Handkerchief Fashions,Story Book Quilts, and Patchwork story from 1964

Woman's Day magazine from June 1964 had an article about using handkerchiefs to make dresses! The overblouse seen in the photo above was made from five 14" linen handkerchiefs. The hand rolled white edges are seen.

 Above left party dress with a halter top and full skirt was made with fourteen 18" cotton handkerchiefs, plus satin ribbon for the straps and waistband.

The red and white cap sleeve blouse was made from two 23" cotton handkerchiefs with mitered and side slits at the bottom.

The sun dress, 'a flattering compromise between a muu muu and a shift" used fourteen 14" handkerchiefs. Two were folded over to make the yoke, with the others joined and fathered into the yoke.

Designed by Theresa Capuana these quilts had mail order patterns in crib and twin sizes, for the cost of $1.00 each.

 The story in this issue was Patchwork by Sharon Quigley McCann and illustrated by Ted Coconis.

"The tiny bag of minute triangles which had been, to say the least, a strange wedding gift had not entered Christine's mind since the occasion of her wedding shower until one evening about four months after she and Joe were married. She needed something worthwhile to absorb her time while Joe studied...the patches and her Aunt Amanda's desire that she make a quilt came as her salvation.

"She wants me to make a quilt. She gave me the first pieces for my wedding shower: a hundred at least. But there's a catch. The quilt must be entirely hand-sewn, and...after I put the first pieces together I can work on the quilt only when I feel unhappy.

"When it's finished, it will teach me a lesson about life, according to Amanda. She says it's a very important lesson.

"Four years, a pair of healthy twin sons, one law degree, and one dream home later, Christine decided, on Jennie's first day of school, to finish the quilt.

"Perhaps, she thought, she should give the quilt to Jennie on her wedding day, telling her of the events that each section's construction recalled to her mother. Perhaps by giving her the comfort that she had lived through these turmoils, she could cushion the blows that her daughter would inevitably feel.

"Putting the center piece in position, she attached the edges. Yes, that's what she should do: give the ugly thing to Jennie, as a sort of warning.

"She spread the quilt on the living-room floor and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee...as she walked into the living room and saw the quilt lying as she had carefully placed it, it seemed to assume and entirely different appearance from that it had had five minutes before.

"How could it seem, now, not to be homely? It looked, in fact, with its character of completeness, like a work of art? ...Why, it was actually beautiful!

"Now, now, is the lesson mine to learn. After so wrongly regarding it for all these years as the fruit of the worst hours of her married life, she knew now--ah, and this was the lesson she had never guessed in all the times she had tried! The quilt now, in its truth, in its oneness, in its deep beauty drawn from each of the episodes it recalled to its creator, declared it had been made lovingly, when she, girl-turning-woman, was at her best.'

Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story by David Maraniss

My Detroit

In June of 1963 I was still ten years old when a van containing all my family's possessions moved across the open expanse of southern Ontario towards Detroit, MI. My family had sold the family business, a service and gas station in Tonawanda, NY, along with the only home I had ever known, a giant 1830s farm house surrounded by a Post-War Levittown community.

Detroit lured my Dad with hopes for a profitable job in the auto industry, with good benefits and a pension, a job without the physical stress of working outdoors in Buffalo winters.

My grandparents had moved to the Detroit suburbs in 1955 so I was familiar with the long, tedious car ride across Ontario, the dramatic and eerie drive through the Tunnel into Detroit, the sight of the impressive skyscrapers of the city, and the lights along the busy boulevard of Woodward Avenue.

Dad got a job at Chrysler in Highland Park that offered my family a working class lifestyle: school clothes from K-Mart, hamburgers at Peppy's, two cars, a home of our own. Medical insurance meant Mom could get the most up-to-date treatments at Henry Ford Hospital for her autoimmune disease.

Dad at work as an Experimental Mechanic at Chrysler

It was in Metro Detroit where I had many firsts: the tragic murder of President Kennedy, followed by those of  Rev. Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy; my first mock election when I learned about LBJ and the Great Society; my first interest in 'pop' music, listening to Motown on a transistor radio tuned to CKLW; my first visit to the Detroit Institute of Arts; the 1967 riots; body counts on the news during Vietnam. The first car I knew by sight was the Mustang. We took trips to Belle Isle to watch the freighters go by and see the electric eel at the Aquarium, and to the Detroit Historical Museum, Greenfield Village, the Cranbrook Science Museum, the Detroit Zoo. My first ball game was at Tiger's Stadium.

Dad died seven years ago. He knew he had been lucky to have worked during the Golden Years of the auto industry, a time when a grease-monkey with a high school education could get a Union job and work overtime and make a good salary. His pension allowed my widowed Dad to do whatever he wanted in retirement: buy a cabin, be on the go, eat out.

