Capping Off Summer

 Dubuque Museum of Art - with huge statues to the left

Summer seems to be winding down here in southern Wisconsin.  The evenings are getting cooler, the nights filled with the sounds of crickets, the flowers looking tired and ragged.  My husband celebrated his birthday this week, and his desire was to take a multiple day bicycle ride home from the Mississippi River.  The weather forecast for the week looked good, so we drove west to Dubuque, and stayed over at the Hotel Julien Dubuque - very nice indeed.  Then he took his bicycle off the rack, hooked on the panniers, and left for a ride that included a side trip to the Quad Cities, a total of nearly 3oo miles by the time he returned home yesterday.

I had wanted to see the Dubuque Museum of Art, but it was closed on Monday when we arrived, so before I left Tuesday I waited around for it to open.  I wanted to see both their current exhibit of folk art, and their collection of Grant Wood art.  The museum opens at 10 o'clock, so I had time to sit in the park across the street and sketch the giant American Gothic figures that stand near the entrance.

My quick sketch of the statues - complete with a giant suitcase

The original Grant Wood painting, taken on a recent trip to the Chicago Art Institute

Before coming back home I drove north on the Iowa side of the Mississippi to McGregor, where I had made arrangements to be outfitted as a Victorian lady for a couple upcoming events with our historical society.  River Junction Trade Co. is a wonderful place, two stores, one for men and another for women.  It is filled with everything a historical society docent or re-enactor could need - hats, shoes, fans, dresses, undergarments, jewelry, anything.  I ended up with a walking skirt, mutton-sleeve shirtwaist, belt and cape.  I'm still considering what to do for a hat, but I had reached the full amount I had budgeted.

Mel helped me select clothing appropriate for a Victorian lady. My outfit is considerably less flashy than hers!

I had some time once I got home to read, water the garden, and take my annual trip to the Walworth County Fair.  It was hot, so I was not too surprised to find the midway uncrowded.  Or perhaps it was just because it was a weekday, and most adults were working.  Being retired, I not only got in for a reduced admission, but got to visit on a day the building were almost empty, and no lines at the stand with pork sandwiches, or cream puffs.  

It was crowded for the pig races, though.  These little porkers seem more than happy to scramble for the chance at an Oreo cookie.

I enjoy the fair, seeing the garden produce, the 4-H projects, the antiques.  I like wandering through the barns, seeing kids washing and brushing their cattle, feeding their chickens or rabbits, showing their goats or sheep.  But it always feels a little sad too, remembering how the fair was always a place to win ribbons, meet friends, ride the rides, mooch quarters off my dad or grandfather, who always seemed to be there too.  I did see one friend from school at the fair, but all in all, I felt a little like Rip Van Winkle, unrecognized in a familiar but changed place.

Back to the Fair

The Walworth County Fair is back in full swing.  I took myself on Wednesday, before it was too terribly hot, as it turned out to be on Thursday.  Almost none of the original reasons I loved the fair as a child have any relevance to my adult self.  As a kid I loved going to the fair because there were crowds of people, and I knew most of them.  I could wander through any barn and find several 4-H friends, or kids I knew from school.  I could mooch a quarter off my grandfather, who reigned over one busy corner in a seed-corn tent with sample stalks tied up along one wall.  I could ride the Ferris wheel, Tilt-a-Whirl, or swings until vertigo compelled me to flop on a bench.  I always had 4-H projects to watch during judging (the small cash premiums were nice) , or at least once a style show in which to participate.  I ate a fair amount of Malone's salt water taffy in my day too.

But times change, and the fair has come to mean something different.  It looks pretty much the same, with old white clapboard buildings housing the fair office, the cream puff stand and the Methodist dining hall.  Some of the old wooden building are gone, replaced by metal pole buildings. The old wooden horse barns burned years ago, as did the grandstand, though the latter was rebuilt in a probably safer way.  The smell is the same too, a bit of fried food, some grilled sweetcorn and barbequed pork, a bit of dust (or some years mud), of cattle and swine, of sweaty people.  But I seldom see anyone I know.  Maybe they are there, but I just don't recognize them, disguised as well all have become, by years.  I like walking through midway, watching the excited kids lined up for rides, the bored looking carnies slumped at controls or double checking harnesses.  I don't ride any more; I just take photos, hoping to some day use them as a reference for painting.  Carnies don't like being photographed.  Any time I ask they turn me down, so sometimes I just snap quickly and hope to capture them leaning amongst their giant stuffed toys and bowls filled with goldfish.  The man who ran the camel ride concession confided to me that some of the carnies have run afoul of the law and don't want their pictured published anywhere.  They're safe with me - no one will ever recognize them from my paintings.

