Christmases Past: 1956 and 1957 Photos

Looking at old photographs brings back memories, shows us the world of our past, and reveals things we took for granted.

1956

I had forgotten that Mom decorated the doors and windows with stenciled 'snow' paint. I love the hat with the balls on the ties. The over the shoes snow boots had loads of clasps which I still couldn't manage in kindergarten.

Christmas 1956. My hair was in pigtails. I was five years old. Here I am coloring with stencils. Coloring was one of my favorite activities. The flannel nightgown was a must; our 1830s house had no heating in the upstairs bedrooms!

Skunk and Mouse get an education with my new chalk board. This is one of the few photos that still has good color. Most I converted to black and white. The television was our 'new' one.

Mom was twenty-six years old.

A doll bed. I wonder what doll I put in it? Perhaps the skunk and mouse? Santa on the closet door was Styrofoam with flocked red hat and nose. Mistletoe hung over the door into the kitchen.

Here I am with Dad, aged 27. I have a board game set. A metal doll house is next to Dad. On the left is a 'modern' table holding the creche.

What a mess! I was still an only child and Mom loved Christmas. The toys weren't expensive, but it didn't matter to me.

Mom painted the Tole painted magazine rack next to the chair. Yep, that's real tinsel on a real Christmas tree.

Christmas 1957
I was five years old.

I see a toy ironing board and iron on the right. Next to the chair is a pink suitcase with Tiny Tears and all her clothing and baby things, sitting on a box holding a tea set. Under the tree is my new dress. I am holding my first 'fashion doll', a Miss Revlon. She came with underclothing and two dresses, a belt, a hat, and a purse. I rearranged and made my own style. I liked her in the bra, crinoline, and the belt in her hair, which was perhaps my idea of a ballerina.

A vintage Little Miss Revlon doll with original box

In the photo below you can see Tiny Tears and the tea set.

Miss Revlon and Tiny Tears.

I really liked that fashion doll. Here she has a Pill box hat.

I took the doll with me to visit my aunt and uncle and cousins who lived in the upstairs apartment. Note the old wallpaper border at the top of the wall.

My first dog Pepper sits next to me. I loved that dog! 

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The little modern coffee table of metal and Formica would be very in demand today. Mom's wedding candy dish sits in the middle of the table. There is a heavy white, scalloped edged, glass dish with green interior to the left, and a clear plastic Christmas tree on the right.

Here I am in the new dress. It was brown print with a white bib. Mom and I had matching permanents in a "Bubble cut" so my straight hair was very Shirley Temple curly.

I see a pile of games and books next to the chair. You can see the Tiny Tears in her pink suitcase on the right. The bottom of my stocking can be seen on the wall.

Dad supported us by running the gas station his dad had built in the 1940s. We didn't have much money. But when I saw the ads on television showing poor children of the world I felt very guilty for having so much. I knew I didn't need, or deserve, it all.

What Mom Wanted For Christmas in 1957

What did our mothers want for Christmas in 1957? Lets look at the ads from the December Good Housekeeping magazine.

I shared this Toastmaster electric fry pan ad on Facebook and quite a few remarked their mom had one, and several people still have one today! My mom made almost all her meals in one. I wish I had it today! It kept the heat so even.

Automatic toasters didn't arrive until the 1940s. What made the Sunbeam special was it's heat sensor that gaged the temperature of the bread, not the toaster. This Sunbeam toaster  was in production from the 1940s until 1996 when its $89.95 price tag couldn't compete with Wal-Mart toasters sold for $9.99. What a shame.

When I shared this Electrolux ad on Facebook I had another rash of people remembering their mom having one. So did my in-laws, but theirs was on gliders and dated before 1955 when the wheels came in.

 Everyone had a Cosco step stool chair. I'd like that rolling table today.

 

 Well, if you had to have a bathroom scale get one with 'jeweled movement.'

My husband's grandmother had a console stereo like this! But look at those prices! $169.99 was a lot of money in 1957!

 Floristic Telegraph Delivery! That's what FTD stands for!

 Lovely Lenox china in 'West Wind" was made from 1953 to 1980.

This Eureka looked like what my mom had. That $49.95 price tag was about a half week's income for us.

