In 2006,  I moved into Mr. E’s home. He’d been a favorite teacher in high school and we’d stayed in touch through the years. In 2004, his beloved wife died. By 2006, I was divorced and short on funds and wanted to relocate to the East Coast. Mr. E. was gracious enough to invite me to live in his home until I got settled and found a new home in Virginia.

Not two weeks after moving in with Mr. E., I had my 70th first date. I’m happy to report that it was also my *last* first date, and less than 90 days after that first date, we were engaged to be married. I invited Mr. E. to sit on the front row at our wedding, alongside our family members. He was happy to have a ringside seat.

But I worried a lot about Mr. E. He was alone in that great big house of his and he didn’t like being alone. I visited him from time to time but it was different. However, he never complained. About a year after I was married, Mr. E (now in his 80s) met Mrs. E. She’d been widowed for several years and they attended the same church and had a lot in common. After a few months, these two folks fell in love and decided it was time to tie the knot. And the good news was, Mrs. E. wouldn’t even have to change the monogram on her towels and dinner napkins. She was good to go.

This Thanksgiving, Mr. and Mrs. E. (now married 10 months), joined us for a Thanksgiving feast. It was nice to see Mr. E. so happy. And it was nice to know that sometimes people still meet and fall in love - without any help whatsoever from the internet.

Thanksgiving Dinner at our home

In the 1930s, The “Monitor-top Refrigerator” quickly became one of General Electric’s most popular appliances. Its design was based on a sound principle and a highly efficient plan: The compressor sat atop the fridge, and heat extracted from the appliance cabinet naturally moved up and away from the refrigerator.

According to all reports, these were also unusually well-built appliances, with a life expectancy of 25 years - or more. Today, appliance aficionados are always on the look-out for these vintage refrigerators, because with a little work and a few new parts, they can be restored to their original condition and live on - indefinitely.

Heretofore, no one has created a reproduction Monitor Top refrigerator which is a surprise, especially consider how hot these used appliances have become. A thoroughly restored three-door Monitor Top fridge (fully restored) can fetch $10,000 or more.  For more information and detail on these appliances, click here.

When I was researching The Houses That Sears Built, I read 32 years of American Carpenter and Builder, a popular building magazine of the early 1900s. Whilst studying its pages, I found an ad for a Monitor Cupola and a few bells rang in my tired brain. Was this where the “Monitor Top” fridge got its name? The resemblance between this Monitor Cupola and the GE’s compressor was sound. I’ve googled all the terms I can think to google and yet to no avail. I love to know - is this the source of the moniker Monitor-top?

Update: A friend found a link explaining that monitor-top GE refrigerators got their name from the iron-clad Monitor Ship from The Civil War. Maybe that’s where Monitor Cupolas got their name?

Want to read more about Rose? Click here.

Ad from 1915 building magazine showing Monitor vent

An image from a 1930 magazine, showing the GE Monitor Top

Full ad from a 1930 magazine

There’s a wonderful book titled, “The Good Old Days, They Were Awful!” It’s an interesting book with many stories of how life “back in the day” was not all peaches and cream. I agree with that - to an extent - but there were some bonuses to life back then. However, as far as issues of sanitation, we’re miles ahead of our ancestors who lived in the early 1900s.

Here’s an ad from the American Carpenter and Builder Magazine, from 1912. (Story continues below photos.)

1912 American Carpenter and Builder ad

Close up of the modern toilet

Take a better look at this contraption. In short, the (ahem) “human waste products” were dropped into a steel box directly under your house (aka basement or foundation). After a time, you’d stir the (ahem) contents in this box and add chemicals a couple times a week.  See the handle beside the toilet (on the floor)?  That’s your stirrer. And see the large pipe behind the toilet? In a perfect world, that’s a vent pipe that directs odors out of the living space. In a perfect world.

I suppose for those who were accustomed to donning warm shoes and making the long trek to the outhouse in the backyard, this “chemical toilet” was better. I suppose.  But in the real world, that thing must have stunk to high heaven. And what poor soul was charged with crawling under the house and cleaning out the box twice a year?

I love studying the good old days and I love writing about the good old days. However, when I finally learn how to travel back in time, I think I’ll take my modern plumbing with me.

And you thought your kitchen was small? The ad below came from a 1925 architectural magazine and the ad was promoting the fine, smooth drain board (on the right). After The Great War (also known as The War to End All Wars, as President Wilson assured us), there was a fantastic housing shortage. Housing analysts estimated that 1-2 million housing units were needed immediately to ameliorate the housing shortage caused by World War I. And there was something else going on after World War I.

