american history – In the Vintage Kitchen: Where History Comes To Eat

A Monumental Story of Real-Life Serendipity Told Over Many Parts: Chapter 5 – The Lost Item is Revealed

Published on March 25, 2024March 29, 2024 by In The Vintage Kitchen12 Comments

{Spoiler Alert: This is the final installment in a series of blog posts detailing the real-life story of a 100-year-old item that was lost in 2008 and how it found its way home in 2024. Follow along from the beginning of this story at Chapter 1: It Arrives.}

There’s a quote by an unknown writer that states… “What’s meant for you will never miss you, and that which misses you was never meant for you.” This quote sits on the shop’s recently sold page, acting as a sort of hopeful reassurance to any shopper who winds up there only to discover that an item that had originally caught their eye has sold to someone else. It can be so disappointing to be confronted with the fact that some newly discovered treasure that immediately captured your heart is now in another’s hands. But I love the idea of fate and what it suggests in this quote. Should an item be destined to be in your life it will present itself again, some other day, some other time.

Over the past few years, I’ve thought a lot about this quote. The idea that something will return to you if it was meant to be is such a comfort. When I think about it in the context of the lost item, I see how truthful the quote really is and how incredible the spontaneity of the universe and fate’s voice in it really are. As discussed in Chapter 4 of A Monumental Story of Real-Life Serendipity Told Over Many Parts, this journey of the lost item is all about timing, and I can’t help but think that although it took sixteen years for a lost item to get back to the people it belonged to, it came home at the most appropriate time. Like it was waiting all those years for just the right moment to reconnect with family, and in turn to reconnect with history.

Everyone has waited long enough to hear what this mystery item is, so I won’t prolong it anymore, only to say that upon the reveal of the item, all the dots that were laid out in the first four chapters of this story will be connected here in this post. So keep reading if you want to learn how it all unfurled from start to finish.

Just to recap quickly from Chapter 4, where the lost item was journeying to its final destination, these are the things that we know so far about the lost item…

The lost item is over 100 years old.
The item was left behind at an office supply store in a suburb of Atlanta GA in 2008.
A random stranger named Angela discovered the item and tried to track down it’s original owner. For thirteen years her search was unsuccessful.
In 2021, with the help of a Facebook group, Angela was able to connect the lost item to the Vintage Kitchen via a blog post that was written in 2018.
In July 2021, after confirming that the Vintage Kitchen was indeed connected to the lost item, it was mailed via UPS to ITVK in a cardboard envelope.
Although the Vintage Kitchen is connected to the lost item, it does not belong here in the Vintage Kitchen.
In January 2024, the lost item made its way home to its final destination via a journey that involved a plane, three cars, and one boat.
The journey of the lost item took 16 years and 6,500 miles to complete.
Time played a major role in the story of the lost item.

Without further ado, the mystery item that arrived in the Vintage Kitchen in July 2021 was packaged in this cardboard envelope of medium thickness….

This is the cardboard envelope of medium thickness containing the mystery item when it first arrived in the Vintage Kitchen in July 2021. For privacy purposes, pink marks cover the addresses of the sender and recipient.

Still in its same envelope in January 2024, it is time to reveal the mystery item…

The mystery item envelope as photoed in January 2024

Tucked inside the cardboard envelope is a plastic, turquoise-colored binder. The binder itself is not the lost item, but what’s inside the binder is. A turn of the cover reveals history from 100 years ago…

The binder holds fifteen pages of 1920s-era black-and-white photographs containing various scenes of rural family life in a country setting. Consisting of forty-seven individual images in total, the photographs were taped, or in some cases pasted, onto standard white copy paper and then slipped into plastic sleeves and secured in a three-ring binder.

The turquoise binder was clearly a modern addition, but the photographs themselves are originals. It’s easy to see that the photos had been removed at one point in time from a more traditional photo album. Black pieces of paper are attached to some edges, old tape clings to corners and remnants of prior placement in a black-paged photo album are evident.

Handwritten notes are included next to most of the photographs identifying first names, town names, a date, or a general situation, like the one above that says Bud, Florence & Ken out camping. But none of the notes include references to a specific state, country, legible last name or any major scenic sites. Flipping through the pages reveal more photos of babies, dogs, cars, cats. There are houses and train tracks, rolling hills and weathered wood. There are women on horseback, men in overalls, girls in summer dresses, boys hunting in the snow.

There are blurry candid shots and more formal, posed group shots. Several faces reappear in different settings. A building evolves in various stages of construction. There are men in fedora hats and women in fur coats. There’s a foal and a waterfall. A travel trailer. A canoe. A swing hanging from a laundry line. There’s a baby in a bath bucket and a woman sitting on the hood of a car.

All the photographs were taken outdoors and feature different seasons. Many photos feature one specific man in particular. A man in overalls. That’s him in the center of the photo below.

Page after page, faces unfold.

People are named Al… Bill… Bessie… Bud… Merwyn… Lou…Florence. Towns are labeled Garrison and Philipsburg. One photo refers to the “Minnesota Relatives.” A dog is named Laddie Boy.

The lost item is a one-hundred-year-old photo collection of a mystery family in a mystery location. Who are these people and how are they are connected to the Vintage Kitchen? Keep reading for the whole story from start to finish.

Back in 2008, when Angela discovered this photo album that had been left behind at the Staples where she was working in suburban Atlanta, there was no way to track down who it belonged to. It had been left at the self-serve copy area and contained no other information as to where it came from or who brought it in. There was no in-store job ticket attached to it. No Staples order form. No receipt dangling from an interior page. There was just the binder – plastic, turquoise, holding onto fifteen pages of 100-year-old photographs.

Angela at Staples in 2008. Learn more about her in Chapter 2.

Knowing how sentimental old photographs can be, Angela kept the binder in the back room of Staples for safekeeping in hopes that someone would realize that they’d forgotten it and come right back for it. Days, weeks, months went by. The binder sat unclaimed on the shelf in the back room. Periodically during that first year, Angela would thumb through the photos and try to connect one of the handwritten first names to a customer list in the Staples database.

Bill, Florence, Bud, Al are pretty common names throughout the country, but particularly in the South. Searching by first name alone turned out to be a fruitless task. With no legible last names to search, no specific city and state location to pinpoint on a map, and no understanding of the context of the collection as a whole, Angela had no clear-cut way to track down the owner of the left-behind photographs using just the minimal information offered in the handwritten notes. Her only hope was that owner would return to the store to claim the binder. A year went by. A clean-up and reorganization of the back room was issued by Staples management. Angela, concerned that the binder might be misplaced or tossed into the trash during the reorganization took it home so that she could continue to search for its owner.

One year stretched into five years and then into ten and still Angela was no closer to finding out who might have left the photographs behind. Although the story of the turquoise binder didn’t change much in that decade, Angela’s life changed quite a bit. She got married and had a baby. And then she had another baby and another one after that. In that decade, she went from being a single girl working at Staples to a mom with a family of five to care for. By her side through all those life changes was the lost item. In close reach always, in case an important clue or a new lead might reveal itself, the binder became a part of Angela’s life, a puzzling research project that she returned to again and again.

Meanwhile, in another southern state, while Angela was busy raising her family and trying to solve the mystery of the binder filled with photographs, I was busy writing about history, antiques, and vintage recipes. In March 2018, I wrote a blog post, sharing a recipe that had long been a part of springtime/Eastertime menus for generations of my family. The recipe was for Rhubarb Custard Pie – a seasonal dessert that combines Betty Crocker’s 1950s rhubarb custard filling recipe with my Great-Grandpa Bacon’s homemade pie crust recipe.

Rhubarb Custard Pie – a family tradition every spring.

In the post, in addition to the recipe, I shared the story of Great-Grandpa Bacon and his wife, Dolly, who lived in rural Montana during the early to late 20th century. Married in their early 20s, Bacon worked for the Northern Pacific Railroad, a job that took him and his new bride to two rural areas in Montana – Goldcreek and Philipsburg. It was a brave and adventurous new life for them, started at a time when Montana, still young and precarious itself, saw its most difficult years in history.

Montana Homestead Poster circa 1914. Read more about the challenges of Montana homesteading here.

Challenges stemming from WWI, the over-grazing of prairies during the homestead boom, and the subsequent agricultural decline coupled with the wild, unmanaged landscape, towns located few and far between, and the tricky navigation of the unfamiliar ins and outs of remote living, made Bacon and Dolly’s decision to build a life in rural Montana all the more courageous. Dolly was born and raised in Seattle, and Bacon was from St. Paul, MN, both sizeable cities with over hundreds of thousands of residents in the early 19th century. Their new Montana life would take them to communities with populations of less than 2000 people where they had to rely on their own wit and willpower to survive.

Along with the recipe, in the blog post, I detailed Dolly and Bacon’s unusual life in Big Sky Country. I didn’t have any photos of them depicting their early years in Montana, so to help visually tell their story I added a lot of research about what was happening in the state in the 1920s when Dolly and Bacon moved there. I also shared the family story about how Dolly and Bacon’s first house, after they were married, was two railcars gifted to them by Northern Pacific Railroad. A gesture offered by the company so that Dolly and Bacon could immediately set up homekeeping in their new surroundings.

A 1930s era Northern Pacific Railroad poster in Chapter 3 was a big clue about the location of the story.

Definitely an unusual start to their marriage, Bacon and Dolly thrived in Montana and embraced everything about their rural railroad life. Bacon worked as a train depot clerk in Goldcreek and then as a conductor on a transportation line for livestock and mining equipment in Philipsburg.

Now an abandoned track these are recent photos of the train line running through Philipsburg with views that Dolly and Bacon would have seen on a daily basis. Photos courtesy of D & D Travel.

Dolly set up house in the railcars, learned to bake bread, and wrote poetry. They had three babies, two girls and a boy. They built a house and a garden near the tracks where Bacon worked. They hiked in the hills, fished in the streams, and ate fresh-caught trout for breakfast, Dolly’s bread for lunch and Bacon’s homemade pies for dessert. They fell deeply in love with each other, with Montana, and with the life that they made. For fifty-five years, Dolly and Bacon called Montana home, never imagining living somewhere else than the paradise that surrounded them. In 1975, Bacon passed away from a heart attack at the age of 78. Dolly followed five years later in 1980 at the age of 82. They are buried next to each other in the local cemetery in Philipsburg. Even in death their hearts never left the place that they loved.

The rhubarb custard pie recipe received some interest from readers, but not nearly as much as the story of Bacon and Dolly. In 2018, their photo above became one of the most favorited of the year on our Vintage Kitchen social media accounts.

In 2021, Angela still searching for some helpful snippet of information that might lead her to the original owner of the binder, decided to contact a Facebook group that specialized in old-fashioned handwriting. She thought that they might be able to help decode some of the hard-to-read words that accompanied a few of the photos.

The Facebook group was more than happy to help. Within a quick amount of time, they connected words from the handwritten notes in the photo album to words and phrases found online in my blog post about rhubarb custard pie. Bac, Philipsburg, train depot, lived in boxcars, and finally the clincher… Dolly Day… lept out at the group. All threads strong enough to cause Angela to reach out to the Vintage Kitchen via the blog, she sent an email to see if the photos might be connected to the recipe and to the story of Bacon and Dolly. Along with her inquiry, she sent some photos from the binder, this one included…

When I opened Angela’s email, I was greeted by a photo of Bacon himself. In his younger years. In his beloved overalls. In his rural Montana. With Dolly by his side. And just like that, after 13 years of Angela’s diligence, time, and attention to finding the owner of the lost item, her inquiry was confirmed. Yes, indeed the photos were a part of the Vintage Kitchen – firmly rooted to the rhubarb custard pie recipe and to the Montana life of Bacon and Dolly Day.

A windfall for a genealogy lover like me, it was incredible to see personal photographs of someone I had heard about but never met, wrote about couldn’t completely visualize, and whose recipe was in constant use in my kitchen. When the turquoise binder arrived in the mail, Dolly, Bacon and their Montana life lept off the pages.

Suddenly the photo album made all sorts of sense. The woman on the horse? That was Dolly. The two men holding babies? That was Bacon and his twin brother Willis, who in turn, were holding their babies, Dolores and Willis Jr., both born in the same year (1922). The house with the long angle? That was the train depot in Philipsburg where Bacon worked.

The waterfall is part of Skalkaho Pass, a point of interest In southwestern Montana that was mentioned in the photo album but misspelled. The building with everyone hanging out the window? That was the first house that Dolly and Bacon built from scratch with their own hands. The car with the motor home attached? That’s how Bacon and Dolly went camping. And the “Minnesota Relatives?” Those were Bacon’s brothers and sisters and their families visiting from Bacon’s home state.

Bacon and Dolly’s life unfolded in the photos page by page. Every family story known about them as a couple, their kids and their unique life in Montana was now here in visual format offering new insight into them and their experiences. In 2018 when I wrote the rhubarb pie post, I had only the one photograph of Dolly and Bacon in their senior years to share. Now, there are forty-seven more.