This year I bought my fresh cream puff from the nice men wearing paper hats and aprons at the Knights of Columbus stand, and did a reasonable job of eating it without getting powered sugar all over myself. I snapped pictures of the camels, the little racing piggies, kids on rides, and wary chickens in the small animal barn.  Then I was hot, footsore, and maybe a little lonesome for my grandfather, long dead, and my old friends, unseen, so I walked back downtown to my parked car and headed back home.

Women Grads, Elkhorn High School, 1947

Patricia Smith, Carol Tess, Patricia Enright, 1947

I recently into the basement to look for a three-ring binder to house some magazine articles I wanted to save, and found one more of my mother's scrapbooks.  The entire collection was dedicated to her high school graduation in 1947.  There were formal photographs like the ones here, candid shots of her and her friends, the program for graduation, newspaper clippings of the event, and even a program from their senior class play. I love these photos, so carefully preserved, the subjects all  young and healthy. I occurs to me that graduation was very formal.  You can see all the girls with their hair fixed, makeup, rather serious expressions on their faces.  In this picture Mom is in the center, and her two best friends are on either side.  Patricia Smith went on to earn a doctorate in psychology and to teach and write textbooks in California and Oregon.  Patty Enright married and raised a family in Menasha, and was good about keeping in touch right up until Mom's death a few years ago. 

When I taught high school here in Janesville the classes averaged around four hundred students, a number that always seemed large to me, since my graduating class had 128 students.  This photo from 1947 shows all the women graduates in my mother's Elkhorn High School class.  These women remain friends to this day, though many of them have passed away.  They continue to have reunions every few years, and to keep in touch with one another through telephone calls and letters.  It seems almost quaint.  I read last night somewhere online that people keeping in touch through social media is taking a toll on class reunions.  Why bother to get together with high school buddies when you already have seen each other's photos and know what is happening in each others lives online?  I'm not sure why one would replace the other, unless people are getting too busy to make the effort, or just are losing the taste for face to face friendships.

Here they are again in their caps and gowns, all dressed in high heels.  I imagine they wore dresses beneath those gowns, and felt very grown up.  No decorating of the mortarboards in 1947, no Silly String, or anything that didn't suggest the seriousness of purpose that the occasion signified.  Which isn't to say these women didn't know how to have fun - but that is another post.

Reading about local collage and university graduations in the newspaper got me thinking about how traditions change, which is probably fine.  A nicely printed program is a good thing, though this mimeographed program from my parents' graduation, they were in the same high school class, has its charm.  Girls dressed formally suggests dignity that perhaps they didn't all feel on that June day in 1947, but girls graduating today with shorts and flip flops beneath their caps and gowns have big challenges facing them and are just as excited to get on with their lives as Mother and her friends were.  Formal or not, this is a time of year that marks milestones, and I enjoyed sharing Mom's via her scrapbook.  I hope other young people take the time to preserve the day for their children, though perhaps that is gong out of style as well.

Vintage Valentine Greeting

 

It's cold and bright here in southern Wisconsin, a pretty Valentines Day.  I enjoy finding vintage cards like this one at my local consignment shop.  The back of this one has a signature in pencil: from George Stewart.  No love, but maybe this was from a school boy who didn't give his heart freely.  When my sister and I were little in the 1950s, my grandmother worked at the Rexall drugstore in Elkhorn.  She always made sure we got wonderful fancy Valentines (wish I still had them), and usually a big satin heart-shaped box of Russell Stover chocolates.  We made those candies last forever, and we played with the little pleated papers that each one sat nestled inside.  We kept the boxes for ages too, usually putting our costume jewelry or doll shoes inside once the candy had been eaten. 

