That I overlooked before…
This (see below) is a Sears House, and more specifically a Sears “Dover.” Note the clipped gables on the roof’s edge (also called a jerkinhead). This house is in Alton, Illinois and it’s one of my favorite Sears Homes, and this Dover is the prettiest little Dover I’ve ever seen.
A pretty little Sears Dover in Alton, IL
Part of the dating process is learning a lot about someone in a short span of time. And one of the best ways to do that is to ask for directions to your first date site.
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.
It’s a fun way to learn quickly what landmarks people are paying attention to!
Back in the day, Ladies Home Journal magazine really was about women and housing. Today, it’s more about high-fat cake recipes and low-fat diets, but that’s another story…
In the first decade of the new century, Ladies’ Home Journal consistently featured a majority of articles centered on homeownership. The February 1911 issue was devoted to the new housing style: Bungalows. One headline said, “The Bungalow, because of its easy housekeeping possibilities is becoming more popular every year and bungalows show what can be done with a little money wisely spent.” The same issue featured these articles:
When you build a little house (common mistakes to avoid)
How I built this house for $700
The Bungalow - from $250 - $2500
What I did with an old farmhouse
Two houses built for less than $1500
What can be done with old houses
A fireproof house for less than $4000
If a woman must earn her living at home (A house planned by a woman to meet this need.)
It seems as though that the ladies were ahead of the men on this bungalow thing. Whilst Ladies Home Journal was promoting bungalows, American Carpenter and Builder described them as “tiresome.”
Craftsman houses and odd bungalows will have their day. People may like them now, but it is an extreme type and will become tiresome in course of time. The uncompromising squareness in the craftsman style, with its small wall space does not permit of much artistic decoration (June 1913).
Within the pages of the 1920s LHJ, I was delighted to discover this advertisement for a catalog of mail-order kit homes. The next picture below features a real, live GVT #633 in Roanoke, Virginia.
Advertisement in LHJ for Gordon Van Tine/Wardway Homes
Wardway Home in Roanoke, VA
Dr. Joseph Lister - a 19th Century physician - is largely responsible for the bungalow craze, but that’s one tidbit that I’ve never seen in my books on architectural history. The fact is, Joseph Lister and his germ theory dramatically changed the way Americans thought about their homes.
For so many years, mothers could only watch as their young children died from any one of a myriad of “common” diseases. And then in the late 1800s, Dr. Joseph Lister discovered that germs were culprit. Mothers and fathers, weary of burying their infants, had a new arch enemy: household dirt. As is explained in the 1908 book, Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’ Cook-Book:
Not many years ago disease was most often deemed the act of Providence as a chastening or visitation for moral evil. Many diseases are now known to be merely human ignorance and uncleanliness. The sins for which humanity suffers are violations of the laws of sanitation and hygiene, or simply the one great law of absolute sanitary cleanliness… Every symptom of preventable disease and communicable disease…should suggest the question: “Is the cause of this illness an unsanitary condition within my control?”
Now that the enemy had been identified, modern women attacked it with every tool in their arsenal. Keeping a house clean was far more than a matter of mere pride: The well-being, nay, the very life of one’s child might depend upon a home’s cleanliness. What mother wanted to sit at the bedside of their sick child, tenderly wiping his fevered brow and pondering the awful question: “Was the cause of this illness an unsanitary condition within my control?”
Because of Dr. Lister and his germ theory, the ostentatious, dust-bunny-collecting Queen Anne, with its ornate woodwork, fretwork and gingerbread fell from favor with a resounding thud.
Simplicity, harmony and durability are the keynotes of the modern tendency. The general intention seems to be to avoid everything that is superfluous; everything that has a tendency to catch and hold dust or dirt. Wooden bedsteads are being replaced by iron or brass; stuffed and upholstered furniture by articles of plain wood and leather. Bric-a-brac, flounces, valances and all other superfluous articles are much less fashionable (from Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’ Cook-Book).
Remember the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”? There’s a 1920s scene where George Baily and his girlfriend pause in front of the massive Second Empire house. It sits abandoned and empty, deteriorating day by day. This was not an uncommon fate for Victorian manses in post-germ theory America. Who knew what germs lay in wait within its hard-to-clean walls?
The February 1911 Ladies’ Home Journal was devoted to the new housing style: Bungalows. One headline said, “The Bungalow, because of its easy housekeeping possibilities is becoming more popular every year.
And all because of Dr. Lister.
(By the way, Dr. Lister did not invent the popular mouthwash but it was named after him and his discoveries.)
Magazines in the early 1900s extolled the value of cleansers that were effective in killing germs. These advertisements (see two ads below) are from a 1924 Ladies’ Home Journal. Both promote the importance of germ-killing chemicals for the “safe” household.