I love the idea of baking right at the table! Hopefully the kids or guests didn't touch it and get burned. See more photos and the original pamphlet here.

"Golden Foliage" glasses were the most successful hostess set created by Libby, sold from 1956 until 1977.

The top right ad is for Melamac dishes, which I know Mom had for many years. The fashions on the left are bed jackets. So pretty.  I didn't remember Hawaiian Punch before the classic 1962 ad, "Hey, how about a nice Hawaiian punch?" It was invented in 1934 though.

What did your mom get for Christmas in 1957?

Christmas Quilts at the Library

We may have green grass here in Metro Detroit but the local library is helping the community get into the Christmas spirit with a display of holiday quilts! Snowmen and Santas have come to town!

Here Comes Santa Claus by Shirley Leja

by Linda Brown

 

Counting the Days by Shirley Leja

 

by Linda Pearce

 

An Interview With Jacopo della Quercia

A few weeks ago I gave a brief review of License to Quill, by Jacopo della Quercia. No, not the 15th c sculptor ; Jacopo is the pen name of a respected academic who is also a novelist and writes for Cracked.com.

Jacopo's previous book was The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy, a steampunk/alternate history/humorous adventure. License to Quill was a fun read following after reading Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro which explored how political events (like the Gunpowder Plot) impacted the Bard's plays King Lear, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

I was contacted by Jacopo and was able to interview him.

Interviewer: How did you choose your pen name?
Jacopo: Since I was doing political work around the time I started writing for the comedy website, I had no choice but to publish under a pen name. 'Jacopo della Quercia' is one many nicknames I've been called my entire adult life due to my real name, Giacomo, being a bit of a novelty to most people. I love my real name, but I've lived my whole life with people having a hard time pronouncing it, never mind spelling it. 'Jacopo' is my name's Latin equivalent, and I love writing under it if only because it serves as a standard to what my writing is frequently about: history, with a sense of humor to it.

[I sure understand the problem of people not knowing how to pronounce your name; I grew up a Gochenour after all!]

Interviewer: What was the inspiration behind License to Quill?
Jacopo: I was still writing my previous novel The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy when Skyfall hit theaters and bombarded me with videos and articles celebrating the 50th anniversary of the James Bond franchise. This evidently rubbed off on my as I decided what book to write next! Once I learned that Shakespeare wrote Macbeth around the same time that the Gunpowder Plot took place, I realized that I had all the characters and components I needed to write a James Bond-esque spy-thriller starring the most famous Englishman who ever lived!

Interviewer: Your writing is an unusual blend of genres. I would like to know more about your choice of style.
Jacopo: I try to keep  my novels faithful to their respective eras in history, no matter how outlandish it sounds. If there are science fiction aspects to my story, I consult experts, historians, and research everything I can on science from that particular moment in history. When writing dialogue I read contemporaneous works, including letters and diaries, and use an etymological dictionary to avoid anachronisms and make the language sound real. When creating my characters, I search for real figures from history to cast in my story, even if just for a cameo.

It's a wonderful experience because it lets you leap across genres, which I find somewhat amusing since, in my view of it, this is what history has always been like. World War II was an action movie, a science fiction movies, a comedy, a drama, a full-blown horror, and even a love story for tens of millions of people at the same time. Most writers choose to focus on only one aspect of history in their stories: the adventure, the drama, etc. I find it all fantastic, so I try to include all of it.

Interviewer: What writers influenced you? What writers do you enjoy now?
Jacopo: I think it all depends on whatever I'm writing at the moment. Alexandre Dumas, H. G. Wells, and Edgar Allan Poe influenced The Great Abraham Lincoln Pocket Watch Conspiracy a lot more than License to Quill, which was ultimately more influenced by the life and works of William Shakespeare than by Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. I imagine I'll go on a Jane Austen binge at some point and write a book starring her. The same could go for Charles Dickens or Mark Twain, or maybe Dante, whom I am probably most indebted to as a writer.

[Austen? Dickens? Twain? I'm all for that! But imagine what he could do with Dante!]

