Jane Austen Family Album

One more block done! West Wind for Tom Fowle, Cassandra's fiance who died in the West Indies.
http://austenfamilyalbumquilt.blogspot.com/2014/08/block-21-west-wind-for-tom-fowle.html

I still have the block from two Sundays ago to finish. It has a lot of pieces and I am still working on it.

1962 Illustrations: Household Management

The March 1962 Family Circle has some great illustrations for its article "Short Cuts to Easier House Cleaning" by Sally Pepper Adams, Equipment Editor. She suggests getting organized with a schedule. "Think about your house and the myriad things you do to keep it and your family running smoothly. Make a list of your social obligations--the school car pool, taking the children to the dentist, birthday parties, and so on. Then list the housekeeping chores you do every day, those you do once a week, and those you do monthly or seasonally."

It seems to me that any gal in 1962 who could do this had a quite marketable job skill set.

Keeping the equipment in running order and organized was essential

Weekly fridge cleaning

Children's clothes should be within reach

 

When you put away the winter blankets laundry, repair, then wrap them for storage.

Should the man of the house rule the roost? Virginia Stitzenberger said aye:
"I  often think of our household as a ship. From time to time each child may want the ship to take a particular tack, but there is a skipper at the helm who accepts his rightful responsibility for navigating the vessel. Everyone aboard knows that no mutiny will be tolerated, and that, no matter how tempting it is to explore icebergs or other alluring danger spots, the ship will be safely steered."

Bored children needed help finding projects to do. Perhaps because we were no longer running free outdoors without supervision. I mean, how many hours of TV could a kid watch in a day? Five? Six? That left a few hours to fill.

 The new packaging for canned ham was so safe even little Sally could open it up. A great help to a Mom with her hands, literally, filled.

Not an illustration but a photo ad, this boy's look is pretty disturbing. 

Flea Market Bargains

Several years ago I started a small collection of red and white crocheted hot pads after seeing a friend use hers for coasters. Today at the Royal Oak Flea Market I found a gal selling them for 50 cents each and bought up a whole bunch!

They are so cherry and fun. I just love them.

If you crochet you can get vintage patterns for free at Crochet Pattern Central and at Free Hot Pad Crochet Patterns

See Lori Holt's blog post on Bee in My Bonnet about her collection here..

1962: What's Cooking?

 The March 1962 issue of Family Circle had lots of ads for processed foods. My mom was a big processed food user. It was the culture of the time.



Remember that pudding cheesecake with a graham cracker crust? I think they served it everywhere.

Luckily the only time I had SPAM was when the Girl Scouts went on an overnight camping trip. We each had to bring our own can of SPAM to grill over the fire at breakfast

Just open the can. Make some Biscuit biscuits. Dinner served.

A typical lunch: packaged sliced cheese and canned soup.

I never had waffles for breakfast growing up. These ginger spice ones look GOOD. 

 Meat was standard fare for all meals.

 Vegetables were offered on the side, kind of like pickles or rolls.

Well, even the applesauce had a traditional colonial theme going on. Pennsylvania Dutch.

Guide to Traditional Decorating, 1962 style

The March 1962 Family Circle magazine offered ideas for decorating in the 'traditional' style that the women in my family favored. I think that the cover of this magazine influenced Mom's decoration of the dining room of the house we moved into in 1963.

Mom chose a blue and white wall paper with a repeated eagle motif  and outfitted the hutch with blue flow plates from her great-grandparents. She had Dad install a chair rail and painted the wall beneath it blue. Mom had a braided rug too, just like in this picture.

 I loved that room.

Mom's hutch with the blue flow in my home.

Another dining room idea offered in the article was more elegant and traditional and less colonial.

 Living room ideas included this wild gingham check motif! Love those toile' fabrics.

The couch and chair and even the tables look similar to what I grew up with. We even had a white painted fireplace for a while.

This more elegant room has drapes similar to ones Mom had in the later 60s, a Jacobean influence. I always loved the camel back rolled arms sofas and owned one for many years.

 We have had wing chairs for many years. Again red and blue but with a deeper red, paler blue and creamy beige.

Bedroom ideas in red, white and blue

My mom bought Family Circle and Women's Day at the grocery store, and would get me a Golden Book. She once said that had she had her health and worked she thought she would like to have been an interior decorator.

