Things for Thursday........

Banished to the basement are these old jars.  I brought in more jars from the garden shed and the ones in the storeroom are all headed downstairs.  I can wash the up in the basement sink so they won't look so dirty.  I keep looking to see if I have an original Mason jar but I do not.  I do have one where they called it a Ball Jar by Mason.  Most of these came from the house my dad had torn down in Osceola and they were stored in his garage for me to keep for a while. The two milk jars are from Anderson Erickson Dairy and one other Des Moines dairy.  Milk was delivered in those bottles to people's doors each morning.

While cleaning out the storeroom I ran across these two smaller spiral notebooks.  I at first thought they were my mom's as I found loosely in them some recipes she had written but no, they are her mom's, my grandmother's cookbooks.  She had dutifully pasted newspaper recipes on the pages, all arranged to fill each page. There are a few hand written recipes and also some bookkeeping notes in there.  I can't date these notebooks but my grandmother died in 1972.  She was born in the late 1800's.  They are old.

I can date this page as being in 1935 or 1936.  My grandfather Brown had a lung condition that made him very ill and he died from it in 1937.  Back then a local doctor could not handle much and I am not so sure but it was thought that he actually had TB.  Whatever he had, my grandmother copied down directions for a home remedy for TB into her spiral notebook. There is information where they can order through the mail one of the ingredients for the medicine. 

Information was shared very little about my grandfather. I do know that he was taken to Clarinda, Iowa hospitals which was a state hospital and it was probably free of charge.  I think he died there.  There was a hint of alcoholism in his life, that he cut peoples hair on the side with his own barber's chair and that he dug graves for a living. Most all of the info is all gone now with the relatives being all gone.

To end on a different note I found a recipe of the original Whacky Cake that was published in the Des Moines Register and Tribune. I am sure it was around way before the paper published this.It was pasted into her book probably with flour and water as her glue. When I look at the end of the recipe it says it will make nine servings.  I wonder if those are really big pieces, as my mom's wacky cake made more pieces than that. I suppose it could be a smaller recipe as I don't know anything about cake.  I just like to eat it.

I am heading in at noon today to be the science teacher. Half days are good but it would be worth it more for me to teach the whole day.  I basically waste the morning and then have to get ready to go.  I will get some things done this morning but there can't be any major projects.  We will be warm for most of this week, meaning just above freezing.  It is welcomed and one can get out without suffering.  Thank you for stopping in today.