These days I pretty much consider Valentines Day an artificial holiday, designed to boost the bottom line of card manufacturers, florists and restaurants.  Not that there is anything wrong with that.  But we just decided to have pizza and play Scrabble, and skip the commercial side of the thing.  Dick did bring home a bog of Hershey kisses with almonds inside, just what I need to maintain my lovely figure.

Happy Valentines Day to all of  you who celebrate it; I hope your day is as good as you hope it will be.

2009 Christmas Letter

I spent most of today updating my address book and working on Christmas cards and the annual letter. Then I thought, why not post it for everyone to see?

Christmas greetings!

I’m discovering that Christmas is, as much as anything, a time to keep track of friends and family, and an opportunity to look back over the year that is rapidly coming to a close.

Dick and I are both well and doing what we said we wanted to do when we retired. We both are reading up a storm, and we enjoy taking trips. This year in March we traveled with UW Whitewater to Peru. I don’t have a formal “bucket list,” but if I did, seeing Machu Picchu would be on it. In August we flew to Colorado and spent a couple days in Rocky Mountain National Park, then went on to join our Badger Buddies in Breckenridge for a few days of companionship and hiking. We took smaller trips too, to the UP of Michigan, up and down the Great River Road as far as Red Wing, and we spent of week of Thanksgiving in Key West, Florida.

I took a trip with DIck’s sister Sandy in May that I’ll never forget. We took Amtrak’s Empire Builder west to Washington State. In Spokane we met quite a few distant cousins related to my Grandma Tess. I was thrilled to find one of the houses she lived in as a little girl in Hillyard, and to see the old Adams family farm in Fairfield. I was particularly happy to meet these Smith and Adams in person, and to be able to help secure a stone for my great grandfather’ Adams’ unmarked grave. I also got to collect more stories, photos and family history information. After that we drove along the Columbia River gorge, and up into the Olympic National Park. We ended up in Seattle and took the train back from there.

Other highlights of the year included Dick riding another couple thousand miles on his bicycle (he’s much fitter than I am), my 40th Elkhorn High School class reunion, and my painting. This year I continued to work and take workshops in watercolor and acrylic, but also began experimenting in oils. I have some art in a local gallery, entered several shows with the Wisconsin Regional Artist Program. In June we had a reunion of UW Whitewater roommates and their spouses in McFarland. It has been a real joy to be able to keep up with these women and men and their lives for more than thirty years, I have also been writing my Late B(l)oomer blog, where I post some of my artwork, photos from trips, family stories and an occasional recipe. I’d love it if you would stop by and take a look. Here’s the web address: http://sherry-latebloomer.blogspot.com/.

There were other fun things, meetings and trips with my doll collecting group, lunches with teacher and fellow reading friends, trips north to visit my aunt Ellen, our annual Badger football outing in Madison.

I can’t close without showing you our ”furry child” Bucky. She is our little friend and lap-warmer, and she reminds us that life at a relaxed pace can be a very good thing..

Warm wishes to all of you for for a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,

Sherry

Fair Album

Click on this picture to enlarge. I only noticed the sign in the upper left corner after I loaded it on the computer. Too funny!

Yesterday while my husband was away on one of his epic bicycle rides, I drove to Elkhorn, my hometown, for a visit to the Walworth County fair. I have a nostalgic affection for this fair, since I exhibited muffins, cookies, banana bread, some really bad sewing, and a few watercolors there many years ago as a Sugar Creek 4-H member. Grandpa Pierce, leaning on his cane, held court in the Simons hybrid seed corn tent, taking orders for the upcoming season and chewing the fat with other old-timers. Grandpa was always good for quarters for midway rides to get us kids out of his hair. Later, when my dad sold John Deere tractors, we hung out in that area.

These days I hardly see anyone I know at the fair. A couple years ago I got my sister to come wander around and eat roasted sweet corn with me, and once in a while I see a former classmate. If I'm lucky I find my brother in the farm equipment area like Dad used to be, though yesterday he was working at the store. I spied a former rival from another club (now matronly woman), introduced myself, but it was clear she did not remember me. I, like Rip Van Winkle awakened after years only to learn he has gray hair, am no longer am part of my old community.

So I headed to the animal barns.

I love the critters, from the cows, to the pigs, to the sheep and goats. In the middle of the days most animals were napping, trying to ignore all the folks wanting to scratch their ears. This pig was awake, though his neighbor was sound asleep, grunting softly, running in his sleep.

