lincoln's Birthday

In our house while raising our five little darlings we celebrated every holiday with special food. Lincoln's Birthday was a delicious Lincoln's log; It was a yellow cake rolled with chocolate icing in the middle and iced with chocolate. I do not know where the recipe came from probably a magazine but was great. Can not say much more than that so this will be short.

best gift

My writing class nezt month wants us to write about the best gift we ever got. I will try that out. After the war when we were all on stamps my mother use to buy things at a place run by the Santa Fe Railroad with damaged goods. She bought two of my facvorites catsup and peaches in large cans and recanned them in smaller amounts. One birthday she asked me what I wanted and I told her a can of Del Monte peaches and a bottle of Heinz catsup. For my birthday that year I got a bottle of catsup and a can of peaches. They were delicious. If at 88 I still remember they must have been good. I still love them.

vALENTINE'S dAY

I have received a Valentine from my granddaughter Holly. When I was growing up it was not my most popular holiday as I did not receive a lot of Valentines but I like it now. Growing up in school I sometimes got mean ones but my mother use to go to school and give me one very nice fancy Valentine. After I grew up my husband once gave me 30 valentines and I love the candy you get if you are lucky. My grand children in Wichita had a very clever teacher that had a party for the grandparents on that day and put on a play where every student had one line and then you helped the kids make valentines to take home. They put on a play where everyone in the class had one line called "The thing in the forest". One year Ray gave me 30 valentines. Now I already have one. I use to know how the Day got started but it has slipped a bit in my mind so I will just relax and enjoy it. I may mail a few myself.

Groundhog Day

Today a Groundhog named Phil tells me if I see his shadow in Pennslyvania I will have more winter or less. It seems kind of far away to me to tell me what the weather will be in Kansas City. It was not a day I grew up celebrating nor did even when I was grown and always puzzled me but it made a great movie a few years back. Happy Groundhog Day to those who may read this.

Susan's Birthday

This weekend both Kansas and our daughter Susan have a birthday. The year Susan was born Kansas Day was on Sunday like this year and so most of the festivities were held on Saturday night. Then Susan appeared on the real birthday. Her father was working covering the festivities but was very available on the Sunday when she was born. We left our oldest son Steve with his father's parents and went off to the hospital. She was very cooperative and arrived in St Francis Hospital in Topeka. I always enjoy Kansas Day as the schools put on programs and I got to see how clever our grandchildren were at their schools. Kansas had been created as part of te Kansas Nebraska act where they were moving the eastern Indians west. Kansas had a time picking Topeka as its capital because Leavenworth thought they should be. In Indian language Topeka means a good place to dig potatoes which is not very glamorous but did have good potatoes. It has some very colorful history and did not just settle down and behave for we had John Brown come in and burn Lawrence and they had a time in Topeka. My father had a garage on 4th St and the location of the hall where the Kansans met was just up the alley. Susan had many nice birthday parties as she grew up for we loved to have birthday parties at our house. Now our daughter Sally came home from the hospital on Mother's Day, Scott tried to hit Fourth of July, Cindy had Thanksgiving and Steve had Halloween. Birthdays are fun but at 88 I wonder if it is time to quit and just stay 88 but maybe like my mother I will reach a 100. You do not decide that so I will wait and see. I just hope my sister Helen stays around with me so I have someone who understands me.

ETHEL'S bIRTHDAY

Today is my sister Ethel's birthday. She was named after my mother's twin sister. My mother was named Edna Jessie and her twin Ethel Bessie. I have two sisters and they were always kind to their little sister who was skinny, cross eyed and kind of dumb. My brother just kind of ignored me but my sisters Helen and Ethel were kind. When she was in college and dating a student from Kansas State whom had a rather low opinion of my exsistence and he gave her a cocker spaniel she shared him with me. I really loved that dog and after she was married and moved to Sas Diego I had trouble adjusting to the departure of the dog more than them and embarassed them at the railroad stastion when they left with the dog. We visited her many times along with her five children but Tarbaby had been hit by a car by then. She managed to have her daughter born on my birthday which I thought was a rather nice gift. Her mother in law also helped me get my first job teaching in a rural school just between Topeka and Dover, Kansas. Hasppy Birthday Ethel. You were a great sister.

Friday the 13th

We have just lived through another Friday the 13th' I use to be scared of them but my mother taught me that they are really a blessing because anything you do stupid on that day is blamed on the date so you can just relax and enjoy yourself' I think back over the years and remember I fell out of bed one 13th just after I got out of the hospital after one of my 4 pnuemonia trips. I remmeber that all the dumb things have been after turning 60. I shall try to be careful on those dates but will relax if things if do out work out well. HAPPY FURTEEENTH.