Dad left me my family's home; it was not even ten years old when my folks purchased it in 1972, a modern ranch on 'Snob Hill'. It was a far cry from the Tonawanda house his family had moved to in 1935 with no heat on the second floor or indoor plumbing.

the realtor's photo of the house in 1972

It was Detroit that made my family's American Dream possible.

Once In A Great City

David Maraniss saw a commercial during the Super Bowl that brought a wave of nostalgia. It inspired him to write Once In A Great City. He focuses on Detroit in 1963, just after the Cuban Missle Crisis, to fall of 1964. It was a time when Detroit was 'on top of the world' with visionary leadership, record breaking profits for the Big Three, and Motown's stars on the rise. It was where President John F. Kennedy first spoke of 'ask not', and where Rev. Martin Luther King first had a dream, and where President Lyndon B. Johnson first spoke about a war on poverty. It is also when legislation to open housing for all persons failed, when Africa American landmarks were being torn down for parking lots, and Malcolm X called for revolution.

Walk to Freedom June 1963

I loved how Maraniss gives a complete picture of the city, story arcs that fitt together like a jigsaw puzzle to make a Big Picture.

Grinnell Brotheres sold pianos on time, and Cass Tech had great music teachers. Migrants from the South seeking factory jobs brought a rich musical heritage with them. Music flourished in Detroit, jazz and blues and Mowtown.

I had not known about Detroit's bid for the 1968 Olympics, championed by President Kennedy championed. What would have happened if they had won the Olympic bid? Would the 1967 riot still have occurred or would the city have been proactive about solving racial problems? Would things have been different?

Maraniss unravels the underlying roots of Detroit's undoing, evident even at its apex. In a few years riots precipitated white flight. The Walk to Freedom down Woodward Ave. led by Dr. Martin Luther King was eclipsed by racial tension. Foreign cars put America's large gas guzzlers out of business. (Reuther had argued for smaller cars; no one listened.) A Wayne State University report had warned that suburban growth would bode ill for the city. African Americans could not find housing and jobs equal to their education, and their communities were dismantled for 'progress.' Warning signs were dwarfed by the hubris of success.

Maraniss celebrates the heritage that Detroit has given us: a heritage of upward mobility, Motown music, Civil Rights, the Mustang.

1965 Ford Mustang fastback in front the Ford Pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair in New York.

This is an enlightening book. I felt nostalgia and recognition for a Detroit I hardly knew.

See Detroit, once a great city on Youtube here.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Once In A Great City
David Maraniss
Simon & Schuster
Publication Sept. 15, 2015
$32.50 hard cover
ISBN: 9781476748382

Still Rowing...And Other Quilts

 

I am still working on the Row By Row projects. The one above is from The Quilt House in Indian River, MI. It uses a neat technique for the 'half circles': you sewed two circles right side together, quartered them, and turned them inside out. The quarter circles are placed on the squares and sewn along the seam allowance,

The row below was the 2014 one from Front Porch Quilts in Troy, MI. I enjoy embroidery and the cabin is super cute.

My friend Martha brought me a table topper kit from 2014--I forget which shop. It is an Irish Chain with fussy-cut appliquéd circles showing lighthouses.

 A nice summer quilt!

I hand quilted and finished the block from Hawaiian-Inspired Quilts by Judith Sandtrom which I reviewed here. 

When I was at Petals & Patches in Cadillac, MI I saw this cute quilt hanger and dragonfly quilt. At the next stop I found the amazing dragonfly and cattail fabric. I made my quilt longer than the original pattern so I could have more of that great fabric.

 Below on a lily pad note the dragonfly button I found at JoAnne Fabrics.

A quilt friend liked it so much I am ordering two more of the quilt holders--one for her and another for me to so I can make another quilt for a gift!

Remember This? Boomer Nostalgia

Looking through vintage magazines I remember things I had forgotten.

I remember when making little pizzas was a cool snack! It was easy as "1-2-3" when we used a toaster/broiler oven.

Recipe for Pizza Dreams
3 large English muffins
1 small can Tomato sauce
1/2 tsp Oregano
Anchovy Fillets and/or Italian Sausage

1 cup Mozzarella cheese cut in small pieces (or sharp Cheddar or Amer.)
1. Pull muffins apart. Place on pan lined with Reynolds Wrap. Toast lightly under broiler. Remove.
2.Spread each piece with tomato sauce, sprinkle with Oregano. Add Anchovy fillet and slices of sausage, and pieces of the cheese.
3.Return to broiler until cheese is melted and he sauce is bubbling Serves 6.

