School Days in the 1940's

Waiting for the school bus in Rome at the corner by Blarney Castle are Audrey Claycomb (she evidently had spent the night with Mary Pasquay who is to the right), Claire Anderson and Joanne Droll, my sister.  There were two bus routes for the high school back then - the North Bus and the South Bus.  The north one collected the country kids in that direction first and those of us south were the last to get picked up.  It was reversed in the evening, so we got home last - in fact, our stop was almost the last one on the south route.

Not a good picture!  However, I just wanted to put it in the post.  Our bus driver for both routes and for the four years I was in high school was Glen Buckingham - fondly called Bucky!  What a nice fellow - everyone loved Bucky.

Another old picture I found.  The football team practicing in the field behind the high school.  I have no idea who the fellows in the picture are, but thought it was a good one to blog.  Probably Jack Mooney, Phil McCormick, Claude Mann, and some of the other fellows from my class are on the field.  Some years later, Ray and I bought the house across the side street from the high school that had been built by the building and trades class quite a bit earlier.  It was a fun place to live.  Our son, Bill, was just a little fellow and he would get so excited when the band practiced in the street in front of our house.  Marched up and down going "Boom, boom, boom""   Sweet memory.

One more picture I found that shows me and my paper doll buddy, Fern Davis, in her front yard.  Fern and I spent many hours drawing around dolls and designing and coloring clothes for them.  We also collected movie star pictures!  Fern had scrapbooks for the individual stars or star couples.  I was so in awe of that.  Mine were in a big box of some sort.   She lived across the street from the grade school in Rome which had become a four room school instead of one room.  The year I was a fifth grader, they built the stage out and walled it off and made two rooms.  Another teacher was brought in to fill that space.  Opal Claypool taught 5th through 8th on the stage and Miss Placher, who had been the sole teacher for a long time, taught the first four grades in the main room. When I was in the 7th grade, two new rooms were added on the front (which is the brick building behind Fern and me.  Miss Placher took 1,2, 7 and 8 and I think it was a Miss Alvord who took the other four.  So I was back with my original teacher in the last two years.  That was all so very long ago when life seemed to be much simpler than it is today. 

Duck Hunting on the Illinois River

My father, Charlie Droll, hunted and fished on the Illinois River around Rome probably all of his life except for the later years. This is how I remember my dad and his hunting.  This picture was taken probably sometime while I was in high school in the 1940's.   He had a duck blind in front of the Lynch cottages that were through the orchard behind our house.  They owned our house, and Dad took care of the cottages and worked off the rent which was $10.00 a month, which doesn't sound like anything - but, believe me, it was.  My parents had gone into debt during the depression since Dad was without work for sometime.  So every little bit helped - and so did the ducks he brought down and the fish he caught which provided some of our meals along with the food from an enormous garden in the summer.  Mom canned and canned - a big job in the hot summertime.  Life was not easy for our parents. 

Back to the hunting - Dad carved his decoys that he used in his duck blind.  I can remember them so well, but I don't have one.  How I wish I did but they were all sold.  This book came out sometime after

1969 with articles about the decoy carvers of Illinois - and my dad is included in this book. I think if you click (just click once) on the page you should be able to read the article if you are interested. 

This tells about the decoys my dad made and how he went about making them.  I remember my brother or sister saying that in Dad's later years when he was in the nursing home  he could tell which decoys were his, if he were shown one,  by the lead weight he used.

This is one of his decoys as pictured in the book.  I can so remember the mallard ones - and I know there were canvasbacks, also.  I always though of them as much prettier than this little decoy shown here.   He was an artist in his own way.  I can remember watching him make big nets for fishing - it had to be a macrame of some sort--he used the two items in the following picture.  I don't know what the method was called.

And now a final picture - Dad's duck call.   I can still hear him as he used it.  There is an art to calling ducks to get them to fly toward your decoys around your blind.

I think I have posted some of this before, but it has been a long time ago and I wanted to include these pictures with the pictures of the book.   Very nice Pieces of the Past for me to think about.

Postcard Friendship Friday

 There aren't nearly as many Mother's Day postcards as I thought there would be, and I'm not sure if this is actually one or not.  However, it looks to me to be a "perfect" picture of a family on the day moms are honored.  There she is with curlers in her hair receiving breakfast in bed  along with flowers, a gift and big smiles from her loving family.  Looks like Mother's Day to me!

Either mother or father's sister is sending the postcard to her niece from Stockholm  - a long, long way from South Dakota.  Can't make out the year on the postmark, but it was some time ago.

Happy PFF - and thanks again to our hostess, Beth.    Check out Beth's blog at  http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/.  

