You can go home, but.......

My home was actually on the farm and after I went to college my parents moved twice. Dad built the last house that they lived in that we are now clearing out.  It isn't home and yet the things inside are familiar to me, so I bring some of them home.  It was a sad day for me today as it is getting to the point that I have brought home almost the last of anything seem important that belonged to my parents.  It gets to be more empty and more of a burden as there is still so much to do and the house is almost empty.
I brought home the last of the toys today.  The gems are few and far between now as I had brought the best stuff home first.  I still hope to find some surprise in one of the two shoe boxes of tinker toys and children's books.

My wife sorted and boxed up all my mom's diaries today. In the house that my dad had torn down, in order to build the house they lived in, there was a diary. It was  left there and created by one of the women who lived there. It is a detailed thing and the Iowa Historical Department, photocopied it for their state library. They said it was so rare that women kept such a daily diary, personal and business.   Because of that diary, my mom started about 30 years ago to jot down a note everyday for oh so many years. We have dozens of the books.  Some in real diary books and some in notebooks. I finally decided I had to bring them home today, I don't know when I will get to them.

One other thing that I brought home was quite a surprise to me once I got it home.  This beat-up book above was old, and it was a cookbook, and I don't throw antiques away. We found it laying out on a shelf in my brother's room, and both my brothers had remarked about it, and I just ignored it.  It is like my mom had intentionally left it out in plain sight to let me know that it was important. I was being slow but now I know why. I know why it was important to preserve.

This made me sad and glad as I discovered it is my Grandmother Brooks' cookbook. She had her baptism certificate tucked inside the front cover.  I almost ignored it, and to think that it is my dear sweet Grandma Mabel's  cookbook. She passed away in 1972 so my mom has had the cookbook for a long time. I don't know why I had never seen it before now.

It is in horrible shape, but it is so full of stuff.  If I wanted to go crazy I could create a blog just for this book.  It is full of folded up pieces of paper that have recipes written on them by Grandma. It has a Rumford Cookbook inside  of it. There are postcards from people sent to my Grandma with recipes on them.  It is recipes written on any scrap of paper or cardboard she could find.

Also inside are pages from Wallace Farmers Homemakers magazine named after Henry Wallace many years ago.  The pages of course are full of recipes.  The corner of the page has been torn out of the magazine and it is a recipe sent in by a woman who use to live in my county.
Check that there is one problem with the Red Devil's Food cake recipe.  She left out the red food coloring and it's amount.

I don't know what I will do with this but you all are going to see pieces of this for a long time.  I have to share this piece of history filled with history.
Thanks for stopping in............