As I stated from the beginning of this story, the Vintage Kitchen is connected to the lost photos, but they don’t belong here. I wasn’t the one who pulled them from the pages of an old black photo album. I didn’t compile them in the turquoise binder. Nor was I the one to leave them in the suburban Atlanta Staples in 2008. Technically, Great-Grandpa Bacon and Great-Grandma Dolly aren’t even related to me.

Bacon and Dolly are the grandparents of my mom’s first husband. My brother, sister and I have the same mom but different dads. Bacon and Dolly are part of my brother and sister’s paternal ancestry line which is made up of Midwest and Pacific Northwest roots.

Both my brother and sister have memories of Dolly and Bacon and they both share a special affinity for Montana. Knowing that they would be so excited to learn about these never-before-seen photographs of their beloved great-grandparents, I couldn’t wait to share the story with them. I also couldn’t wait to share this whole story here on the blog too. Especially since I had already written about Bacon’s pie crust recipe. Had the family rhubarb pie recipe never been published, the Facebook group would never have found the Vintage Kitchen and Angela would never have contacted me, so it was very exciting to be able to continue telling the story of Bacon and Dolly here as well.

In the summer of 2021, when the photos arrived from Angela, the pandemic was still wreaking havoc on socialization plans. Although the idea of flying out to Seattle to meet my brother and sister was definitely the way I wanted to deliver the photos to them, I didn’t want to tie up this lovely gift from history wrapped in a case of Covid. So while waiting for the virus to calm down a bit, I decided to start telling the story on the blog. Since both my brother and sister read the blog, and since I didn’t want to spoil the ultimate surprise, I never mentioned anything to them about the photos or Angela or Montana. Hints in Chapters 1-4 of A Monumental Story of Real-Life Serendipity Told Over Many Parts were all filtered through a veil of mystery so that my brother and sister wouldn’t be able to guess that the lost item had anything to do with them.

Fast forward through 2021, 2022, and 2023. The timing never lined up quite right to fly out and finish the story. A six-month house hunt, the South to North move, and 1750 House renovations wound up delaying the surprise far longer than I ever anticipated. But if we’ve learned anything so far in all these chapters about the lost item, it’s that timing is everything to this story and in its weird and wonky way has linked all these people in all these places together at the most appropriate moments.

In January 2024, the right time presented itself. My niece was getting married in Seattle. A family wedding was the perfect occasion to share the story of the lost item and to finally deliver the 100-year-old photographs bound together in their plastic, turquoise bnder.

Before I left for Seattle, I had five copies made of one of the photos from the binder, so that I could frame them and give them to each of my nieces and my brother and sister. I chose a photograph of Bacon, newly married, age 24, where’s he looking straight at the camera. There are rolling hills in the background, part of a rustic building at his shoulder, a patch of corn growing next to a building behind him. He’s wearing his signature overalls. There’s a look of contentment on his face. A welcoming smile just about to bloom.

I had the photos reproduced at my local Staples, an homage to Angela and also to the lost item. While waiting in line to be helped, I glanced over at the self-serve copy area, at the bare tables next to each station, at the hard surfaces, sharp corners, and the utilitarian grey, beige, and black colors that covered that part of the store. I thought about the turquoise binder sitting by itself in such an environment. I thought about Dolly and Bacon tucked inside and how the environment of a modern-day Staples was so far removed from their wild Montana countryside, yet also had become such an integral part of this story.

In 2018, going back and forth with Angela via text after the photos arrived in the Vintage Kitchen, I asked her what it felt like to put the binder in the mail after a 13-year journey with it. She admitted to tearing up a little. “I felt appreciated and blessed. To be able to provide so many people connected to this item with a sense of joy and happiness makes this such a special thing to be a part of.”

When it was my turn to be helped at the counter, the Staples employee was a bit flustered and explained that it had been a busy day and they were running behind with custom print jobs, so I’d have to leave my photo with them overnight and pick up the copies the next day. I hesitated. Bacon had come such a long way. His photograph was in my hand about to be given over. What if… I thought. What if something happens overnight at Staples. What if I never get the photo back. What if…

Clearly tired from her day, and sensing my hesitation, the Staples employee took the photo, popped it into an envelope, and attached it to a work order all in one quick motion while asking if she could help me with anything else. I wanted to tell her the story. The whole story. Starting all the way back at the beginning in 2008 with Angela in the Staples in Georgia. But the line behind me was long, and I got the sense I wasn’t speaking to someone like Angela who would care so wholeheartedly about old photos and lost items.

A detail had escaped my attention until the day before the wedding. It came in the form of my niece’s wedding ring. She designed it herself so that she could include a family heirloom in the setting that had been passed down on her side of the family for generations. The heirloom was a blue Montana sapphire. It had been mined from a local quarry near Philipsburg, Montana. The sapphire had been a gift from Bacon to his daughter, Florence on her 16th birthday in 1940..

Photos clockwise from left to right: Florence in Montana, about 10 years old circa 1934. A professional photograph of my niece’s Montana sapphire wedding ring. And a photo of her ring and wedding band taken at home after the wedding.

The day after the wedding, over trays of homemade enchilada casserole at my brother’s house, I shared the story of the lost item with my sister, brother, and nieces. I presented the turquoise binder and gave everyone their framed photographs. It was one of the loveliest family dinners I’ve ever had. We all marveled at the tenacity of Angela, the scenes of Montana spread around the table, and the good fortune that these photographs were not just thrown out in a dumpster sixteen years ago. My brother told me about a railroad key of Bacon’s that he had in storage and my sister told me about a booklet that she has of poems and musings about Montana written by Dolly. New story snippets and memories popped up in conversation as the photos floated around the table. My brother immediately called an aunt from that side of the family who lived in Atlanta to see if she was the one who left the binder at Staples. She was as surprised to hear about the story as we were and said she had no idea who the binder might have belonged to and how it would have wound up at Staples.

If you think about how fragile a paper photograph is, it’s easy to get quickly overwhelmed with scenarios that could have gone wrong in this story. They could have been destroyed a million different times in Montana alone over the course of a century. Not to mention the fact that they somehow made it to Atlanta. Then got lost. And then potentially could have been thrown out in the trash had kind-hearted Angela not cared enough to rescue them.

Something could have happened to them or to Angela in her thirteen years of time spent with them. Or something could have happened to them in the airplane when they were mailed to the Vintage Kitchen from Georgia or to the UPS truck that delivered them. Once, I received them, they became part of a big move, a typical life experience that often sees items get misplaced, lost or forgotten. And then for three years after that, they sat on a shelf of a 274-year-old house undergoing construction, room by room.

The view from the boat on the way to my brother’s house.

After that, they crossed the country again via plane, traveled in three different cars, and then on a boat to reach their final destination. Anything could have happened to the photographs in that timeframe by any sort of man-made or natural event experienced by any one of us involved. But it didn’t. Fate was on their side. All along, time took care of them, nurtured them. So that eventually, their story about time long ago was able to tell another story about time today. One generation growing from another.

Bacon with mare and foal. Montana circa 1920s.

On the airplane, coming back from the wedding I had to time to think about the whole story of the lost item from start to finish. Now knowing more about Bacon and Dolly, seeing their young lives evolve through photographs, I could see glimmers of their spirit in my brother and sister. The rugged, wild island where my brother lives, and that he absolutely loves, is his modern-day version of paradise just like Bacon’s wild, rugged Montana. My sister, our family’s star baker, is an incredible talent in the kitchen just like Dolly was with her bread and Bacon with his pies.

There is a lot to love about this story… the kindness of strangers, a lost item found, a family reconnected to its past, an heirloom saved from the brink of obscurity, an intimate look at a unique aspect of history, a mystery solved. But I think the thing that I love most is that ultimately, it was a simple, humble vintage recipe that connected all these threads and all these people.

I return again to the quote… “What’s meant for you will never miss you, and that which misses you was never meant for you.” It’s impossible to try to rationalize or explain the sheer amount of good fortune that these one hundred-year-old family photographs were graced with over the past sixteen years and beyond. I can’t logically detail why or how certain people came into the story when they did or why timing stretched out this love story long enough to finally be added to a new generation’s love story on their wedding weekend. All I can do is say thank you, to the universe, to fate, to Angela for clearly demonstrating that these photos were indeed meant to never miss us.

Cheers to Angela, a modern-day angel, for not only saving these photographs, but also for taking such tender care of them, and persistently working for over a decade to find their home. Cheers to Bacon and Dolly for continuing to be a source of interest and inspiration in our family and in our kitchens. And cheers to all you patient Vintage Kitchen blog readers who stuck with me through the lengthy and sporadic telling of this very long story.

There are only two questions left that still linger. How did the 100-year-old photographs taken in Montana that belong to a family in the Pacific Northwest wind up in a suburb of Atlanta, GA? And who wrote the notes next to each photograph?

Maybe there is still more to this story yet to come…

The Handmade Tablecloth: A 1916 Immigration Story

Published on July 4, 2023October 28, 2023 by In The Vintage Kitchen5 Comments

Every family has some tales when it comes to history and the lineage that connects us to ancestors who lived a long time ago. If we are lucky, they are long-winded stories full of color and detail and a relatable sentimentality that can carry our imaginations far across cities and centuries connecting us to relatives we never met.

Other times, there are family histories that are just one-liners. Snippets of stories punctuated with the sparest amount of context and detail. Enough to give you some ideas about who this or that ancestor might have been, or where they came from, or how they experienced life, but beyond that no other information is known. I’m always most intrigued by these slim snippets of genealogical detail. The ones that aren’t flushed out yet enough to form a complete story with a defined beginning, middle, and end. The ones that could have been recited so many times they are now legend tumbled and tossed through generations yet never gaining new insight or understanding. We have quite a few in my family – a great aunt who was a Rockette, a lost family fortune buried somewhere on the island of 18th century Manhattan, a doughnut shop in the Pacific Northwest still waiting to be found. Those quick glimpses into all types of family biography are ripe for more storytelling and a deeper understanding of the experiences that makes up the unique histories of American lives.

In today’s post, we are sharing a 100 year-old-family story brought to the Vintage Kitchen in the form of an heirloom. It did not come with one of the long-winded stories like we mentioned above, the ones full of color and life and detail. Instead, it falls into the latter category. The opposite one. This heirloom came with just a few facts. Vague yet weighty snippets of a story that lightly scratched the surface of a much larger experience.

It starts with an antique tablecloth. Folded up it weighs just over a pound and a half. It’s delicate but also strong, with a heft to its weight like rope. Featuring a hand-crocheted pattern of circular medallions and spider-like stars, it’s executed in thread that is the color of bones. In appearance, it’s not unlike a lot of similar tablecloths that were popular during the 20th century, but this one tells a very specific American story that is very fitting for the 4th of July holiday.

Sent by a woman named Linda, who is a vintage collector in New Mexico, this tablecloth was a family heirloom belonging to Ann, her ex-mother-in-law. When passing down items from her life, Ann requested that this particular linen be handled with respect and appreciation. Although Linda admired the beauty of this tablecloth and the story it represented, she contacted the Vintage Kitchen to see if we might be able to give it a new home.

Arriving in the mail shortly after, the cloth came with a note detailing a few facts surrounding its history.

It belonged to Linda’s ex-husband’s mother, Ann who had recently passed at the age of 87
It was passed down through Ann’s family with the understanding that it came to America by way of an Italian ancestor named Catherine who had traveled by boat from Sicily to Ellis Island in the early 1900s and then went on to Chicago to settle.
According to family lore, the tablecloth was handmade while on the boat waiting to dock in the US

Even though I had a dozen more questions for Linda upon receipt of the cloth, and had requested a photo of it’s maker, unfortunately, Linda and I lost touch shortly after the package arrived. So here it was, this pretty antique tablecloth wrapped up in a handful of intriguing little story snippets just waiting for something more to be told about it.

After a bit of genealogy work and a hunt through Ellis Island immigration records, Linda’s ex-grandmother-in-law’s story burst into colorful life just like a 4th of July firework. It begins here on Ellis Island in March 1916…

Ferry boats carrying immigrants from transatlantic steamer ships that initially docked in lower Manhattan arrive here at Ellis Island’s Immigration Station where their paperwork was completed. Photo courtesy of the New York Public Library.

Even though it was the very first day of Spring, it was a chilly 34-degree March day when the Caserta arrived in New York Harbor. Carrying immigrants from Naples, Italy, the steamer ship coasted into the harbor on choppy waters passing the welcoming sight of the Statue of Liberty. Her torch was not yet electrified, it would be another nine months before that happened, but to the arriving immigrants, she signaled a bright future ahead regardless. Aboard the ship was 20-year-old rosy-cheeked, chestnut-haired Caterina from the seaside town of Bagheria, Sicily.

