I’ve not written here for some time because I’ve been enveloped and overwhelmed with busyness here at  my own home in Norfolk, Virginia. We’re fixing up the old house and one of the projects is painting the exterior.

I’m painting it pink. Not pepto-bismol pink, but more of a subtle shade of soft pink. It’s such a subtle pink that in direct sunlight, you’d think it was white. However, it’s pink. And what a pretty color pink it is. When the painting is done (which is no small chore), it’s my intention to install functional, vintage wood shutters on the front of house. And I’ll paint those shutters high gloss black.

It’s going to be a real beauty when I’m all done. I just hope I’ll all done before I hit retirement age.

PS. The paint job, started in mid-April, was completed in mid-August. And it’s beautiful!  Click here to see final photos.

Flesh-colored paint is not my cup of tea

This weekend, the hubby and I traveled to Stanley, Virginia (in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley) and saw this gorgeous Sears Milton. It’s one of Sears finest homes, and other than this Milton in the Virginia mountains, I’ve never ever seen another Milton - anywhere or anytime.

It’s a real beauty. And the good news is, it’s a Bed and Breakfast. Hopefully this summer I’ll have a chance to travel back to Stanley and spend a night or two inside the Sears Milton on West Main Street.

For more information on the Milton House Inn, click here.

Date #44 was one of very few widowers that I dated.

His wife had died in her early 40s, leaving behind three children. She’d been dead less than a year and this man had re-entered the dating world in hopes of healing his heavy heart. He talked about her through most of our lunch date. More than anything, I wanted to take his hand and tell him that he was blessed to have lost her through death rather than divorce. When someone dies, there’s loss, grief and mourning, but there are also happy memories, perhaps magnified in death beyond what they were in life.

When there’s a divorce, there’s still the horrific pain of loss, coupled with grief and mourning, but there’s also rejection, humiliation, and a severance of family ties. Each and every happy memory of the past is tainted and poisoned by the angry ex-spouse’s ugly words, coupled with your own self-doubt and self-recrimination. Divorce has all the sadness and loss that comes with the death of a partner, but with an extra heaping helping of rejection. When there’s a divorce in the family, there’s a conspicuous absence of supportive souls coming by to sit on your couch and hold your hand and wipe your tears. There are no thoughtful neighbors dropping by with their warm casseroles.

Recently, I had the good pleasure to meet someone who’d been a partner in two long-term marriages. She buried her first husband and divorced the second one.

“Rose, there’s no comparison,” she told me one day. “When they die, it’s over and you have the good memories and people are so kind and there’s help and support and there’s some grief but it’s not a hard thing to move beyond. When the marriage ends as the result of a divorce, it’s brutal and painful and there’s a hurt and a betrayal that doesn’t go away for years and years. When I hear widows and widowers going on and on about their loss, I just want to take them by the hand and tell them, ‘count your lucky stars that he didn’t divorce you.’”

Elizabeth Kubler Ross speaks of this in her remarkable book, Life Lessons.  She writes, “People who lose someone through divorce or separation will often say that they realize death is not the ultimate loss. Rather, it’s the separation from loved ones that is so difficult. Knowing about someone’s continued existence but being unable to share it with them may cause far more pain and make resolution far more difficult than permanent separation through death. With those who have died, however, we find new ways to share their existence as they live on in our hearts and memories.”

Richard Warren Sears - my hero and a merchandising genius - decided that the best way to sell more of the stuff in his 100,000-item, 1400-page catalog was to sell kit homes. In the first years of the 20th Century, multi-generational households were the norm, and Sears knew that getting people into a home of their own would create new customers and also create new demand for household products.

In 1908, a little ad appeared on page 594 of the Sears general merchandise catalog. It read, “Let us be your architect, without cost to you.” Interested buyers were invited to write in and request free specialty catalog of house plans. The first houses ranged in price from $500 to $5000.

And so it was that Richard Warren Sears entered into the kit house business. The mail-order homes were shipped by boxcar and came in 30,000 piece kits. Sears promised that a man of average abilities could have one assembled and ready for occupancy in 90 days.

