecting Rosbro hard plastic Christmas figures.

Do you remember any of these from long ago?

The Good Old Days???

Our guest blogger today is Monte Manka. He grew up in the 1930s like Gail Lee Martin did in Central Kansas. They met later in life through their writing when both were in their eighties. Monte writes poems and lots of nostalgia pieces. He just had his 91st birthday this week!

THE GOOD OLD DAYS ????? – MILK

 I went to the grocery store today and got a half-gallon of milk and it started me to thinking—

In the good old days, I would get up in the morning in the early A.M. and set under the Holstein or Jersey and pull on those warm teats and get my milk. With my head buried in her flank, I could tell if she was going to kick me or not and I could get out of the way. (was not always successful though.) I loved to be hit in the head with a tail full of cockle burrs or in the winter time a tail with frozen urine on it. The feeling was the same, a bump on the head. When it was 100 degrees in the shade or 27 degrees below zero those critters had to be taken care of, come rain or shine.

An old style cream separator.

Then those calves would come along and you had to train them to drink out of the bucket–more problems–they seemed to get something wrong with them and you had to doctor them, more problems. When you finally got the milk into the house and separated, you had to wash the separator. This was another chore of mine. One part had 123 disks on it and they were numbered. The disks went in numerical order. The buckets had to be washed and by that time it was time to do it all over again. BAH TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS.

THE GOOD OLD DAYS ???????  – BREAD

While at the grocery store I also got a loaf of bread and it started me to thinking again.
In the good old days, we took our wheat to the mill at Cedar Point and had it ground for flour, cracked wheat for breakfast food, and then took it home. Mother made bread from the new flour. The old wood stove felt good in the wintertime but was hot in the summertime.

I spent time plowing, disking, harrowing and drilling the wheat. This was always in the hottest time of the summer when you would either thrash or combine. I always missed the Rodeo at the Countryman Ranch at Cassoday. After sitting on the tractor with the heat from the tractor motor blowing in my face, and the combine engine blowing hot air on my back, I was well done by the time the day was finished. Then to the milking again.

Monte L. Manka and his brother Leslie in the wheat field – about 1934

That wheat, that seems easy to raise is a gamble-one year it was a disease called RUST, the next it was a hail storm, the next it was too dry, the next it was too wet, the next it was the grasshoppers, that year was a plague about 1931, the corn on Teters farm east of El Dorado a couple miles, had no leaves left on the stalk after the grasshoppers visited them. I think you have better odds on the crap table in Las Vegas. One year Dad got a check from Kansas, City Grain for $2,000.00 for a carload of wheat, we took turns feeling it. Out of six years, we had one good harvest. The good old days- Yeah sure

THE GOOD OLD DAYS?????? – MEAT

While at the grocery store I was told to pick up some pork chops and that started me to thinking —–
We had a mean old sow. She bit my uncle on the leg and put a couple gashes in it. He did not quite make it over the fence.
Now, this sow was the ugliest thing you ever saw and I could never see what the boar saw in her. She would have the most pigs and the healthiest pigs of any of the good-looking sows. These hogs would have to be watched closely to keep them free of screwworms. More work more worry.

Once we had a bout with cholera and we lost 50 head that was ready to go to market. Needless to say, we had a big barbecue, too bad that we could not eat the meat. My uncle would give my brother and me a pig to sell if we would help him take care of them. One year we got $3.00 for our effort a few years later we got $6.00 then the market started to rise and no more free pigs. The good old days Phooey.

 

A Few Good Things about the Good Old Days

There were some things that were good like the filling station on the corner. Nufer’s gas was 18 cents a gallon but you got your tires checked, windshield washed, oil checked, a smile and a thank you. The good old days, Yeah.

When you came to town on Saturday you could take ten wrappers from ten Golden Crust bread loaves and get a free pass to the Eris and see the latest Ken Maynard western. I do not remember what the popcorn or soda was then, probably ten cents. After the matinee, we would go home and milk those stupid cows, and start another week of fun. Yeah

Ken Maynard 1926 vintage portrait card

Another good thing-a handshake was as good as a signed contract, Not now it seems like the honest people are getting fewer and farther between. Out here you had better have twenty signed contracts, even then someone will break them all, and you are stuck with a lawsuit.

