More Magazine Ads From the 1960s

I was packing and found another pile of old magazines. I took some pics to share before the magazines went into the garage sale. You can learn so much about society past from old ads.

My family never thrilled to a Buick, but Dad had a Bell-Air in white and turquoise and later I learned to drive in a red 1962 Chrysler New Yorker with loads of chrome.

There was  a story about a dancing housewife.Apparently it was the only way she could face the drudgery, and her husband disapproved because it made her look pretty crazy.

 This look could be found in homes today, except for the red walls. I'd get that wall unit in a heartbeat.

 Remember when little girls wore pinafores and slips that made the skirts stick out? What were they thinking?

 Oh boy, I hate to admit it but Mom and I had matching cats-eye glasses in pink and blue!

 Mom was totally a Pepsi drinker.

 Our second television looked like this. The first one was a very small screen in a very large box.

 Santa Baby lounging on carpet? Strange ad. Get a move on, Santa!

 When smoking was glamorous. At least it was supposed to be glamorous, but my brother and I coughed and complained about the smoke.

 I had several steel kitchens in parsonages past, and actually loved those cabinets.

 Such great art work for the short stories.

 Ugh. I never liked those TV dinners. They were quite awful. And yet, Mom bought them.

Have a great day!

Philadelphia Block

My last block for the Jane Austen Family Album until after our move and I have a quilt room again. I will have a lot of catching up to do as this is a block a week project!

The Philadelphia pattern was chosen to represent Jane's Aunt Philadelphia Austen Hancock.

Last Things

As we prepare to retire at the end of June we are facing the 'last things'. Today I was liturgist for the last time in a church pastored by my husband. I read from 1 Corinthians, Chapter 3. A lady told me it was the best Corinthians reading she'd ever heard. I hear Paul's voice in my mind. I am merely a conduit for his words.

The prelude today was a wonderful rendition of Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing, one of the first hymns I learned after I joined my husband's denomination. I could hardly stem the tears when I stood to offer announcements and lead the call to worship.

We will spend this next week packing. It is the last time I will pack to move from a church parsonage, and God willing, we will not need to pack to move again for twenty or thirty years. We have lived in four states, eleven cities, ten parsonages. And we both moved once in childhood.

The sound of the tape ripping off the tape dispenser upsets our Kamikaze. She hates loud or unpredictable noises. But our Suki, who we adopted five and a half years ago, has already lived in three houses and she takes it in stride. They love our retirement home, and soon will forget they ever lived anywhere but there.

My husband has a vacation due and we are going across state to prepare our retirement home for moving in. Things that belonged to my folks, or that Dad bought after Mom's passing, will have to go to make room for our stuff. We carefully consider what we need and what we can give away, what goes into storage and what is sold. Heirlooms I have owned for twenty or thirty years are passed on to other family members. Antiques we collected but can't keep need new homes. We imagine a new environment for our new, permanent home. Furniture that fits, new things, permanent things.

Next month will be my husband's last worship service, his last communion served to his assigned church, and the last good-bye celebration as we leave a church. There will be a farewell dinner for all the retiring pastors in the conference, some of whom served in neighboring communities or who served churches we were also at.

1971 the year we met at college

Service in ministry is hard, and the itinerant ministry is even harder. I married  young, full of idealism and with a great faith in humanity. I did not believe then in evil. I had to encounter its many forms before I capitulated and accepted that evil does take residence in human hearts and contort relationships and corrupt institutions.

I have seen faith in action, how people can become the hands of a higher power and bring health and healing, wholeness and grace into lives. And both of these, evil and good, reside in each person waiting for our weakness or strength to loose them into the world.

Nearly forty-two years my husband and I have traveled this rocky road. Next month we reinvent the world. There are a lot of decisions to be made. The one thing I know is that I will, first thing, join that quilt guild in town and continue to explore the creative possibilities that quilting has offered me for twenty-three years. The creative process has grounded me when I needed it, invigorated me when I was down in heart, and offered me a therapeutic dose of happiness when around me was chaos.


We face many last things, but other things are 'forever'. And I thank God for those forever things in my life, especially for my best friend and partner, my husband and the father of my child.

Houses

I have been thinking about houses a lot lately. The house we are moving into and the houses I have lived in.

About the time of my birth a whole neighborhood of Levittown-type houses were built in the farm fields surrounding the 1830s house we lived in. Because of Facebook, several years ago I reconnected with friends who grew up on Rosemont Avenue. 