The house were called “Sears Modern Homes.”  And they really were modern homes.

In 1917, American Carpenter and Builder Magazine reported that “watertight roof, walls and floor are an essential feature of a modern city house.” As a point of reference, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s “Little House” books described life on the plains in soddies and tiny cabins in the 1870s.

It’s possible that the Midwestern men and women who built Sears kit homes in the early 1900s could have been raised in housing that would be considered extremely primitive by today’s standards.

Below is a picture of a soddie. These were very primitive and damp and dank and fairly miserable way to spend the day, nine months out of the year. One look at this photo (below) and you can understand why a pretty little Sears bungalow would be classified as a “Modern Home.”

A Soddie in Kansas, early 1900s

A remuddled Sears Americus in Norfolk's Park Place, on 27th Street

According to local lore, the sextant’s home at the Greenlawn Cemetery (in Newport News, Virginia) is a Sears Home. As is so typical with these “legends,” no one knows which model of Sears Home, only that it came from the Sears Roebuck catalog in the early 1900s. (Sears offered 370 models of their kit homes.)

Recently, I went out to Greenlawn Cemetery to see if the Sextant’s home was indeed a Sears Home. More than 80% of the time, these “stories” about Sears Homes turn out to be erroneous. Most of the time, people do indeed have a kit home, but it’s a kit home from a different company. In addition to Sears, there were five other companies that sold kit homes on a national level (such as Montgomery Ward, Sterling, Lewis Manufacturing, Gordon Van Tine and more).

While I was out at Greenlawn, I took some pictures of the house and walked around and studied it a bit. I’d still like to get into the house to confirm this, but as of today, I’m 60% certain this is a Sears House, more specifically, the Sears Berkeley. However, before I declare this an official, authenticated Sears Home, I’d need to see the home’s interior.

The house at Greenlawn is not a spot-on match to the catalog image. The windows are significantly different, as is the front porch (which has been enclosed).

The Berkeley, as shown in the 1936 catalog

The Berkeley at Greenlawn Cemetery

Front yard of The Berkeley. It's a nice quiet neighborhood.

For months, I begged my husband for a dog. He said, “Absolutely not.”  I pleaded, I promised, I cajoled, and finally, about two years later, he said, “Okay.”

So then I started the rounds at the local shelters, but to my surprise, I found that most dogs offered for adoption were Pit Bull mixes.  My husband the lawyer advised, “There’s one dog I will not have in my home: A Pit Bull.”

After a few weeks, I went with a little Sheltie puppy that I purchased in North Carolina. She was so gentle and docile when we had our half hour together on the farm. I named her, Theodora or “Teddy” for short.

Within 48 hours of arriving home in Norfolk, she turned into a wild beastie. She ate things, she chewed things, she bit people and furniture and rugs. She considered the upright vacuum to be an exceedingly dangerous appliance and did all within her six pounds of puppy-power to annilihate the Hoover.

She also considered the Swiffer a personal enemy, and invested a lot of energy desperately chasing the ruthless appliance as its head swiveled and swung around the floor. She’d snap at (and occasionally bite) the head and the wand. When she managed to wrestle free the white cloth on the head, she’d take off running through the house with a slightly dusty swiffer pad dangling from her puppy mouth.

When she was in the yard, Teddy dug enormous holes and ate English Ivy (which is bad for dogs) and literally, ate herself sick. She thew up a lot. We practiced the “drop it” command many times, but that command had no effect whatsoever when Teddy discovered the joys of a slightly decomposed squirrel in the backyard.

She also barked and growled and growled and barked. She barked all the time. She barked at people. She barked at squirrels. She barked at the trees. One day, I caught her barking at the azalea bush. The azalea bush got off light. The gardenia bush committed some doggy crime, worthy of capital punishment. She pulled it clear out of the ground, root ball and all, and went running through the yard at 120 mph, with its poor root ball still dripping dirt clots hither and yon.

