Tag: family

Uncategorized

Gramma Kate’s Vintage Tricycle…

French Ethereal
Going home  is always a little bittersweet, isn’t it… We love to revisit memories of family times together and places we have lived. We enjoy seeing how places have stayed the same and how they have been updated, how neighborhoods have changed. Coming home this time involved a lot of remembrances of times with my father-in-love, a whole bunch of cleaning and organizing, as well as trashing out things which needed to go. 

One of my favorite things from this trip, after spending my first morning there sweeping cobwebs off the house and its eves ~ here in the Sacramento area ~ was playing with Great-Gramma Kate’s vintage tricycle…

Overblown lighting but still fun!
Will have to pull into Lightroom and edit… 😉

Mr. Ethereal was busy cutting back several oleander bushes hanging over from the neighbors’ yard. Vintage wood ready for projects, cut out pattern pieces for a rocking horse and two donkey carts, antique woodworking tools and steamer trunks were part of the detritus dragged out from the large backyard shed. Many of the tools in that shed ~ the wood staves for shaving logs and different size hand-drills and planers ~ were over 100 years old and belonged originally to Raymond Fudge, Pete’s father-in-law.

The oleander cuttings had been dragged out onto the lawn to prep for the garden recycle bins and that’s where I found them… 



And this amazing vintage tricycle was among those treasures

found near that big metal shed! 



Thinking of other friends who have photographed bicycles
popped into my mind and the fun began! 

I love the sweetness of this old tricycle and I remember Kate and how kind she was. She was a track runner in her high school days and the girls on her track team competed against other local school girls during a short season of track and field during the 1920’s.  There were no state meets during those days.
Kate was a long-jumper and triple-jumper and I think she also played basketball. She had long legs and was tall at 5’10”. I am sorry I can’t download a photograph of Kate but my computer is being finicky. 

Gramma Gini’s roses bloom in the background and the old cherry tree stands to the left.
I can imagine Kate tooling around town with this tricycle along Rancho Cordova’s city sidewalks heading to the library or the grocery store or out to rides with friends along the American River back in the 1980’s. Kate could get there by the old tressle bridge which spans the river in Fair Oaks, which she lived right near. 


A favorite!
I think she would have enjoyed seeing her bicycle basket 
filled with bright pink and white flowers!!!


A bit of silliness made all the cleaning worthwhile…



All edited… Hope this post was fun for you, too! 💝





Thanks for visiting today,

Uncategorized

For My Father-in-Law Pete…

French Ethereal
I haven’t  been online for a week now. We made it home from South Dakota a week ago Wednesday around 6:00p.m., picked up Yoda from boarding at the veterinary, and came home to begin laundry… A typical coming home. The next morning we received the call that my father-in-love had passed away… 

Pete Chapman at our Texas house in July 2019. 

Pete about age 5 with his sister-in-law Dorrace Wilson Chapman ~ 
about 1945. Photo courtesy of Mary Ellen Hockensmith.



So we finished the laundry, Charles packed the car, we made plans for Yoda to go back into boarding, and began the 1700+ mile drive on Friday to Northern California.


photograph courtesy Mary Ellen (Shull) Hockensmith ~ 
Pete is the baby right in front.


Charles R. “Pete” Chapman, Sr. was born on June 2nd, 1940. While we were home, my mother-in-love Gini wanted to have a birthday party for him. My SIL Jodi had planned a surprise 80th birthday party for him but with the pandemic she had to cancel that plan. He would have enjoyed the surprise!

Neighbors towards the rear, friend Debbie Carriker, nephew Corey on BBQ detail, and Gini Chapman visiting with neighbors and friends who came. We all social distanced but at this point everyone has been staying home so no one is sick.


Pete was five days short of turning 80 years… Here he is as a baby around 1941. So cute!
💕


photo courtesy Mary Ellen Hockensmith ~ I see
our grandson Milo in Pete’s baby picture.


Pete was one of five children born into a farming family in Berryville, Virginia. He loved the car scene of the 1950’s and worked on cars himself for family and friends. He has a famous nephew Edd Shull who was head of the Republican party back in the 1970’s. Edd’s mother, Nellie, is Pete’s older sister by 20 years. Pete was born 15 years after his next oldest brother. He and Edd grew up together.