Most Italian immigrants during the 1910s were fleeing to America to escape economic depravity in their home country. Depending on weather, war, quarantine, detainments, and ship reroutings, the voyage from Naples to New York could last anywhere from twenty-one days to three months. When Caterina came over it was the middle of WWI, and Italy was involved in the battle of Austria-Hungary. Traveling with her older sister Maddalena, we don’t know specifically why these two girls left Italy, but we do know that Caterina paid her own passage and carried $25.00 extra in her pocket along with a crochet needle and a bundle of thread.

Of medium height and good health, Caterina would have no trouble passing through the medical checkpoint before she was allowed access to her new country. Her $25 dollars in savings would not be an issue either as she brought an amount deemed substantial enough by the US government to successfully start afresh in the New World. With intentions to stay with her cousin, Filippo, in the Midwest, Caterina’s final destination was the bustling city of Chicago.

A 1916 map of Chicago IL courtesy of the Library of Congress

According to Linda’s family story, while waiting to dock in New York Harbor, Caterina took her crochet needle from her pocket and put her hands to work. She soothed her anxious nerves by crocheting this 82″ x 52″ inch delicately threaded tablecloth featuring a series of interlocking circles and stars.

I loved this part of Linda’s story for two reasons… 1) I didn’t realize that immigrants had to wait for any extended period of time to gain entry into the US. I assumed that most were docked and processed in the same day. So it was interesting to think that Caterina’s boat could have been detained for a significant amount of time – one in which an entire tablecloth could have been made by hand. 2) The other reason I loved Linda’s story was for the amount of comfort that this tablecloth must have brought. The calming effect of repetitive motion and the focus and attention to detail required to make a circle then a star, a circle then a star intertwining each until there was a cloth over 4′ feet long and 3″ feet wide.

I loved this artistic glimpse into one woman’s life and that I could hold in my hands a tangible item that combined thread with all the emotions of a new adventure – excitement, uncertainty, nervousness, fear, and awe experienced over 100 years ago. I wondered about Caterina, there on the boat, stuffed full with people from her home country all experiencing a cacophony of feelings while she sat calmly making this piece. Was she dreaming of the future table in which she would display her needlework? Did she think about it becoming not only a practical household item for her new home but also a tangible reminder of the journey that she chose to take? Did she know then, that it would eventually become an artifact proving that she, Caterina of Bagheria, Sicily and now of the United States had lived?

The closing of other U.S. ports, the rerouting of ships during WWI, and the threat of communicable diseases could have been some of several reasons why Caterina got hung up in New York Harbor long enough to hand-stitch a linen for her new life. After much research, I couldn’t find anything that would attribute to the delay around that date, but I did learn that four days later, the ship she arrived on, the Caserta, was on its way back to Italy loaded with war-time ammunition for the Italian government.

That led me to wonder if the details of Linda’s family story had gotten a little muddled over the past 100 years. Maybe, Caterina made the tablecloth on the voyage over and finished the last pieces of it while she was waiting to dock. Or maybe in fact, she was on a quarantined boat, arriving in New York days or weeks before the immigration officer officially stamped her papers with the date March 20, 1916. Or maybe she just happened to be a master, faster crocheter that indeed had plenty of ample hours in an ample amount of days to complete such a creative undertaking.

I can imagine that this waiting period at Ellis Island whether brief or lengthy, spent while you are between your old life and your new life, would be a pretty intense time. There is something incredibly marvelous and moving about Caterina documenting her stay in these New York waters under the reassuring gaze of Lady Liberty with her crochet needle and some Italian thread. A simple household item made during a magnificent moment with skill enough to make it last a lifetime. And then some.

Linda’s initial recount of the situation began and ended at Ellis Island, but a bit more research uncovered Caterina’s complete life story. She did make it to Chicago. There she became known as Catherine, the Anglicized version of Caterina, and a little over a year later she met and married Alberto, a fellow Sicilian who had immigrated to America just a few years before her.

Alberto was in the grocery business, successful enough to own three delis in the Chicago area during the early to mid-1900s. Catherine and Alberto had two boys – Anthony and Joseph. Joseph served in the US Air Force during WWII and Anthony in the US Navy. The deli trade was never far from Anthony’s heart and upon return from the war, Anthony followed in his dad’s footsteps and worked in the grocery industry for the rest of his life – first in Chicago and then in California where he opened a deli shop specializing strictly in Italian fare. After Anthony married Ann, a former customer of his dad’s shop back in Chicago, they also had two children – Albert and Diane. Albert a young groom in the 1960s, married Linda, the vintage collector who sent us the tablecloth.

Clockwise from top left: Linda, Albert, Anthony, and Ann. Photo courtesy of Pleasant Family Shopping blog

As for Caterina, she passed away in Los Angeles in 1987, at the age of 92. Living a majority of her life in the US made her geographically much more American than Italian, but she never ventured far from her Italian roots nor the chance to pass on her cultural pride to her boys who then passed it on to their families. A part of all that was this tablecloth. The heirloom made en route from old Italy to new America. The cloth that wove together two parts of one woman’s life. A woman who chose to settle in the United States, to become a citizen, to raise a family of boys who then fought for the US during WWII and then saw her children’s children grow the branches of their family trees in America all the while contributing to the vibrancy of our country’s dynamic landscape. Caterina’s story is a small leaf on the big tree of immigration, but I felt so honored to be able to tell her story and attach it to the tablecloth, her tablecloth, that still lives bright and beautiful in the world today.

I couldn’t ever find a photo of Caterina, so I wrapped her tablecloth around a mannequin and photographed the two together. It’s the closest I could get to visually communicating that the cloth was made by an actual person. Hopefully one day, I’ll come across a photograph of Caterina so that we can know her face. Until then, this portrait will have to do.

Cheers to celebrating all the immigration stories that make our country culturally vibrant this Independence Day. To slim snippets, that form big stories. And most importantly, cheers to Linda and to Ann and to Caterina for sharing their family’s American experience. Important stories lie in everyday objects.

However you choose to commemorate the 4th of July, we hope it’s a memorable one!

Special note: While researching this post, I came across two pieces of media that were especially insightful when it came to understanding the very human and very humbling experience of immigrating to America.

An oral history interview with Italian immigrant Filomena Latta…

https://heritage.statueofliberty.org/oral-history-library

A tour of the Ellis Island Immigration Museum with National Park Ranger Peter Urban…

The Curious Story of the Sponge & Egg Machine

Published on June 30, 2022July 3, 2022 by In The Vintage Kitchen7 Comments

From gooey butter cakes to doughnuts, from deep-dish pie to frozen custard, Missouri has quite a few signature sweets that are the pride of the state. If you do a quick Google search for the best-loved bakeries in St Louis today, you’ll find a list that pretty much all of the internet agrees with… Nathaniel Reid, Whisk, La Patisserie Chouquette, Piccione Pastry, Pint-Size Bakery and The Missouri Baking Company to name just a few. But 140 years ago, there was another St. Louis bakery that topped the list. A confectionary, that specialized in beautiful cakes (of the wedding kind) and handmade European chocolates, and 25 different flavors of homemade ice cream. It might still be a fan favorite today had a tragic turn of events not occurred.

Last week, an inquiry came into the Vintage Kitchen via email regarding an antique metal box. Included with the inquiry were a few photos and a hope that the Vintage Kitchen might be able to provide more information on what exactly this strange little box was. As long-time readers of the blog will know, this is just the type of sleuthing escapade we love to explore, not only for the adventures in research but also for the stories they may reveal. Not all inquiries turn out to be exciting, but this one unveiled such a unique glimpse into the lives of one American family that I couldn’t wait to share it here on the blog. These are photographs of the antique metal box provided by the inquirer that start the story…

With its table-top size, hand crank on one side, a removable lid, and an interior metal grate-style paddle, the subject of the inquiry was indeed an interesting curiosity.

The mark stamped on the front made it even more so…

As stated, there in the football-shaped gold medallion a purpose is revealed. A sponge and egg machine. Followed by L. Mohr. PAT March 13 -1894. St Louis. MO. USA

A sponge and egg machine. Sponges and eggs. What an unusual combination of words. At first literally, I thought of sponges (the cleaning kind) and then eggs (of the chicken-laying kind) and wondered if this was some sort of agricultural tool for breeding poultry. An egg cleaning machine, perhaps? Or some sort of incubator? But those ideas didn’t really make much sense considering the hand crank and the interior paddle.

After a bit of research, a few word associations, and several wormhole travels of similar (but not exact) examples, I came to realize that this box had nothing to do with live chickens or cleaning sponges. It had to do with cake.

As it turned out, this grey metal box with its outer hand crank and inner flipper flapper paddle was an antique egg whipping machine made for mixing sponge cakes. Such a specific machine for such a specific type of cake. It’s not altogether surprising though. The Victorians loved specificity. There were so many single-purpose items in their kitchens and on their dining tables (mustard jars, fish forks, baking cabinets, oyster plates, bone dishes, salt boxes, potato bins, butter pats, etc.) that having a specific machine to whip up a specific cake wasn’t so odd given the time period. But how much cake could one household be consuming in 1800s America to warrant such a convenience? There had to be more to the story. Another deep dive into commercial baking equipment of the Victorian era eventually led me to this guy who made sense of the whole situation…

Portrait of Leopold Mohr, 19th century St. Louis Jewish baker and caterer.

Meet Leopold Mohr of St. Louis, MO. As the city’s preeminent baker, caterer, and confectionary shop owner during the late 19th century, Leopold was a German immigrant, a Jewish baker and a successful entrepreneur, all in that order. Around St. Louis, he was beloved for his cakes, and was consistently sought after for weddings and special social events.

Born in Germany in 1848, Leopold immigrated to the United States sometime before the late 1860s. Standing 5′ 3″ inches tall with brown curly hair and brown eyes, he was described as having a kind face and a friendly demeanor, two characteristics that would help win the favor of future customers. Once he arrived on American soil, Leopold went straight to work making cakes, puddings, ice cream and candies that he hoped would turn out to be the best sweets St. Louis had ever known. With a city population of 351,000 residents and a plethora of bakeries, this was not a small dream. Competition among ” the bread men,” as bakers were referred to in those days, was fierce.

Undaunted, Leopold set out to make his mark. During the 1870s, he built up his career and established a solid reputation. News zipping around the city of his baking style and offerings produced jubilant accolades. “A delicious treat,” announced one newspaper. “The best confection that we’ve ever had,” said another.

It was the “push and energy” of the 1870s that brought Leopold acclaim in the community the following decade when this article was written in 1886.

Like his business, his personal life bloomed in America too. In the summer of 1877, he married Clara, a fellow St. Louisan who shared his German heritage. A year later they welcomed a baby girl named Blanche.

The decade following his marriage, the 1880s, was filled with highs and lows. On the homefront, family raising and babymaking proved to be difficult reminders of how fragile life was. After Blanche was born, Clara became pregnant again but the baby died at birth. Right away, a son followed. Relieved that he was born healthy, Clara and Leopold named him Irwin and then tried again for another baby. But further attempts to grow their family beyond Blanche and Irwin proved futile. Twice more, Clara delivered stillborn babies. After that they stopped trying. It was decided. The Mohrs of St. Louis would be a family of four.

From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch – November 25, 1882

Despite the tragedies at home, Leopold’s bakery business grew bigger and better with each passing year. Eventually owning and operating a baking facility, two retail storefronts, and a multiple-story building that included commercial spaces for lease above, Leopold and the L. Mohr Confectionary Company had hit their stride.

The Jewish Free Press – November 12, 1886

Not only offering desserts, Leopold also made homemade bread, sandwiches, salads and coffee. Delivering freshly prepared food for parties around town, he was a catering hit with the ladies’ luncheon crowd, the newly engaged, the socialites, and the city club members, ultimately earning the reputation of preferred caterer for events big and small. By adding free drop-offs, free packing, party games, and decorating supplies Leopold made it easy and fun to organize an event.

In his retail storefronts, Leopold stocked the shelves with freshly made cakes and desserts alongside imported European delicacies, baking supplies and equipment. During the holiday season, he was the only confectionary shop in all of St. Louis to offer imported Fruit Glace from Europe as well as a collection of French caramels and German fruitcakes.

The sponge and egg machine made its debut in 1894 as a co-invention by Leopold and the H. Perk Manufacturing Company of St. Louis. A time-saving device, Leopold most likely invented this machine for use in his busy bakery. But the overall intention for both Leopold and H. Perk was to patent their design. Then they would manufacture replicas for retail sale for anyone who needed quick whip-ups, whether it be for professional or personal cake baking needs.

1893 World’s Fair held in Chicago, IL . Photo courtesy of census.gov

In the 1890s, Leopold enjoyed the rewards of his hard work and indulged both whimsies and practicalities. He took Blanche and Irwin on a three-week trip to Chicago to see the World’s Fair. He purchased a grand house in the upscale West End side of town. He hosted parties at his home, entertaining friends and relatives. And he generously gave back to the community by becoming a financial supporter of area organizations and charities including the Home for the Aged and Infirm Israelites of St. Louis.