What I like about writing a blog

When I met my future husband, Ray, we were in high school in Topeka and he was a year ahead of me and the editor of the school paper at Topeka High. He thought I was not very good and so he assigned me to cover girls athletics. He did not even ask me to sign his yearbook so I signed it later after I found it after we were married. Later in college when he started dating me, he still did not have a high opinion of my writing ability but was quiet about it. He never felt I was a reliable source for any news stories and checked the facts after he talked to me. He would have loved having a blog to write everyday but would probably have gone in for facebook, which I do not even understand. We have a great writing class at my church, taught by an excellent teacher and she gives me courage to write about all the places I have been and all the people I have been lucky enough to meet who do not read my blog so are not crushed by anything I write.

calendars

When I was younger we got lots of calendars. Now I get a couple, both from daughters; They have wonderful pictures of people I know and all the dates I need to remember like birthdays and anniversaries. I use to get national parks and animals. I hung them all around the house but now just in my kitchen. I get a funny one every year you tear the pages off. Last year it was Maxine and this year Peanuts. I sometimes forget what day of the week it is and the Daily paper shares this knowledge with me. This is short but I just wanted the world to know we still need calendars.

New Year"s resolutions

I have generally avoided this as I generally break any before nightfall on New Years Day. 1 I will not eat all the M and Ms in the world until February first. 2 I will let Buster out immediately or as fast as my wheelchair will go. 3, I will stay awake and see the ends of my show on TV except when I have a good reason to fall asleep. 4. I well try to finish the daily crossword puzzle on the day it comes out. 5.I will actually think positive on things instead of thinking of exciting things I could be doing if I would walk. I guess there are not a lot of positive thoughts of what I could be doing. I may need to dwell on this and try in a few weeks after I can think of things I could be doing to spend more time out of a wheelchair. I am going on and post this so others who write one like it will feel real smart. Happy New Year World. Mary Grace and Buster,

New Years Eve

Growing up New Years Eve was boring but after I met Ray it was fun. However our children thought it was still boring so we changed it and made 12 noon New Year. Just at 12 we shot poppers into the air and yelled Happy New Year. Now we found our grandchildren liked it so we continued it and then we wold go in and have a ham for lunch. Now I think they prefer pizza.I like them both. We had a neighbor that shot off a gun and I thought was dangerous and still do. After lunch we took down our snowmen in the front yard and the lights off the house and undecorated the tree. That night we drove through Shawnee Mission Park and they must have burned the trees we brought with us but I may have that wrong as my memory has too many things in it these days. I have an artificial tree now and it is three parts and goes into a plastic bag for another Christmas. We start our New Years resolutions that we keep about 24 hours and look toward the next holiday Valentines Day.

Merry Christmas

It s a lovely sunshiny day. I know snow is pretty but it is kind of a bother on Christmas Day. I can remember a few snowy Christmases and I prefer sunshine. I hope you all made it to church and missed the many Christmas stories on TV. I hope your Christmas is Merry and I will let you relax while I think of another blog to enlighten you on my feelings of the world around me. Merry Christmas.

Snowmen

One August in 1951 I was reading a magazine and it told me how to design and cut snowmen out of wood for Christmas. My brother in law Roy helped me. We We added Cindy and Scott, a cat and a dog. When we had a daughter in law we added her but that did not last and her snowman is lying on the floor of the attic. Cindy's snowman was taken once and we found it in the ditch a block away. As the years past we added lights on the eaves of the house but it has pretty well stayed the same. Our granddaughter Hayden has repainted them once and they could use another coat now.

Christmas gifts

One Christmas our local grocery store offered some large toys for Christmas. Our youngest soon, Scott, fell in love with a toy cannon. He would go along to the store just so he could see that wonderful toy which was over the cashier. Our two oldest daughters liked the large dolls and we bought the toys. When we moved to Kansas City our dining room and living room were one large room and our table was on the north end of the room. We all sat at the table eating our breakfast. Scott just could not wait and with his older brother, Steve's help he loaded his plastic cannon ball. It shot across the room in a lovely arc and landed in his grandfather's cereal.

Decorating the tree

We have always had fun decorating the tree and then a glass of egg nog. Now I have an artificial tree but we use to have live ones. One year when all five children were helping and Sally was on the kitchen ladder she decided to step back and admire the tree and fell. She was not hurt but it cured her of doing it again, The tinsel was in little masses as no one singled it out and threw one at a time. The tree was in the middle of the living room at first and then we got grandchildren and put it in the middle of the front window. We had a Golden Retriever and he knocked it down so we put wires and wired it to the two small front windows. It was a fun time. Now my granddaughters and their mothers decorate it for me. I use to put stuffed animals under the tree but that is a lost cause with Buster liking to taste everything. I have my lights on the house and hedge. No snowmen anymore as they have retireed to sleep in the attic.