Clarke County High School – 1959 graduate

He played football in high school and his team went onto win their conference league, what we would now consider as winning the state meet. 

He looks sooo young in his high school portrait!


He was recruited by the Washington Redskins as a running back, but after talking with his father about the offer, his father convinced him that it wasn’t a solid career idea. Pete once told me that he would have earned $7000 playing for the Redskins. He went into the United States Air Force as a fireman shortly thereafter serving during the Korean War in Alaska and at Stead AFB, Reno, Nevada. He made $700 then, 1/10th what he would have made playing football. I forget if that was per month or per year. Hindsight… (Always the way, huh?) 

He never regretted it, though, because…

photo courtesy Gini Chapman



Pete met Gini at a USO dance in Reno as she had gone to high school in Truckee, California. She came with someone else but Pete stole her heart! They married 56 days later… 

💝

My father-in-law finished up his 3 years with the USAF, my husband was born while they were in Reno. Then Pete and Gini moved back to Virginia where he had once worked as a gravedigger for  his older brother (Chapman Construction) in high school. Jodi was born two years later.

Gini told me a funny story that Pete once ran over a box of dynamite and a box of blasting caps with one of the company trucks! Somebody had left them in the wrong spot and luckily they weren’t attached to each other. He also had the brakes go out on a company dump truck and his brother blamed him for that though it was just faulty brakes.  

He worked for over 30 years as a manager for Morgan Tire Company when they moved to California. Gini’s family was from California and Pete’s brother worked at Mather AFB. Morgan Tire was in downtown Sacramento and my husband worked there for 6 years while in high school and college. 

When I met Pete, he and Gini owned their own coffeeshop in Rancho Cordova, California, called “The Back Burner.” They have lived in RC for 53 years now and were married 58 years.


Pete was a natural-born salesman and worked in his later years for Sam’s Club serving pizza and other product samples to customers before that all went private (their loss!). He then worked as an installer for a start-up coffee business putting machines and product in local AM/PM and gas stations ~ “Cappuccinos To Go.” Always willing to help a friend, he built fences, took older friends grocery shopping or out to eat. 

Bill Brown ~ Pete’s best friend

He was best friends with his neighbor of 56 years, Bill Brown, and his wife Mary before she passed from Alzheimer’s. Bill’s death last year while they were out visiting us hit Pete really hard. I think this was a deciding factor in Pete’s passing.

He and Gini cooked many meals for church members over the years, for the Odd Fellows and Rebekah pancake breakfasts which benefited local youth, and volunteered singing and playing guitar for Sunday worship services. Pete was always serving.

Something goofy like Pete would say…


He’d fix your washer or dryer (like mine) and always call and check up on you. I’ll miss him terribly…





Thank you for being my father-in-law,
Love,
Uncategorized

Remembering on Memorial Day…

French Ethereal
Memorial Day… A time of reflection for those military members who have lost their lives during times of war. Poppies are placed on graves and given out by veterans at grocery stores to anyone who wishes one, a symbol of love and remembrance…


We watch our nation’s president lay a wreath every year at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and I love honoring our fallen this way! I miss that this year there are few if any parades with older veterans walking the streets of their communities and in downtown Washington, DC, being applauded for their service. Biker veterans did ride to our nation’s capitol and I am glad that they visited there this week with President Trump. I think our nation will come out in droves as we are allowed to host parades again!

Reddish-pink bougainvillea with a sky-blue Pacific Ocean in the background.

Often I feel that our countries’ citizens have forgotten to honor our president and the leaders over our country. They are constantly bashed on most media channels. Pray for your leaders and all who are in authority. They need our prayers and honor. It is a great and terrible responsibility to head a nation and, yes, they will blunder. They are human, after all. I do think we should show respect for the president, no matter if we like his or her politics.

 Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you.