Close-up of text
In May 1911, Sears opened up a mill in Cairo, Illinois. Cairo’s location at the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers made it a natural for shipping and distribution. At the turn of the last century, Cairo (pronounced “Care-Roe”) could boast of having four major rail lines, enabling it to become a centralized shipping point for lumber harvested from the South and sent to the North.
The Sears Roebuck Mill, also known as the Illinois Lumber Company, got its start when Sears Roebuck paid $12,500 for a 40-acre tract in North Cairo.
On May 21, 1911, The Chicago Tribune reported that Sears intended to build a $250,000 plant. A few weeks later, The Cairo Evening Citizen had doubled that figure and reported “Half a million to be cost of new Sears Roebuck Plant” (July 29, 1911).
In November 1911, Sears ran a two-page advertisement in American Carpenter and Builder Magazine headlined “Great News for Builders.” The advertisement (see below) said,
Shipments have begun from our second and newest great lumber plant in Illinois. We can deliver you bright, fresh, clean lumber at manufacturer’s prices almost as quickly as you can haul makeshift sizes and weatherworn stock from a high priced neighboring lumber yard. Our mill work is sheltered from rain, sun, soot and wind. Our new Illinois plant is located on two of the largest and fastest railroads in the North with direct connections to over 20 different railroads. (Weatherworn stock was a reference to the fact that, unlike Sears, many mills did not keep their lumber under roof.)
In March 1912, F. E. Van Alstine, Superintendent of the Sears mill was quoted in The Cairo Evening Citizen as saying that Sears had chosen Cairo because of “their low freight rates, superior shipping facilities and other natural and commercial advantages, (which) made the city more desirable than St. Louis, East St. Louis, Paducah (Kentucky) or Memphis” (Tennessee).
But later that month, the rains came and the floodwaters rose, nearly destroying the brand new mill in Northern Cairo. On April 5th, The Cairo Evening Citizen reported that the “main building of the new Sears Roebuck factory was hurled off its foundation and is leaning toward the east. Just what damage was done to these buildings could not be ascertained, as there was no way to reach them except by skiff.”
In mid-April, the paper said that all seven lumber sheds had been torn from their foundations and much of the lumber inside the sheds had simply floated away.
By August, The Cairo Evening Citizen happily reported that despite the hard times and high waters, Sears Roebuck had decided to remain in Cairo. It also reported that about half the lumber sheds had been rebuilt and some of that floating lumber had been recovered. The same article reported that the folks at Sears corporate headquarters in Chicago were so pleased with Van Alstine’s post-flood restoration work that they presented him with a brand new automobile.
The mill produced everything for the Ready-Cut (precut) Sears homes except for millwork. The Sears mill located in Norwood, Ohio, supplied millwork; windows, doors and interior trim and moldings.
By the early 1930s, sales of Ready-Cut homes had plummeted and the mill began looking for other ways to generate income. They began building crating material for tractors and other large equipment, including Frigidaire refrigerators and appliances sold by Sears. In the late 30s, the mill produced prefabricated buildings for the camps which housed workers in the Civilian Conservation Corps. Wheeler relates that a typical CCC camp (which included several different buildings) required 400,000 feet of lumber and about 35 of these camps were milled and shipped by the Cairo plant.
In 1940, Sears closed the plant and sold it to the employees. Shortly after the employees purchased the plant, they obtained a contract to build massive crates for shipping B-17 and B-29 bombers overseas for the war effort.
After World War II ended, the former Sears Mill - now called Illinois Lumber Company - drafted and published their own book of house plans and tried to sell Ready-Cut homes again, but without success. The Cairo Evening Citizen relates that the plant was liquidated and closed in November 1955. The article adds this interesting aside: “Like several other Cairo lumber industries, it slowly died because the wood articles it manufactured were supplanted by iron and steel.”
All that remains today at the site of the Cairo mill are two Sears kit homes - two Rodessas - which were built as part of an experiment in 1921, to prove the superiority of Ready-Cut homes over traditional stick built homes.
From the 1934 Ladies’ Home Journal comes this not-so-subtle message that if you don’t immediately purchase Djer-Kiss perfume, the only lovin’ you’ll get is when you kiss yourself in the mirror. Then again, if a fella catches you doing this, you can also kiss your dating life good-bye.
Or maybe (after a third read of the text below), the message is, “Buy this perfume and you’ll be so irresistible, you won’t be able to resist your own beautiful self.”