Another Christmas Eve

When our oldest son went to Sunday School in Topeka one Christmas Eve they gave him something to read on Christmas Eve. In Kansas City we would gather all the candles in the house and light them on the card table. When Ray worked at the Kansas City Times they got four holidays a year and Ray always took Christmas Eve as one, We did this every year as we added a few children and some grandchildren. The church has some kind of a musical put on by adults and one year they decided to use a real baby as Jesus and Hayden who had been born in September was chosen. Our minister commented he never knew Jesus was a girl. After that year we always went to church on Christmas ve. The program was turned over to the Youth director and we had many Marys, Josephs, wisemen, shepherds but I think Hayden was the only baby. Isn't is nice for the church to know that their children choir director was one Jesus. When Morgan was Mary the angel standing beside her fainted. One year they tried a lie Christmas scene with real sheep and I was in it along with all my female descendants. I like the one in the church better. Sometimes Prairie Village is very cold in December and being inside is nicer.

The Fairy Princess

Yesterday I had a visit from the Fairy Princess. I bet you did not know they made house visit. This year I have a pretty granddaughter being the Fairy Princess at the Kansas City Muesum and she came by to bring me some milk and eggs. Back in the 1940s the Shawnee school board said Nieman Grade School could not have Santa Claus. I know Ray was not on the school Board at that time as he would never have voted against Santa. We had many pretty mothers and asked one to be the Fairy Princess. She was very pretty and had five children some of which were in Nieman and she went to all the rooms handing out candy even her own children as they liked thinking their Mother was a Fairy Princess, Santa never came back and I think the room mothers just did it from then on but it was nice one year.

Christmas 1960

It was one of the last years that Kansas City had a strong Christmas. The streets were lined with festive lighted garlands and the Crowns were there. The crowns have moved to North Kansas City. Our kids were between 3 and 12, They were dressed in their Sunday best. We met Ray for his 2 and half dinner hour. We had supper at the Forumn Cafeteria. Then we started our walking tour. We stopped first at Jones the corner of 12th and Main. They had a train carrying children and adults through Snowmen, frolicking elves, reindeer and other Christmas things. Then to Klines to visit the Fairy Princess, a beautiful young girl dressed in a gorgeous gown and holding a wand. For a quarter the children lined up and waved her magic wand. The got a coloring book, crayons and a tin whistle. From there we went to Emery Bird Thayers to view the inflated figures of Mr. and Mrs. Santa. They shook and laughed. They have lost Mrs. Santa Claus but mister is at Crown Center. We looked in Harzfields windows to see the antics and a woman steeped up beside us and asked if she could give the children a box of candy. The kids wanted it immediately but we told them we had to check it out first. The Fairy Princess is now at the Kansas City Museum and this year my granddaughter Frances is one of the Princesses. I think that was the last year Kansas City had a strong downtown Christmas

Christmas socks

I have knitted many Christmas socks to hang up on Christmas Eve with the name and year of birth of the owner. I have knitted a few dogs and cats also. During War 2 My sister Helen and I knitted six or was eight feet Kakai mufflers for the soldiers and I found I liked to knit so I knitted scarfs for my children, baby booties. and ect and My older sister Ethel sent me a pattern to knit Christmas socks. My first efforts were bad but I got better and met many people I would not have met if I had not knitted socks for them. I was always interested in the people I knitted socks for and I remember one child even put his sock on one leg and his sister's sock on the other. I do not seem to be able to knit them now and except for not walking knitting is the only thing I really miss. I had one woman I did not know ask me to knit socks for her two grandchildren as she had Cancer and was not expected to live very long and she wanted them to remember her every Christmas. I had one family whose baby died and they wanted a sock so the would not ever forget the child. I had on who was murdered but not over the sock, I have had their pictures on the cover of a magazine. I have knitted another set when the family got a divorce and have knitted three dogs and a few cats. I have seen some much more beautiful but I liked mine and did almost 2000. I have a daughter who knits them now and she is a better knitter. I have many nice thoughts at Christmas for those I have knitted socks for.

Christmas

In the house I grew up in my mother did not like to waste beautiful paper wrapping gifts and thought brown sacks were good and ust write the name on the outside. We did not get fancy paper until my brother went with the girl he later married and she wrapped gifts so beautiful you almost did not want to open them. The gifts always had lovely useless things in them which I loved. The gifts in the brown sacks were from my parents and were things like new underwear and socks. At Christmas we had a chair by the tree and your gifts were laid on your chair. My chair was my desk chair. We were not disappointed for we thought that what every kid got. Later with our kids we let them pick a color and their gifts were wrapped in that color of tissue paper. You generally got a new doll and that was not wrapped and if you got a bike it was not wrapped. Mother did not like the tree to be up long and took it down immeditately. My in laws left the tree up until New Years. Except for the Christmas I dropped my china doll and broke her head it was all good. My sister, Helen laid her doll in the window one Christmas and it fell out when the screen got lose and ruined her new doll.
the package. I loved knitting Christmas socks for people and knitted over 2000. That is another story.