Hyperinflation.

For a few months immediately following the Armistice (11-11-1919), hyperinflation hit America hard. The price of building materials increased 100% in some places. Because of this and because of the housing shortage, many people converted their spacious single family homes into boarding houses and installed a few of these tiny kitchen units to accommodate their new paying tenants.

Notice, that’s a refrigerator on the right side and a gas stove on the left, and that’s a Veribrite Drain Board (for kitchens of all sizes) on the right top.

This is one wee tiny kitchen (From 1925 American Carpenter Magazine).

Take a look at this “modern” tub. The picture below is from a 1925 American Builder, a very popular trade magazine of that era. Now I suppose on the face of it, this “combo unit” is a swell idea but c’mon, really?

The best part of a hot shower is relaxing and letting your mind drift away to a happy place. In this shower (see photo below), you’d darn well better keep your mind on the task at hand. It’s hard to imagine that any builder ever thought that this was a swell idea. And more to the point, if such a thing were offered today, it’d come with enough bright-red legally-worded warning labels to wallpaper the most spacious bathroom.

Speaking as someone who loves old houses, I’d love to know - anyone ever see one of these in real life in residential construction? Apparently, there were 60 of these put into the Mira Mar Hotel in Chicago, Illinois on Woodlawn. A quickie search on Google shows that the hotel was still in business in 1951, but I couldn’t find any more information.

Ad from a 1925 architectural magazine

A closer look at the tub/shower

Accompanying text

The time really does go by so quickly. It seems like a couple years ago that my youngest daughter Corey (now 22 years old) was just a baby. When she was little, my dear Mom would drop by our little house on Arizona Street in Portsmouth, just long enough to hug me and hug the baby and drop off a little gift. Sometimes it was a potted mum or sometimes it was a box of Little Debbie’s or sometimes it was a $20 bill to buy ourselves a little treat.

She’d look at my babies and say, “I know this is hard to believe, but this chapter of your life will be over before you know it. In no time at all, they’re grown and gone and what remains are the memories. I know this feels like an intense time of life, but enjoy it. Relish the moments because you’ll have the rest of your life to reflect on and remember these happy days.”

My mother was very wise.

On Thanksgiving Day, my husband and I sat quietly with each other in our spacious dining room and enjoyed our freshly-cooked turkey and home-made stuffing and yams and pumpkin pie. I’m sure we were both thinking about our children. I’ve had a couple Thanksgivings utterly alone and I can tell you, it’s 5000% better to have someone with whom to share a holiday and yet, your thoughts return to those days when there were little kids running around the house making their happy noises.

Corey - about seven months old in this photo

Part of the fun of traveling to 23 states and giving 200 talks on Sears Homes is seeing all kinds of wacky and wild stuff. One Sunday morning in 2003, as my host was driving me back to the airport (to return home to the Midwest), I saw this Sears Madelia (see second photo below). It was in Zanesville, OH (or a nearby town) and we were actually several blocks beyond this building when I told my host, “Please turn around. I think I saw something.”

He reminded me that we didn’t have much time and I told him I understood and this wouldn’t take but a second. And there - in all its painful glory - was this badly butchered Sears house. It’s actually a Sears Madelia and it was not that popular a model for Sears. (Sears sold 370 designs of kit homes from 1908 - 1940.)

The first picture (first image) is a happy, healthy Madelia in Wood River, Illinois on 9th Street. There are 24 Sears Homes in a row, a remnant from the days of Standard Oil’s purchase of $1 million worth of Sears Homes for their refinery workers. The second picture I’ve titled,

A Madelia trapped in a tavern’s body.

A happy little Sears Madelia in Wood River, IL

And here’s the Madelia trapped in a tavern’s body.

A Madelia trapped in a tavern's body

This next house is a Sears Crescent in Norfolk, Virginia. It’s a happy little Crescent with good self-esteem.

A happy Sears Crescent

And this next picture was taken by Rebecca Hunter, a kit-home expert in Elgin, Illinois.

An unhappy Sears Crescent in Illinois

Here's a Sears Westly, as it appeared in the 1919 Sears catalog

Unhappy Sears House in the Midwest. Too much plastic in one place.

From 2002 - 2006, I had 70 first dates. And I learned a lot about men during this experience. And based on what I’ve observed amongst the current crop of single men, I believe that for many of them, this is their first incarnation on two legs.

If you want your own examples of this swinish behavior, log on to an internet dating site and scan a few male profiles. Just do a search using the keyword, “fat” or “overweight.” Another fun word is “chemistry.” (And if you want to see how unoriginal most men are, look up “Prince Charming.”) Or if you really want to see the ugly side of single men, do a keyword search of “bitch.” (Men freely use that word to describe any woman who does not conform to their twisted notions of Dream Woman.)

