...R The Devils Workshop. This according to my Grandmother's was a motto a woman should live by and boy did they. Both of them raised a brood of kids, cooked, cleaned, laundered, starched, raised their own food, canned that food, plucked chickens...well you get the idea. My point is they did all that and still had time to sew, crochet, quilt, needlepoint, knit and SLEEP! This makes me feel so lazy. Both of my Grandmother's lived well past their 80th birthday and my Dad's Mother lived into her 90's. All the while never having idle hands unless they were sleeping.
I can remember spending time with both of them and watching as they made beautiful things with just a ball of string and a hook. They would try to teach me, but I was hopeless! They never gave up teaching me though. I loved spending time with them. They were no nonsense, but I still had fun.
As a very small child I would spend a lot of time with my Mom's Mother. She was all business! I can remember going with her to a local store that would buy things that she had made. I wondered why she would sell her things. It was years later that my Mom explained it to me. My Grandparents had raised 13 children before, during and after the Great Depression. To make ends meet my Grandmother raised chickens and sold the eggs to the local market. She also sold cream from their milk cows. After she passed away I found out she sold even more things to local businesses. I was on my way to visit her grave and stopped at a local florist. Once inside I said I wanted to purchase some flowers for my Grandparents graves. The florist asked who my Grandparents were. I told him and he knew them. Not only did he know them, he had bought flowers from my Grandmother's beautiful garden throughout the years. She had raised peonies and gladiolus among other things and he had always admired them and asked if he could purchase them and of course, Grandma being the consummate business woman obliged. Her peonies were one of her prized possessions, she had even moved the plants across Kansas with them when they settled in Southeast Kansas. My Mother says she probably moved them at least 10 times even bringing them from Missouri to Kansas in the 1920's.
When I was 9 I "helped" my Dad's Mother make a pie. She was so sweet about it and told everyone that I had made it myself. One of her friends even gave me a pie crimper a short time later. They were so sweet. The day of her funeral my family gathered at her home for one last time. As usual, the women were in the kitchen and the men in the living room. As I stood there thinking of how much I loved my Grandma I remembered the day we made the pie. Suddenly I remembered her writing something in the cookbook after we had made the pie. I wondered if I could find it, thinking it would be nice to have something with her handwriting in it. I opened the drawer where she kept her cookbooks and recipe cards and there it was.
As I looked through the cookbook I felt elation at the fact that there were so many pieces of paper with notes written on them about this recipe or that recipe. I would have been thrilled to have any scrap of paper in there. Then I saw it. She had put an inscription in it. My heart swelled as did my eyes. I stood there astonished at what I was seeing and found myself crying. This is what she had written: "This is Stephanie's cook book when I am through with it. She made her first pie with the crust recipe in it. ~Grandma McAdam" How darling was she? To think, I had thought of that day as a special day and apparently she did too.
I wanted to spotlight a few Etsy Seller's Items that remind me of the work my Grandmothers did. These items are all special and really are quickly becoming lost arts. They all put great work in to each piece and I am amazed they sell them for so little. The tatted snowflake is only $5 and very few people still tat. Each of the items are priced reasonably and each is made with special care. Please take a little time and check them out!
MaterialisedNote: This blog took me forever to write. For those of you that expected it yesterday, I am sorry. I was trying to make a collage with live links etc., but failed. I need a blogging 101 class I think. Enjoy please! :)Here is my latest
Etsy Treasury with the same Title as this blog. :)
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