The food hasn't changed much, lots of sugar and fried foods. I love the taffy stand, though I know that a $5 bag of sugar isn't what I need. I did get an order of quesedillas and a horchata, and later bought a mammoth cream puff to bring home and split with my skinny husband.

It's fun to watch the little children on carnival rides. When I was a kid we paid for rides with coins, not coupons, and you could usually get enough change for another ride by rummaging around the seats where centrifugal force wedged them in the back crevices. I took this photo by accident, just pressed the button by mistake, but the crazy angle sort of captures the feeling of the ride.

My last stop on my way out of the fairgrounds was at the camel ride. I chatted with the man running the operation, and asked him if the camels were cousins to llamas. They are, you can see the family resemblance in their faces. Asked if he thought the camels minded walking around in a ring with folks on their backs, he smiled and said this was an easy office job compared to carrying, say, salt across a desert. These camels lie and work in Wisconsin, and the Elkhorn fair is almost the end of their season before winter.

There lots more, arts and crafts, the horticulture building, the grandstand with sulky races and tractor pulls. I enjoyed the trip, a traditional end-of-summer activity in this part of southern Wisconsin.

Elkhorn Postcards

My mother collected post cards. She gave me several of Elkhorn, Wisconsin, the town where she grew up, and where I went to high school. The most impressive building downtown is the old hotel on Wisconsin Street. The building dates from 1893 when it was the Elkhorn House hotel, and it became the Loraine Hotel in 1929. The building once was also a bus station. It hasn't had an operating hotel since the 1960s. These days there is a popular Chinese restaurant called Moys in the spot. I realized this morning that I have several cards showing the hotel from about 1907 until the 1950s. I wonder when the clock on the top level was removed, also the top level of the spire in the corner. It's interesting to see what businesses have come and gone in the location, how people dressed, and even the vehicles they drove.

Anyway, I've fallen into collecting cards since Mother died a few years ago. I always considered it to be an old lady sort of hobby, so maybe that's what I am becoming. Other than cards my relatives sent (I like to see their handwriting), I only collect linen cards of places I have actually visited. I like looking at the old stamps, reading the messages, and I like the colors on the vintage cards. Plus they don't take much room, which gives them an edge over other things I have collected, such as dolls, or old glassware.

Sam, and Other Animals

Ralph and Sherry Pierce, about 1952

I am forever grateful I was raised by parents who loved, or in my mother's case tolerated, all sorts of birds and animals. This photo from about 1952 is of my father and me and one of his pet crows. He occasionally rescued young birds who fell from their nests, but I think he sometimes kidnapped them. To his credit he never caged the raucous critters. He simply convinced them he was their best meal ticket and was rewarded with a summer of amusement before biology called them away to start their own families in the autumn.


In 1960 our local newspaper, The Elkhorn Independent, sent Wally Schultz to the farm to do a story about our animals. This is my younger sister Pat with "Sam" on her arm, me watching on. The picture isn't especially good, but the text of the old article, saved in a scrapbook, bolstered my memory of a summer straight out of Sterling North's novel, Rascal. The text of the clipping follows.

I was so caught up in the memory I decided to try a drawing of a crow, using an internet reference photo. I started with a graphite value drawing, then deepened the darkest values with black acrylic ink. I followed with a wash of indigo watercolor, not too dark, saving the highlights, and finished up with indigo and black colored pencil. It seems right to me, though no drawing or photo can capture the intelligence and energy of these relatives of ravens, jays, and magpies.

Pet Managerie Developed for Ralph Pierce Children
Wally Schultz, Elkhorn Independent, 1960

A menagerie of some proportions has been assembled for the enjoyment of the children, and the grownups, on the Ralph Pierce farm in Sugar Creek.

The collection includes three rabbits, a parakeet, a raccoon, a black crow, a fox, a turtle, and two dogs. In contrast to ordinary menageries, however, the animals and birds are pets, and with a couple of exceptions, have their freedom.

Sherry, 9, and Patricia, 6, daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Pierce, handle them with tender care, and Mary, 16 months, would like to if she could get her hands on them. Dean, six weeks old, simply isn't interested.