Hebrews 13:17, Berean Study Bible



Red poppies and red roses…

We are celebrating Memorial Day over in the Mt. Rushmore area this weekend. Even with the pandemic still going on in small pockets here and there, we shouldn’t be afraid to live life… 
I learned this long ago, on this very date, the day my first fiancé died when two farm workers turned their small pickup truck into his path as he rode his bicycle down a long hill on his way to work…
Keep celebrating LIFE friends. Our service men and women died trying to protect our lives, our freedoms. Celebrate their sacrifice and honor them with living…

People will continue getting sick throughout this pandemic, but 98-99% are recovering, and I read somewhere that a virus has to affect 50% of a population in order for it to then die off. The 50% “rule” (for lack of a better word) means that the virus then will keep coming into contact with people who already have or have had the virus thereby not finding new hosts, so it dies off. 


I am happy to keep honoring our military members who fell in wartime and because of acts of war or terrorism. My friend Rob, was a very important friend (and coworker) while I was dealing with the loss of my first fiancé. We took a vacation over to Hawaii in the fall meeting up with friends who were competing in the Ironman Triathlon. While we were on Oahu visiting places I had lived in and had visited as a young girl, when my father and family were stationed there, we rode our bicycles up to Punch Bowl Cemetery and found Rob’s uncle’s gravesite. 

His uncle died during the bombing at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. It was an honor to be there with Rob visiting for his whole family.


*The lead photograph of my father, then a captain with the United States Air Force, was taken in 1966 while my father was home between two tours in Vietnam. We moved Concord, Mass. after he returned and then to Hawaii in 1970.

A couple of years ago I helped lay a wreath for fallen military members at the courthouse in Denton, Texas, with my friends from the IOOF Rebekahs. This is a small vacation but also a time of remembrance.

Cooking at our Prairie Home.

So on this Memorial Day, Mr. Ethereal and I will celebrate watching memorial services on t.v. as we often do. We walked up last evening to two places: the second was to a fun place ~ Dinosaur Park in Rapid City, opened in 1936. It was quite a hike going up the pink sandstone steps but the 270 degree views of the city from west, north to east were beautiful! (As were the small mixed herd of dinos! 😉 )




We are also going up to see the Crazy Horse Memorial later on today and walked among Rapid City, South Dakota’s Presidents Walk last evening (the first thing we did after dinner)… Very few people are out and about, which made social distancing easy.



The Presidents Walk is a neat walking tour of bronze statues located on Downtown Rapid City’s street corners, donated by family and friends to the city. (I will do a post featuring many of these statues soon!)

Thanks for taking the time to read my post here today. If you enjoy Memorial Day posts you may enjoy these also…
📬
The Story Behind This Patriotic Mantel (2019)
Easy Patriotic Decorating Ideas ~ A Pinterest Challenge (2019)

Remembering Memorial Day (2018)
Happy Memorial Day ~ Remembering the Fallen (2017)




Happy Memorial Day! (2015)





Enjoy your Memorial Day, friends, and enjoy being with your family members! I am looking forward to reading your Memorial Day memories throughout this next week… 💝




Love and hugs,
Uncategorized

Happy Mother’s Day!

French Ethereal
Happy Mother’s Day  friends! For this Mother’s Day I thought I’d share a few photographs of my mother (and her family) with you of when she was young…


In 2010 when my youngest brother Tom, his wife Kim and my other sister-in-law Linnea cleaned out my mother and father’s last home, Kim asked if I’d like this photograph of my mother. She was 3 years old here when this portrait was taken.  I remember Mom saying that the photographer was trying to get her to do something, and that’s why she has this funny look on her face. 

We have a lot of Scottish ancestry in our background and I love seeing Mom’s big wide-set hazel eyes here! 


Whenever we all smile, our eyes crinkle and look slanted. That’s the Scots thing I was referring to here. 💖

“You know Moms are without a doubt a mix of sugar and magic.”

Joyce Olsen, At Home With Jemma.com 


Flash forward to 1962 and Mom is 23 years old and I am just born. It looks like springtime (no snow, short sleeve shirt) so maybe I was 3 mos. old here??

I find this photograph so apropos since our little grandson Milo was just born. He is a cutie patootie and I wonder who he will look like as he grows older. He will be 5 weeks old this week! I love the sense of wonder on his little face as he “sees someone inside that box (phone) talking and waving at him!”