More than a few times I thought to myself, “This is worse than having a toddler!” It was, in fact, like having an especially agile and fast toddler with extra-sharp teeth, and a penchant for antique furniture.

The experts said, “Provide plenty of chew toys.” Didn’t matter. She’d walk over the mounds of chew toys in the house to go chew on my mother’s favorite wooden chair.

“Keep your household calm and quiet, and you’ll have a calm and quiet puppy,” the experts advised. Our household was calm and quiet, until we took in The Wild Beastie.

I read books, we did puppy training, I consulted with smart people and did all the things I could think to do. And there were times I considered giving the little dog away. She was too much work, too much effort and caused too much damage. She was spayed at four months old, but that didn’t calm her down, either. The day I brought her back home after the spay surgery, she slept peacefully in my arms for two hours.

“This is what it’s supposed to be like,” I thought to myself as I nuzzled her soft fur and gave her a little hug. Her big brown eyes looked up at me and then she’d sink deeper into my arms, happy to lay still and soak up the love and attention.

And then she woke up and took off running. Literally. Twice, we went back to the vet because she ripped her stitches and they became infected.

And then sometime around one year, it was like a switch turned off. She calmed down. The chewing stopped. The incessant barking slowed. The non-stop digging completely stopped. She no longer attacked yard tools, and she stopped eating toxic things in the backyard, like the tulip bulbs around the oak tree.

Best of all, the nipping and “play biting” also slowed way, way down.

She’s still a busy little dog and there’s still much to do in our backyard, but the destructive tendencies have disappeared. She’s become a delightful little companion and is a very sweet-natured dog. She actually sulks if we yell at her. Yes, she sulks. One year ago, you could stand in front of that dog, and rant and rave and she’d toddle off to find a new thing to destroy.

Now we have our routine. When the sun goes down, Teddy curls up on the couch, next to my husband (the one who didn’t want a dog), and falls asleep. When he sits in the backyard and smokes his pipe, she sits at his feet and keeps him company. When we eat breakfast and dinner, she sits quietly at our side and if we dont’ slip her a little treat, she’ll rest her head on our thigh, as if to say, “don’t forget about the little dog here.”

Update:  In May 2010, she chased away miscreants who were getting ready to break into my car!  An amazing story! Click here to read.

In short, I’m glad I stuck it out. She’s a good dog and a delightful companion. And she’s such a gentle little soul.

For more pictures of Teddy the Dog, click here.

To read about the amazing collection of Sears Homes in the Midwest, click here.

To read about the kit homes in Virginia, click here.

Teddy, about eight weeks old, with Wayne

Teddy today, at about 16 months old

Rate My Face vs. Internet Dating:  Whats the Difference?

Recently, I spent three weeks traveling throughout the state of Illinois. In all my years of driving, I have *never* seen so many sherrifs and cops, sitting alongside the edge of the road with their radar guns. I’m guessing that this has become the new way to compensate for budget shortfalls.

In Dallas, Texas, the Powers That Be have actually shortened the yellow light cycle (at intersections with cameras) to help fatten city coffers. Read more about it here. We’re not talking about chump change either. More than $130,000 was generated by citations issued at one camera-controlled intersection in Dallas in five months. That’s right:  More than $130,000 in five months.

Take a look at how fast I was recently traveling along I-64 (St. Louis to Norfolk, Virginia).  Man, I was flying. 

Zooming along I-64 at a very high rate of speed

Whilst driving around the state of Illinois, I visited Metropolis way down in the southern  most part of the state. I found a handful of Sears Homes, and I also found Superman.

I sent my brother an email and shared the photo I took of Superman (see below). My brother wrote back and said, “Smallville, Illinois? Ask to see Superman’s birth certificate. And while you’re there, ask about Obama’s too. More probable that we’ll see Superman’s first.”

Superman stands proud and tall in Metropolis

On Wednesday, February 17th, I left for Illinois. Today, Wednesday (March 1oth) I returned home. I spent most of these three weeks, traveling throughout the state of Illinois, from Chicago to Cairo to Champaign, photographing and documenting the Sears Homes among us. To read more about Sears Homes, click here.