Mr. Pierce said he always made pets of birds and animals when he was a kid on the farm. His first crow followed him to school and was waiting for him when he came out after the sessions. He has trained four. The present crow, Sam, has been with the family about six weeks. He was taken from the nest and responded to feeding by being friendly right from the start. He rides on the shoulders of all members of the family, and even parked on your correspondent's shoulder while he was taking notes. "Sam" has his freedom and has been flying only about three weeks, but has stayed around the place.

Perhaps the secret of Pierce's success with the animals is the fact that he handles them as little as possible, never frightens them and lets them have their own way most of the time. The girls, and Mrs. Pierce, the former Carol Tess, who was a classmate of her husband in the 1948 Elkhorn High School graduating class, follows his program of training and they all share in the fun.

"Ringo" the raccoon, came to the farm about three weeks ago. Mrs. Harry Weaver, Rte. 2, heard a strange noise in her chimney and noticed the flue stop plate was pushed out in the kitchen on two successive mornings. Her son-in-law, Oral Ward, of Janesville, investigated and found baby raccoons. They were turned over to Pierce, who in turn gave one to Don Vincent. After a short period "Ringo" climbs up and sits on a shoulder, and gets along with the rabbits when placed in a pen with them. He prefers his freedom however, but stays close to home. He sleeps under the porch.

"Vixen" the fox was trapped by Pierce but she is confined near the barn. One dash for freedom lasted only a few minutes after Pierce coaxed her back with a weiner. She likes pigeons, which Pierce shoots from the barn roof, and all sorts of table scraps. Her odor prevents closer association with the family, and accounts for her banishment to the pen behind the barn.

Two black rabbits named "Smokey" and "Midnight" and a white who hasn't been named, are completely tame. The turtle, named "Myrtle the Turtle" lives happily in the stock tank, and "Pete" the parakeet, the noisiest of the lot, is the only one who enjoys the comfort of home.

Practically ignored by the Independent reporter were "Shep" and "Pluto" the shepherd dogs who modestly stayed in the background, probably reconciled to the fact that they are not as glamorous and newsworthy as "Sam" and "Ringo" and "Vixen," but they played an important role in protecting the rest of the pets from nocturnal marauders.

Schultz's story said nothing about the clutter of barn cats that our family kept, partially because Dad loved them, and partially because cats were necessary to keep rats from infesting the barns, sheds and corn cribs. The article was written too soon for the writer to hear about the thieving antics of the crow and raccoon, who often charged into the open kitchen door, hoping for handouts. I remember clearly tossing Fig Newtons out the screen door to persuade the animals to leave, then slamming and latching it to keep them outside where they belonged. The raccoon was fun that summer. He played in our inflatable kiddie pool, and would happily sit in the water with a Slo-Poke sucker clutched in his little black hands, washing it into a state of goo, then chewing the candy to bits. Even when his jaws were glued together with caramel he chirred happily.  I loved it.

The Fifth Day of Christmas: Happy Birthday

Me, 1951, at my grandparents' house in Elkhorn

Me again, on the farm, 1958

Today is beautiful. We received fives inches of snow that fell in fat puffy flakes all yesterday, and this morning the maples, oaks and pines in our neighborhood are wearing coats of white down.

It's my 57th birthday. The pictures are of my first birthday at my grandparents' house in Elkhorn, and of my seventh birthday at the farm. Today my aunt called to wish me well. A friend sent me an electronic card with kittens singing "Happy Birthday", and several others sent snail mail birthday cards. My husband gave me a bottle of Bailey's Irish Cream (I love it in coffee); and I made myself a batch of white chocolate macadamia nut cookies.

I have never liked having my birthday fall between Christmas and New Year. Actually, I was due on Groundhog Day, 1951, but I came early. Mother says it was because she had a baby shower on December 28th, and she had to dig the car out of a snowdrift to get to the party. She went to the hospital that evening, and I was born after midnight. Anyway, my gifts were received all in one week, and the emphasis was always on warm clothing. Socks. Sweaters. Boots. Once I was old enough to have some say in it I usually had Mother promise not to wrap my present in Christmas paper, and I always had us move to a room without a Christmas tree for gift opening. Today it would be present enough to have her back to tell me the story of my early arrival one more time.

