While going through the attic at my mom’s house last fall, we came across a Christmas card mom made for her mother. As you can tell, my mother missed her calling. She could have made greeting cards for a living. (actually she did make many greeting cards for family and friends when I was a kid)
My Mother! York, NY 46 (unless the 46 means 1946 and NY means New Year?)
The address is interesting, mostly because they lived in Elgin, Illinois. Not New York, NY. I love the drawing with the fashionable hairstyle.
My grandma in 1946 as drawn by my mother.
She works and works in the kitcion like a slave. Sometimes I wonder if she didn’t once live in a cave She gits after us and gits after us Till she just desides to pick up after us
The drawings on this one are too good to miss so here they are in more detail:
Here she is working in the kitchen like a slave. Note her leg is shackled to something
Here she’s being dragged by her hair when she lived in a cave
Here she’s getting after the kids. With a belt.
I’m guessing mom was about 10 or 11 when she made this card (which would make 1946 reasonable) because all of her siblings are in the drawing. From left to right, (the kids) is Mom. Then Aunt Ginny, then Aunt Nancy, then Uncle Dick and finally Uncle Bud. In 1946, though, Aunt Ginny would have still been an infant and not running.
Here she’s given up and is picking up after the kids. It gives her a backache.
After all that she should think us all rats But I know my mother Beter than all others I know she loves us more in every way She loves us more every day
More details below:
Here she’s chasing the rats away with a flyswatter.
To my mother Because I love her May not miss my loving kiss on Christmas Day Merry Christmas and Happy New Year
The loving kiss:
Here’s she’s rewarded with a loving kiss.
Vahish (?) P.0 Box
Sometimes I’m annoyed that Mom keeps everything — but often I’m pleased. This was a lot of fun to look at with mom and to share with you.
For the last decade or so of my father’s life his bedroom was his sanctuary. He spent more time in his room than out of it — and not always asleep. I once asked him what he did when he went to bed at 2 o’clock in the afternoon. He said he usually lay in bed thinking.
Dad’s room was pretty much off-limits to anyone not invited in, but the stench of unwashed old-age was enough to not want to be invited in. Occasionally my dad would ask me into his room to look, for the umpteenth time, at the photograph of the navy ship he’d spent 4 years on or to look at something he’d found among his trinkets. I was never very curious about what was in his room — I couldn’t imagine there was anything of interest I’d not seen many times before.
I couldn’t have been more wrong as I found out after my father’s death in October. I found his father’s wallet, still with the cards and photographs he carried while alive. I found his wedding ring that my mother thought was lost. I also found a ziplock bag of things that belonged to my Uncle Don, my father’s brother-in-law and best friend until Don’s death in 1963.
Some of the things in the bag are bizarre — a hat with a tassel and matching purple satin sash from some honorary Moose Lodge event. Some are historical — correspondence between my Uncle Don and the War Department in 1945. Some possibly valuable — an unopened pack of Milwaukee Road playing cards.
My favorite of the trinkets, however, is the plastic box of key-chains. When I opened the box, the top key-chain was one I recalled from my childhood. Probably not the same key-chain, but I had one just like it.
It is a red and white plastic key-chain shaped like an owl. The red part (the body of the owl) separates from the white part (the eyes and tail) to make two key-chains. The white part also glows in the dark. I think the reason for the two parts is because two keys used to be required for the ignition and trunk, so this way you could keep your car running and get something out of the trunk. The back of the key-chain advertises a store called “Rorry’s: Apparel for women who care”. I vaguely remember Rorry’s — I wonder if there was one in Elgin.
Clare loves owls so, for Christmas, I parted with the Nite Owl key-chain and placed it in her stocking. I feel good that a memory of mine is now a concrete object for her.
Clutch Cargo Lips 