Peter and his little M, 3 weeks old


I was just looking at Milo’s photo I screenshot from a FaceTime call a couple of weeks ago and he has the sweetest widow’s peak!!! He’s so cute!!!  I just want to chomp his chubby cheeks! (Guess this must be a grandmother thing… Lol!)


I didn’t have much hair back then… Looks like I have a mohawk! 😉
My brother Frank is named for my Grampa Frank, my mother’s father. Here we are in Centerville, Ohio at my parents first home, probably back in summer of 1963. Frank was about 6 months old at this time and I would have been 18 mos. old. 

Here is Gramma Helen, my mother’s mother, and me on the swan boat in Boston (Charleston Harbor?), around Easter 1970 before we moved to Hawaii that summer.

The past couple of years I shared Mom’s letters and her watch that Grampa Frank gave her.  She wore it for many, many years. I also shared a post when it would have been her birthday.


And a couple of years ago I shared my mother-in-law Gini and her family. Have I ever shared with you that both my mother and mother-in-law are Ginny and Gini?? My mother was Virginia Mary and Charles’ mother is Mary Virginia. It’s a God thing… 

💝

Gene and Gini, New York City 1986

Here is one of the last formal photos of both of my parents together. Usually one or the other was behind the camera so it is nice to have this one of Mom and Dad. 



Missing you, Mama Bear!
xoxo
Sharing with
Love Your Creativity ~ Life and Linda
Wonderful Wednesdays ~ Le Cultivateur



Enjoy this special post,
Uncategorized

Introducing Little Milo!!!

French Ethereal

Introducing Milo DonovanChapman, our first grandson, who was born a week ago Monday. He is 20″ tall and weighed a good 7 lbs. 3 oz. then. Justine and Peter are very happy parents, although quite tired, as we all remember those days! They are having fun beginning this new journey adjusting to having a baby at home, and their two dogs are getting to know little Milo, too. Peter keeps posting pics every few days, which keeps this grandma very happy!


It wasn’t that long ago that they were announcing their pregnancy and this coming summer marks just four quick years since their 2016 wedding.

Then two years ago they drove down to visit us at the trailer…

We flew up to visit them later that fall and I shared a post about visiting an apple orchard and their fun transitional style!

Now we get to enjoy this little guy as he learns about his world!
Although Gramma and Grampa Ethereal can’t drive up and visit yet, we get to enjoy little Milo via FaceTime and a photograph here and there. 

Gramma’s little family screenshot…

Love this little guy so much already! I am grateful they all are healthy and that Justine was allowed to have Peter there with her as Milo was born.

Bandit checking out his new playmate and less furry brother. 

Funny story ~ Peter was born when our Golden Retriever Skeeter was four years old and as Peter grew he learned about playing fetch with his Golden buddy. Peter’s first words weren’t the usual Mama or Dada, they were Dog and Ball. I wonder what Milo’s will be??

👪
My favorite picture so far!
Welcome Sweet One!
Love,
Gramma C.

*If you haven’t seen Milo’s little Sloth Quilt you can find out how to make one for your little ones here. Thanks for stopping by! 💖

Enjoy!
Uncategorized

Joyeax 32ème Anniversaire de Mariage!

French Ethereal

Once again another wedding anniversary has come around as Mr. Ethereal and I celebrate our 32nd. This has been a good year for us with moving into our new home, visiting with our daughter in June, beginning a new job (me) and some exciting news I have yet to share!


Our fair maiden wearing my wedding veil…
I never got a post out for my parents’ wedding anniversary this year but on 9-19-19 they would have celebrated their 60th. I often wish that they could have lived long enough to see their grandchildren grow up. They never knew about my youngest brother and his wife’s adopted daughter. But, then again, she wouldn’t be a part of the family if our mother hadn’t passed. Bittersweet reality…


I’ve shared Mom and Dad’s wedding portrait before but it is always a favorite!
Here they are 37 years later. Most likely this is Christmas time of 1996. Bayer-AGFA held a company Christmas party in New York City with other divisions of Bayer Corporation (Miles, Mobay and Cutter Laboratories ~ the latter where my father began working for the company in 1979 in the Bay Area, California). 