4-H Recipes

When I was growing up in Walworth County the fair signaled the end of summer. We went to the fair everyday, ate burgers at Loomers stand, cream puffs and sweet corn from other tents, rode the Tilt-a-Whirl a couple dozen times, and after the last day (Labor Day) we went back to school.

All summer I had 4-H classes in various subjects, child care, art, sewing (I never bonded with that one) and foods and nutrition. We took field trips to places like the Nestle factory in Burlington, where we got to inhale chocolate fumes and watch chocolate chips like sparkling black diamonds roll off the assembly line. We learned to comparison shop. We learned how to set a table. We learned the rudiments of nutrition in a state that considered butter a basic food group. But the most fun was meeting at neighbors' houses to make muffins, cakes, cookies and other sinfully delicious foods. We even planned a whole meal via a kid committee, and managed to get it all done at the same time. I loved it. But not as much as I loved getting all my entries ready for the fair. The day before entries were due there'd be a baking marathon at our place. Sometimes all the angelfood cakes, oatmeal cookies and fresh fruit centerpieces were created and packaged without a hitch. Other times there were disasters (dreaded tunnels in the muffins, or broken cookies). But to me it was worth it. I was a glutton for fair ribbons.

Looking at this 4-H photo from a foods class in 1962, I am reminded how styles change. I didn't dress up for the class; I used to actually wear dresses and aprons to cook. It startles me to see it now, considering I only wear dresses to weddings and funerals these days, and I haven't donned an apron in decades. I just try not to think about those dorky glasses.

Anyway, here are two 4-H recipes from 1962, written on stained index cards in my baby handwriting. That salad actually was sort of good (a way to get kids to eat fresh veggies), but not as tempting as the cookies. All that sugar and fat made for blue ribbon cookies.

Sunshine Salad

1 package lemon Jello
1 1/2 cups water (part juice from pineapple)
1/2 cup finely diced celery
1/2 cup shredded raw carrot
1 cup crushed canned pineapple, drained (reserve juice)

1. Put the lemon Jello in a mixing bowl.
2. Drain the juice from pineapple and add water to make 1 1/2 cups liquid
3. Bring the liquid to a boil and pour over the Jello.
4. Stir the Jello until dissolved. Let mixture cool in the icebox until somewhat thick.
5. Prepare the vegetables.
6. Add the vegetables and pineapple to the cooled Jello. Pour into a fancy mold.
7. When firmly set, unmold on a bed of lettuce. We used to top with a dollop of mayonnaise.

Amish Sugar Cookies

1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup powdered sugar
1 cup buttter, softened
1 cup corn oil
2 eggs
4 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar

Beat the sugars, butter and oil together well. Beat in the eggs. Sift together the dry ingredients and stir into the creamed mixture. Roll the batter into balls the size of a walnut, and press flat with the bottom of a drinking glass dipped in sugar. Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack. These end up being crisp, which I prefer over chewy cookies.

Enjoy!

Kodak moments

Howard Tess, Elkhorn, about 1958

Ralph Pierce, Sherry Pierce, Buttons Bay, Wisconsin, about 1951

Me again, cooling off

I have been unable to post here because I fell off my bicycle. I didn't break anything, although I have a couple trophy bruises, and I was sore in more than a couple places. So instead of doing anything else physical, and risking hurting myself more, I settled into scanning some family photos from my mother's many albums, with the view of some cropping, annotating and organizing. How was I to know this would lead to several days of obssession?

Mother was the photographer of our family in the 1950's. She took pictures of everything and everyone, often several times in case the first two didn't turn out. Of course then she kept all the pictures, so there are multiples of all of us in our baby carriages, our high chairs, our cribs, our holiday clothes. Cats, dogs, new cars, houses, barns, tractors, toys, everything was captured on her Brownie camera (later Instamatic). My grandmother loved photos too, and demanded copies of everything, so when she died the albums were haphazardly merged. Chronology was lost. She wasn't as obsessive about identifying dates or people in the pictures. Many I know, being the first child, born in 1950. But some of the elders, the great aunts and uncles, the family friends, are lost to me. I have an aunt and an uncle left I can ask (though neither lives nearby), and one or two of my mother's high school friends, but it's frustrating to me have have holes in the fabric of our family story as told in black and white, and some fading color, photos.

These are a few recently scanned photos that speak to me of long ago summers.