I always hear someone saying “Oh for the good old days.” I think back and no TV, no VCR, no microwave, no late model car. My gosh, I wouldn’t trade today for anything.

Written by Monte L. Manka

What’s Your Favorite Pie?

My sister Cindy said, “Pumpkin pie with whipped cream is one of my favorites for Thanksgiving, then cherry, apple or chocolate cream. Our dad, Clyde, enjoyed making pecan pie using the pecans he meticulous picked out of the shell. In the winter time, there was always a pan full of nuts and his picking tools next to his chair. When it came to walnuts he used his own method of cleaning the hulls off, then tossing them in the cement mixer to wash before cracking them open.”

Then my aunt, CJ, mentioned that a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie made by family friend, Tonda Alvarez might be the reason she’s feeling better today. I doubt that Tonda has found a cure for flu or colds, but strawberry rhubarb pie certainly perks up your taste buds.

Tonda Alvarez’ wonderful strawberry rhubarb pie (photo by CJ Garriott)

My husband favors apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on top. I like that but in the fall, pumpkin pie is my first choice. How about you? What’s your favorite pie?

 

Stocking Up for Thanksgiving

Time to buy the turkey or ham and all the trimming for the holiday feast. I’m sure your list on the week before Thanksgiving includes cranberry sauce, stuffing, sweet potatoes, and other traditional foods. The Publix Supermarket that I use was so busy today, there were no shopping carts in the cart area. My husband hunted around the parking lot and returned triumphantly with one.

Shopping for groceries in the 1950s

Much of our Thanksgiving meal was homegrown in my childhood years. We didn’t raise our own turkeys but the mashed potatoes and the green beans came from our bountiful garden. Gail Lee Martin would have shopped at the local IGA market for the cans of cranberry sauce. We always had the jellied kind that you served in slices. Now, I opt for the whole berry, but still from a can.

The pies were homemade with Gail rolling out the pie crust in the farmhouse kitchen. There would be pumpkin pie and whipped cream to go on it. Someone would assemble the 5-cup salad with the luxury of mandarin oranges, tiny marshmallows, shredded coconut, pineapple, and a sweet creamy sauce tying it all together. So the shopping list would include those.

Gail wrote about the Thanksgiving meals from her childhood. The 1930s holiday didn’t necessarily include a turkey. Read the details at We Gave Thanks Prairie Style. The description shows how times change but the family gathering was still special.  The desserts included a gooseberry pie made from berries they picked along the Cottonwood River. Sometimes pumpkin wasn’t available so a faux pumpkin pie was made with other ingredients.

Thanksgiving in the 1970s – Clyde and Gail Martin.

What special dishes are you serving this Thanksgiving? I hope you don’t forget any of the special ingredients while shopping.

 

The Chelsea Kid – Monte Manka

 

Gail Lee Martin and Monte Manka first met on the Our Echo website. Gail served as the webmaster and encouraged everyone who posted there. She commented on every poem and each essay. Monte was the same generation as Gail, an octogenarian, who grew up just a few miles from where Gail lived in Kansas. Now he lives on the west coast, but through the serendipity of the Internet, they met online. Learn more about him below.

The kids at the Chelsea, Kansas school in the 1930s. 

Sharing an Octogenarian’s Poems and Memories of the Great Depression

Monte Manka grew up in Chelsea, Kansas in the 1930s. Now in his eighties, he records his memories in poems and essays for future generations to understand what it was like in those days.

This webpage is just one in a series that features Monte Manka’s poetry of the Great Depression. This octogenarian retains vivid memories of Kansas farm life and his youth. He still writes poetry and posts it on the Our Echo website. Don’t miss the other webpages with Monte Manka’s poems. They include such old-fashioned topics as pie suppers and chivarees.