Nehi is made to the highest flavor standards in America. That's why it's America's fastest-selling fruit flavor line. Try Nehi Orange, Nehi Grape, or some of the other fine Nehi flavors. And try them soon. A product of Royal Crown Cola Co.

And try them soon? Don Draper would have never let Peggy slip that one by.

The Coppertone Ads always had that little girl whose panties were being pulled down. Not so cute today. 

Breck Shampoo showed real women, many who became well known actresses and models, always painted in soft pastels.

Sally Draper? Is that you? Once a upon a time we had to add sugar to the Koo-Aid mix of artificial flavors and artificial colors. Then this innovation came out--sugar ADDED. Whole generations grew up on Kool-Aid. Sad.

I had no idea that in 1963 there were automatic ice makers. My folks never had one. Ever.

 Vinyl flooring was so popular folks even installed it over wood floors. Yep.

The Patty Duke Show! Cousins who looked alike but were different as night and day. I watched it. Did you?

I remember my brother got Soaky toys. I was too old.

But my school lunch sandwiches were packed in Waxtex!

I wore Hush Puppies.

 I think they cheated. Or Mom was very young when she gave birth.

This photo is SO romantic. The night, the lovely lady, the dial of the phone lit up like the moon.

Memories of Working at Standard Steel Works 100 Years Ago

In 1962 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer wrote a list of 'remember whens" which was published in his hometown newspaper, the Lewistown Sentinel in Pennsylvania.

Gramps was a teenager when he worked at the Standard Steel Works in the Machine Shop during WWI when the works was booming. Gramps went on to college at age 16.

Lynne O. Ramer, age 15 in 1919, with his uncle Charles Smithers. Charles married Annie Verona Ramer, sister of Lynne's mother and the Smithers helped raise Lynne after his mother's death. Here he is wearing his FIRST long pants!

Gramps wrote,

Remember when... 

• You walked to the paymaster’s window and got an envelope filled with gold eagles and silver, with an occasional $2.50 “gold dime” in it too?
• You walked to the company store to draw the “balance” of your pay—after “early deductions” for food and canvas gloves and shoes?
• You got the first check, with accounting attachment, perforated for easy tearing? Then cashed the stub and threw the check in the waste basket. (Only for you to be called in to the bank later!)
• You got an IBM stamped statement, full of cryptic deductions, and found that SS meant “safety shoes” and not “Social Security?”
• You began to get a check and stub full of so many holes that the remaining cardboard was wobbly?
• When your envelope was filled with scrip which you hoped the grocer would honor?
• A smiling lass from accounting handed you the sealed envelope, marked “strictly personal,” and you’d anxiously tear it open to see if it were a raise or a dismissal?
• When your check was withheld until all final attendance reports, grades, etc., were completed?
• When you received by mail your first Social Security check, and wondered if it would last until the next one arrived?
• When you got one for $1,000,100 and it should have been key-punched $100?
• Can you foresee the time when the deductions will exceed the earnings? If you do—then you’ll REMEMBER!

I researched those gold Eagle coins for my post on the 1866 arithmetic book which you can read here. But the $2.50 "gold dime" was new to me. I learned it was an Indian Head Quarter Eagle worth $2.50 and minted between 1908 and 1929. Gramps was born in 1905 and in the 1920s was at college and starting his career. It is hard to believe he was paid in GOLD and SILVER, which had he been rich enough to save could have paid his grandson's way through college!

Company scrip was given in lieu for cash. The employee used it at the company stores.

I would guess the withholding of pay until all grades, etc. were in happened when he taught in the public schools.

Gramps wrote to Ben Meyers of the Lewistown Sentinel who published his articles in his column, We Notice That.  Here Gramps remembered his time at the Standard Steel Works:

Mill Workers have Fun, But Sometimes It Backfires 

He was an ancient mill worker
Who had a tale to tell
About the pranksters he had met
And how their victims fell 

(Tune of Ancient Mariner)

‘Don’t We Have Fun?’ 

“I’m not naming names or telling places, but all the events I’m about to tell you, Ben, really happened,” said the vet. “I’ve worked in the local mills in the years gone by. They could have happened there but none of these ended in any tragic note like those out of town where I was employed. Industries frown upon pranks, but still after all these years the pranksters play merrily on. I’ll mention some that backfired and somebody got hurt as a result. 

"Everyone, at some time or another, has gone in search of “left-handed monkey wrenches” and “outside wire cutters” or other various odd tools, he continued. Well here’s an incident that wasn't so funny: 

"In a steel works one noon hour a very heavy sleeper napped in a steel borings [remains from drilling or shaping steel] charging sled [or car]. His pals gleefully heaped boring about him, leaving only his face uncovered. The high-powered crane operator tied onto the sled and carried it to the open hearth. Of course the widow was given a block of steel to be placed in his coffin, but in their dreams the pranksters long remembered the nightmarish screams of the poor victim as the borings and he slid into the molten steel open hearth furnace. 