In a few months, I’ll be finishing up this new book titled, The Sears Homes of Illinois.

Traipsing around Illinois was a lot of fun, but also a lot of intense effort. I started each day around 5:00 am, and mapped out a detailed plan of where I’d travel and what I’d do. Then I’d hit the road between 6:00 am and 8:00 am and stay gone until 4:00 pm or beyond. In my three weeks in Illinois, I put 2,500 miles on my little rental car. That doesn’t include my travels around Chicago, where Rebecca Hunter was kind enough to drive me around.

When I’d enter a city, I’d take a look at my Garmin and find the railroad tracks and find the cementery and find the streets marked “McKinley” and “Elm” and “Pershing” and “Third Street.” You can usually find Sears Homes on streets thus named. And then I’d drive through these areas, looking for Sears Homes. When I found a Sears Home, I’d make a note of the address and then I’d use my reference books to find how the house originally appeared in the old catalogs. Then I’d take a photo of the house from the same angle that it appeared in the 1910s or 1920s catalog.

In those three weeks, I took 1,500 photos of 200+ houses. That’s a lot of photos.

And then I returned home. I’ve never been so glad to get on an airplane in my life!

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

Nice Sears Corona in Central Illinois

Sears Ashmore in Central Illinois

Model #196 in Southwestern Illinois

A nice Westly in Metropolis, Illinois (Home of Superman!)

Sears Hollywood in Southern Illinois

Sears Edgemere in Central Illinois

Sears Puritan in Southern Illinois, near the mill in Cairo

This once-lovely Sears Whitehall is in a small town in southwestern Illinois. In its happy days, it was a lovely home with clapboard siding (all cypress), probably painted a bright white with tasteful colors or the trim and shutters.

And then one day, someone thought it’d be a swell idea to wrap this fine old house with faux-logs. Sadly, this Sears Home has lost much of its value, due to this insensitive remodeling job.

This 1920s Sears Home does not look good dressed in faux logs

And then there’s this once-lovely Westly, now dripping in plastic and other PVC-based products. There’s so much that’s wrong with this house, I’m not sure what to say. However, I can say that it’s value as a historic structure is mostly lost. What a pity.

Poor little house. If this were a dog, we'd put it out of its misery.

This is a Sears Argyle, and before the "remodeling" work was done, this was a darling Sears Argyle.

To learn more about Sears Homes, click here.

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

Recently, I traveled to southern Illinois to re-visit the site of the old Sears Mill.

In late 1911, Sears spent about $1 million to build a state-of-the-art mill just outside of Cairo, Illinois. The mill was actually located in a tiny burg called Urbandale. The Sears Mill was an impressive operation, covering 40 acres and employing about 80 full-time workers. About 20 acres were “under roof.” In other words, the site had 20 acres of buildings.

That’s a lot of buildings.

Each day, the railroad cars brought enormous quantities of yellow pine and cypress into the mill, right out of the virgin forests in Louisiana and Mississippi. Each day, those workers turned those logs into 10-12 kit homes. You read that right:  Hard-working men, using powerful saws and planers and other massive machines, carved those trees into kit homes. Kit homes with 30,000 pieces. That’s a lot of lumber.

In 2003, when doing research for my book, “The Houses That Sears Built,” I traveled to the site of the old mill. Not much to see there, but a couple little Sears Homes and a lot of woods and a couple bean fields.

Fast forward seven years to 2010.

Now I’m writing a new book about Sears Homes, and I decided it was time to dig a little deeper.

This time around, I contacted Richard Kearney, a local historian, long-time Cairo resident and all-around Smart Cookie and good man.

I asked him if he might have time to spend a day with me, helping me navigate the back roads of southern Illinois. To my delight, he readily agreed. Our day together could not have been any more delightful. With Richard’s fantastic knowledge of the area, I learned so much more about the old Sears Mill and its connection to local history.