(photos used with permission from Monte Manka)

The Old Homestead

a poem by Monte Manka

As I travel across the State

I had to see

The place where I was born

Out there on the prairie

The old house is still standin’

Out there in a pile of dust

The windmill still upright

Now just a tower of rust.

That lone post in the front yard

Where once hung that dinner bell

To call Dad in from the field

To eat and rest a spell

Is slightly leaning

Warped by wind and heat

To hear that bell ring one more time

Would make my life complete.

That old front porch

With that bench swing

We’d sit there in the evening

And hear the locusts sing.

I remember fields of green grass

That yielded tons of prairie hay

To feed the livestock

On a cold winter day.

Then Mother Nature

With a twist of fate

Turned on a four-year drought

Just when things were goin’ great.

A cyclone blew down the barn

Ripped shingles off the roof

Dust started blowing in

Doors and windows, not dust proof.

Nothing but drifted soil

Now and then a tuft of grass

If only those happier times

Could last and last.

Dad had a part-time job

Working for the State

We moved into town

Before it was too late.

Monte Manka’s Dust Storm Memories

“We held Chelsea School outside the schoolhouse. The air in the Schoolhouse hung heavy with the dust. We would go to the pump and wet our handkerchiefs and hold them over our nose as we read out of our Bobs Merrill Primer”. …

He continues on telling about having to dust off the paper before writing the lesson. You’ll enjoy his memories.

(Excerpt from Lost in the Front Yard by Monte L. Manka. There is more on the Our Echo website.)

Monte Manka’s Poems and Essays on the Our Echo Website – Visit the site to read all of Monte Manka’s writing

Our Echo provides a supportive community online for writers to share their family memories and other writing. It’s a great site to post your memory pieces on for your whole family to enjoy.

• Monte Leon Manka
  Read more than 80 of Monte Manka’s poems and essays. Check back often as he posts more almost every week.

Monte Manka with an Oliver Hart-Parr tractor.

Monte Grew up on the Farm

Monte Manka: “Me and the Oliver Hart-Parr after it was converted to rubber–There is a tractor.

This tractor had steel wheels and was a rough riding machine. When the wheels were changed and rubber tires were put on it was a pleasure to ride down a gravel road to the field.”

 

Book Award Named after Gail Lee Martin

In 2010, Gail Lee Martin won the Ferguson Kansas History Book Award for her book My Flint Hills Childhood. The award, presented annually at the Kansas Authors Club convention, was discontinued in 2017. Gail was one of the last winners of the award.

The amount given to the winner, under the Ferguson Book Award, was $100.00. Gail’s daughters decided to revive the history book award using funds donated to KAC for the Gail Martin memorial fund. The new name for the award is the Gail Lee Martin Kansas History Book Award it will continue for at least 10 years. If more donations are contributed to the memorial fund, it can run longer. In previous years, the memorial fund paid for speakers for the convention.

If you’d like to check out what the contest rules were for the Ferguson Book Award, here’s the site: http://www.kansasauthors.org/

It would be good to streamline the process, so if you have any suggestions, please add them in the comments on this blog.

I Found the Carrot Cookie Recipe!

I was afraid the carrot cookie recipe was lost. I’d found one recipe labeled Helen King’s carrot cookies, but I wanted Mom’s recipe. She started making these after we were all grown up. She had a batch of the tasty cookies ready when I visited one time from Baltimore. They became my new favorite cookie.

It turns out that I had a copy of the recipe all along. I found it as I cleaned out my over-full, seldom used recipe box. As I tossed dubious-sounding jello recipes and any baked goods that called for Bisquick, I found the carrot cookie recipe written in Mom’s handwriting.

Gail Lee Martin’s Carrot Cookies

• 1 cup finely grated carrots
• 3/4 cup shortening or oleo
• 2 cups flour
• 1 egg
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix the ingredients, then drop by teaspoon onto a baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. (She doesn’t mention greasing the baking sheet, but I’d recommend it)

Icing for the Carrot Cookies

• powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup finely grated carrots
• orange juice

Mix these together to use as a glaze. Wait for the cookies to cool first.