But for all the joy Leopold’s confectionary career brought, there were many disappointments to contend with too. Throughout the 1870s, 1880s, and 1890s, he weathered the highs and lows of running a commercial enterprise that others in the St. Louis business community were envious of. He was once assaulted in the face, by a fellow bakery competitor. Another time, a commercial tenant in Leopold’s building tried to sue him for $25,000 (an equivalent of $716,000 today) for claims of lost work due to an inefficient elevator and pungent bakery odors. Another year, a train hit one of his bakery delivery wagons smashing it to pieces. The Sponge and Egg Machine even got caught up in a legal battle when Leopold was forced to sue H. Perk over royalties due.

Throughout all these trials and tribulations, Leopold remained courteous and professional, handling each public outcry with the decorum and grace he had become known for. St Louis was expanding so quickly in those final decades of the 1800s, that the city became the 4th largest in the country practically overnight. Reading through the old newspapers published during that time period, there was a sense of the Wild West when it came to conducting business and every man was in it for himself. For someone like Leopold, who built his business from the ground up, his success combined with his good nature made him a target for others to take advantage of. Fortunately for Leopold though, his customers remained loyal and the nefarious encounters didn’t harm his good reputation…

But there was one tragedy that Leopold could never recover from. And, sadly it ultimately became the downfall of the L. Mohr Confectionary Company. In January 1899, Leopold came down with a bout of influenza which then progressed into pneumonia. A week later on a cold winter morning, to the shock of everyone, Leopold died. He was just 51 years old. He left behind his wife Clara, to whom he’d been married for 22 years, his 17-year-old daughter Blanche and his 15-year-old son Irwin. The funeral was held at his West End home for all who wanted to attend. On January 27th, 1899, the Jewish Voice reported on the crowd present at the sad event… “an immense concourse of friends, both Jews and non-Jews, among whom a very large number of representative citizens, testified to the high esteem in which the deceased was held by them.”

Strangely enough, as if the spark had extinguished more than just Leopold’s life, that of his family’s continued to dim from that point on as well. A year after his death, his daughter Blanche married Max Schulz, the founder of St. Louis’ first department store. It was a quiet wedding. The society section remarked on the absence of Leopold.

Eight years into their marriage, Max died at the age of 44, and eight years after that Blanche died, from an unspecified illness at the age of 37. The year following the death of Blanche, Leopold’s wife, Clara died at the age of 63. Irwin, who had inherited his father’s entrepreneurial spirit, started his own skirt manufacturing company in St. Louis, but unlike Leopold, Irwin wasn’t granted a decades-long career. Irwin died in a hotel room in St. Louis in 1934 from natural causes. He was just 48.

Photo of Irwin Mohr and possibly his sister, Blanche.

If you were to visit St. Louis today, you’d see no signs of Leopold or his bakery on the downtown city streets. You wouldn’t see the presence of the Mohr name on Broadway, on Chestnut Street, on Chouteau Avenue. You wouldn’t see any catering and cake advertisements for the L. Mohr Confectionary Company in the Jewish newspapers or the city dailies. And no one would be talking about the most delicious cake they’d ever eaten from this bakery that had been around since the 1860s. The only thing left of Leopold in St Louis now is his grand house in the West End district. Even that has been changed over time though. Currently, the house is broken up into multiple apartment units…

Just when it seemed that all the world had forgotten about the life and times of Leopold Mohr, Victorian baker, and he’d sunk far into the depths of obscure history, his invention The Sponge & Egg Machine resurfaced. 129 years later. The antique metal box with the outer hand-crank and interior paddle. The mixer used to whip up eggs for cakes. The object that just a week ago seemed so foreign, so unusual, so unknown has now turned into an intimate artifact – a storybook- detailing the unique life of a 5’3″ German-American Jewish baker with brown hair and brown eyes and a friendly, kind demeanor.

I’m so grateful for all the inquiries that come into the shop with questions that spurn curiosity and stories like this. It’s interesting that Leopold’s family never carried on with the business that Leopold built. Blanche married a merchant, and Irwin was a merchant himself, so it seemed like between the three it would have been a natural fit to carry on the bustling business of the L. Mohr Confectionary brand. Perhaps though, that was the immigrant’s dream and his alone. If I met Leopold today, I’d have a dozen questions to ask him about what it was like to build a successful business in a foreign country, about his baking heritage, about his favorite recipes and his curious machine, and about how he managed to balance the energetic joys and tragic sorrows of his work and home life. And most definitely I’d ask him to share his sponge cake recipe – the one he made for the weddings and the machine.

When the initial inquiry about the Sponge & Egg Machine came into the shop, the owner of it asked about a ballpark value for this rare piece of American baking history. I offered details of pricing, specifically what we might list it for in the shop, but I also offered recommendations for donating it to a museum that might be interested in acquiring it for their permanent collection. One was the new Capital Jewish Museum coming to Washington DC which details the Jewish experience in America and the other was the State Historical Society of Missouri which specializes in local history.

As of this writing, I’m not sure what the owner of the Sponge & Egg machine plans to do with it. Will it be sold in the antique marketplace or will it become part of a permanent collection in a public institution that might inspire the next generation of our country’s great bakers or inventors or biographers? Since there are no other L. Mohr machines available on the market today, my fingers are crossed for the museums, where Leopold’s life and his invention would be connected to a bigger narrative and reach a larger audience. As I explained to the lovely owner of the machine, it may take some determination, dedication, and a little bit of extra work to place the Sponge & Egg in a permanent collection, but I think it would be worth it. From the perspectives of his Jewish faith, his German immigration, his inventive mind and his successful Victorian-era small business, this seems like the best time to tell good stories about good people who made good impacts on their communities. St. Louis has been known for their baked goods for over a hundred years. Who knows how many other bakeries or businesses Leopold’s Confectionary might have unknowingly inspired in the past century. Hopefully, with a little bit of luck, his story will continue to be told.

Cheers to curious minds, to the lovely inquirer who shared the photos of the Sponge & Egg Machine, and to Leopold for offering us a fascinating new glimpse on an old life.

{Old} House Stories: An Interview with Ken Staffey

Published on December 6, 2017December 15, 2017 by In The Vintage Kitchen1 Comment

The Ephraim Burr Beers House, circa 1810 – Clapboard Hill, Westport CT. Read more history about this house here. Photo by Ken Staffey.

Nora Roberts once wrote “it was a mistake to think of houses, old houses, as being empty. They were filled with memories, with the faded echoes of voices. Drops of tears, drops of blood, the ring of laughter, the edge of tempers that had ebbed and flowed between the walls, into the walls, over the years. Wasn’t it, after all, a kind of life? They carried in their wood and stone, their brick and mortar a kind of ego that was nearly, very nearly, human.”

Recalling those faded voices, those human experiences, those memories, the forgotten details and the covered over contributions of the places that Nora nuanced, in today’s post we are tackling a discussion about the very interesting life found in and around old houses of early America as discovered by a modern day history lover. If you are a fan of any old house photo feeds on Instagram, chances are you have come across Ken Staffey’s gorgeous account simply called House Stories.

Ken features primarily photographs of historic homes in the Northeastern United States and dives into the interesting family histories behind them with a mix of interesting facts, personal details, and quirky insights. Most often he features houses from the 18th and 19th century that tell the story of how New England grew up. The places where merchants, farmers, sea captains, doctors, writers, politicians, extraordinary people and everyday citizens raised their families and found their footing among the blooming new frontier called the United States.

Located in Marblehead MA, the Sandin House was built in 1714 for fisherman William Sandin and his wife Joanna. Marblehead was once deemed the greatest town for fishing in New England.

From the bones that make up the frames of these centuries-old places, Ken has pulled stories about past occupants, owners, and architects; about city plans gone awry and country enterprises gone right; about dreams found and opportunities lost, about big events and tiny details, all of which remind us how the past is still very much present in our modern daily lives. We’ve caught up with Ken interview-style to learn more about his passion and his process of bringing history home. Included are his top-picks of places to visit for any architecture enthusiast and his thoughts on where current trends are headed when it comes to living with old houses in a new world.

{Note: Ken’s house photos have been featured throughout this interview. Click on each image to read Ken’s Instagram enties.}

In The Vintage Kitchen: What ignited your idea of posting house stories on Instagram?

Ken Staffey: In the beginning, I posted random photos like everyone else. I found that the house photos seemed to get the best response. Then I started to add a bit of history along with each home and eventually it evolved into what it is today, House Stories – history told one house at a time.

This house was part of a planned community built in the 1870’s as imagined by Alexander Turney Stewart, a dry goods entrepreneur who emigrated from Ireland to New York. Read more about this house here.

ITVK: How do you decide which houses to feature?

KS: I pretty much photograph whatever catches my eye. Later the challenge of finding some history that goes with the home is a big part of the fun. Just about all the homes I have featured date from the colonial period to about 1920.

In Ken’s post about the 1871 Wells-Catlin House, in Brookline, MA he talks about the history behind the name of the town. Read more about it here.

ITVK: Explain a little bit about your process of researching these old houses. Do you find that their histories are pretty easy to obtain or do you find yourself knee-deep in archive vaults and old records?

KS: Thankfully, I am never knee deep in archive vaults and old records, but I am often in deep with virtual equivalents, which is much easier thankfully. Many old directories and records have been scanned and are now online. Usually, I will just start with the address and see what I come up with there. Often once I get past the online real estate listing for a home, I can find something interesting about the home or its early occupants. And thank God for historical societies and preservation groups that have not only saved these wonderful old homes but also recorded a good deal of their history.

Yale graduate Nathan Hale taught school in this shingled house in New London, CT in 1774, a few years before he was accused of being a spy and hung by the British Army during the Revolutionary War. The schoolhouse has been moved several times around town but through the support of the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution it is being well maintained and offers tours for visitors.

ITVK: Do you ever speak with the property owners to learn more about each house? If not, do you think that most homeowners are aware of the interesting histories their homes have?

KS: Typically I do not speak with the property owners, but I have had a good handful of requests from owners to feature their homes. They often know a bit of the history about their homes, but that sometimes can be inaccurate. One family had been retelling stories from their home’s history. Once I dug a bit, I found that the history had been twisted in the retelling over the years, so it was fun to set the record straight for the owners.

City streets and neighborhoods, in particular, are home to a slew of fascinating stories with so many people moving in and out and coming and going. Ken writes about the history of this street in NYC’s West Village here.

ITVK: Do you live in a historic house yourself? If so, does your house have a fascinating story too?!

KS: I grew up in a house that was built in 1940 and since college, I have always been drawn to apartments in older buildings, most of them over a century old. The home I now own is 89 years old and was built as part of a wave of new housing to accommodate the thousands of factory workers who found work in the once-thriving factories here in Bridgeport, Connecticut. My home is not historic and the funny thing is that I have never even tried to find any history. I do know that the same family owned the home for decades and people have told me a bit about them here and there.

ITVK: What are three things that modern architecture lacks that all these great old houses contain?

KS: I am a big fan of all types of architecture, but I am partial to the homes of the past. I think modern architecture has a style all its own, but what modern homes lack is a history and stories about the people that lived there and the surroundings. Over time even the most modern of homes will have a story to tell.

One great example of a modern house having a fabulous “new” story to tell was Ken’s post on the First Year Building Project designed by students at the Yale School of Architecture. One hundred years from now (fingers crossed that it survives that long) this house will have made a marvelous contribution to its neighborhood. Read more about the project here.

ITVK: If you could live in (or own) any one of the houses you have featured to date, which would you choose and why?

KS: I am not sure about a particular house, but I was enamored by the recreated New England village circa 1820-1830 at Sturbridge Village. It is a living museum with interpreters who go about their business as New Englanders did two centuries ago. The buildings were moved there from around New England, so you can see a village that is free of modern structures and vehicles, which gives you a good idea of life in that era. Also, you can watch the interpreters engage in activities like farming and weaving as they would in Early America.

Old Sturbridge Village – an 1830’s living history museum.

ITVK: If you could have cocktails with any famous person, living or dead, in any house in the world, who and where would you choose and why?

KS: It would be interesting to have drinks with someone from the colonial era. Many of the colonists brought the tradition from England of having beer as a drink instead of whatever and a review of their habits show that it was not unusual for them to have a beer with breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

The White Horse Tavern in Newport RI was founded in 1673 making it the oldest operating bar in the US. See more historic libation stations on the oldies list here.

ITVK: One of my most favorite houses you’ve featured so far is the Jonathan and Abigail Starr house in Guilford, CT that was built in 1732…

The Jonathan and Abigail Starr House, Guilford CT built in 1732.