Mr. Adam's Last Crusade by Joseph Wheelan

I have become a huge John Quincy fan, and the more I learn about him the more impressed I become. When I found Mr Adam's Last Crusade: John Quincy Adam's Extraordinary Post-Presidential Life in Congress  I had to read it.  And I did, in three sittings. Wheelan has written an inspiring book, offering a concise overview of JQ's early career and a moving study of his time in the House.

After a failed presidency he expected a  peaceful retirement at Big House, the home of his parents, reunited with his library of 6,000 books.

Then he was elected to the House of Representatives. "My election as President of the United States was not so half so gratifying to my inmost soul" he wrote. And he quoted his hero Cicero, "I will not desert in my old age the Republic that I defended in my youth."

JQ was a throw back to another world, the world of the Founding Fathers and the Declaration of Independence, when duty and freedom of speech and sacrifice were not just ideas. He eschewed political favoritism and party politics. It made him unpopular. His intelligence and prodigious memory, paired with a sharp wit and verbal prowess, made him a formidable enemy.

"Slavery is a slow poison to the morals of any community infected with it. Ours is infected with it to the vitals."JQA

64 years old in 1831, JQ took up arms to battle what he believed was the greatest threat to America: slavery. The House had enacted a 'gag' on all discussion of slavery and JQ was determined to end it. It took eight years. He was vilified, his life threatened, the House tried to silence him. Every day he walked to work and brought up petitions that brought the wrath of the House and the South upon his head.

He became friends with abolitionists Theodore Weld and Angelina Grimke' Weld. JQ had been anti-slavery since 1820, but now became a self-avowed abolitionist.

"...the acutest, the astutest, the archest enemy of Southern slavery that ever existed." Representative Wise of Virginia

He voted against the main on other issues. He was no believer in expansionism, especially if it meant expanding slavery into new states and if it meant taking lands away from rightful owners. He was against the removal and extermination of Native Americans. He fought for the James Smithson legacy to be used as it was meant, resulting in the Smithsonian Institute. He voted to ban dueling. He even defended women's right to petition.

"They call Adams a man of one idea, but I tell you what it is, he had got more ideas than all of us put together." South Carolina Congressman Isaac Holmes

Then there was the Amistad trial. Don't rely on the Spielberg movie to learn about JQ's involvement or the importance of the trail. Read this book.

JQ was getting old, his hand was palsied, his eyes wept, he had rheumatism. He would not give up because there was no one to take his place. His eyes still  burned with passion and vitality. His mind was as sharp as ever. And he was at the height of his popularity.

He suffered a series of mild strokes, clung to his faith, and waited for the inevitable. On February 21, 1848 he was in the House when he suffered a stroke. All Washington closed down as "America's last living link between the present day and the fading Revolutionary War era of Washington lay dying in the U. S. Capitol" (from Mr Adam's Last Crusade).  On February 23 he died in the House Speaker's chamber.

In his day he was already an anachronism, a man without party loyalty, an original thinker, an independent voter without consideration of his own political or personal capital. His soul was rooted in the days of the Revolution when he watched the Battle of Bunker Hill with his mom and accompanied his father John Adams to Paris. He had known Thomas Jefferson, James Monroe, Dolley Madison. He lived into an America growing from the Industrial Revolution and clamoring for more land and more wealth. His questioning but firm faith was old fashioned in a time of Transcendentalism. JQ was America's better angel, a voice for the core values of it's foundation.

Has there ever been another like him?

John Quincy Adams Coming Along

I decided on the final layout for the John Quincy Adams Presidential Quilt. Under the portrait I inked the beginning of a thank you letter from one of the captured Mendhi Africans who JQ represented in the Amistad trial.

The eagle, stars and flowers are from a preprinted reproduction panel. The gold fabric circles will help the stars stand out.

I hand basted all the pieces in place. The circle stars were basted around freezer paper circles first.

I will later embroider or pen more detailed information: name, dates, notes of his accomplishments.

I included portraits of presidents he served under: George Washington assigned him Minister to Holland, James Monroe appointed him Secretary of State, and the State of Massachusetts elected him to the House of Representatives when Andrew Jackson was president. And of course I included his father, John Adams.

I started the motifs today. It is so good to finally get back to creative efforts! It is invigorating!