What is lurking in your recipe box? Take a look to see if some heirloom recipes are there. Treat your taste buds to a trip down memory lane.

 

Graphic from Pixabay

 

More about Pie Crust Scraps

Yummy Pie Crust Scraps.

Did your mom ever make these?

My sister started me thinking of these, when she said, “Tonight I’m remembering the cinnamon and sugar pie crust scraps Mom used to make for us.”

The pie dough scraps ready to go into the oven. (photo by Karen Kolavalli)

This is a follow-up of an earlier post here on my mother’s memory blog, Discovering Mom – Pie Crust Scraps. If you like nostalgia and memories of the good old days, nip back to read this one and other posts.

It inspired quite a discussion among my friends on Facebook, so apparently, Sis and I are not the only ones with fond memories of pie crust scraps.

 

Fitting the crust to the pie pan. Looks like some will be leftover. (photo from Pixabay)

 

Here are the memories generated among my friends:

Peggy – “Oh yeah. Mom rolled them up like little cinnamon rolls. Yum!”

Nan –  “and I’ve made them for my kids (and me)”

Shirley – “My grandmother and mom made them as little crispy cinnamon rolls too. I still make them. Those, and the family pickle recipe, and jam. I try to keep the family recipes alive to pass down but unfortunately, I think they’ll end with me.”

When I suggested that she make a little recipe book to save these for the grandkids someday, Shirley said, “I have the recipes saved. I just think there’s something special in passing the recipes down through sharing the process itself. I remember making root beer in a big new Rubbermaid trash can with my mom when I was young. That’s the stuff memories and legacies are made of.”

My aunt, Cj commented too, “Indeed, I enjoyed them as I was growing up. Mother would brush the pieces with butter (that we churned from our own cows), then sprinkle on the sugar and cinnamon. No throwing away any left-over crust! I always wanted her to make just the pie crust strips, and forget the pie!”

My second cousin, Cheryl said, “I don’t particularly remember my mom making them, but she must have because I got the idea somewhere when I became a mother! I always made them when had leftover pie dough! Kids loved them and so do I!!!”

How about you? Did your mother make these pie crust scraps?

 

Here’s another way to use the leftover pie crust. Add apple slices to make little apple tarts. (photo from Pixabay)

 

The Old Hoosier Kitchen Cabinet

In the early 1900s kitchens didn’t have built-in cabinets. A housewife of the era might have had some open shelves to store the dishes on and some things would hang on nails driven into the wall.

Getting a Hoosier cabinet gave the woman of the house a workstation with many modern conveniences. It had a rack for spices, a flour sifter, a deep drawer lined with tin or zinc to hold flour, and a variety of other conveniences all in one location.

Advertisement from the Chickasha Daily Express, November 10, 1920. Courtesy of The Library of Congress, Chronicling America.

In this vintage ad from a 1920 newspaper, you see the price range from $20 up to $71 while on sale. This was quite a bit of money in the days when a teacher might only earn $2000 in a year and the average wage was just over $3,000.

Since families made their own bread at home, the convenience of a Hoosier cabinet held strong appeal. There was an enamel counter surface for rolling out the dough and all your ingredients and tools were close to hand.

These continued to be popular into the 1930s, 1940s and lingered into the 1950s. You see the basic style is similar to that of the 1920s, but now the 1950s homemaker might have an electric mixer and an electric frying pan. Many houses built in the post-WWII housing boom would have wall cupboards and counters similar to kitchens of today.

The electric frying pan and the Mixmaster electric mixer date this to around the 1950s. (photo by Virginia Allain)

The old Hoosier cabinets fell out of favor. They show up in antique stores now and are considered quaint. There’s some nostalgia for these symbols of grandma’s kitchen and some find new life as display cabinets for vintage dishes or are used in cottage style decorating.

Vintage Hoosier cabinet (photo from Pixabay)

Read more about Hoosier cabinets.