Rosemont Avenue houses behind me

My dad and his family had moved into the house in 1935. Grandpa was an insurance salesman, and the Depression destroyed his business and livelihood. He had to sell the new 1920s bungalow in town to rent half of a worn out old farmhouse.

Dad and Grandfather in the old house

After a few years he bought the house and fixed it up. Indoor plumbing was installed and three apartments carved out.  My cousins lived in one apartment, my grandparents in another, and my family in the third.

The house after my grandfather bought it and fixed it up

Before Rosemont Avenue and the housing project

In the 1940s grandfather built a gas station on the property in front of the house. Dad and my uncles and all their friends worked there at some time or another.

The house while grandfather was building a gas station along the main road

The Station

I was ten when my family moved to Michigan. We moved into a 1920s house on a (then) elm-lined street. I missed the old house and my friends and family. I dreamt about going back and buying the house. Then it was torn down and replaced by an apartment building. The lilacs and willows were torn up too.

The listing for the house my folks bought in Michigan

I went to college, married, and moved to twelve more towns; plus a move to a newly built parsonage during one four-year appointment. We have lived in the inner city, small towns, rural areas, and the suburbs. One parsonage was literally attached to the church, with a cement walkway between them. We could sit at the dining-room table and people would lean on the window sill and talk to us as we breakfasted.

city house

the new parsonage

small town house

village house

The neighborhood in inner city Philadelphia

When I was in college my family moved into the house I inherited and will move into next month. it is a mid-century modern ranch in the 'burbs.

My inherited house in the 'burbs

My nostalgia about houses started with that first move. When I was first quilting I made A House for All Seasons, twelve houses blocks to represent each month of the year.

Madison House quilt block

And when I designed my personal Album quilt I included a house block that was based on my first home, with a willow branch and lilacs. There were huge lilac bushes and willow trees surrounding the house.

My childhood home Album quilt block

I always wanted to make a quilt to represent the houses I have lived in. Now we are retiring to our last house I can start that project. I can also travel and see my paternal ancestral home in the Shenandoah Valley, and perhaps even the houses my mom lived in growing up in Kane and Milroy PA.

The Gochenour homestead in Virginia

Grandpa's birthplace in Milroy, PA

Almost forty-two years ago we married and moved into student housing at the seminary in Delaware, Ohio where we made our first home for three years. Oh, the places we've been and the houses we've been in!

The Methodist Theological School in Ohio dorm where we first lived

Empire Star Block

This week's block for Barbara Brackman's block of the week Jane Austen Family Album is for Napoleon  Bonaparte. Although Jane does not mention the war with France, her brothers and other family members were in the service.

We are packing, sorting things to sell, giving away stuff in preparation for moving next month. My husband is retiring. As we have lived in a church owned parsonage since 1989 we have to move at retirement, and because the parsonages have been huge we have to significantly downsize to fit into our modest, Mid-Century ranch I inherited. I will need to convert Dad's work room into a quilt room.

My fabric and supplies are mostly packed up. I will continue with the sampler as much as I can, but Love Entwined will languish until I have a new work space set up later.

But I can still read! I am working on Nathaniel Philbrick's Bunker Hill right now. Then I have a biography of the first American Saint, Elizabeth Seton and also a novel about German immigrants during WWI called Bohemian Flats.

Michigan 101: Springtime in Michigan

After a long, hard Michigan winter we look forward to the beauty of spring flowers. Last week Holland, Michigan held its annual Tulip Festival. But in yards everywhere the tulips and daffodils are blooming. Yesterday we were taken on a little auto tour of local gardens full of daffodils and tulips. Here are some photos from gardens past.

Fawn follow their mothers to the edge of the woods. Sometimes the doe and fawn go running right through the village here.

Here in Oceana County on our tour yesterday we saw the asparagus growing up from the bare ground of the fields. They say the late winter will delay the crop but not harm it. This is important as the county is the largest producer of asparagus in the country, and is home to the National Asparagus Festival. 

Soon the tress will be in flower, like the crabapple. Forsythia are in bloom now.

 I love when the lilacs bloom. I grew up in a house with thirty year old lilacs bushes. Their fragrance fills me with joyous nostalgia.

Winter is over.

Jane Austen Family Album :James Austen

Barbara Brackman chose Village Green to represent Jane's eldest brother, who served as a minister.

We have had illness in the family all week, so I was glad this was a simple block!