Not sure which message is more disturbing…
In 1926, Paramount celebrated its 15th anniversary in a big way, with full page ads in several magazines, including the Ladies’ Home Journal. The “blockbusters” advertised on the margins of this large ad are - for the most part - movies that I have never ever heard of.
Will today’s blockbusters leave people scratching their heads in wonderment?
Ever heard of these movies?
“Glorious music reproduced, as you have never heard it before!”
So reads the advertisement in the August 1926 Ladies’ Home Journal. The item being pitched is the latest and greatest from Victrola: The Othorphonic Record Player (with Tungstone needle!).
This must have been a pricey little affair, for the ad reads that an electric motor would increase the Victrola’s price by a hefty $35. However the “hidden electric motor” meant there was nothing to wind!
To my surprise and delight, the word “orthophonic” can be found in the dictionary. It means, “accurate reproduction of sound.”
This ad is quite interesting. Before there was television, apparently families sat around and stared at the radio.
Victorola Orthophonic
This ad is from a 1905 Ladies’ Home Journal, and in the early 1900s, x-rays and radiation was perceived to be scientific and modern and wonderful. I’ve no idea what this advertisement is suggesting, but it sounds like “X-Ray Polish” is a potent little chemical.
I guess this graphic answers the question, how many demons can dance on the head of a stove? I’m not sure. And I don’t know about the one at the bottom, pulling up the banner that reads, “Cut that out.”
Perhaps the devil is in the details.
According to historian Paul Frame, Radium was a newly discovered, valuable commodity in the early 1900s, and was perhaps even more valuable than gold.
Frame writes, “The term ‘Radium’ was incorporated into the brand names of any number of products even when these products didn’t actually contain radium. The same was true for the term X-ray.”
Learn more at his website here.
I'm not really sure what they're selling here
It was Christmas Eve night 2001 when Mom and I said our goodbyes. Our family (my husband and our three daughters) had come to town to visit her for the holidays. Standing at her back door the night before Christmas, we made plans for Christmas morning, and then Mom and I said our good-byes.
She threw her arms around me, pressed her soft cheek against mine and held me tight as we swayed left and right. She unclasped her arms and grabbed my upper arms and pushed me back a little bit and looked into my eyes. She put her hands up on either side of my face and said, “My beautiful, beautiful daughter. I love you.”
She hugged me again and said, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” I responded in kind. That was the last visit I had with my mother. As good-byes go, it was the best.
It was my expectation that she’d live far beyond January 2002. She was so healthy and strong. I had no inkling or idea that Christmas Even 2001 would be our last goodbye. This was an impossibly hard lesson to learn. Sometimes, people go to bed at night and leave for heaven in their sleep. Sometimes, there are no second chances to ask one more question. Sometimes, the last words you may ever hear someone say are, “Shut the door fast and don’t let the squirrels get in the house.”
It’s been eight years today and I still miss her so very much.
My mother with three of her granddaughters (about 1986)
Mom with her new granddaughter in Summer 1987
None that I can tell.
There’s a popular website where you can post pictures of your face and/or your body (in parts or as a whole) and then wait for others to rate your physical attractiveness and desirability.
Posting a head-shot at an internet dating site is just another version of “rate this face” but with much deeper ramifications. If you’re judged and found wanting at a public website, you’ll get a low score from the peanut gallery. If your face is judged unattractive at an internet dating site, the ramifications are far more grievous: You could be alone for the rest of your life.
The process of posting my pictures online for the entire world to judge was agonizingly painful and the steady stream of rejections that followed multiplied my pain tenfold. Despite all that pain, there was really only one thing that I hated even more than rejection: Loneliness.
Many mornings and evenings, I’d plop down at my computer and log into my account, only to find those three dreaded words at the top of the web page: No new emails. Each time those words appeared, it felt like yet another “I don’t think you’re very attractive” vote from some anonymous man out there on the world-wide web.
Each day that my email inbox remained empty was a bold affirmation that yes, I really was as unattractive as I had feared. That was on my better days. On my not-so-good days, the empty inbox brought forth a torrent of tears and a growing dread that I was destined to spend the rest of my life alone, just because of my less-than-average physical appearance.
Merry Christmas from Teddy the Dog!
Teddy has been with us for one year now, and we’ve hit a few bumps along the way, but she’s turned out to be a delightful little dog. And at 30 pounds, she’s not so little anymore. She’s a very sweet and polite dog, and even tolerant of being asked to sit in a little red wagon for a Christmas photo. 
Speaking of good gifts, check out this one.
Teddy the Dog hopes you have a good Christmas
One year ago today, I adopted a new baby. She was the cutest little thing I’d ever seen. It was not my intention to get a dog at that moment, but I fell completely in love the second I saw the little furry form, sitting in the large yard and looking a little worried about life.
