Totem Pole Park

On Sunday we took one of our meandering family drives with no real plan in mind other than to get out and enjoy temperatures that were only in the 80s and make a stop at one of our favorite spots on earth, Totem Pole Park. I never get tired of visiting that place! A few years ago, I even got to help repaint a bit of the Fiddle House there. It was nice to see how the renovations had come along since then. I'm so happy that this treasure is being preserved. You can see more of the park through the years in my first post about it, which was one of my very first posts on this here blog.

We also spied a little Route 66 shop that we hadn't before, but it was closed, so I snapped a couple photos of the outside. The cinder block walls are covered in the autographs of Route 66 travelers from all over the world.

We took a whole bunch of photos that day. I am trying to get better about having my photo taken, but it's hard for me. I don't want these girls of mine to grow up and not have a single photo of their mama! Here's one that the Mister took. I call this my Downton Abbey Meets Reform School Girl outfit.

I updated the "About" page with some more photos of that day if you'd like to see more of the place or my goofy mug.

Happy Halloween!

Nutshells of Unexplained Death

‘Before forensics, DNA, and CSI we had dollhouses – an unimaginable collection of miniature crime scenes, known as the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death. Created in the 1930s and 1940s by a crime-fighting millionaire heiress grandmother Frances Glessner, the Nutshells helped homicide detectives hone their investigative skills. These surreal dollhouses reveal a dystopic and disturbing slice of domestic life with doll corpses representing actual murder victims, or perhaps something that just looks like murder. Despite all the advances in forensics, the Nutshells are still used today to train detectives.’

- Of Dolls and Murder

Having been a bit of a forensic science nerd since my preteen years, I'm surprised that I've never heard about these gruesome little "nutshell studies" before today when I stumbled upon this story on the amazingly fabulous How To Be A Retronaut.

A documentary film narrated by (who else?) John Waters explores the dioramas and their creator, Frances Glessner Lee, as well as the fact that these vintage dollhouses are still used to train detectives and forensics experts. Astounding.

A Musical Make Up Kit

While perusing the delightful Male Pattern Boldness this morning, I was lucky enough to discover this clip from 1945's "The Dolly Sisters" starring Betty Grable. Vintage beauty lovers, you are in for a real treat--lipstick, powder, rouge, and mascara brought to singing, dancing life. I nearly needed smelling salts!

The Photography of Maynard Parker

I can't remember now where I stumbled upon the photographs of Maynard Parker, the principal photographer for House Beautiful magazine between 1942 and 1965.




The dramatic lighting! The saturated colors!



Head over to The Huntington for a narrated slide show to see these and many other breathtaking images of mid century living.

The Shiloh and The Searcy House

On our little Arkansas trip, we stopped at a place that I'd wanted to visit for quite some time. The Shiloh Museum of Ozark History is a truly wonderful little museum with interactive exhibits and close to a million historical images of life in the Ozarks housed in their research library.


In addition to the museum building itself, the pretty shaded grounds hold six historical buildings.




One of those buildings is the Searcy House, a home originally built in the 1870s, renovated in the 1940s, and donated, along with much of its contents, to the museum in the 1980s.




If you too are an Old Time Ozarkophile, I highly recommend a visit to The Shiloh. And lest you think this place is all butter churns and banjos, allow me to inform you that they offer podcasts on a range of fascinating topics, and that they (along with the rest of the free world) have a twitter account.

One of the very best things about the Ozarks is, of course, the music. The two cd collection of Arkansas folk music recordings culled from the Max Hunter Folk Song Collection that we bought in the gift shop has been on near constant rotation in the Hall household. I was also excited to learn today that a group of Sacred Harp singers meets there monthly. I don't think the Shiloh has seen the last of this gal.

Ridiculously Exciting Kicks on Route 66

After being cooped up in the house with colds, Sugar Pea and I were ready for some fresh air yesterday, so we hit the open road bound for one of my favorite local attractions, Totem Pole Park. We hadn't been since she was a tiny baby, and I was eager to take her now that she could appreciate the excursion. It was a perfect late summer Oklahoma day, just right for driving with the windows down and the bluegrass turned up loud. When we arrived, I was a bit surprised to see that the largest structure was being repainted.

The initial restoration, done by the Kansas Grassroots Art Association over a seven year period, was begun in the early 90s. Therefore, some parts of the structure haven't been touched up in nearly twenty years. I struck up a conversation with a lovely lady perched on a ladder, paintbrush in hand. It seems that Ginny was chosen to spearhead the latest restoration of the park, but was coming up short in the volunteer department. Without a moment's hesitation, I asked if she could use my help. Secretly, I expected her to politely decline my offer. I thought her answer would be something along the lines of, "Thank you, but we only allow professionally trained artists and conservationists to touch brush to cement in this most holy of holy Folk Art Environments." To my great surprise, her face lit up and she asked me if I lived in the area. I said I most certainly did and that it would be my absolute pleasure and a great honor to play a small part in the conservation of this national treasure. And, just like that, my day took a turn I would never have predicted in a million and four years. I'm going to get to paint Totem Pole Park!


Ginny's been working from the ground up, so the giant bird and tortoise that form the base of the totem pole are sporting freshly pedicured toes.


Inside the Fiddle House was one of Mr. Galloway's beautiful fiddles that had not been on display the last time I visited. Many of his fiddles and other works of art were stolen or otherwise lost after his death, but some are slowly being returned to where they belong. I can hardly believe my good fortune that, at least for a few days, I get to belong there as well.