You shared this information about the house:

“This Church Street home was built for Jonathan and Abigail Starr in 1732 on land obtained from Jonathan’s father, Comfort Starr. Jonathan was a fourth generation New Englander. His great- great-grandfather was a surgeon, also named Comfort Starr, from Ashford, England, who sailed to America aboard the ‘Hercules’ in 1634. Joining him were his wife, Elizabeth, their three children and three servants. Dr. Starr’s parents clearly had a preference for unique names. His sisters were Suretrust and Constant and his brothers were Joyfull and Jehosaphat. The Starrs of Ashford lived a comfortable life with an estate about 60 miles southeast of London, but their move may have been motivated in part by grief as the grave of their son was said to be “not yet grass-grown” when they set out from the port of Sandwich for the “Plantation called New England in America.”

Do you have any other fun details about this house in particular?

KS: I do not, but I did love the names of the Starr children. I featured the Comfort Starr house (below) a few days after the Jonathan and Abigail Starr post.

Portrait of Comfort Starr and one of his daughters alongside Ken’s photo portrait of Comfort’s house built in the mid 1650’s and a detailed side view sketch of it’s traditional saltbox style.

While known as the Comfort Starr House, this Guilford home was actually built for Henry Kingsworth around 1646. Mr. Starr, a tailor, purchased the home from Kingsworth’s heirs in 1694. He and his wife Elizabeth raised eight children here: Abigail, Elizabeth, Hannah, Comfort, Submit, Jonathan, Jehoshaphat, and Amy. The home was in the family for almost 200 years. Among the last to live here were seven Starr sisters, who were nicknamed ‘Pleiades’ for the seven sisters constellation. When the last sister, Grace, died at 83 in 1874, the home was sold outside the family. Today it is one of the oldest homes in Connecticut that is still a private residence.

ITVK: Is there one New England town, in particular, that should be on every house enthusiasts must-see list?

KS: I think that depends on what type of architecture you like. If you are a fan of first-period homes (1625-1725), Ipswich, Massachusetts has the highest concentration of those homes in the country. There are enough clustered together that it is not too hard to imagine what the area looked like centuries ago.

Ipswich, MA. Photos courtesy of the Ipswich Visitor Center.

If Victorian architecture is your thing, you could head to Willimantic, Connecticut. The town saw rapid growth as the textile mills expanded there. Because Victorian architecture was in style at the time, there are many Queen Anne homes along with other Victorian treasures. In both cases, the prevalent style reflects a period of growth followed by an economic downturn, which is why the homes were not updated or replaced with more recent styles. But those are just two examples, you can find architectural gems just about anywhere. Once you start looking, you’ll be surprised how much you’ll find.

A collection of Victorian, Greek Revival and Queen Anne styles houses that can be found in Willimantic, Connecticut

ITVK: What is your most favorite style of architecture, and why does it appeal to you?

My tastes have definitely changed to favor the simple early American homes. If you had asked me two years ago, I would have said Victorian homes, but I have grown to appreciate plain design with few distractions from the colonial period. Also, the history from that period is fascinating. Life was harder in so many ways in terms of having to work hard to get things done, but there was also simplicity to life without all the distractions of today. That being said, I enjoy modern conveniences as much as anyone else, but I can appreciate a simpler existence.

In addition to telling house histories, Ken also incorporates fun facts and other interesting tidbits relating to holidays or customs or historical pop culture which keeps each post from being formulaic. Read more about this 1720 Brookfield, CT house here.

ITVK: Have you had the opportunity to look inside any of the houses you’ve featured? And if so, do you have any memorable kitchen stories from them?

A visit to Louisa May Alcott’s family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts is a treat. Because 80% of the furnishings are original to the home when the Alcotts lived there, you can see how the author and her family lived.

Orchard House – home to Louisa May Alcott. Read more about her and her house here.

They often endured lean times, but Louisa and her sisters enjoyed putting on shows for guests right there in the parlor. Upstairs, you can see the small desk where Louisa wrote her best selling books. It’s really nothing more than a shelf along the window, but it was there that she produced works that touched readers the world over.

The kitchen at Orchard House where the entire family spent time together. Photo courtesy of louisamayalcott.org

The kitchen is another wonderful window on the past. It was here that the Alcott women cooked, cleaned and drew water from the pump beneath the trap door in the kitchen floor. The author herself says, “All of the philosophy in our house is not in the study, a good deal is in the kitchen, where a fine old lady thinks high thoughts and does good deeds while she cooks and cleans.” I highly recommend a visit to this house museum.

ITVK: So many old houses revolve around the idea of family, whether they were built to accommodate them, or given as wedding gifts or passed down through generations. Because we are such a transient society these days, and on average only stay 7-10 years in a house before moving on, do you think we are slowly losing a sense of place in our modern day world that connects us to the history of our land? Do you think this is why, fundamentally, old houses still hold so much appeal and nostalgia for us?

KS: Overall we have definitely shifted to a more disposable society, but if you look more closely, there is a quieter celebration of the past. People are still restoring our treasured antique homes and many others will furnish their homes in a throwback style such as farmhouse, colonial or even midcentury modern.

This house was built in Fairfield, CT in the 1990’s but the exterior contains elements of classic French chateau, colonial and federal styles that could give the impression that it is older than it actually is. Read more about it here.

This house in Westport, CT was also built in the last 20 years. New to look old, it was modeled after early colonial designs. Read more about it here.

Also, there are more people drawn to be what we now call “makers.” They may be crafters, foodies, or designers and together they have recreated an echo of the cottage industries of our ancestors. Two centuries ago, artisans worked and sold their goods out of their homes and today there are plenty of people working, living and creating from their homes. So, I think we are more connected to our homes than we realize today.

The Roe House, built in the 1680’s, now serves as the Port Jefferson, New York Chamber of Commerce. Read more about it here.

In New York City’s Soho neighborhood this building originally hosted a tobacco shop in the early 1800’s. Now it’s a clothing store with a 19th-century murder story to tell. Read more about it here.

This house built in 1781 in Litchfield, CT has been home to a number of cottage industries throughout its life including an apothecary shop, a grocery store and now a doctor’s office. Read more about it here.

Does place dictate who we are or who we have the potential of becoming? Not always. But it certainly does have the opportunity to indulge us and to nurture our life’s pursuits just like Orchard House had done with Louisa May Alcott who drew so much of her own environment into her works of fiction. Had Louisa never grown up in that brown clapboard house would Little Women have been the same book we know today?

Orchard House photographed sometime between 1860-1920. Courtesy of the New York Public Library Digital Images.

Like dipping your toe into the pool of history and watching the ripple effect the entire body of water, Ken’s House Stories are mini in content but mighty in impact. He shows us that behind every person stands a physical structure that was impacted by them or for them. He reminds us that a person’s individual history, although singular at the time eventually becomes our collective history as a nation. One country formed by billions of individual contributions. Big, small, humble, grand.. the old houses stand as truth showing us where we have been and where we have the potential to go.

A sampling of houses Ken has featured on House Stories that range in age from the 1670’s to the 1860’s.

A very big cheers to Ken for spotlighting the stories of our country’s founding families. Find him on Instagram here. And cheers to all the people who loved, saved and protected our early American architecture from re-development and decline and continue to do so every day.

Other historic architecture-related posts from the Vintage Kitchen can be found here…

Other interviews by artisians, craftspeople, collectors and interesting characters from around the world can be found here.

The Week In Review: A Date With Julia, Washington DC and Finding A Lost Bird

Published on May 17, 2017May 18, 2017 by In The Vintage Kitchen6 Comments

Like the thrill and excitement of watching those horses speed around the track during the Kentucky Derby two Saturdays ago so was my trip racing around Washington D.C.. To follow-up from the post before this one, we did make it to D.C. just in time (with about 3 minutes to spare!) to meet up with friends, watch the Derby AND drink a mint julep. Perfect timing!

Always Dreaming! Photo courtesy of thedailybeast.com

If you missed the race Always Dreaming was the big Derby winner, leading the whole entire way from start to finish on a very muddy track. It was definitely a well deserved victory although I was really rooting for Patch the whole way, who wound up coming in 14th. It appears as if no one else was dreaming about Always Dreaming as the first-to-line finisher in our blog contest either so the festivities continue on through the Preakness (this Saturday!) and into the Belmont (on June 10th). Stay tuned this weekend to see if Always Dreaming wins part two of the Triple Crown!

Meanwhile, back in Washington the week fell in three parts…art, Julia and Virginia. The last time I spent more than a day in Washington D.C. I was 10 years old and visiting my oldest sister who lived and worked right in the heart of downtown. This time around I was staying on the Maryland side of the metro D.C. area.

With a view that began and ended each day like this…

it was hard to go wrong from the beginning. Add in the welcome committee…

quaking their way through news of the D.C. day… and it was lovely from day one.

Staying in such close proximity to the Capitol, I had mighty plans to see about 10 different sites throughout the city on this visit which included five museums, the Botanical Gardens, the Library of Congress, the Franciscan Monastery, the National Archives and the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. I realize now on my return that this was totally ambitious, but I thought in my pre-trip planning days that if I was fast on my feet and spent only an hour or two at each place I might be able to fit it all in during a three day stretch. After all Charles Dickens did nickname this metropolis the City of Magnificent Intentions. Technically I was right on track.

Of course once I stepped through my first museum and saw all the intriguing things that lay ahead of me I realized that I would never be able to keep up with such a strict and rigorous time schedule. It only took me one museum to realize that Washington D.C. is best digested slow.

There is no room for frenzied pace setting or shy glances in this historic environment. From street to sky, everything in D.C. is fascinating whether you are walking on centuries old cobblestone in Alexandria or admiring architecture on Pennsylvania Avenue time is what you need plenty of in order to ingest the experiences of our past presidents.

This is the house where Lincoln died. It’s located right across the street from Ford Theater.

So that’s exactly what I did. I took some time. I abandoned my wish list of seeing everything fast, and focused on seeing a few things slowly. Highlights from the three museums I managed to get through are as follows…

At the National Portrait Gallery…

This famous portrait of Benjamin Franklin painted in 1785 hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. Because I had seen this picture a zillion times in books and all over the internet I thought I’d pop by, say hi and be on my way. But Ben had other plans. He was a wise 79 years old when he sat for this painting. And you can tell Ben’s got things to say from the second you see him.

The artist, Joseph-Siffred Duplessis translated an expression in Ben’s face that reads “Hey there, I have some interesting stories for you. Stay for a minute and I’ll explain.” And so I did, lured in by a magic painting spell. All the achievements he accomplished, the foresight he had, the contributions he made to the forming of our country, swirled around in those eyes and that smile, ready to break at any moment. He was captivating in all the right ways.

That experience with Benjamin Franklin reinforced the fact that I couldn’t zoom past everything and expect anything to have an impact. There was so much significance in the air around me that I was going to have to slow down in order to appreciate it all.

The Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery are both connected in the same building so you can cross over long hallways from the art museum to the portrait gallery in just a few steps. On the art museum side I found these favorites in the painting department…golden framed beauties covering two centuries including a large scale John James Audubon bird painting from 1836…

Clockwise from top left: Angel by Abbott Handerson Thayer, 1875; Washington Sea Eagle by John James Audubon 1836-1839; Round Hill Road by John Henry Twachtman 1890-1900; Our Lady of Guadalupe by Pedro Antonio Fresquis 1780-1830

Downstairs on the ground floor I discovered colorful cafeteria art of the 1940’s…

which was from a series by Gertrude Goodrich titled Scenes from American Life (Beach) and which originally hung in the cafeteria of the city’s Social Security Building. I loved the bright colors and all the commotion going on – each figure in the painting has their own personality. Here are some up close snippets..

It really is a lively improvement from the food diagrams and nutrition charts found in most cafeterias today, don’t you think?

At the National Portrait Gallery –

Just like my time spent with Ben, I was equally captivated by an exhibit called The Face of Battle: Americans at War from 9/11 to Now which featured intimate glimpses into soldier’s lives… black and white leisure portraits taken in camp, paintings of wounded soldiers in full uniform, photographs of deceased soldiers home-based bedrooms, a creative video piece of a casket returning stateside. As you can imagine it was really moving and very sad. One of the exhibits inside the exhibit was a 5,000+ piece collection of small wallet sized pencil drawings of American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan. This installation was completely hand-drawn by the American artist, Emily Prince. It took up three walls of one gallery and from a distance looked like a big Scrabble board. This is a snippet of one wall…

And upon color inspection…

And an even closer view below. This is just one example of the thousands Emily has hand-drawn. The exhibit is titled American servicemen and women who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan, but not including the wounded, nor the Iraqis, nor the Afghans. Read more about Emily and the project here.

We were visiting D.C. during the start of Police Week so uniformed men and women from all over the world were everywhere. At the airport, teams of officers six or eight to a group met flights as they came in containing passengers whose family had died protecting the country. The officers stood across from each other with arms raised in salute as people walked off each flight. The officers recognized the families they were meeting either by Hero t-shirts or by camera phones recording the walk from the plane to the gate. It was bittersweet. Sad that people had died but wonderful that the military and our protective services were still honoring their contributions.