At first, my husband wasn’t too keen on the idea of getting a dog, but in time, he also fell in love with our “Teddy.” In fact, Teddy’s newest problem is a little bit of weight gain. Every time the hubby walks into the kitchen, he gives her a treat. She’s now four pounds too heavy and for a little dog that weighs 25 pounds, that’s a lot.
Unfortunately, with her extra fluff, she really does look like one of the family now.
The baby in Wayne's arms. She was about seven weeks old here.
Our little girl is getting all grown up. She's about one year old here.
Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Teddy especially loved the gravy.
Prior to my divorce, I hadn’t asked anyone out since 1976 when I asked Richie Brooks to be my date for the senior prom. In other words, it had been awhile.
Being thrown back into the dating pool, I had to sink or swim. I learned a lot in a hurry.
For instance, which is better? Dinner or drinks?
In the beginning, I had dinner with my first dates. Bad choice. Too much time and too much money and too many calories. Drinks are better and more affordable and it’s easier to split the tab. I preferred to pay my own way, but - I didn’t argue if he insisted on paying.
Secondly, how do you talk to a guy you just met? It’s easy. Treat him as you’d want to be treated, and don’t ramble on about your ex, your health problems, your flaky skin, your weight or your diet.
Ask questions. Remember, she who asks the questions controls the conversation. Learn about him and his interests, because your goal is to figure out if he’s worthy of a second date.
Next, there’s the good night kiss. Many men will move in for the good-night kiss at the end of the first date. If you’re already feeling like there’s not going to be a second date, avoid the kiss. It just muddies the waters.
When a not-so-great first date was drawing to a close, my preference was to step back and extend my hand for a warm and meaningful handshake. Then I’d say, “Thank you so much for a delightful evening” and walk away quickly. This simple action spared me many awkward “what do we do now” moments.
If he asks for a second date, be honest and straight-forward. If you don’t want a second date, have a ready-made phrase ready for moments such as this. Mine was, “I had a lovely time but I don’t feel like we’re a good match.”
Don’t get mired in an argument over this. If he wants to argue the point, just say, “I’m sorry, but I’m not going to change my mind on this,” and walk away.
If you do want a second date, be clear and forthright. Above all, ignore those so-called “Rules” that tell women to play games in order to snare a man.
Be authentic and be real. Don’t play a part.
In short, treat Mr. First Date the way you’d want to be treated, with honesty and grace and sensitivity and forthrightness and good manners.
When my husband read an early draft of my manuscript on internet dating, he suggested I make a change in the chapter I’d titled, “Rose’s Tidbits and Miscellany.”
“You’ve listed ‘persistence and perseverance’ as two important qualities for successful internet dating,” he said. “I’d put much more emphasis on that, because those are two of the most important qualities.”
He had a point. I’d talked to so many women who’d given up after a dozen dates, and had reconciled themselves to living alone for the rest of their lives. And I’d met also many women who’d found their one true love in less than a dozen dates. But that wasn’t my experience. As the months rolled by and the dates kept coming (and going), I had only two choices: give up or push on. I decided to push on.
Perseverance is a common quality found amongst successful people. It was clear to me that perseverance had been the key to my success as both a freelance writer and self-published author. In 2002, I spent more than two years lobbying (perhaps even hounding) a woman at the Smithsonian to allow me to speak at that prestigious and well-known institution.
Eventually, she said yes and that event - that one-hour talk on Sears Homes - became one of the proudest moments of my career. For four years, I mounted a campaign to get the Wall Street Journal to write an article about my work and my book, The Houses That Sears Built. In Summer 2006, the Wall Street Journal called and asked for an interview. That article appeared on page one, above the fold! Reviewing my successes in those hard-to-succeed-in areas, I reasoned it’d be helpful in the dating world as well. And it was.
On October 29, 1941, Winston Churchill told a gathering of upper school students, “Never, never, in nothing great or small, large or petty, never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense.”
The great statesman’s words apply across the whole spectrum of human effort. If you give up too soon, you’ll be depriving not only yourself of much potential happiness, but some well-deserving and decent man, as well.
My 70th first date (now my husband) tells me that he’s glad I persisted and persevered. So am I.
Want to read more? Buy Rose’s book here.
Old houses were built for another time and another way of life. And back in the day, the overwhelming majority of people died at home in their own beds. Next, they were sent off to the undertaker for embalming, and afterward, they went back “home” for the wake and the visitation.
In my own house, we learned that the owner’s first wife died soon after they moved into their “new” 1925-built home. The wake was held in the spacious living room, in front of the beautiful fireplace. This was not unusual for that time. Sometime in the early years of the 20th Century, wakes and visitation moved out of the home and into funeral parlors.