Bertha Belle The Riveter

A few days ago, I stumbled upon these amazing WWII era photographs from the Library of Congress' photostream on Flickr. I instantly though of my great grandmother, Bertha Belle, who worked at a foundry here during the war, building planes. In her downtime at the foundry, she crafted beautiful silver and turquoise jewelry. This was a couple of years before she built the little house I grew up in, almost single-handedly, wiring the electrical systems herself, with automotive wiring. She was a tough broad, and far ahead of her time, having been married and divorced several times in the 1940s and 50s, when such behavior was unheard of. Unfortunately, she left this world by her own hand, years before I entered it.







Grandma Bertha Belle, I wish I could have known you.

Vintage Tile and Linoleum Looks

Blogger and I have a love/hate relationship, so if you would like to revel in the full, large size glory of these rooms, click on over to my "Vintage Rooms" set at Flickr.

Wig-Klean, Hairtainers and Olay, Oh My!

I just made myself a "Macro Photo Studio" using these directions, and experimented with it late into the night, fueled by a restless mind and several iced coffees. I thought it would be a perfect time to share some more of my vintage beauty products with you- products which appear to be magically suspended in snowy white infinity.
This pinktastic tin of Wig-Klean is still full of the no doubt toxic elixir, and the fabulously graphic bottle of Hair Arranger also sloshes with some greasy, Cold War era fluid.


It's not that possessing their original contents somehow ups the value of these bottles for me, it's simply that I am much too afraid of the poisonous stuff inside to dare unleash it on the community water supply via my toilet, or, for that matter, my little family's lungs and mucus membranes. These chemical cocktails date from a time when doctors were telling pregnant women to have a stiff drink and a Miltown to calm those pre baby jitters and that smoking was a soothing balm for the throat and lungs. I think I'll just let sleeping dogs lie. Sleeping, carcinogen-filled, flammable dogs. Take a look at the back of that Wig-Klean (click to enlarge). "CAUTION! Never clean hair piece immediately after drinking liquor." See, I told you this stuff was dangerous.

This "Grip-Tuth Hairtainer" card is just twelve kinds of wonderful. It's the "Successor to the Comb", or so those Hairtainer ad men would have us believe. That lovely lady moon face is just gorgeous.


It gets even better when you flip the card over to learn that the Hairtainer "Saves time! Stops annoyance!" and "Ends Hairfussing!" Finally and end to my incessant hairfussing.


Here are some lotion bottles. Something about the name "Tritle's" makes me purt near "tritle" my drawers giggling.


Some oil, long ago extracted from the mythical "Olay" awaits your perusal in this next photo, along with two perfume cream jars from Avon.

Actually, I've always wondered how they came up with the name, so I consulted good ol' Wikipedia and found that "olay" is a little play on the word "lanolin", one of the key ingredients. No need to thank me, Dollfaces. I'm happy to research these important matters for the sake of satisfying all of your inquiring minds.

I'm Tying One On

So, I'm finally taking the plunge and submitting an apron to Tie One On. The theme this time is "The Pocket", and what could be more fitting than a pocket that covers the entire apron?


I made this from a vintage pattern in my stash using the corner motif of a vintage tablecloth and a lot of red rick-rack. Normally I wouldn't advocate cutting up a beautiful old tablecloth like this, but when you find one with too many holes or fifty year old coffee stains, I think it's nice to give it a second chance at life. I love to incorporate vintage elements into my sewing and crafting, and am getting much braver at cutting into my treasured vintage fabrics as my sewing skills improve. It's not visible in the picture, but there is an inverted V shape topstitched on the pocket so things won't slide down into the point of the front panel, effectively creating two side pockets. I had a little trouble with the waistband, as 1940's patterns can be somewhat vague in their instructions, but I'm pretty pleased with the finished product.

Six Lessons in Charm for Your Home

Ladies, are you tired of your husbands staying out all night like a tom cat when they should be spending the evening settled down with the family? Think a lovely, well-appointed home, beautiful children, and an adoring wife who caters to his every whim is enough to please a man? Think again. Be sure you've done everything possible to keep Hubby comfortable as King of his castle. After all, where would you and the children be without him? On the streets, that's where.

From Better Homes and Gardens, April 1941:

"It's not the big decorating crimes but the insidious little blunders that play hob with folks' comfort and a home's good looks... If your house is beginning to bore you--if it seems to have lost some of its youth and sparkle, some of its dash and 'wumph,' why not treat it to a short course in 'How to Be Charming and Popular?' . . . The six 'lessons' here, illustrated with the cooperation of Barker Brothers, Los Angeles, suggest a few of the places in which homes sometimes can stand improvement--with Howard Beebe and I demonstrating (most dramatically, don't you think?) some of the more insidious crimes of decoration that frequently are innocently committed even in the best of homes!"

(Click on any of the images to get a closer look at the text.)

"Decoratively, too, it's a mistake for spotty little rugs to pinch-hit for a nice broad expanse of carpeting in the front hall."


"How to start the day wrong--and I should know, for I'm the gal who's trying it."

"'How to win a husband and keep him home in the evenings by catering to him' is the title of this heart-warming scene..."

"A table behind a sofa isn't incorrect, but it doesn't take the place of smaller tables when a cigaret (sic) is giving the hot-finger."

"Here are grounds for divorce! Can't blame Hubby if he seldom settles down for an evening with the family if he's expected to do it in a set-up like this."

"Wall space can be a problem child and come to a bad end like this. There are solutions."