One small example:  Soon after entering Urbandale, we turned onto “Sears Road” (the site of the old mill), and Richard spoke up and said, “You know, this used to be known as ‘Sears Roebuck Road.’”

I replied, “You’re kidding!”

He said, “It’s true. This road went all the way through, and when the Interstate came through, it cut the road right in half, creating two dead end streets on either side of I-57.”

This is the kind of quirky history that I just adore. I was enthralled.

“On the other side of the interstate,” Richard said, “you’ll find the other half of this road. It’s now called “Roebuck Road.”

Now I’ve been writing about Sears Homes for many years and I’ve been to Cairo many times and I’ve spent many hours learning more about Sears and Cairo and the mill, but I’d never heard any of this.

I asked Richard to show me where Roebuck Road was. He gladly obliged.

And there it was - Roebuck Road. And there was yet another bonus! Behind the Roebuck Road sign was a perfect little Sears house. It was a Sears Wexford.

A Sears House on Roebuck Road. Or maybe it’s a Roebuck house on Roebuck Road?

Either way, Garmin apparently never got the memo that Sears Roebuck Road had been sliced into two pieces.

Sears Road - in Urbandale

Note the little Sears Wexford in the background!

Someone needs to tell Garmin that Sears and Roebuck are now divorced - thanks to the Interstate!

Richard - thank you so much -  for sharing your knowledge and being such a good sport and giving up an entire day of your life to help me find my way around the southern-most tip of Illinois. You’re a real trooper and a treasure-trove of knowlege!

Sears Modern Home #163 in Taylorville, Illinois.

Whilst in Taylorville, Illinois last week, I found something I’d never seen before:  A Sears Modern Home Model #163. I talked with my dear friend Rebecca Hunter and learned that she’d never seen one either. In other words, this is a very rare model. And there it sits in Taylorville, a victim of insensitive remodeling.

This once-grand house has now been converted into a multi-family dwelling, which is especially sad.

As I’ve driven around the Illinois countryside, I’ve found that too many Sears Homes are in deplorable shape and are being treated like yesterday’s garbage. Hopefully, my new book on Sears Homes will do a little something to stem this onerous problem.

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

The first time I saw downtown Cairo, I stopped my car in the middle of the street and stared in disbelief. The entire business district, which comprised several blocks of brick streets in beautiful condition, was empty - deserted and devoid of all movement. Had it not been for a piece of trash blowing down the middle of the street, the scene could have been a still-frame.

The stillness, the quiet, the absence of any sign of life was fascinating, yet also left me wondering if the next sound I heard would be the theme from The Twilight Zone with a voice-over by Rod Serling.

Looking at the stunning late-1800s commercial architecture - most of which was in original condition and all of which had been abandoned - my intuitive sense told me that folks had left this place in a hurry. And as I began researching the area, I learned my hunch was on mark.

In the mid-1960s, racial unrest and riots were a sad part of the American landscape, but in Cairo, things went especially badly. African-Americans, weary of Jim Crow laws and disparate treatment, threatened to boycott businesses that employed only whites. White business owners responded by closing their stores. Large numbers of families - white and black - left the area and never returned. The population plummeted. Today, downtown Cairo is a ghost town - an incredible time capsule - frozen in the 1960s. The city that once boasted of 14,000 citizens now has about 3000 people living within its borders.

I’ve returned to Cairo several times since that first visit and each time, I make a point to drive through that incredible downtown area. I park my car and stare. I stare at the old buildings which are in fair to decent condition and still look much like they did when built 100+ years ago. I look at the store fronts whose doorways have not been darkened by a customer in many years. I study the two movie theatres that look much like they did when built in the 1920s and 30s. I take in the long view and look at the streetscapes, devoid of movement or activity.

Just behind those fantastic old commercial buildings lies a seawall and the Ohio River. I do believe that the city could build a fantastic tourism industry off this downtown area alone. I’ve never seen a sight like it.