“Sorry, but physical appearance is important,” writes a 40-something man in the space where he describes his ideal mate.

Another man writes, “If you are overweight or obese, please don’t waste my time” or worse, “If you are grossly overweight, please get some help.”  And then there’s the kinder, gentler version, “I am only attracted to slender women.”

The part that is almost funny about this is the men’s profile picture. Many of the guys that are making the most outrageous demands for their life partner have serious weight problems of their own. And yet, despite their own glaring inadequacies and defects (and bloated bellies), they have a very perverted and distorted sense of entitlement.

Hollywood fuels the fire. From Beauty and the Beast to Hitch, it is always about the pathetic loser man hooking up with gorgeous, perfectly-shaped, well-endowed and legs-to-die-for babe. How many movies offer the contrary theme, of an ugly woman scoring the gorgeous guy? None that I can think of. The only good thing that happens to ugly women in movies is that sometimes, they’re portrayed as powerful women. But somewhere in that 90-minute flick, those powerful ugly women are stripped of their independence and strength and left in a lamentable state; powerless, beauty-less and usually, alone and lonely.

In the popular book, He’s Just Not That Into You, the co-authors suggest that perhaps some of the onus is on women and that we should expect more from men and stop putting up with pig-like behavior from the less-fair sex. In their concluding comments, they suggest that men might be forced into better behavior if women started demanding it.

Sounds good in theory, but I’m not sure I agree with this in practice. Women are already assigned with too much responsibility for men and their recalcitrant ways. We’re already overwhelmed and overloaded with the busy-ness of trying to stay “attractive” for men and grow our careers and shrink our bodies and make healthy life-style choices and make sure that our children don’t end up on a psychiatrist’s couch before the age of 15 because their single mother screwed them up for life. Let’s not heap “101 ways to subtly improve the bad behavior of the male species” on women’s plates, too. We’re all busy enough with our own lives. Why should we busy ourselves with the improvement of men, too?

To read more of Rose’s new book, click here.

Okay, so it’s from a February 1911 Ladies Home Journal, but still, it sounds so intriguing.

At first glance, I assumed that this fireproof house was 90% asbestos content, but upon reading the full article, I saw that I was wrong. It’s made of poured concrete and has lots of hollow tile, plaster (applied over metal lath), ceramic tile and block. Even the floors are poured concrete. Ater all that concrete is dried, the wooden forms are removed.

Very interesting idea for a house, and it’s nice-looking, too but good luck hanging up any pictures on the walls. Small price to pay for a fireproof house - I suppose.

A picture of the Fireproof House (from 1911 LHJ)

Back in the day, Ladies’ Home Journal was (get ready), a magazine devoted to improving the lot of women who wanted to be homeowners, or women who had achieved that high goal of homeownership.  Today, the magazine is heavy on diet tips and light on home related topics, but it wasn’t always that way.

This 1911 issue of LHJ devoted an entire section to fixing up old houses. The photos (and their captions) tell the whole story. One caption reads, “The foundation and timbers [of these old houses] are often better than are found in the houses built today.”

For the two images below, the caption reads:

It seems almost impossible to realize that the hospitable-looking house on the bottom (see second house below) was once the gloomy, desolate house on the top (see first house below), and the changes which transformed it were not great. First of all, the dull color of the old house and the overgrown condition of the ground in front of it are most forbidding. A comparison of the two pictures shows how much a little careful planting and fresh paint will do toward changing the whole atmosphere of the house. More rooms were added at the rear and a gambrel roof was built and into this were let two good-sized dormer windows. A large porch, which was extended into a porte-chochere was built, and the latter forms a nice balance to the right wing of the house.

Here's the "before" photo

And here's the "after" photo

More photos are below!

Take a moment and read the caption - and remember - this is from 1911!

Another photo pair from the 1911 Ladies' Home Journal

In 2002, I walked out of the house I’d spent seven years restoring. My marriage had ended and I knew the old house needed lots more work and I knew that as a fledgling writer, I didn’t have the financial wherewithal or the emotional energy or the time required to work on the old house. My soon-to-be ex-husband, on the other hand, was strong, competent, capable and had the skills to build and/or repair anything with nothing more on hand than a leatherman, a speedometer cable and a couple wagon wheels. And maybe some duct tape, too.