On a cheerier note…

at the Museum of American History…

a very special face was also on display. I was definitely determined not to leave Washington until I saw this lady and her famous kitchen…

In an exhibit detailing the transformation of American food from the 1950’s to the 2000’s, Julia Child’s kitchen from her house in Cambridge, Massachusetts sat front and center.

It’s a little tricky to get good photos of it because the whole kitchen itself is sealed in. Small cut-outs covered in plexi-glass serve as viewing stations, so there is a little battle to be fought with glare from the plexi-glass and the fellow visitors who squish in to see. But you can get the idea of a 360 view (in parts!) from the following…

Everything in the kitchen is as Julia left it when she donated the entire room and all its contents to the Museum in 2001. It was full of surprising little details including lots of cat art, a fridge full of magnets (she was was a fan of the King Arthur flour brand!), family photographs, a rubix cube tucked behind a telephone and all the little odds and ends that you can find in anybody’s kitchen famous or not. She had a junk drawer. She labeled things with masking tape and handwriting. She hung onto favorite pieces of equipment outdated or not.

As revered as Julia had become it is easy to see in this exhibit how normal and ordinary a person she actually was. Her kitchen reflected that. It wasn’t photo-shoot ready. It wasn’t glamorous. Not everything had a place. Her cookbooks were used. Her counter tops were messy. But it was functional for the way she liked to cook. It was a fun play space for her and in turn it was a fun exhibit for me. I think that is what still makes Julia Child so admired. She was an unpretentious lover of food and of cooking and her kitchen reiterates all that. The manner in which it is displayed there at the Smithsonian you can easily imagine that she just popped over into another room of the house, perhaps to fetch something for her husband Paul and that in any second she was going to come right back and get to cooking. Aided by video monitors playing clips from her cooking shows around the exhibit, your imagination does not have to stretch far to picture her standing at the sink peeling potatoes or at the stove flipping omelettes.

There is a fun 5 minute video on youtube that explains how the museum staff takes care of her kitchen. It also gives you some up close behind-the-scenes info on specific items within the display.

Also in the History Museum was an interesting exhibit on the clothing worn by the First Ladies (mostly during inaugural balls or welcome receptions) and the china patterns that each selected for their White House term. The oldest in the collection of both dress and dish belongs, of course, to Martha Washington…

Clockwise from top: The entire display of china starting with Martha Washington and ending with Hilary Clinton. Bottom left: A dress Martha Washington wore from the 1780’s, and the banquet china pieces she and George used in their presidential mansions in New York and Philadelphia.

Most of the china patterns were variations on a theme… gold bands/eagles/jewel tone colors, etc. but Lucy Webb Hayes, wife of President Rutherford B. Hayes commissioned an artist in the 1870’s to design a set of china that incorporated the flora and fauna of the United States. To this day, Lucy’s china pattern still remains the most creative of all the administrations.

I may not have made it to the Botanical Gardens on this trip but to serious surprise and complete excitement equal to that of seeing Julia Child’s kitchen, I stumbled into this big beauty in the gardens of the Natural History museum next door…

the passenger pigeon sculpture by Todd McGrain from the Lost Bird Project that we wrote about in 2013! She’s tucked inside a walled garden just off the street so I almost walked right by her. In the busy world of modern day urban life, she sits surrounded in the museum’s Bird Garden by flowers and real-life bird flocks flapping their wings here and there so she’s in a great spot. If you missed the post about the Lost Bird project and Todd’s mission to memorialize extinct birds catch up here.

Moving on from museums and spending time waterside in the fresh spring air, the charmer on top of our whole trip was spending half a day in Alexandria, Virginia. We had lunch on the wharf…

and then spent the afternoon walking around town in George Washington’s footsteps.

The first tenement house George and Martha built in 1797 for investment purposes.

Every street was cuter than the last. I definitely could have picked any one of those houses to live in. I even found my ideal car…

We stopped into a local pub and met a local (imagine that!) who gave us a little verbal history tour through his town.

and we found the house where they filmed scenes from the PBS show Mercy Street…

So pretty! You can access Alexandria by car or ferry – both just a quick trip from D.C.. Like easily imagining Julia in her kitchen it is very easy to picture George and Martha Washington or Ben Franklin or any other early colonials walking down the historic streets. Everything is all brick and cobblestone, clapboard and flower boxes. History plaques make a self guided walking tour easy and your camera won’t stop clicking for all the pretty photo opportunities.

Since I didn’t make it to all the places on my original list that still leaves so much to do on future trips back to the D.C. area. I think you could live in this section of our country for two dozen years and still not see everything! But that’s what’s marvelous about Washington – it’s a never-ending series of new (old) places to discover upon every return.

Cheers to that! Or huzzah as our noble men Ben and George liked to say!

Anna Clellan and the Love Apple Soup circa 1928

Published on February 16, 2017February 24, 2017 by In The Vintage Kitchen1 Comment

There has been a lot of talk about recipes here on the blog as of late but so many interesting food-related topics have been popping up recently in the historic land of Ms. Jeannie, it seems a shame not to share them. So here we are back in the vintage kitchen with a newly discovered almost 100 year old recipe that came from Ms. Jeannie’s great -great Aunt. This week’s post takes us to the heartland of America – a middle state where young newlyweds ventured via covered wagon in the the 1860’s and set up life, spreading their roots so deep in the soil they practically built up the foundation of a small township.

Albert, Martha, their children and grandchildren — Albert and Martha (pictured on each side of the flower arrangement) in Vinton, Iowa surrounded by their children and grandchildren.

We have talked about the Edwards’ family a few times previously on the blog so if you are a regular reader you’ll remember the adventurous Albert and his wife Martha who married in Johnson County, Indiana in 1865 and then immediately (the very next day in fact!) got into a covered wagon and headed west towards a new frontier. Three months later, Albert and Martha settled in Benton County, Iowa in a small town east of Cedar Rapids.

If you are familiar with Little House on the Prairie and are up on your John Travolta movies you’ll know Vinton, Iowa for two reasons. It is where Mary Ingalls attended the Iowa School for the Blind (also known as the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School) between 1881-1889 and it is where they filmed many scenes of the movie, Michael, (including the final courthouse scene) starring John Travolta, Andie MacDowell, William Hurt and Oliver Platt.

Vinton, Iowa is faomus for these faces and places.

Known primarily for its burgeoning agricultural opportunities in the mid-1800’s, Martha and Albert had two goals when they moved to Vinton – farming and family. In true pioneer spirit they got down to business right away working out their farmplace and starting a family dynasty that would eventually produce 11 children and 45 grandchildren. Their first baby, Anna was born during the crispy days of October 1866 just 19 months after their arrival in Iowa.

As the oldest of her 10 brothers and sisters, Anna learned a lot about farm life, babies and family relationships. By the time she was 4 she saw the birth of two brothers and then the sad death of one those brothers who was in her life for just 7 short months. The next five years brought three new sisters and then the death of her remaining brother Cornelius. So by the time Anna was nine years old she had already witnessed the death of two of her siblings.

When Anna turned 18 in 1885 and married Selmon T. Whipple she had six sisters in total ranging in age from 2-14. Immediately following their wedding Anna and Selmon set up their own farm in Benton County and got to work on their own family. At this point in the late 1880’s and early 1890’s, babies were coming into the family from all directions.

Anna’s mom, Martha was still having her own kids and Anna was just starting to have hers, which means mom and daughter were preganant and giving birth at the same time. So the the first few years of Anna’s marriage went something like this… a baby boy for Anna, and then a baby brother for Anna, a baby girl for Anna and then a baby sister for Anna. It’s a whirlwind of confusion and name sharing where all the aunts and uncles are close in infantile age to their nieces and nephews but brothers and sisters have almost two decades between them. And then add in the fact that Anna’s six sisters were starting to marry and have their own families and it was just kids everywhere.

Selmon and Anna's house in Vinton Iowa, built in 1906 — Selmon and Anna’s house in Vinton, Iowa.

Basically for the first twenty years of Anna’s marriage she was pregnant and raising babies. Her fifth son Frankie died the day he was born but all the other little ones made it through to adulthood. A year and a half after her last baby, a little girl named Nellie, was born, Anna’s husband Selmon fell off a shed and became paralyzed. For three long months he lay immobile at home before he died leaving Anna, aged 45, the entire responsibility of managing the farm, twelve kids and her large house.

Death notice printed in the Vinton Eagle, 1912 — Selmon’s death notice printed in the Vinton Eagle, 1912

But Anna was a strong woman and she came through this tragic circumstance with courage and a loving heart still intact. In addition to all this newly placed responsibility she even managed to take on the care and raising of her infant grandson, whose mother (Anna’s daughter-in-law) died from tuberculosis.

As the wife of a farmer with over a hundred acres in crop production and the mother of thirteen children Anna knew her way around the vegetable garden and the kitchen. In 1928 she submitted a recipe to the Vinton Cook Book which was compiled by the First Division Pastor’s Aid Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church. With a little help from the ladies at the Vinton Historical Society, Ms. Jeannie was able to acquire a copy of the recipe that Anna submitted.

The recipe is for tomato soup. It is a very simple one with few components but it does contain one unusual ingredient – baking soda. Today in the vintage kitchen we are recreating this 89 year old recipe to see what cooking in the 1920’s tastes like and to see if it still appeals to our modern palettes.

Most likely Anna would have used previously canned summer tomatoes from her garden in this recipe or she would have made it fresh during the summer months and possibly canned the soup for winter consumption. Either way, it is February and Ms. Jeannie does not have any leftover summer tomatoes on hand nor does she have any fresh in the garden. So instead we are relying on fresh hot house tomatoes that were grown in Chile. Ms. Jeannie did not have high hopes for flavor with these guys even though they looked absolutely beautiful in the grocery store.

But she was very pleasantly surprised at both the sweetness and firm fleshiness of these traveling love apples. Anna served her soup topped with a sprinkle of crushed crackers, which most likely would have been soda crackers or saltines. But Ms. Jeannie wanted to pair her soup with something a little more exciting so she made rustic Caprese-style toast to partner. Look for that recipe following the soup. She also added 1/3 cup tomato paste at the end, which is not in Anna’s original recipe (as you’ll notice from the picture above) – an explanation for that addition follows the final step. Other than that, the recipe was made as-is.

Anna’s Tomato Soup (circa 1928)

1 quart tomatoes (about 4 -5 cups)

1 pint milk (about 2 cups)

1 pint water (about 2 cups)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 pint beef broth (about 2 cups)

2 tablespoons butter

1/3 cup tomato paste

4 crackers (optional- see second recipe)

Salt & pepper to taste

Remove seeds from tomato (Note: there is no mention as to whether the skins of the tomato should be on or off – most likely they would be skinless, but Ms. Jeannie left them on and they rolled themselves into thin toothpicks which added a little bit of texture to the overall soup in the end. Next time she will try making it with the skins removed. So it is your preference on this aspect.)
Add the tomatoes and water to a large pot over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.
Add the baking soda and stir – like those lava volcanoes you used to make in third grade science class, this tomato /baking soda combo does foam up quite a bit, so keep stirring it until it comes to a boil. Then add the milk, butter and beef broth and bring to a boil again.

At this point, Anna mixed in some salt and pepper, called it done and ladled the soup into bowls, topping each with some crushed crackers. But the soup at this stage was very thin and tasted rather plain and uneventful so Ms. Jeannie added 1/3 cup tomato paste and let it simmer on low heat for about 20 minutes. By adding the paste it gave the soup a much more tomato-y flavor and thickened it up a bit. The purpose of adding the baking soda was to neutralize the acid in the tomatoes, which it did beautifully. By the time it was ready to serve this soup had a gorgeous, silky consistency, bright flavor and a rusty orange hue.

Garlic, Basil Cheese Toast (makes two slices of toast)

1 clove garlic, roughly chopped

6 fresh basil leaves, chopped

2 mini mozzarella balls, sliced thin

2 slices of multi-grain braed

2 teaspoons olive oil

dash of red pepper flakes

Slice bread and smother each slice with one teaspoon of olive oil. Add the cheese in a polka dot style fashion and intersperse the garlic. Sprinkle the basil leaves, red pepper flakes and a dash of salt on top.
Bake in a 400 degree oven for 8 minutes and then broil for 1-2 minutes until edges of crust start to brown slightly.

Back in the late 19th century and early 20th century farm meals were big because family members and workers needed sustenance to get them through their chores. Apple pie was often served at breakfast alongside eggs and bacon and fried chicken and casseroles and fresh bread. Most likely this soup would have accompanied many other dishes on the table, which is why it is not made of heartier stock. In our modern world, this makes a lovely light lunch or quick snack if you are pressed for time. And like any good foundation recipe it can be augmented with lots of other elements including onions and fresh basil, garlic, sour cream, Parmesan cheese… you get the idea. It is quite lovely on its own but Anna wouldn’t mind at all if you wanted to add your own creativity to the mix.