Old Pots and Pans

Back to the old skate box that was under Clemie's sink--here is an old recipe book put out by Club Aluminum cookware which was so very popular around the time Ray and I were married.

A composite of the pieces available - my parents gave us several pieces as a wedding present.  I can remember the oval roaster and at least two covered saucepans which were the last pieces pictured beneath the coffee pot on the right.  I think they were the smallest and largest of the three.  There may have been a covered skillet, too.   This was very heavy duty cookware and I had it for ages, but I don't  remember what happened to it.

Remember Revereware?   This little saucepan and lid is like the one given to us by my Aunt Nelle in California when we were wed.  Yes, it's the Aunt Nelle who is pictured so many times in this blog.  I still have and still use this little old pan.  It's little bottom hasn't been polished in a long time (maybe I will get out an SOS pad and do that!) but it has certainly served me well over the years.  The handle is dull now since I do put it in the dishwasher.  It's been in my kitchens for almost 63 years!  I have a soft spot in my heart for this little pan.

Then there is Guardian Service - also aluminum and very, very heavy duty.  Ray's mother had some pieces of that and gave them to me.  There were a couple of sauce pans and a round skillet,  as I recall.  The one triangular shaped pot was not one that I had, but this picture shows the little black pieces that you put on the protrusions of the pans so you could lift them while they were hot.

Here is another pot showing the glass lid that came with the pieces.  I believe there were also metal lids.  You can see the metal handles on each side that would get very, very hot.

This gadget was to use as a handle for the ones used as frying pans. They thought of everything.  When I was looking around on the web, without reading very much, I gather that Guardian Service ware is quite collectible and rather pricey.  It was manufactured between the 1930's through 1950's.   Before we moved to Michigan,  I sold the pieces I had to my neighbor across the street who had some and loved it. 

Princess Peggy

While looking around Pinterest, I found this vintage ad for Princess Peggy, Inc., and a little lightbulb lit up over my head.  I was certain I could remember that there was a Princess Peggy factory in Chillicothe, Illinois, which was just three miles from Rome where I grew up.  I can even kind of remember where it was - or about where it was - and it seems to me it was some distance south of the public library on Second Street.  Later, when I was in high school in Chillicothe, I am sure it had been turned into a roller rink.  It also is strong in my mind that my late husband's Aunt Ethel worked at Princess Peggy.  That would have been when he was maybe in grade school.   On the ad above, I saw that "Peoria, Ill." was  listed as the location of Princess Peggy.

So, I googled it. 

I found this old postcard of the Chic Manufacturing Company and an article about Princess Peggy.  But more interesting to me was one of the comments which follows:

Sandie Says:
April 26th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
I have a 1990 issue of Quilt Magazine. There is an interesting article on Princess Peggy Dress Factory in this issue, which is how I discovered this blog, when I googled Princess Peggy Dress Factory.
Here are a few more items of interest about Princess Peggy Dress Factory in the article :
The idea for the factory began in 1906, when the industry was started as the Chic Apron Company……located on the third floor of a building on S. Adams Street in Peoria.
There were two more plants, located in Chillicothe & Belleville, IL.
Princess Peggy was personified by a succession of attractive young blonde girls whose picture appeared before millions of newspaper readers every month.
If anyone would like a copy of the complete article, email me at sandiesquilts@actlink.net

 

Looking at more of the entires as I googled, I found the following:

 

Princess Peggy

A few weeks ago while visiting my girlfriend Evi....

she gave me three adorable tiny dresses.

They are not doll dresses, but salesman's samples of actual dresses made by the Princess Peggy Clothing Company.

Posted 6 months, 12 days ago

Manikin
(179 items)

The Princess Peggy manikin was used to display salesman samples of the Princess Peggy Clothes line in 1940 to 5o's. The clothes had her face in label on salesman dress's minature size for manikin and on adult clothes. Her dress's seem to have that house dress look or everyday wear for ladies of the day . This Manikin belongs to Ivydi not me . The pin on the dress is for 5 years of service .

These little manikins were about 24" tall.  

Labels for the Princess Peggy frocks.

When I was a little girl and all through my adolescence, women did not wear jeans or slacks or shorts working around the house.  My mom never had a pair of slacks in her life.  Housedresses were the uniform of the day for homemakers!   They  wore  aprons when cooking or doing other housework that might soil their dresses.  The wearing of pants by woman for all occasions got rolling in the 70's while I was working at Hesston Corporation in Kansas.  Pants suits came into fashion and now lots of us never wear dresses anymore.    My, how times have changed! 

I am also going to let this post count for Postcard Friendship Friday!  There is a postcard on it way back at the beginning.  So a tip of the hat to Beth, at http://thebestheartsarecrunchy.blogspot.com/ 
for hosting.