In 1995, my (then) husband and I had moved into the fixer-upper in Alton, Illinios. The purchase price was a mere $50,000.  The house wasn’t in the best of shape, but we knew that going in. As the years passed, we installed new ductwork, new central air, new furnace, some new plumbing and repaired the box gutters, and replaced the massive, 14/12 roof.

In addition, I painstakingly removed thousands of gallons of beige paint from ornate newel posts, staircase baulstrades, quarter-sawn oak fireplaces and more. As anyone who’s stripped paint knows, this is a laborious process that involves meticulous work, mind-numbing detail and very sharp dental picks.

The house consumed thousands of hours of my life. The research alone consumed too many hours to count. I pored over countless magazines and books, reading, reseaching and learning the best way to restore old wooden shutters and how to mix lime mortar for the 100-year-old limestone foundation and what color of paints were most appropriate for a home built in 1904.

It was a labor of love and an enormous undertaking. I even wrote and sold a few articles about the projects. Read a snippet here:

And then in 2002, the marriage ended and I moved out of the house and into a crummy singles’ apartment. Yes, it was hard to see a 24-year-old marriage die. It was hard to leave the family home. It was excruciating to have my sweet daughter only 50% of the time. But there was another loss that no books on divorce ever talk about: Walking away from my semi-finished pièce de résistance. It was to be the crowning jewel of my old house projects. For so many years, it had been my raison d’être and now it was gone.

I still remember working on that house for hours and hours and asking myself, “Is this really a productive use of time? Is this a worthy way to spend a life?” And then I’d reassure myself by saying, “Yes, this is your legacy. This is your gift to the neighborhood, to the community and to the city. This house will endure long after you’ve left this earth.”

Turns out I was wrong.

Two years after the marriage ended, my ex-husband lost the house to foreclosure. And then last month, a well-meaning friend called to report that the bank had gutted the house. Every *&^% thing I did was erased. Those 100-year-old louvered shutters -  replete with vintage hardware that I’d been painstakingly restored - were tossed right in the dumpster and replaced with some shiny new vinyl shutters. That beautiful wood with its deep rich grain - covered again in some nice latex beige paint. The quarter-sawn oak fireplace mantel is - after a brief respite - again covered in crappy beige paint.  And all those old vintage photos that I discovered after much legwork, the photos that showed the house in 1906, with smiling families standing in the foreground, well all those crummy old photos were pitched, too. It’s all gone.

I tried to interrupt my friend as she told me this.

“Please stop,” I told my friend.

I don’t think she heard me.

“Please, I’m serious. I don’t want to hear anymore. This is heart-breaking. Really heart-breaking.”

And finally, after all the horses and the cows and a couple pigs had escaped the barn, she finally shut the doors.

I look at the house I own today - a lovely 1924 Center Hallway Colonial - and my passion for a pure and faithful restoration has ebbed a bit. What will happen to this house when I’m gone, I wonder.

I wish my friend had kept this news to herself.  I would have been far happier not knowing.

Teddy (Theodora Duncan Donuts) was sleeping on the leather couch, with her head on the pillow when her father (Pop) decided that she looked a little chilly. So he draped a little blanket on her.

Teddy is a Sheltie (Shetland Sheep Dog) but with an unusual amount of white on her face. Plus, her ears have never flopped over at the tips. However, her long fur coat is become thicker and longer and more luxuriant with every passing month.
Teddy is a happy girl.

I’ve told her frequently that many dogs sleep outside and live in primitive structures called Dog Houses but she just laughs out loud and trots away and chews on her squeaky lamby toy. Every now and then when we’re out for a walk, I point out dogs that are behind fences and tell her that some dogs never go out for walks. That makes her laugh, too.

One of the things I admire about Teddy is that she lives in the moment. She shows no remorse or regret for the time that she gnawed on my cell phone (and the charger), or the time she ate the stuffing out of her one of her chew toys, or the time she walked through a blackened mud puddle and then came into the house.

Dogs know how to live in the moment.

Teddy rests blissfully and dreams of the day's fun

My beloved mother died the first day of 2002. And then my marriage of 24 years ended abruptly. And then two of my children moved far away. And I ended up with 50% custody of “the baby” - my then 14-year-old daughter. This all happened in the first six months of 2002. Many nights, I wondered if I’d survive all this stress and change.

One night, during this difficult time in my life, I had a dream that I was in a burned out forest. Burnt-out stubs of trees still smoldered from the intense heat of the forest fire. Charred debris and pieces of still-smoking branches littered the forest floor. It was a scene reminiscent of hell itself. In the middle of this blackened landscape, I was lying on my side in a fetal position atop an oval-shaped oasis of green, lush grass. As I rose to my feet, I saw an angel stand up with me. I saw that I’d been shielded from the awful heat and flame by the wings of this angel, carefully covering over my body, protecting me as a mother eagle protects her young. As I stood up, the angel spoke.