In the mid-1800s, many two-story homes were actually designed to accommodate the problem of moving a heavy coffin from the second floor (where the bedrooms were located) to the first floor. Dignity in death is something the Victorians did very well. Because of this, the coffin was carried upstairs to the deceased, rather than the deceased being carried downstairs to the coffin. Logistically, this made things a little more difficult.
To accommodate this occasional need, the staircases in older houses were built with a coffin-width space between the railings on the staircase and the second-floor hallway. Think of the staircase railing going up the stairs as point A, and the staircase railing on the landing as point B, and the staircase railing along the upper hallway as Point C. Points A, B and C formed three of four sides of a rectangle (see picture below).
With ropes and a couple strong men, the coffin could easily be lowered over the railing and down to the first floor without trying to navigate the twists and turns and 24 steps of an old staircase.
I’ve included a picture of my own staircase until I can find a better picture of a real 19th Century house. My house has a “make-believe” niche that demonstrates the concept, but it is too narrow to be used for anything as wide as a coffin. As soon as I can get into an older house, I’ll upload better pictures.
When I tour older houses, I love showing the homeowners this interesting feature of their intricate staircase balustrade. They’re always taken aback and always pleased to learn a little something more of their home’s history!
A view of my staircase from the first floor
Dr. Joseph Lister - a 19th Century physician - is largely responsible for the bungalow craze, but that’s one tidbit that I’ve never seen in my books on architectural history. The fact is, Joseph Lister and his germ theory dramatically changed the way Americans thought about their homes.
For so many years, mothers could only watch in helpless horror as their young children died from any one of a myriad of “common” diseases. And then in the late 1800s, Dr. Joseph Lister discovered that germs were culprit. Mothers and fathers, weary of burying their infants, had a new arch enemy: household dirt. As is explained in the 1908 book, Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’ Cook-Book:
Not many years ago disease was most often deemed the act of Providence as a chastening or visitation for moral evil. Many diseases are now known to be merely human ignorance and uncleanliness. The sins for which humanity suffers are violations of the laws of sanitation and hygiene, or simply the one great law of absolute sanitary cleanliness… Every symptom of preventable disease and communicable disease…should suggest the question: “Is the cause of this illness an unsanitary condition within my control?”
Now that the enemy had been identified, modern women attacked it with every tool in their arsenal. Keeping a house clean was far more than a matter of mere pride: The well-being, nay, the very life of one’s child might depend upon a home’s cleanliness. What mother wanted to sit at the bedside of their sick child, tenderly wiping his fevered brow and pondering the awful question: “Was the cause of this illness an unsanitary condition within my control?”
Because of Dr. Lister and his germ theory, the ostentatious, dust-bunny-collecting Queen Anne, with its ornate woodwork, fretwork and gingerbread fell from favor with a resounding thud.
Simplicity, harmony and durability are the keynotes of the modern tendency. The general intention seems to be to avoid everything that is superfluous; everything that has a tendency to catch and hold dust or dirt. Wooden bedsteads are being replaced by iron or brass; stuffed and upholstered furniture by articles of plain wood and leather. Bric-a-brac, flounces, valances and all other superfluous articles are much less fashionable (from Household Discoveries and Mrs. Curtis’ Cook-Book).
Remember the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life”? There’s a 1920s scene where George Baily and his girlfriend pause in front of the massive Second Empire house. It sits abandoned and empty, deteriorating day by day. This was not an uncommon fate for Victorian manses in post-germ theory America. Who knew what germs lay in wait within its hard-to-clean walls?
The February 1911 Ladies’ Home Journal was devoted to the new housing style: Bungalows. One headline said, “The Bungalow, because of its easy housekeeping possibilities is becoming more popular every year.
And all because of Dr. Lister.
(By the way, Dr. Lister did not invent the popular mouthwash but it was named after him and his discoveries.)
The news media is reporting that Oral Roberts passed today, and already countless blogs - those ubiquitous internet personal journals that seem to have absolutely no social filters or editorial double-checking - are already offering extremely negative and vitriolic commentary on the man’s life.
Color me old fashioned, but I think it is wrong to speak ill of the dead, and it also shows a lack of grace and a lack of basic civility. Victorian essayist Henry Drummond once wrote that good manners are the habit of showing “love in the trifles.”
Oral Roberts was just a human being with all the accompanying foibles and follies that go with that condition, but he accomplished a tremendous lot with his life, including founding a major university in Oklahoma. That is a life well lived.
How about we look at the good that he did, instead of examining his mistakes, and hope and pray that someone will do the same for us one day?