Interviewer: What would you like readers to know about your book?
Jacopo: The first thing I would like my readers to know is "thank you." Thank you for taking this moment to give my novel a chance. It's because of readers like you that I can write books designed to make people of all interests and backgrounds more excited about history. License to Quill is a James Bond-esque spy thriller starring William Shakespeare and Guy Fawkes during the Gunpowder Plot. It is the product of years of research and a lifetime of love for William Shakespeare and the Renaissance. It is a thriller, an adventure, a mystery, and much more. I like my stories filled with surprises and License to Quill is no exception! I hope you like it!

Jacopo della Quercia

I thank Jacopo for taking the time to talk to us!

Read my review of License to Quill here. It is available from St. Martin's Griffin.

Rin Tin Tin: The Life and the Legend

"What lasts? What lingers? What is snagged by the brambles of time, and what slips through and disappears?..Maybe all we do in life is just a race against this idea of disappearing."

Susan Orlean's  book about her childhood hero is a surprisingly a deep consideration of the need to hold onto something bigger than ourselves and the desire to immortalize our heroes. Her story is about the real Rin Tin Tin, the man whose life Rinty 'gave meaning to', and the people who worked to share Rinty's story as an example of courage and valor and goodness.

It was Rinty's permanence that intrigued Orleans. Movies and films made Rin Tin Tin a shared legend that crossed generations over the world. Rinty had the ability to convey emotion and was nearly nominated for an Oscar. He was one of the earliest and most successfully merchandised media icons. With The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin came Apache fort play sets, lunch boxes, even the Beyer figurine that Orlean vividly remembers sitting on her grandfather's desk.

In France during World War I America soldier Lee Duncan was in a bombed out town when he discovered a German Shepard bitch and puppies left behind by the Germans. As a child Duncan's mother had to leave him in an orphanage which gave him stability and care, for which he was eternally grateful. Lee empathized with the dogs and saved them, keeping a male and a female pup for himself. He named them Nanette and  Rin Tin Tin after locally made dolls that were worn by soldiers as good luck charms.

With the end of the war Lee was determined to bring his pups back to the States. "I felt there was something about their lives that reminded me of my own life," Lee wrote. "They had crept right into a lonesome place in my life and became a part of me."

Back in America, Lee nursed Rinty through distemper. He could no longer face his old job selling guns; they brought back memories of the buddies who didn't come home. He couldn't stand being indoors and took Rinty into the Sierras. He taught Rinty commands and tricks.

In the 1920s the German Shepard Strongheart was appearing in movies. Lee wondered if he could 'make his hobby pay' and developed a story idea for a film starring Rinty. He walked the streets of 'Poverty Row' in Hollywood trying to sell his movie idea.  A small studio, Warner Brothers, liked his idea and they made the first Rin Tin Tin movie which made Lee's and the Warner's fortunes.

When Rinty's movie career faltered Lee sold the idea of a television program to Bert Leonard and The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin was born. Bert later sold his rights to Naked City and Route 66, but held on to Rin Tin Tin still hoping he'd find another venue for the immortal dog.

Lee was megalomanial about his dog. His wife and daughter were second to Rinty. Bert turned down lucrative offers for productions he didn't think were worthy of the Rin Tin Tin image; he died impoverished. Lee's family packed up all the Rinty mementos and left them behind with friends. Daphne Herford who had bought several dogs from the Rin Tin Tin line tried to keep the legend alive. She and Bert waged a legal battle over the rights to Rin Tin Tin.

The book is a joy to read, at once a trip down memory land and an exploration of the human desire to create something lasting.

The Rin Tin Tin legacy was carried on by several dogs

Rin Tin Tin The Life and the Legend
Susan Orlean
Simon & Schuster

"I adored this book. It weaves history, war, show business, humanity, wit, and grace into an incredible story about America, the human-animal bond, and the countless ways we would be lost without dogs by our sides, on our screens, and in our books."  Rebecca Skloot, author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

New Hanky Finds: WWI Souvineers

At the Royal Oak Flea Market I found some hankies that had to come home with me.

 This souvenir handkerchief includes hand stenciled poppies and "Keep Smiling," "For Ever," and "Remember Me" slogans. It is silk with a machine attached lace edge.

 WWI soldiers sent these handkerchiefs home to sweethearts, mothers and sisters.

Remarkably fine embroidery of the flags of Great Britain, France, and Brussels grace this fine silk handkerchief.

I have a small collection of these hankies.