“Every remnant of your old life is gone,” she said. “But a new life will grow out of the very ashes of this old life. The old has been cleared away to make room for the new. This is not just an ending but a new beginning. You’re going to survive this and the second half of your life will be very, very good. Hang on. Don’t give up.”

About two years after I had this amazing dream, I finally shared it with a friend. I was visiting his town to give a talk on Sears Homes and we had dinner together at a local restaurant a couple hours before the talk. I’ll remember his response for the rest of my life.

“Soon after Mt. St. Helens erupted,” he told me, “I visited that site. It was only a few weeks after the mountainside was decimated by flowing lava and fire, but already, down in the ashes of that burned out forest, you could see thousands of tiny green sprouts poking up toward the light. The ranger told our group that the ash actually fertilizes and prepares the soil for the new crop of trees. It’s amazing how fast a burned out forest can grow again.

“When people go through an experience such as you had, where they lose everything, they either get bitter or they grow and evolve in ways they never dreamed possible. You chose to grow. You chose to follow a dream and turn your dream into a career. You’re one of the most successful people I believe I’ve ever met.”

His comments touched my heart and soul. After our talk, I walked out of the restaurant feeling about 10 feet tall and I had a new view of myself. Later that night, this good and decent man attended my lecture and when it ended, he shook my hand and said, “It was an honor to meet you. You’re a remarkable woman and I meant what I said. You’re one of the most successful people I’ve ever met.”

I wrote those words down in my journal and also put a copy of my bathroom mirror. The lovely aroma of this man’s kind words have remained with me for many years.

File this one under the heading, “I told you that dating is hard on the psyche!”

Yeah, it’s true.  A little Asian fellow who goes by the name “Sal” married Nene Anegasaki, a character in the video game “Love Plus.”

Read the whole story here:  Warning!  There’s an accompanying video of their big day here, too.

After you watch this, be prepared to pop in your old VHS edition of It’s a Wonderful Life or some other happy, wholesome movie. You’ll need a video palate cleanse after watching Sal and Nene tie the knot.

I only have one question: Does this means he’s an adulterer if he plays other video games?

Found this recipe in a 1903 Ladies’ Home Journal and it sounds delightfully simple.

Years ago, my mother told me stories about her mom, and what a wonderful cook she was. Mom said that Flossie could open up the old behemoth of a cast-iron stove, stick her hand into the large oven and gage the approximate temperature. This recipe (below) is a throw-back to those days, when you had to guess the temperature of your oven and stove top.

An interesting aside, these old cast-iron stoves - typically fueld by wood or coal - were about 2% efficient. In other words, about 98% of the heat went in places you did not want it to go (such as the room). There were stories in these old Ladies’ Home Journals about women passing out from the extreme heat in the kitchen. Lack of oxygen was also a problem and caused many women to faint.

That’s why older homes (such as my 1924 Colonial Revival) have kitchens that are set back from the rest of the house, within an “L” toward the back of the home. Doing so enables a kitchen to have ventilation on three sides. My kitchen has five windows - three over the sink, two on a side wall and then the third wall had a large screened-in door. Less chance of fainting that way!

The number one rule: Keep the cook (aka wife) alive and well!

Here’s the recipe. Happy heating and cooking and eating!

An original recipe from a 1903 Ladies' Home Journal

Dissolve 1 lb sugar in 1/4 cup water. boil until it forms a ball when dropped in cold water.

Stand a minute. Rub portions against side of pan, quickly stir in bulk until milky.

Mix in quickly pint Dunhams’ Cocoanut.

Make into bars and stand.

Good Christian Man Seeks Good Christian Woman for Friday Night Booty Call.

That’s what his profile should have said. I found him on a popular Christian dating site. The relationship started off so good and happy and full of hope, and it ended on a very sour note when he told me that he didn’t feel any “chemistry.”

“No chemistry between us?” I asked him. “What are you talking about? Are you certifiable?”

I’d heard that dreaded phrase so many times before, but this time, it came as a surprise and a shock. Date #32 and I had had so much in common on so many levels, not to mention our long talks about God and spirituality. We’d had so many interesting chats about our faith and our study of the Bible and what it meant to be a Christian. We’d been on a handful of dates and when we were together, we had a lot of fun. I’d scored high marks with him in the categories of intellect, wit and good companionship.