In 1975, I could be found tooling around Portsmouth in my 1959 red Cadillac Sedan de Ville. It was a great car with a four-barrel carb, dual exhausts and a powerful V-8 engine and more than 300 horsies under the hood. Or so I told people. When I shared that statistic, people would cock their head a little and look at me funny. (That has happened to me a lot in this life…)
And then I’d tell them that it was a 390-cubic inch engine which produced about 330 horsepower.
Mechanically speaking, one horsepower equals the amount of effort needed to move 33,000 foot-pounds per minute, or (in simpler terms) the ability to lift 33,000 pounds one foot in one minute’s time. When used as a measure for electric motors, one horsepower equals about 746 watts. The term “horsepower” was coined by James Watt. He was an 18th Century genius who is credited with significant innovations to the steam engine, making it useful, affordable and practical. The historians say that Watt’s inventions and innovations transformed America from an agricultural society to an industrial society.
There’s a reason our old expressions developed the way they did. Back in the day, stage coaches often had six horsepower, with the six sinewy animals straining at the reins to pull the carriage down the dirt roads. Or, as in the case of the 1905 advertisement shown below, the most modern concrete mixers of the day had ONE horsepower.
BTW, there’s a significant problem with this advertisement. There’s no legal disclaimer at the bottom that says, “Horsie not included.”
one-horse powered cement mixer
Closer look at the one-horsepower concrete mixer
In 2002, when my long-term marriage ended, I sat down and wrote my four-page mission statement detailing what I wanted in a man. That mission statement said nothing about finding a man who bore a strong resemblance to Santa Claus.
In my previous life (like so many good wives and mothers) I’d spent 20 years “playing” Santa and doing Christmas for others. It was a wife’s job to handle all the organizational details for Christmas. I was the one who ran myself ragged buying things and making things and cooking things. One year, I spent countless hours writing and editing a 130-page memoir, a typewritten manuscript for the kids, filled with memories of their growing up years.
In short, Christmas was a fantastic amount of work. The ex didn’t believe in giving Christmas presents beyond a token gift. I gave a lot and got a little. And so it went for many years. I looked to my left and right and saw many other wives and mothers in the same boat as I was. A woman’s lot in life, I’d decided.
And then, when I was 47 years old, I met my 7oth first date. And then we were engaged. And then came Christmas. I was touched to my core with the number of gifts I received from him. And they were all delightful surprises and thoughtful gifts and beautiful things.
But wait, there was more.
He did the Christmas errands, too. He fetched the tree. He decorated the tree. He purchased fresh wreaths for the house and fancy bows for presents. He handled Christmas cards and bought holiday stamps. It was an amazing thing to behold.
“It makes me very happy to be able to enjoy the holidays with a woman who loves me,” he said when I expressed awe at the gifts and the work and the errand-running. “And this is our first Christmas together. I wanted it to be special.”
Turns out, my 70th first date didn’t just look like Santa. He has St. Nick’s warm heart and generous spirit, too.
The fake St. Nick gazes up at the real Santa with a measure of reverential awe and envy
In one of my favorite movies, Fried Green Tomatoes, there’s a scene where the young woman dies and her attendant immediately arises and covers a large mirror and then stops a nearby clock. I’d always been fascinated by this old tradition/ritual and wondered about its meaning. I assumed that these practices must have a reason , but I had no idea what that reason might be.
And then I happened to talk to an old friend who explained the reasons for these “odd” traditions.
Let me tell you about my old friend. Her name is Joyce and she’s in her late 70s now, but was raised in the backwoods Georgia of the 1930s. Translated: It was a land and a time more reminiscent of Victorian America. When Joyce was growing up, she had a little sister named Louise that died at the age of three from whooping cough. Joyce remembers “Granny” rocking the child through the night and praying for her, hoping against hope that the little girl would pull through. It wasn’t to be.
Sometime in the wee hours, the little girl looked up at Granny, smiled broadly and passed on quietly. Later that morning, someone in the family went outside and rang the large bell in the front yard.
“It was almost like morse code,” Joyce said. “The bell was tolled a certain number of times for different things. When Louise died, they rang the bell a certain number of times and everyone knew what it meant. Almost immediately, people started coming to the house to help.”
Joyce said they sent the little girl’s body to the mortician who embalmed it and returned the body to the family, for the wake at home. In preparation for the wake, the mortician brought heavy, deep red draperies into the front room of the old house and hung them over the windows, blocking out all sunlight.
“I’m not sure why they put up those drapes,” she said. “Maybe it was to give a solemnity to the wake.”
