Books and Beyond
I bought the used book “Aprons, Flour Sacks, & Other Folk Histories” at the Marshall-Lyon County Library for $2. The author is Marilyn Salzl Brinkman, copyright 2008, and her autograph is on the title page.
Reading Chapter 1: In the Kitchen, told me that I’d be reading this 143-page book slowly. My chapter one notes could be related to a book I write: kitchen table, wearing aprons, making butter in a churn, cooking with rhubarb (a vegetable), and how the icebox (refrigerator) was “the most used appliance in the home today” (p. 18).
In Chapter 4 we read about Raggedy Ann Dolls and paper dolls. I still have three Raggedy Ann dolls and a magazine with a paper doll and clothes in every other page. The author of Raggedy Ann stories was John Gruelle. Here’s another interesting reference to a well-known politician: Teddy bears were created in 1902 and named after Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th president!
The chapter “On the Farm” tells us that tobacco was a crop in Minnesota in the early 1900s.
Another description that relates to my growing up in a small town is switchboards. That’s how phone calls were made in the early to mid 1900s. Grace, just a few doors down from us, had the town switchboard in her house. When she needed a break, my older sister went to operate the switchboard.
Another description I could have written was about hobos. Our small town had a railroad running through the north side of town close to my father’s grain elevator. And sometimes “hobos” would jump off the train and come to houses to ask for food. They came to our house, and for me they were an OK fact of life.
I really connect with the chapter about life in the 1950s. Those were my teenage years, and I graduated from high school in 1958. I still have one of the school yearbooks where I’m pictured in the 6th grade. A singer I could listen to when I ironed clothes was Bob Dylan.
There were lots of dances held in homes or in barns, and the term she uses is “barn dance” (p. 138). The dance my husband and I held was to celebrate our daughter’s wedding here in our farmyard. The band, after the wedding, was Good Time Railroad, a well-known band with members from the Granite Falls and Montevideo area.
Howard and I continued dancing in our house. Years ago we went to a weekly dance event at West Side Elementary School in Marshall.
The picture on the front of “Aprons, Flour Sacks, and Other Home Remedies” is of a clothesline with clothes hanging on it. We’ve always had clotheslines outdoors. I still have the clothesline and hang clothes on it in the summer. A photo in my family history photobook is of me about 10 years old hanging clothes outdoors. The clotheslines were next to the cobshed and outhouse.
Looking for more nostalgic titles? Try these from the Marshall-Lyon County Library Minnesota Collection: “Victory Gardens and Long Handled Dippers : tales from the good old days in Southwest Minnesota” complied and edited by Todd Blair and Karen Garvey [977.62 VIC]; “A Return to Grandpa’s House: stories of an American family” by Michele L. Larson [LARSON, M.]; “Cold Comfort: Life at the Top of the Map “by Bart Sutter [SUTTER, B.]. marshalllyonlibrary.org