Too many men had dumped me unceremoniously with this “no chemistry” garbage, but this guy? It was not believable. It seemed disingenuous at best, and an outright lie at worst.

“Maybe,” I told him, “You’re just too much of a loser to be honest with me and tell me that I’m not pretty enough for you?”

He said a few things but all his comments smacked of insincerity. He’d been hoping to get away clean and I was ruining it for him. The conversation was ugly and hard and it hurt like hell.

I thought we’d had so much in common and we had so much fun and there was so much that was right between us. But a cursory glance at his wife’s many photos made this fact clear: He probably wanted a blonde Episcopalian. His ex-wife was beautiful. She was petite. She was short and slim and had enormous attributes and could have been a model. He’d had that once. I guess he wanted the same thing again. He wanted a girl just like the girl that he’d married once before.

But those were just the meanderings of my overtaxed and overtired brain. What I did know, beyond any doubt, was that he did not want me.

Before we parted forever, he made one last suggestion for a “special” relationship: We’ll never have a romantic relationship, he told me one night on the phone, but could we get together from time to time and just have hot sex?

Every time I see television commercials for this dating site, I want to send them my testimonial.

“Thanks to Blankety-blank.com, I got me a regular Friday night booty call!”

No thanks, was my response to Mr. Christian-in-name-only. It was a truly crummy ending to what should have been a decent relationship between two Christians. Because of this man and his abhorrent behavior, I revised my mission statement that night and removed the statement, “He must be a Christian.”

Next:  On my 33rd date, my life flashed before  my eyes. I should have refused the date when he recommended we meet in a secluded place…

I’ve read lots of books on internet dating and none of them talked about paying attention to subtle clues. I’ve read that 70% of language is non-verbal. In other words, 70% of our communication comes from paying attention to subtle clues and body language.

During my five years in the dating world, I learned several interesting techniques for learning more about that potential someone. One of those tips is ridiculously simple:  Always ask for directions.

When making a plan as to where to meet you date, always ask for directions. I don’t care if you know the city like the back of your hand, go ahead and ask for directions. The landmarks people use will usually tell you something about where their true interests lie.

I first noticed this years ago when I asked a chubby elder gent for directions to a church.

“As you’re headed down Main Street,” he told me, “you’ll pass a large donut shop with a big pink sign. Keep going. When you get to Brown Street, there’s a little pastry shop on the corner. Turn right. Go a little further and you’ll see Benny’s Bakery and the church is right beyond that.”

I’ve tried this many times and it’s always a winner. Some men use taverns as landmarks, a few use churches and my favorite was the fellow who mentioned a topless bar and a triple-x bookstore as his two points of reference.

Sometimes, it’s the little things that tell you everything you need to know.

To learn more about Rose’s book, click here:

I had not intended to bring a puppy home that day. My daughter Corey and I had gone out to Ahoskie, North Carolina  “just to look.” And then I saw her. She was far too cute to be real. I’m such a sap for puppies and this was one of the cutest living things I’d ever seen.

Theodora Duncan Doughnuts (”Teddy” for short) made the 90 minute trip back home with only three incidents of puppy puking. By then, I suspect she was done. I had never known that one little tiny puppy could hold so much kibble in her little tummy.

My daughter Corey went along for the ride and ended up being the one who held the puppy for the long journey home. That Christmas, Teddy was the happy recipient of about a dozen presents. And she chose to play with a cardboard tube instead. Just like a kid.

Teddy at Christmastime

Teddy and her new father

Make up. What an interesting term. Turns out, this modern marvel has its roots in ancient Egypt, where women applied colorful concoctions to their eyes, eyelids, cheeks and lips to emulate the look of a post-orgasmic flush. Think about that next time you’re at the store looking for the perfect shade of lip-gloss.

Mother was right. Beauty does have a price. And it’s the price of beauty that led to the passage of the Food and Cosmetic Drug Act. In 1933, a woman named Mrs. Brown was permanently blinded after using a new mascara product called Lash-Lure. The mascara contained a synthetic aniline dye, something, it turns out, that should never ever be put on human skin. In 1938, after The Food and Cosmetic Drug Act was passed, the first product that the new government agency seized was Lash-Lure.

In 1936, writer Ruth deForest Lamb penned a fantastic book titled, American Chamber of Horrors: The Truth About Food and Drugs. In this book, Ms. Lamb explains that Mrs. Brown  was one of the lucky ones because she only lost her vision. Another woman was actually killed by Lash-Lure. It’s a great book that proves that beauty has been costing women their health and well-being for many decades.

Oh, and a final note: The average woman consumes (as in eats) 5-6 pounds of lipstick per year. Ick.