During the two days of the wake, the little girl’s beloved dog sat dutifully beside the coffin and emitted a mournful wail. The mourners commented on that lamentable howling, and it left them all with a chill. After the wake, the coffin was moved to the church where a service was held. The child’s body was buried in the church cemetery.
The dog followed the family to the cemetery. Some time later, the dog’s body was found along the road. It appeared that the little girl’s pet had literally laid down and died.
My friend Joyce knows a lot about the old ways and about these old rituals.
When one of her elderly aunts lay dying, a family member sat quietly by the bedside. When the old woman breathed her last, the family member arose and draped a heavy cloth over the mirror and opened the clock’s glass face and stopped the clock.
“I saw someone do that in a movie,” I told Joyce. “What’s that about?”
“The cloth over the mirror is for the protection of the departed,” she said. “It’s believed that the spirits of our loved ones may glance into a mirror and become frightened when they see no one looking back.”
That had a resonance of truth, as I’d heard stories about people with near-death experiences saying they couldn’t see any reflection when they looked in a mirror. Wonder how they knew about that back in the 1930s?
“And the clock was stopped for a much more practical reason,” she said. “The clock was stopped so that the mortician would know the time of death.”
There was also a requirement - never to be breached - that a loved one sit with the body until burial. I’d imagine this was a throwback to olden days before medical equipment when the dead occasionally came back to life (much to the surprise of the watcher).
It was all fascinating.
As Tevye sings in Fiddler on the Roof, “because of our traditions, we’ve kept our balance for many years.”
Traditions should be remembered and honored, because oftimes, they were created for very practical reasons.
Note at the bottom of this old tombstone, the macabre reminder, "Reader, you must die." Photo is courtesy of Crystal Thornton, copyright 2009, Crystal Thornton.
A gorgeous 25-year-old woman named America Ferrera plays “Betty Suarez” on the popular ABC sitcom “Ugly Betty.” The Hollywood-inflicted “uglying” of this Hispanic beauty is a paper-thin veneer, and really does little to hide Miss Ferrera’s natural good looks. It’s not hard to look beyond the extra-bushy eyebrows, gray-metal braces, uncoiffed hair and unattractive glass frames, and see that Ms. Ferrera is quite beautiful.
In addition to her lovely facial features, Ms. Ferrara has a well toned, shapely, feminine form. Slap on some braces and stir up the extra-bushy eyebrows and voila, you’ve got instant ugly? If that’s the case, there’s little hope for the rest of us.
If “Ugly Betty” is the measure of an ugly woman, we’re all in trouble deep. We “average women” are in trouble. Mainstream media is constantly force-feeding us the crazy notion that we have to be beautiful to be worthy, or even worse, to be loved.
In the powerful book, Flesh Wounds author Virginia L. Blum talks about an interview she had with a famous plastic surgeon. He told her,
The way you look has a lot to do with whether you’re going to attract somebody else. Let’s be pragmatic about the fact that if a woman cease to be attractive physically, it affects the physical, intimate relationship. I’ve seen women who have not had particularly good relationships or haven’t had a relationship with men for a long time and I make them look younger and prettier and they go on to get married and have wonderful, stable relationships. There’s absolutely no question that the face-lift helped them. We live in a real physical world (p. 127).
Ms. Blum responds to this with her own insights:
[The plastic surgeon] spoke with such authority. Yoked to his honesty is a kind of fiction about the transformative possibilities of plastic surgery. You can change her life. You can make her someone whom someone else would be willing to love. More to the point, if she isn’t succeeding on the dating/marriage market, it must be because she’s not attractive enough. That’s the most unsettling part of his account, isn’t it?
The self-evident undesirability of the woman who isn’t young and pretty. Young and pretty. You can’t have pretty without the young. As a feminist, I am indignant. Outraged (Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery, Virginia L. Blum, p. 127).
Like Ms. Blum, I also feel indignant and outraged. And Ugly Betty may be an award-winning sitcom, but the problem with it is, it perpetuates the tiresome message that’s been drilled into women’s heads for decades now. Ugly is a problem. Fix ugly with money. Spend money. Get pretty and then you’ll get love, because then you’ll be worthy of love.
In other words, money buys love.
In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf writes that women’s magazines make their money by selling women on the idea that they’re suffering from a disease of “terminal ugliness,” and that this opens the to sell billions of dollars of “cures.”
And that seems to be the subtle message of Ugly Betty. We “less-than-beautiful” women need to spend a little more money on better glasses and better haircuts and invisible braces and electrolysis and then - only then - will the burdensome mantle of “ugly” be lifted off our shoulders and our true beauty will be revealed. And then, maybe then, we’ll find true love.
We just need to spend a little more money to be cured of that horrible disease of “terminal ugliness.”