Just a week ago Hubby and I went car shopping and were offered a great deal on a new Audi Q5 so I guess that is our anniversary and Christmas present for this and several years! I haven’t driven it much but it does have good pep. The car Charles had been driving these past nine years was beginning to nickel and dime us, so it was time to replace it.  🙂

This is us two years ago.
From the IOOF Downton Abbey-Roaring 1920’s dinner.
Just a few physical changes since then…  Like where the heck did this neck thing come from?? But other than that we are happy and enjoying this stage in our lives.
🙂
Back to more post pics…
😉
The living room library table is freshly polished and shares some family photographs from when my brothers, parents and I were young. The only other of my parents’ wedding photographs that I have is featured here. 
A first photograph of my younger brother Gene and his then girlfriend Linnea is here, too (lower left). They have been married just three months less than we have and have three grown children.
Love this vignette of family photographs plus two favorite postcards! I have had these cards for as long as we have been married ~ and they have always been in these two frames.
Here’s to many more anniversaires! Oh… and that exciting news I wanted to share with you?
Justine is about 8 weeks along as of three weeks ago.
Our son Peter and daughter-in-love Justine are expecting!!!
If you haven’t seen a few photos from their wedding those can be found here.
A new and first grand-baby is on its way! We are very excited for this sweet baby’s announcement!!! A wonderful anniversary present indeed especially for Mr. Ethereal’s parents, who will now be great-grandparents.
😀
Sharing with
Thursday Favorite Things ~ Follow the Yellow Brick Home
All About Home ~ Common Ground

Bisous,
Uncategorized

Share Your Style #221

French Ethereal
Welcome to this week’s Share Your Style #221! I am glad that you are here, and as always, there are a bunch of great featured posts to share with you. This week is all about late summer and early fall table-stylings! 


•Barbara: FrenchEthereal / Facebook / Twitter /Pinterest / Instagram
I am your host Barbara Chapman and I’d love it if you’d follow me here on my blog and on any of my other social media sites, too. Thank you!

This past week for me has been about getting back in the swing of working  in a Special Ed Pre-K class and happily blogging after school and on weekends. I’ve become really used to a certain morning routine (think: lazing about and waking up at 7:00am everyday for 2 1/2 years) and the day is beginning a couple of hours earlier now. 

Yoda is really liking his early morning walks again while it is cool and I am enjoying seeing sunrises. Happy to be back working my my favorite little people!
🙂


This was a walk we took at Lake Ray Roberts up near Sanger, Texas a year ago spring, and is one of my favorite “Yoda pics” where he is smiling!

Here’s what I share this week at French Ethereal…


This month’s Sunday Sentiments shared a Cross-Stitch Bible Cover I made years ago but never actually finished. Stop by and check out its story!

Coming soon ~ a post on collecting chintzware and this month’s Pinterest Challenge next Tuesday.  Be sure to stop back by!

And here are this week’s featured posts…




First up this week is a post which touched my heart and I am sure will touch yours as well… Andrea of Living on Cloud Nine shared something so many of us have experienced throughout the years, her post about Losing Daisy. Very touching with the sweetest photos… Wonderful photographs of Daisy and her family.
🙂


Cotton Terry Knit Sweater Pumpkins For Fall

Marie at the Interior Frugalista posted about making these sweet white Terry Knit Sweater Pumpkins. Instructions are provided so you can make some too!
🙂

They remind me of the French Toile Pumpkins I created a few years ago when we living in our first trailer in California. They sure were fun to make! And the cool thing is there are sooo many great ways to make fabric pumpkins for decorating around the home for fall! 

Make some for yourself this year! They are also a good craft project to make with the kids, too.