Apparently, word is getting out, because on my last visit, I saw two tourists taking a plethora of photos of this eerie but fascinating downtown. However, if you decide to visit - come prepared. Cairo has no public bathrooms, no fast-food joints and no public water fountains. About 15 minutes away, just across the Ohio River, is Wickliffe, Kentucky - site of the nearest public restroom. The nearest Burger Doodle is 30 miles southwest in Cape Girardeau.

One thing Cairo does have is plenty of vacant lots, such as 1501 Commercial Avenue. This corner lot is a few blocks from the downtown area and according to the 1922 Sears Modern Homes catalog, it was the site of a beautiful “Elsmore” (Honor-Bilt home).  The testimonial on page 111 of the catalog reads, “Built by R. P. Fitzjearl, 1501 Commercial Avenue, Cairo, IL. He says, ‘Already-cut lumber saves one-third of time. Plans as simple as reading a book.’”

When I drive through Cairo, I look at all those empty lots and try not to think about how many Sears homes have been torn down in the intervening years. Several? Dozens? Or worse?

Thus far, I’ve identified about 30 Sears homes in Cairo. Many are in poor condition and a few more may be torn down before the city awakens to its architecture treasures. The addresses of these Sears homes are at the Cairo Public Library on Washington Street and make for a fun driving tour. Learn more about Sears Homes here.

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 5^th, 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…

This photo appeared in the advertising section of the 1898 Ladies’ Home Journal. Presumably, it’s an remarkable photo of two little boys, but the term street urchins might be more apropos. However, if you look past their tattered appearance and look into their eyes, these two boys are a little unnerving.

I’m not sure how or why this was considered “good” photography 110 years ago.

Today, it’d just be classified as “heartbreaking.”

Little scary children

Thanks to the miracle of hydrogenation, we have “shortening” products such as Crisco. Shortening, I’ve since learned, is a nice word for white fat products that remain solidified regardless of room temperature. And the process of hydrogenation is also not a good thing.

The word betrays its etymology. Hydrogen gas is forced into shortening products (such as Cricso) to make it more solid. The irony is that, these shortening products were originally marketed as being good for one’s health.

Oopsie.

The jury is still out on hydrogenated oils, but more and more, it appears that foods with hydrogenated oils are extremely hazardous to one’s long-term health.

“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.

Read more here.

Thanks to terrorist du jour Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab , airline passengers will now have to remain seated one hour before landing, and during that last hour, they’ll not be allowed to access to their own carry-on bags (or anyone else’s, I would hope). For those who have been avoiding the television for the last 48 hours, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is the Nigerian charged with trying to blow up NWA Flight 253 as it descended into Detroit Metro Airport on December 25th.

Three years ago, I took a one hour and 45 minute flight from Denver to Quinter, Kansas. After I made the reservation (and paid for the tickets), I learned that my plane was a 12-seater puddle jumper with no bathroom. For many days before the plane’s departure, I had nightmares about being stuck on a tiny little plane with no access to any bathroom.

And then the day of my flight arrived. As soon as the pilot shut the wee door to the wee plane, I suddenly had to go wee wee. For one-hour and 45 minutes, I did everything within my power to not think about how badly I needed to go. It was horribly unpleasant. And it was also an experience that I will never ever repeat.

Think about the implications of this new law. Practically speaking, it means that on 90-minute flight, there will be no access to the lavatory, period!

Speaking as someone who’s flown on many planes to many places, it’s typically 20-25 minutes into the flight before you’re allowed to “move about the cabin.” And now that the final hour is shaved off the moving around time, that’s pretty much a “sit-down-and-shut-up” arrangement for anyone on a 90-minute flight.

Many years ago, airlines stopped serving olives on their salads - in the hopes of saving money and reducing weight. Next, they ditched in-flight telephones to reduce weight. More recently, in-flight magazines were removed from planes.  Now, with this new law, it’ll probably be the restroom that gets removed from these CRJs and Embraers and other commuter planes.

What’s the point of hauling around a lavatory that weighs a few hundred pounds if the passengers will never be allowed out of their seats?

It’s enough to scare the &#^% out of someone.

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