The image below came from Ladies’ Home Journal, 1903.

(American Chamber of Horrors: The Truth About Food and Drugs), New York, NY: Farrar And Rinehart, 1936), p. 18.

Beauty has a price!

“Heat from a Barler Stove is healthful!” the ad reads.

Here’s another health tip:  Wear your clothes during wintertime.

And yet another health tip for the kiddos: Don’t stand next to a superheated space heater when you’re stark naked.

I found this ad in a turn-of-the-century Ladies’ Home Journal and was scandalized by the children’s lack of garments. I’m not sure what the subtle advertising message is here, and if anyone has any ideas, I’d love to hear them.

These kids need to put some clothes on!

And you thought Warner Brothers was just a Hollywood Name. So did I, until I stumbled across this advertisement in a 1903 Ladies’ Home Journal. The advertisement boasts that their $5 corsets are “rust-proof.” I’m not sure what corsets were made of but apparently there’s some steel involved in their manufacture. And it seems to me that if a lady were given to perspiration, she could develop a serious rust problem.

Wait, I said that wrong. Let’s see. Horses sweat, men perspire and ladies “glow.” Okay, so if a lady “glowed” she could have a serious problem with her corset rusting. Unless of course, she had one of Warner Brothers’ Rust Proof Corsets.

I wonder if the corset makers sued when the movie makers got famous?

As of 1903, Warner Brothers offered ladies a "rust-free corset."

One of my favorite movies of all time, perhaps my all-time #1 favorite movie is, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

In this post-WW2 film, George Bailey gets to see what his town, Bedford Falls, would have looked like if he’d never been born.  Without George’s positive influence and his ever-fledgling Building and Loan, the modern subdivision of Bailey Park would never have been developed and countless citizens would never have had the opportunity to become homeowners.

Without the Bailey Building and Loan, George finds that Bedford Falls is full of substandard rental properties. And because there are so many rental properties, there is less stability in the family structure and in a broader context, there is less stability in the whole community.  In this alternate sans-George world, Ernie the cab driver does not live with his family in their own “nice little home in Bailey Park,” but instead, his home is a decrepit shack in Pottersville and it’s implied that this hardship is partly to blame for the fact that Ernie’s wife “ran off three years ago and took the kid.”

The streets of this alternate-Bedford Falls (now named Pottersville) are lined with liquor stores, night clubs, pawnbrokers, striptease shows and pool halls. Gaudy neon signs flash “girls, girls, girls” and illumine the night-time corridors of Main Street. Citizens are neither calm nor law-abiding and brusque policemen struggle to keep peace and order.

George’s revelation that he really had a “wonderful life” stemmed in part from the realization that his meager efforts to give people the chance to become homeowners gave them a feeling of accomplishment, prosperity, security and pride. By extension, the whole community benefited in important, significant and enduring ways.

The early Sears Modern Homes catalogues stated this basic philosophy in different ways, but there was an elementary core truth therein: Homeowners have a vested interest in their community and communities with a large percentage of homeowners will enjoy a greater proportion of  prosperity, stability and peace.

Perhaps Sears was, to small communities in the Midwest, what George Bailey was to Bedford Falls. Sears empowered and enabled tens of thousands of working-class and immigrant families to build their own home. What would countless Midwestern towns have become without Sears homes?  How many towns in the Midwest were spared the fate of becoming a Pottersville? Probably many.

Sears Modern Homes made a significant difference in many communities throughout the Midwest. I’m sure of that.

My 70th first date (Mr. Green Flannel) and I met on Match.com. As was true for most of the 70 dates, I’d made the first contact.

In early May 2006, soon after we’d started talking via email, I sent him my phone number. A few days later, while I passed the hours at a motel in Missouri (in town for an upcoming lecture), Mr. Green Flannel called me. Within moments of this first phone call, I was on the fast track to love. Stretched out on top of the fluffy comforter of the queen-size hotel bed, I found myself grinning from ear to ear as he told me about his life. He was intelligent, articulate, interesting and well-spoken. Unlike 97.52 % of the world’s population, Mr. Green Flannel spoke in full sentences, peppered with beautifully descriptive words, phrases and expressions. Every now and then, he used a word that I didn’t know. His ability to out-vocabulize the well-read, smarty-pants author swept me off my feet.

He spoke slowly and purposefully and all of his words were laced with a delightful West Virginian accent.

Meeting a native West Virginian was an unexpected bonus. I’d always loved West Virginia. I loved the mountains, I loved the post-card perfect scenes around every corner. Through the years, I’d given a handful of lectures in West Virginia and had seen enough of the state to know - that’s where I wanted to retire to - one day. I loved the people and their self-sufficient ways. I loved the wide open spaces and the vintage stores and the fresh air. I loved it all.