"A tablespoon of dynamite under a chunk of clay, a 16-pound sledge and a challenge, “bet you can’t hit it the first time,” carried many a boy apprentice high or buried a sledge hammer splinter into his innocent palm. Once was enough for the first lesson. 

"An electrified third rail, a nearby corrugated iron roof. And “see who can shoot the farthest stream from this hose” usually left a writhing victim in a certain steel plant. 

"At noon hour, a sleeping apprentice on a cast iron tool chest, a smoldering oily canvas glove, one deep breath and the nap ended quite suddenly as he ran blindly into a bull gear [gear that drives smaller gears on a machine] that stripped the shirt from his back. It could have stripped the arm from the shirt or the head from the boy. 

"This one was not so tragic. The new teen-aged clerk was told by a senior clerk to “go down to the yardmaster and bring back a way-bill stretcher.” He went. The yardmaster told him to call his boss and ask “for the rate on a carload of feathers loose.” He did. Over the phone he could hear his boss rustling through the rate-book pages when suddenly—the receiver clicked off."

No wonder Gramps was determined to get a college education! I am assuming Gramps was the 'teen-aged clerk in the last story. 

During WWII Gramps worked at the Chevrolet Aviation Engine Division of GMC in Tonawanda-Kenmore, N.Y. After the war he was a stress engineer of frames, suspensions, brakes, etc. on Chevy trucks in Detroit, Mich.

1952 when Gramps worked at Chevy Avaiation

He also taught at Hartwick Academy in Cooperstown, NY and at Kane High School in Kane, PA. He received his MA in Mathematics at University of Buffalo and taught trig and calculus at Lawrence Institute of Technology in Southfield, MI. He also was a Deacon in the Episcopal church!

Kane High School yearbook

Primary Arithmetic Book from 1866

Primary Arithmetic by Charles Davies, LL D, author of A Full Course of Mathematics, 

published in New York by A. S. Barnes & Co, 

111& 113 William Street (corner of John Street) 

1866

Charles, can you count?"I'll try, Sister." Which is your right hand? Which your left? How many hand have you How many thumbs have you on your right hand? How many on your left? How many on both? How many finger have you on your right hand? How many on your left? How many on both?

This little book of beginning arithmetic belonged to my husband's mother's father, John Oran O'Dell (1873-1939). It was given to him by his Aunt.

It was based on teaching methods taught at Columbia College, New York, May 1862.

"The plan of this work requires the beginner to search out his way, by short and easy steps, to what lies before him. He is to use his faculties to discover principles and not rely on his memory for rules to guide him. Hence the Table is placed at the end of each lesson, as the result of what has preceded: and not at the beginning, as heretofore, in all similar works."

 Ten soldiers and one soldier are how many soldiers?

Two turkeys taken from 3 turkeys, leaves how many turkeys? 2 from 3 how many?

 An apple cut from a page is inserted in the book.

 

The book includes Units of Arithmetic.

The Units of Currency in United States Money in 1866 were:
10 mills make.........1 cent.....ct.
10 cents..................1 dime.....d.
10 dimes.................1 dollar...$
10 dollars...............1 eagle....E.
20 dollars...............1 double eagle...D.E.
The units of this currency are, 1 mill, 1 cent, 1 dime, 1 dollar, and 1 eagle.
$1 + 100 cents
1/2 of a dollar = 50 cents
1/4 of a dollar = 25 cents
1/5 of a dollar=20 cents
1/8 of a dollar = 12 1/2 cents
1/10 of a dollar=10 cents
1/16 of a dollar=5 cents
1/2 of a cents+ 5 mills

Units of Length included Cloth Measure:
Linear Measure.
2 1/4 inches, in, make.....1 nail....na.
4 nails.............................1 quarter of a yard, gr.
4 quarters........................1 yard...........yd.
3 quarters........................1 Ell Flemish...E. Fl.
5 quarters........................1 Ell English...E.E.

I had never heard of a mill or an eagle.Or a nail.

A nail is an archaic unit of measure that dates back to at least Shakespeare's time. The Taming of the Shrew includes mention of "thou yard, three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail".

In 1786 The U.S. Continental Congress established the mill and some states and local governments made mills out of tin, paper or aluminum. http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1913870_1913868_1913851,00.html

The Coinage Act of 1792 included a gold coin called the Eagle, worth $10.The Double Eagle was first minted in 1849 and was produced until 1933.

1866 Eagle 

 1866 Double Eagle