After Anna’s husband died in 1912, she managed the farm for another 9 years growing corn and oats and reporting regularly in the newspaper as to their qualities and quantities. She raised her kids and grandkids and kept her house bustling with love and care. Eventually she said goodbye to farm life and moved into town to live with one of her daughters. Active in various community organizations and her local church she was referred to as being noble, generous and kind. When she passed away in the 1940’s at the age of 81, she left behind a family dynasty that included 10 children, 31 grandchildren, 20 great-grandchildren and one great recipe.

Unfortunately this tiny photograph is the only identifiable image of Anna. Pictured on the far left, she is posing with her sisters in front her farmhouse when she was in her 70’s. Anna also appears in the family portrait at the top of this post but she is unidentifiable along with all the other women. One day soon hopefully we can place a name with a face!

Cheers to family cooks, the recipes they make and the love they pass on!

*** UPDATE 2/24/2017 *** One of our readers sent a question regarding measurements of pints and quarts and how many tomatoes actually made up one pint. Ms. Jeannie used all the vine-ripened tomatoes you see in the photos (12 in total) which were each roughly the size of a plum. If fresh tomatoes aren’t an option in your neck of the woods, substitute them with 4-5 cups of canned tomatoes (make sure the seeds have been removed).

Also to make things simpler, ingredients calling for pints and quarts have been measured out into cups as well (see ingredient list), since that is a more common unit of measurement in today’s world of cooking. These new updates will take out all the mathematical guess work making this recipe even easier and faster to make!

Where Are They Now? 29 Historic Houses 60 Years Later…

Published on December 5, 2016August 10, 2023 by In The Vintage Kitchen4 Comments

Coming home for the holidays in this 1950s era post means coming home to some of the finest examples of American architecture ever presented in the United States. Richard Pratt, the architecture and garden editor of Ladies Home Journal from the 1930s- 1960s, spent his entire 30+ year career studying the anatomy of our country’s great homes from the modest barn beginnings of 1600’s New England to the Gatsby-worthy mansions of late 19th century Rhode Island.

He and his wife Dorothy compiled the most noteworthy examples in their 1956 coffee table travel book A Guide to Early American Homes and invited readers to see for themselves, in person, the true majesty and ingenuity of American home design. Over 900 houses appeared in the guide in total, and while many were museums already open to the public, a great number were private residences in which Richard and Dorothy managed to secure appointments for readers to tour on their own schedule.

In today’s picture post, we are catching up with a few dozen of these old houses to see what has been going on with them since 1956. With our tricky economy, the recent trend towards downsizing and deep budget cuts slicing through the hearts of our cultural resources how have these century old houses fared over the past six decades? Let’s look…

(The black and white photos are Richard and Dorothy’s taken in the mid-1950s, the color photographs are recent present-day images).

1. 1704 House

1704 House

Built in 1704. Located in West Chester, PA. In 1956, it was a house museum available to tour for $0.50. Today it is still a museum although admission prices have increased to $5.00.

2. Longfellow House

Longfellow House – Built in 1759. Located in Cambridge, MA. Previously managed by the Longfellow Memorial Trust, this house has recently been renamed from the simple Longfellow House to the more descriptive Longfellow House- Washington Headquarter’s and is now owned and operated by the National Park Service. It used cost $0.30 to tour the house in the 1950s. Today it is free!

3. Col. Jeremiah Lee Mansion

The Jeremiah Lee Mansion – Built in 1768. Located in Marblehead, MA. Continuously operated by the Marblehead Museum since the 1950s (then known as the Marblehead Historical Society) the mansion is still open for tours in warm weather months. Admission prices changed from $0.50 in the 1950s to $10.00 today.

4. Josiah Coffin House

The Josiah Coffin House – Built in 1723. Located in Nantucket, MA. In the 1950s it was a private residence. Still owned by the same family, today it is available for weekly vacation rentals priced between $5,500-$6,000/per week.

5. Sanford House

Sanford House – Built in 1847. Located in Grand Rapids, MI . In the 1950s it was a private residence most noted for its exterior Doric columns and fine Greek Revival craftsmanship. Today the house is helping people internally as a drug and alcohol treatment center for women.

6. Headley Inn

Headley Inn – Built in 1802. Located in Zanesville, OH. Originally this house served as a tavern and inn in the early 1800s. By the 1950s it operated as a seasonal 9-5 restaurant. Today, it is back in business, newly opened as a bed & breakfast.

7. Field House

Field House – Built in 1807. Located in Belfast, ME. Originally a private residence, this house contains over 7,000 sqf. Located on High Street in Belfast, the physical house number in its address has changed since the 1950s and for a time between then and now operated it as a hotel. Recently it was put on the market for $395,000.00

8. The Mansion of Eleazar Arnold

Now known as the Arnold House – Built in 1687. Located in Lincoln, RI. This rare example of early Rhode Island architecture features a massive wall fireplace and once served as a tavern. In the 1950s it was available to tour for $0.25. Now it is managed by Historic New England and is open year-round with an $8.00 admission fee.

9. Dell House

Dell House – Built in 1800. Located in Nantucket, MA. This sea captain’s house was a private residence in the 1950s and was then painted yellow with white trim. In the 2000’s this house, still private, underwent extensive renovation and remodeling.

10. Harlow-Holmes House

Harlow-Holmes House – Built in 1649. Located in Plymouth, MA. In the 1950s, the ninth generation of the Holmes family lived here surrounded by antiques that dated back centuries in the family’s heirloom collection, including the original Captain’s table from the Mayflower. At some point between the 1950s and now the house was added onto in the back. See more photos here.

11. Callendar House

Callendar House – Built in 1794. Located in Tivoli, NY. A private residence in the 1950s, this grand house including 35 acres, outbuildings and river views, just sold recently, continuing the grand tradition of private ownership. For more pictures click here.

12. Moffatt-Ladd House

Moffatt-Ladd House – Built in 1763. Located in Portsmouth, NH. Since 1912, this Georgian – style house museum has been open to the public during seasonal hours. Once the home of William Whipple, a signer of the Declaration of Independence it used to be $0.50 to tour the house, now it is $7.00.

13. Ocean Born Mary House

Ocean Born Mary House – Built in 1760. Located in Henniker, NH. Part of pirate folklore this house has been associated with a colorful heritage that still captivates sea storytellers to this day. Always a private residence, it was open for tours by the owner for $0.25 a person in the 1950s. Today it remains private with no tour options, however, people caught up in the legend of Ocean Born Mary still drive by the house. Read more about the legend here…

14. Lady Pepperrell Mansion

Lady Pepperrell – Built in 1760. Located in Kittery Point, ME. In the 1950s, this elegant Georgian house was open for tours by The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Now it is a private home, still retaining all the original features (at least on the front facade!)

15. Dutton House

Dutton House – Built in 1782 . Located in Shelburne Village, VT. Throughout its colorful life, this house has been an inn, a tavern, a museum and mixed use office space. Since the 1950s it has been part of a museum collection of historic buildings comprising a typical Vermont village of the 19th century. In 1956 admission was $1.75, today it is $24.00.

16. General Nathanael Greene House

Nathanael Greene House – Built in 1770. Located in Coventry RI. In the hands of the Sons of the American Revolution and the Nathanael Greene Homestead Association since the 1920s, this house was built and designed by Nathanael – one of George Washington’s most trusted generals. Recently, the Association held a fundraiser to build a replica barn on the property that was torn down in the 19th century. The house is open for tours and special events.

17. Bonnet Hill Farm

Bonnet Hill Farm – Built in 1670. Located in Darien, CT. Originally built in Stamford, CT this stately farmhouse house was moved in the 1940s to Darien after private owners rescued it from its then shabby circumstance serving as a glue factory. In the 1950s it was painted a bright shade of pumpkin with white trim and was available for tour by appointment only. Today it has again undergone extensive renovation and remodeling including additions and expansions and is now a private residence. Also note, it is no longer pumpkin in color!

18. Webb House

Webb House – Built in 1752. Located in Wethersfield, CT. Operating as a museum since the 1950s, the Webb House recently got an exterior makeover in the form of a fresh coat of paint – in red – which brings the house back to it’s original color.

19. Thompson House

Thompson House – Built in 1709. Located in East Setauket, NY. By the 1950s, Thompson House had been faithfully restored by its owners and then passed on to the care of a Trust ensuring that everyone has the chance to see and appreciate the splendid salt box style architecture of this 300 year old structure.

20. Dey Mansion

Dey Mansion – Built in 1740. Located in Wayne, NJ. Property owner Dirck Dey worked alongside his slaves and various craftsmen in the mid-18th century to erect this eight room manor house. In the 1950s, it was renovated to serve as a house museum with utmost attention being paid to each historic detail to make it as authentic as possible. Tours were available then for $0.35, today they are $5.00.

21. Powel House

Powel House – Built in 1765. Located in Philadelphia, PA. Under the care of the Philadelphia Society for the Preservation of Landmarks since the 1930s, this handsome city house museum welcomes visitors and special events. Other than the tourism plaque out front the exterior is virtually unchanged since the Pratt’s visited in the 1950s.

22. Upsala

Upsala – Built in 1798. Located in Philadelphia, PA. in the 1950s you could tour this beauty as it evolved through renovation and restoration projects for just $0.10. Today you can buy the whole house for $499,000. That’s right, dear readers Upsala is for sale! Now is your chance to buy a 218 year old architectural gem. Find more info here.

23. Keith House

Keith House – Built in 1722. Located in Horsham, PA. Now a part of Graeme Park Historic Site, the Keith House in the 1950s was a private residence, but today it is owned and operated by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission and open for tours throughout the year. As the last surviving residence of a Colonial Pennsylvania Governor, it’s historical importance is significant.

24. Thompson Neely

Thompson Neely – Built in 1701. Located in Washington Crossing, PA, this pre-revolutionary house was available for tours in the 1950s and continues to be offered today. Just before crossing the Delaware, George Washington held a meeting here, and reenactments of the event are held each year on Thompson-Neely grounds on Christmas Day.

25. Matthews House

Matthews House – Built in 1829. Located in Painseville, OH. Rescued and restored by Lake Erie College, this federal style Greek Revival house had just been moved to campus a few years before Richard and Dorothy Pratt visited in the 1950s. Today it stands proudly among the faculty and administration buildings serving as academic offices and a guest house for visiting alumni.

26. Mead Hall

Mead Hall – Built in 1833. Located in Madison, NJ. Also in the hands of academic caretakers, Mead Hall is located on the campus of Drew University. In the 1950s the brick was painted white and the building was used for social functions as well as offices. Tragedy struck in 1989 when a fire destroyed the roof, attic and second story of the house. Now fully renovated and rebuilt, Mead Hall once again stands at the heart of campus and serves as classroom space and faculty offices.

27. Octagon House

Octagon House – Built in 1854. Located in Watertown, WI. In the 1950s, this house was open daily for $0.40 cent tours given by the Watertown Historical Society. The narrow exterior balconies were removed in the 1920s for safety purposes but the Historical Society had always wanted to bring them back to secure the original design aesthetic of the building. In 2006 an anonymous donation made that possible and the balconies were added again. The house, one of only about 3,000 of its shape in the country is open seasonally for tours which now cost $9.00/per person.

28. Varnum House

Varnum House – Built in 1773. Located in East Greenwich, RI. In the late 1930s, the Varnum Continentals, a local non-profit, purchased the Varnum House and restored it as a museum open to the public. In the 1950s it was painted white but has since received a fresh colorful makeover of yellow and green hues. Inside, the museum is full of period appropriate furniture and antiques ranging from the 1700s to the 1900s and offers tours by appointment.

29. Woodside

Woodside – Built in 1838. Located in Rochester, NY. Serving as headquarters for the Rochester Historical Society from 1941 to 2016, this house recently sold to private owners. Over the course of 70 years the Society outgrew the space of this three-story mansion and weren’t able to keep up with structural repairs. New owners are currently renovating and restoring it for use as a private family home.

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You’ll notice that other than the fire at Mead Hall, tragedy has eluded these remarkable buildings from our nation’s history. None were torn down or abandoned, burnt to ashes or left to deconstruct on their own. It’s wonderful to know that despite changing economic times and shifting design aesthetics these beautiful old houses are still being cared for by understanding hands. Perhaps with this same level of care and commitment, passion and resourcefulness, fortitude and perseverance they’ll be able to survive another 100, 200 or 300 years. If luck remains on their side they’ll be able to ensure that the story of our country can continue on in a touchable, tangible way for generations to come.

It is said of people that buy old houses, that they are not owners, but instead, stewards. Not of ships or of planes or of trains as the original definition suggests, but stewards instead of houses and history and the humble human spirit who built the heart that beat our country. Cheers to old houses and to the humans who love them!