Soon after our engagement, Mr. Green Flannel (Wayne) took me “back home” to Elkins to meet the family. Making the long drive on Route 250, we passed the scene (see below) and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. I couldn’t remember when I’d ever seen anything quite so beautiful.

While we save our pennies and dream of retirement, I keep this picture close at hand as a reminder that one day - I will get there.

The beautiful views from State Route 250 near Elkins

More beautiful views of West Virginia

The Velveteen Rabbit is a children’s book that tells the story of a little plush toy that dreams about becoming “real.” The real hero of this story is the old Skin Horse, who’d lived in the nursery longer than any of the other animals. He was the resident old soul and he was wise and kind and knew much about life and love and truth. The Velveteen Rabbit longed to become real and it was the wizened old Skin Horse that had the answers.

The Skin Horse told Rabbit, “Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

Beauty - true beauty - is about being real. It’s about becoming the real person that our Creator intended us to be. It’s just as Margery Williams said in The Velveteen Rabbit. “Real isn’t how you are made,” the skin horse told the Velveteen Rabbit in this meaningful story. Rather, “it’s a thing that happens to you” (when you are loved).

Conversely physical beauty - that beauty which is skin-deep - is about conformity.

“Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder,” was a Twilight Zone episode that told the story of Janet Tyler, a grotesquely ugly woman. Checking into the hospital for her 11^th and final plastic surgery, she desperately hoped this surgery would be successful. All prior surgeries had failed and in this modernistic society, there was a mandate to conform. Ugliness (as defined by their government) was a failure to conform and a criminal offense.

Down the hallway from Janet’s room, we hear Dear Leader giving a speech about “glorious conformity,” broadcast into the hospital waiting rooms via a large television set. The Hitler-esque voice booms with ominous messages about the importance of conformity. Differences, he tells the masses, are dangerous and will weaken their culture. Conformity is essential to their very survival.

A few days after the woman’s surgery, the medical staff slowly removes the bandages and we see the young woman’s face for the first time. She is a real beauty, a blonde bombshell, perfect in every way.

The doctors and staff gasp in horror. The operation was a failure - again. The camera pulls back and we can now see their faces. They’re hideous-looking creatures, with swinish faces and long snouts, oversized mouths and deep creases. They are the beautiful people in this alternate reality.

Next, Janet is sent away to a special village, where people like her go to live out their lives. A handsome man escorts her out of the hospital with a promise that she’ll now know how it feels to belong, and to be loved. (Originally airing on November 11, 1962, this episode was very well written and absolutely haunting.)

The “glorious conformity” of skin-deep beauty is a moving target and its standards are forever changing, following the lead of the rich and famous, and their copious leisure time. In earlier times, the beautiful people were fair-skinned, un-tanned, pleasingly plump and soft. Most “working women” of that same period toiled in the fields for hours every day, developing muscle mass, dark tans and calloused hands. When women went to work in windowless cubicles, stuck behind a desk for eight hours each day, the beautiful people became the ones with deep tans, hard bodies and sleek figures. Beauty follows wealth and leisure.

True beauty - authenticity - is not about the world’s standards but about rediscovering that kingdom of heaven that is within you. It’s not a moving target, but a changeless standard with its roots in the divine.

The above is from Rose’s book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating. To read the rest, click here:

Frequently, I tell my dear hubby that the #1 reason I married him is because he’s from West Virginia. Okay, so that’s not the whole truth, but it’s mostly true. I’m confident that West Virginia is one of the most beautiful states in the country, but then again, I’m a big fan of big mountains.

Soon after we were engaged to be married (sometime in 2006), we went to his home town of Elkins, WV so that I could meet his family and friends. And we passed through a small town (whose name eludes me right now, maybe Durbin?) on the most beautiful of days. I hopped out of the car and snapped a few quick pictures of the steam locomotive. This was a Shay - a special train used for logging runs in the hills of West Virginia. Notice the unusual wheel arrangement.

You know how you look at a photo while you’re snapping the shutter and you think it’s the perfect photo but then you see it on the computer screen and it’s a real dud? These photos looked *better* on the computer screen than they did in the viewfinder. I was tickled pink with all of the photos I snapped that day. And the subject matter! What a delightful bonus to see the old train fired up and preparing for a short run!!

Beautiful Steam Locomotive in West Virginia

Not sure what he's doing here, but it sure looks like fun.

Another view of the pretty little train