My friend Katie who writes Let’s Add Sprinkles and lives nearby here in Texas shared her beautiful home and her all-time favorite
Five Best Garage Sale Finds. This buffet was an awesome find for only $3.00! You’ll enjoy reading her post and seeing the great furniture pieces she’s found for really incredible deals…
Greek-tablescape-olive-trees-Apollo-statue-architectural-columns
Debbee of Debbee’s Buzz shared another of her wonderful posts about visiting Greece and this lovely tablescape featuring this olive tree tablecloth… So lovely! Check out Greek Tablescape and Olympic Torch Napkin Fold for more. She scores a gold medal with this post!
Tablescapes must be my thing this week (so many good ones out there!) and Fabiana at Fabby’s Living pops in with her table set for six in this post ~ And Suddenly a Tea Party!  Love these ethereal vintage lace doilies. Fabby tells their beautiful story of how they came to be. Stop on by!


Debra at Common Ground brought out her beautiful white church pew and added some fall touches with these lovely needlepoint pillows. Appropriately called the Garden Room with Sunflowers and Ticking.



Let’s get this party
started!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Uncategorized

Sunday Summer Supper + A Crockpot Recipe

French Ethereal
Sunday dinner is my favorite mealtime of the week. It is when I prefer to cook a big meal with plenty of leftovers to eat throughout the week. Perfect for going back to school, perfect for workday lunches and also to have a few vegetable dishes already prepared to pair with chicken or a baked potato during the week. It isn’t anywhere near fall yet but it is high time for a good crockpot recipe!!!




We began our day with my mother’s favorite Fanny Farmer Baking Powder Biscuits that I cut into hearts, circles or any other shape depending upon the season. Today it was hearts.
🙂

*I looked for this recipe in my past recipes but I guess I’ve never shared this one. Will have to write it up for you!




My in-laws have been here for a week now and after breakfast we took a trip to the grocery. Later in the early afternoon, my mother-in-law Gini started a pot roast for dinner ~ always wonderful as she loves to cook.

Pete and Gini checking the roast for doneness at 6:30 last evening. The
scent spreading through the house was so delicious!


This is NOT a great shot of Mr. Ethereal’s parents but it’s candid and I like it.  I actually prefer to shoot photos of people where I capture them as they are and what they are doing…
😉




Pete and I checked the pot an hour before… Here is my mother-in-law’s wonderful recipe:

Hawaiian Pot Roast

(1) chuck roast to fit your crockpot. 
Dust with flour, fresh ground pepper and place into the crockpot. Slice two medium onions and break apart the rings (or quarter the onions) and put on the roast and into the pot.

Sauce:

1 cup catsup/Ketchup
1 c. water
1/2 c. granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. apple cider vinegar
2 Tbsp. each – soy sauce (reduced sodium is ok!) and Worcestershire sauce

Mix well and pour over the roast. Cook about 6 hours on low and it’ll be ready for dinner that night or 4 hours on high. Yum!

*Really this is a Hawaiian Short Rib recipe but my mother-in-law has adapted it to use with a roast. Can use English cut short ribs (Buy a brisket and cut your own ~ cheaper! You get a roast out of the center and the ribs off each end.) and place in a baking dish. 

Bake in the oven covered at 350 degrees F. for 2 hours. Same recipe is good with sauce thickened with just a little flour. Sauce also good over potatoes!



Yoda had been licking his lips for a couple of hours before the roast was ready. He enjoyed a small piece cut off one end and mixed with his kibble ~ serious yum!

My sweet baby…

This was an accidental picture of Yoda with my fingers in the shot so I cropped those out and saved this sweet blurred pup…




Then Mr. Ethereal snuck over to check out the fixings… I had him do a repeat so I could capture him!
🙂


We’ve enjoyed a busy week attending Odd Fellow and Rebekah’s events including a Law Enforcement dinner to honor local law enforcers for heroism and the 160th anniversary of Denton Lodge #82 this past Saturday.  

Having a nice quiet dinner was a nice way to unwind and begin a fun evening watching movies!

Sharing with
Keep in Touch #79 ~ Let’s Add Sprinkles





Bon appetit, friends!
Uncategorized

June ~ My Mom’s Birthday Month

French Ethereal

Thinking of Mom  this week as the 13th of June would have been her 81st birthday ~ hard to believe! Born in 1938 she was the epitome of style to me when I was growing up. Here she is in her late 40’s or early 50’s.  