I live for that happy day when I turn on the evening news and find that the male news anchors are young, svelte, well-coiffed and gorgeous, and the women news anchors are pudgy, untanned, hairless and unkempt. That’ll be my proof that the age of enlightenment has begun.
On May 20, 2006, I met my 70th first date at a coffee shop in Portsmouth, Virginia. Less than 90 days later, we were officially engaged to be married. Our wedding date was set for January 1st. Those were some of the happiest days of my life. Being mired in romantic love was every bit as delicious as I’d imagined it would be.
The best part was knowing that my dating days were behind me and also knowing that I’d survived my last lonely Christmas. In years prior, I’d gone to desperate measures to avoid the emotional pain of being utterly alone on Christmas Day. One especially memorable Christmas, I asked my ex in-laws if I could come to their house and watch my children unwrap their many presents. It was awkward and odd, but it was the best I could do that particular year and frankly, it was far better than being alone. (In another post, I wrote about the culture of loneliness.)
And then came Christmas 2006, my first post-divorce, pair-bonded Christmas event. A few days before Christmas, my soon-to-be husband and I walked through Macarthur Mall on our way to the movies. Our youngest daughters (his and mine) walked side-by-side in front of us. He and I held hands as we walked and I leaned over to him and said, “Isn’t it nice to be here with our little girls and be a family again?”
With his voice cracking with emotion he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”
This man, my 70th first date, my fiance, had been single for 10 years after his divorce. I’m sure he knew about lonely holidays, too.
A few days before Christmas he sent me a text message that said, “It is a sheer joy to have this holiday season with you.”
Ditto.
Christmas 2008 at our home in Virginia
If I’d known how much fun it was to have my own website, I would have done this years ago. As “Administrator” of my own site, I can look at the day’s stats and figure out what search terms people are using to find me. Studying the daily statistics is wholly fascinating and ever-so-slightly addicting.
More than a few people are landing here after doing a key word search with terms such as “Dating Sears Homes.” That always makes me smile. This website was created to promote my newest book, The Ugly Woman’s Guide to Internet Dating: What I Learned from 70 First Dates.”
However, I’m also the author of several books on Sears kit homes so when some lucky duck googles “Dating Sears Homes” it is this website that pops up first. I surmise these folks are not trying to figure out how to get a Sears Home to go out for dinner and drinks, but rather, they’re trying to figure out how to determine the age of a kit home.
I suppose I should answer that question. Sears homes were offered from 1908-1940, but their main years were the 1920s and early 1930s. Sears Homes were rare before WW1 (aka The War To End All Wars), and sales plummeted about four years into the Great Depression (1933). In other words, probably 80% of sales occurred between 1919 and 1933.
If you want to learn more about the topic “dating Sears Homes” post something in the comment section (below) and I’ll do what I can to answer your question(s).
Sears Modern Homes were most popular in the 1920s
The older I get, the more I yearn to know something of our family history. My timing for all this has turned out to be rather poor. My mother and her siblings passed on years ago. My father is still around, but his long-term memory is not. We recently looked at an old picture album together and I remembered more than he did about relatives I’d never met. After I was born in 1959, I became extremely ill and required a three-week hospitalization. My elderly father had no memory of any of this.
After my Aunt Engie passed away a few years ago, I went through an old shoe box I found buried in her closet and found several photographs from the 1920s and 30s. Sadly, there was no information scribbled on the back of the black and white snapshots. Now I can only make educated guesses as to who these people were.
During the years my children were growing up, I faithfully maintained photo albums, replete with names and dates and places. These many years later, those photo albums are the source of much joy. My oldest daughter Crystal told me recently, “If the house catches fire, and you can only save one thing, save the photo albums first! Everything else can be replaced!”
But what to do with all these early 20th Century photos that I found stuffed in a shoe box? These were my ancestors - I think. These were people my mother and her sister loved - I think.
Back in the day, photographs required an investment of time, effort and money. Photos were reserved for important days and special events. Who were these people? And what were the stories? All I know is that these pictures were taken in Rockford, Illinois (early 20s) and then sometime in 1925 or 1926, my grandfather (Edward Brown) moved his children to Alameda, California.
I wish I knew more.
The only person I recognize in this photo is my late mother (center on bottom row).
This is a photo of my mother (youngest girl) with her sister (Engie) and older brother Harry.
This is probably a picture of my maternal grandmother with her first son, Harry. It was probably taken in early 1910s.
Mom (the younger girl) and Aunt Engie with unknown person, perhaps a nanny?
Unknown person at unknown house in unknown place (house is late 1910s or early 20s)
I believe this is my Uncle Harry with his father (my maternal grandfather).
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