Do you have a favorite among this batch of houses? If so, share your likes in the comment section below. Ours include #2, #4, and #13!

History Hitting Home: Franklin and the Four Faces

Published on September 28, 2016September 28, 2016 by In The Vintage Kitchen6 Comments

fourfaces_collage — Clockwise from top left: Fountain Branch Carter, his wife Polly Carter, Albert Thornton Edwards, Albert’s wife Martha Jane Brewer

In late November of 1864 bullet holes riddled the house of Fountain Branch Carter and his wife Polly. The shots were fired by thousands of men in a little known but significantly bloody battle that took place in Franklin, Tennessee during one of the final fights of the American Civil War.

One of the men on the firing side was Albert Thornton Edwards, Ms. Jeannie’s great great grandfather. At the time of this battle he was a young Union soldier of 24, serving in the Ohio cavalry.

The Confederate army was on their way to Nashville to recapture their state capitol. The Union Army was coming up from Atlanta to stop them from capturing the city. The small rural town of Franklin, and the plantation of Fountain Branch and Polly Carter happened to be on the way and consequently in the way.

The Carter House – home of Fountain Branch and Mary Armistead Atkinson “Polly” Carter. Photo courtesy of franklintrust.org

It was early morning on November 30th, 1864 when Union General Jacob Cox knocked on the front door of Fountain Branch’s house, walked in and declared his intentions to set up headquarters. He told Fountain Branch that he and his family were free to go about the house as they liked and continue their usual activities of the day. He then laid down to take a nap in the front parlour while his aides shuffled in setting up field camp materials in the two front rooms of the house.

No one expected that a battle would take place that day in the backyard of this pretty plantation. Not General Jacob Cox, not Fountain Branch Carter and certainly not any of the residents of the peaceful town of Franklin. But of course, war has a way of surprising everyone.

By nightfall, Union soldiers would attack the Confederate soldiers and the Confederates would fight back. Within a five hour time time span from mid-day to sundown over 10,000 casualties would be sustained and 3,000 soldiers, both Union and Confederate, would lose their lives right there in the yard including one son of Fountain Branch and Polly.

Backyard of the Carter House where most of the fighting took place. Photo via pinterest.

When bullets were blazing fast and furious Fountain Branch took his family, house servants and some neighbors down to the basement where they waited out the warring in a dark, cold room made of brick and stone. On the outside, in the yard, Albert fought his battles for the Union cause on horseback, a select skill that took so much training the military almost deemed it pointless for the amount of time it consumed and experience it required. As night crept across the sky it became harder and harder for the soldiers to see who and what they were shooting at. Mayhem set in and men fell on both sides. Some piled two or three bodies high all around the plantation.

Ms. Jeannie toured the Carter House last week unaware of the fact at the time that Albert had participated in the fighting there. Her sympathies that day definitely lay with the Carter family and the horrific hours they had to endure as the war raged all around their home. She was especially struck by the haphazard splattering of bullet holes still evident in the clapboard on the back porch.

Bullets holes in the walls of the back porch. Photo via pinterest.

It wasn’t until Ms. Jeannie was back at home herself going through the service records of Albert (one of her only ancestors to fight in the Civil War) that she discovered his involvement there at the Carter House. One of those back porch bullet holes could have come from Albert.

It is startling to know that an ancestor witnessed such a tragic day but even more so knowing that he actually played a hand in making it tragic. Of course Albert was just doing his job – trying to be a good soldier two years into fighting a war he believed in. But there he was nonetheless, shooting at a house with innocent people inside. In looking back on that event and these two men of history who faced each other on opposites sides, Ms. Jeannie couldn’t help but think how similar they really were.

Fountain Branch and Polly were long-time loves, married for almost 30 years and had 10 children between them. Albert following the Battle of Franklin would muster out of the military 8 months later and head home to Ohio so he could marry his bride Martha and move west via covered wagon to Iowa. Albert and Martha would go on to have 11 kids and celebrate 56 years of marriage. Neither spouse in either family remarried after their significant other passed away. Both families knew the loss of young children, both were farmers, both revered citizens in their communities and both of course survived the horrors of the Battle of Franklin. Albert sustained eye injuries somewhere between Franklin and Nashville which he carried with him for the rest of his life. Fountain Branch lost his 24 year old son Tod in Franklin who had insisted on joining the fight that day to defend both his family’s land and the ideals of the Confederacy.

The one main difference of these two men living in 19th century America was their philosophies on equality for all people. While Ms. Jeannie isn’t excited that Albert could have potentially destroyed someone’s home and family she is proud that her great great grandfather was fighting for the very freedoms that she enjoys today, 150 years later. She’s also thankful that the Carter House has survived all these years so that she can see first-hand her family’s impression on history and walk in the footsteps of a man who lived four generations before her.

Read more stories about Albert and Martha here, here and here including pictures of Albert’s civil war inkwell and Martha’s honeymoon quilt handmade on her wagon trip west just after she was married. Read more about the Carter House and the Battle of Franklin here.

If you have any surprising stories in your family history, please share them in the comments section. You just never know what we might discover!

Hello From The Other Side!

Published on July 28, 2016July 27, 2016 by In The Vintage Kitchen2 Comments

Honk! Honk! Ms. Jeannie has arrived! The move from rural country to big city has been made at last! From her new vantage point in her new city she sends you the very biggest of the cheeriest hellos. Can you guess from the following photos what city and state she now calls home?

To give you some hints… there are guitars everywhere, a river that runs the length of downtown, and a marvelous marquis heralding the history of the early newspaper industry.

The architecture is a mix between very old and very brand new.

The overall aesthetic could best be described as reclaimed rustic meets greek revival meets industrial modern. And centuries of creative arts can be seen, felt and heard around every street corner…

It’s a city of riverboats and romance…

statues and songs…

flowers and fountains…

It’s world-famous, most famous and always will be notoriously famous for its music scene. On the food front it is most known for a curious array of culinary creations including… hot chicken, peddle bars, whiskey slushies, and the first combination candy bar in the country. If you drove from Chicago it would take you about 7 hours, from New York 13, and from Los Angeles a whole entire day plus five more hours. If you biked your way in the peddle bar it would take forever.

_MG_0093 — It’s a bike and a bar! Peddle you and your pals around town on the hop on/hop off peddle bar!

There’s a beautiful waterfront lined with brick warehouses and lots of shops, restaurants, galleries and museums to explore.

On the national history front, it’s officially been a city since 1779 and is home to one of the oldest working capitol buildings in the country. It was also home to three U.S. Presidents and one Vice President.

Last put not least, even though this is an urban environment there is still plenty of the wild and wooly to enjoy. Groundhogs run around the riverbank, rabbits live at the baseball stadium, and the open year-round farmers market provides all the farm freshness a city girl could ever crave!

So there we have your clues: hot chicken, music, groundhogs, riverway, history, green space, peddlers and whiskey. Could you guess it dear readers? Could you guess where exactly this beauty of a metropolis is?

If you said Nashville, Tennessee you are correct!

In the month that Ms. Jeannie has been here she knows this city for its friendly faces, creative energy and gorgeously diverse architecture. She looks forward to exploring and sharing all the little nooks and crannies that make up this marvel of a place. There are many adventures to be had, so please stay tuned!

In the meantime, Ms. Jeannie is hoisting her glass to stars newly aligned in what feels like a most important and influential chapter about to unfold. Cheers, cheers and cheers to new beginnings! And thanks to Adele for loan of the blog title:)

All Aboard: Your Adventure Awaits {Part Two}

Published on April 27, 2016February 27, 2022 by In The Vintage Kitchen1 Comment

{Special note: This is the second installment of a two part story. If you missed part one, catch up here.}

The date is April 27th, 1964. You are standing among the crowd in front of the Unisphere, the largest globe ever built by man. It contains 470 tons of stainless steel and is considered “one of the most outstanding achievements in structural sculpture in the past decade.” The New York World’s Fair has you dizzy with excitement!

It is Day 5 of your travel adventure and you marvel at just about everything you set your eyes on. There is an edge and an urgency to see, taste, hear and explore all the situations around you. You are bouncing from exhibit to exhibit on a natural high, guided by curiosity and surprise. Part New York frenetic energy and part endorphin rush you are bombarded in the best possible way with ideas that are new and thrilling and coming at you from all directions.

If you wanted to see all 150 pavilions and attractions at the Fair it would take 30 full days of sightseeing. But you only have a week so you have to make a list. With your trusty 300 page fair guide…

purchased for $1.00 at the concession stand you highlight the specific places and pavilions you want to see first.

Among your not-to-miss moments are the: House of Good Taste, the Rheingold, Walter’s International Wax Museum, the Clariol Hair Color Exhibit, the Avis Antique Card Ride, the Transportation and Travel Hall, France, Switzerland, Indonesia, Africa, the Space Park, the Garden of Meditation and the Pool of Industry plus 27 others. It’s an ambitious schedule but you are determined to make the most of it.

While so many exhibits are enormous, some in particular really catch you off-guard by their sheer size. Sinclair’s Dinoland for example, has nine life-size replicas of dinosaurs that hover high above the heads of fair-goers.

It is one of the most popular spots for photographs so you have to squeeze in quickly to get a few snaps. The dinosaurs were made by artists in upstate New York and were in fact so big they couldn’t be transported by truck or trailer, so they had to be floated down the Hudson River via barge. In the anticipation leading up to your trip, your friend Gene took a photo of the big guys heading down river and sent it off to you in the mail…

Other incredible sightings so far have included the steel and plastic Liberty Tree with leaves made of historic documents in the New England pavilion…

…and the scale model of New York City, which measures in total 180′ feet x 100′ feet. Each building is scaled at 1 inch to 100 feet which means that the Empire State building is 15″ inches tall. Amazingly, this model includes every building in Manhattan.

You soak up all the sun and and all the fun at the very first live Porpoise show courtesy of the Florida State Exhibit…

before heading over to the Hollywood Pavilion where you soak up celebrity and have your autograph book signed by Joan Crawford and Kirk Douglas.

With heart pounding, you fly like a bird through the air courtesy of the Monorail, the Observation Towers, the Brass Rail Snack Bar, the giant Royal Tire ride and the Parachute Jump…

Part of the reason why you are feeling so giddy and alive is because there is so much positivity and potential floating around. Words and wonders like Carousel of Progress, Futurama and Tomorrowland greet you both in person and in print at every turn…

and you can’t help but feel a sense of overwhelming optimism for the progress that is sure to come in the next 5, 10, 15 and 20 years.

You have been at the fair for five days. You have traveled 1000 miles from New Orleans to New York City to get here. But in reality you have gone much further. You have circumnavigated the globe. You have seen zebras in Africa, enjoyed coffee in Lebanon and arranged flowers in Japan. You have explored planets in outer space and dived deep into the inky depths of the sea. You feel like a true globetrotter, a jet-setter and a time traveler all wrapped into one. You are crossing continents and centuries in the blink of an eye. This is by far one of the most exciting vacations of your life. You don’t want to leave but you also can’t wait to share your trip with all your friends back home. You mail off a litany of postcards every day… your words running off the cards because there is just so much to say.

You look for a souvenir that can encapsulate this experience of a lifetime in one item. You search through many stands and stalls before it hits you…

You find a book that symbolizes all the magic of the moment that is the World’s Fair. You purchase a souvenir copy of the story of Michelangelo’s Pieta, which is on display in the Italian pavilion. The 15th century sculpture stands 6′ feet tall by 5.5′ feet long and contains three different elevated viewing platforms. You walk onto each one to gather a sense of the sculpture’s size and scope.

The sculpture fills you with emotion. It is a combination of history, stone and craftsmanship. It contains story, self-expressionism and symbolism. It conveys love and tenderness, majesty and gift-giving. It is passion magnified in a portrait of faith and future. It represents past accomplishment and future hope. It is the New York World’s Fair personified. This art, this souvenir book, this incredible Fair represents a moment in time, in life, in history destined not to be forgotten.

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Anna’s Tomato Soup (circa 1928)

Garlic, Basil Cheese Toast (makes two slices of toast)

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1. 1704 House

2. Longfellow House

3. Col. Jeremiah Lee Mansion

4. Josiah Coffin House

5. Sanford House

6. Headley Inn

7. Field House

8. The Mansion of Eleazar Arnold

9. Dell House

10. Harlow-Holmes House

11. Callendar House

12. Moffatt-Ladd House

13. Ocean Born Mary House

14. Lady Pepperrell Mansion

15. Dutton House

16. General Nathanael Greene House

17. Bonnet Hill Farm

18. Webb House

19. Thompson House

20. Dey Mansion

21. Powel House

22. Upsala

23. Keith House

24. Thompson Neely

25. Matthews House

26. Mead Hall

27. Octagon House

28. Varnum House

29. Woodside

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