In photographs from when she was in high school during the 1950’s, “Ginny” always looked so fashionable! Often wearing lovely poodle skirts, Peter Pan collars and soft angora sweaters and saddle shoes so in style in the post-war era of the 1950’s…

My mom and dad ~ he was 28 and she a young 21.

I know I have shared this photograph with you before of my parents from 1959, but it is worth sharing again. My mother, Virginia Mary Blades, looked so beautiful wearing her older sister Eleanor’s wedding dress here.

Something borrowed, something blue…

Later on Mom looked like a fashion plate as her style mirrored that of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who was then First Lady in the White House when I was born.

Somewhere there is a photo of my mother and myself where Mom is wearing her cat-eye glasses and a sleeveless summer blouse. She is holding me in her arms resting against her knees… Maybe playing “Trot trot to Boston…”

The backyard was probably at their first house in Centerville, Ohio (Dayton area). If I find it later, I will place it here.
🙂

Part of my mother’s collection: lavender jade with diamonds on either side in white gold, the wedding ring my father gave her in 1959, and smoky topaz from Taiwan when Dad brought home several “parure” (sets of jewelry including four pieces or more).

Mom’s jewelry…
These next few photographs I took a year ago but never shared… Partly for insurance documenting, partly because my father bought beautiful pieces for my mother and carried them back from several TDY trips as a JAG for the US Air Force, I wanted to share some of Mom’s lovely jewelry.

Here is the parure I inherited as I always loved Mom’s lavender jade bracelet, ring and necklace. I didn’t share the earrings. The 14k gold bracelet looks like little twigs stacked up when you see it up close.

When my mother passed, after her funeral my sister-in-law Linnea brought out all of Mom’s jewelry that Mom had given her as payment for redoing a bathroom which had a leaky roof and need ed the tile flooring redone.

My brother Gene and Linnea felt that we should all share it, so pieces went to both of our daughters (Mom’s granddaughters) and some to us daughters. My father had brought me the gold bracelet earlier when he was out on a business trip after retiring from the Air Force.  It is beautiful and heavy weighing in at 3 oz. gold.

Our Amy, whose 27th birthday was two days ago. She was my mom’s birthday present in 1992. 😉 This photograph was taken at the Carlsbad Caverns, NM, 2016.
Dad’s love language was gifting sparkly presents to my mother and Mom loved the beauties he would buy for her! She wore them to parties they attended the whole time we lived in Hawaii. Later she wore them to other parties in California and to the theater where Dad performed (his hobby).  
Once I borrowed the lavender jade ring and wore it one day to high school as I loved it and it called to me ~ then I was so terrified I would lose it, I put it inside my wallet in my locked locker in my backpack and rushed it home after school to get it safely back in her jewelry box before she got home from her teaching position in Sacramento.

I never did that again, let me tell you!

🙂


A photo of my mother during her high school days ~ posted by
one of our relatives through Ancestry.com. She is 2nd row, plaid
skirt.
Mom looked like a fashion plate when I was young as her style mirrored that of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis who was then First Lady in the White House. It was the era of Camelot, after all…

My brother Frank out in the front garden ~ he lived in the house until it was sold
in 2010.

This was my parents’ last home ~ Situated on 12 acres with a 1/2 acre pond in Southbury, Connecticut, it was a lovely place!

My parents enjoyed watching the local wildlife from their kitchen table. Small herds of deer, wild turkeys eating bugs out in the meadow that my father then later my brother Frank would keep mowed. They spent $150 a month on just birdseed, my father mentioned one time, keeping the seeds in large metal trashcans in their garage.

Now black bear occasionally come through the area as my youngest brother and his wife share photos from their property just next door.

My mother Ginny, circa 1971-1974.
Recently I shared this photograph of my mother for a Mother’s Day post.  She must have been about 35 years old in this photo taken when she was beginning her teaching career at the Hawaii School for the Deaf and Blind, Honolulu, Hawaii.
Last year I featured my mother-in-love Mary Virginia Fudge and my grown children who came down the week before for a visit. 



Hope you’ve enjoyed this little break away from decor and gardens to meet more of my family!




Happy birthday, Mom  \|”/
Uncategorized

The Story Behind This Patriotic Mantel…

French Ethereal

These colors don’t run… 

In my previous post sharing this patriotic mantel just a couple of quick highlight photos were shared. Today I am going to share the story of why I chose each of the items in this mantel scape.

How these small treasures honor our American patriots and veterans on this Memorial Day, 4th of July and Veterans Day…

Many of  you know my husband is a U. S. Marine Corps veteran who served eight years in California at Camp Pendleton and at H + S Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego. 

Between those two posts, he served seven months in the Gulf of Oman during Operation Desert Storm (1990-1991) aboard the USS New Orleans, part of the USS Tarawa group stationed in the Gulf.  For his part, he received the Navy Achievement medal, a gold crossed-palm trees Kuwaiti medal and another medal for helping during hunger relief in Bangladesh.



When the operation was first announced no one knew if this would be another Vietnam or erupt into another world war; there was no way to know. I was terrified for Charles and am grateful that he came home with only five crushed disks in his back (a slip off the ship’s ladder during a storm with a full 70 lb. pack on his back) and a permanent skin rash. I prayed a lot and so did everyone else whom I knew who had loved ones in the air or on ship or land.


This is us at our engagement party during the summer of 1987. Charles officially went into the USMC in January 1988.

The hair got a bit shorter after this photo was taken! This was phase one of the haircuts. 😉



It is with great honor and respect that I share this post with its leaning books about Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, Navy Cross recipients and other wonderful books written about our great nation’s military.

I have also included a book on The Civil War which my father stayed up until the wee hours reading it cover to cover when he was out to visit when my daughter was very small. I think he would approve of this post!
🙂

Why are they leaning?

These books are leaning to show the men and women who have fallen in the line of duty. The leaning also convey that our military service personnel may get knocked down in battle or by post traumatic distress but they get back up, dust themselves off and keep going. That is the way of a soldier ~ resilient, humble, God-fearing, loyal… and brave.

The burning candles are for those soldiers who didn’t get to come home ~ like the continuously burning light and watch (guards) at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery who stand at attention 24-7-365. These candles are for them.

The transferware plates

Two blue transferware plates show part of America’s history ~ “Independence Hall” created by Liberty Blue, Historic Colonial Scenes, on Staffordshire ironstone; and Johnson Bros. Historic America “Covered Wagons and the Rocky Mountains.”

I found four of the “Independence Hall” plates while thrift-shopping in California a couple of years ago and shared them in this past post.  The Covered Wagons plate was one given to me by my sister-in-law Linnea 21 years ago when I drove out with the kids to visit she and my brother Gene in Weatherford, Texas. Small world that it came back here…


Flow blue delftware and a French plate

When I was an exchange student to Germany in 1981 my host family took us to Holland for a long weekend. A little of the money I’d taken with me to Europe brought home this pair of Dutch Delft shoes with little twirling windmills plus this sweet Delft cow.*

They are reminders of that special time learning about the people and culture of the Netherlands, but here later in life they have also become reminders of the sacrifices made by the Dutch people in recent history during WWII. 

The Nazis entered Holland in May 1940 destroying cities and peoples in their wake. The Netherlands were finally liberated between September 1944 and April 1945 as part of the Allied Forces surrounding Germany and ultimately forcing Hitler and the Nazi party’s surrender.

*A little more about Delft and Holland in case you are interested.

France also suffered greatly with the Nazi invasion of WWII, therefore this French soup plate “Eglantine” by K + G, Luneville, France, is my tribute to the French resistance and the people of France and their part in helping to win the war. The quietly hidden fleur-de-lis on a ribbon of  gold also shares in this patriotism.


And of course a bouquet of flowers lies there for all the fallen and for all the victories our military members have seen in 243 years of America as a country. 


A special pin to share…


Mr. Ethereal and I will be watching war movies like we usually do on Memorial Day and having a few cookouts. But this year as in most years I spend time remembering… I’m happy to share this special mantel vignette with you.  Enjoy yours!
🙂




Happy Memorial Day,