Going to Princeton, 1955

 

I can't even imagine this era.

If my son was going to Princeton in 1955, I would send him off in a Cadillac Eldorado? Perhaps a prop, perhaps not. And he and his fellow classmates would wear a tie with shirt and sports coat? And of course there were no women matriculating with them, not until fourteen years later. 

This time I'm not going to give the name of the young man on the left with his face turned away from the camera because my research into him ended on a sad note. Just eight years later in 1963 he died. His mother helped an art museum's acquisition fund in memorial of her son. I couldn't help wondering if he lost his life in the Vietnam War.

But he certainly looks handsome in his Jackman & Sons all-wool bouclé sports coat, $90. 

His friend on the right is George Sumter Schreyer, wearing a hound's-tooth-check sports coat of fine cashmere, $135, also by Jackman & Sons. His hat is a Jaguar by Knox, $15. I remember that Knox label inside my father's hats. You would think that a name like Mr. Schreyer's would have brought some results on the internet but there was nothing I could connect with him.

The young man on the left above is Thomas C. Murray wearing an oxford-gray cheviot Chesterfield with velvet collar, $89. There were far too many Thomas C. Murrays on the internet to discover what this Thomas did after college.

But I think I can safely guess that the Princeton student in the center, Daniel C. Rebhun, Jr., may be the man of the same name who wed a Miss Carruthers on December 30, 1956. He "wears a British warm in classic woolen, $125.

I didn't even attempt trying to research the remaining young man, not with a name like Charles E. Moore. He wears a Shetland tweed sports coat, $65. All of the above men's fashions were from Rogers Peet, New York. Rogers Peet was bought by Arrow in 1962. 

 

 These three young men above are wearing Shetland jackets by Grieco, $75 and up. The first one is Thomas W. Pettus, Jr. in a deep gray flannel with Lovat stripe. I think he possibly was married to Miss Diana Brewster, of Barnard, in May of 1961 at St. Bartholomews but the marriage must not have lasted as she seems to have remarried later.

The man in the center is C. Carter Walker, Jr. wearing a gray herringbone worsted suit. I found his obituary online and he seemed to have lived a long and worthwhile life. Member of Class of 1956 of Princeton, serving three years in the Navy, an athlete all his life. 

I loved this sentence in his obituary: "Carter and Julia took New York by storm." He and Julia were married 50 years until she died nearly a decade earlier than him, philanthropists all their marriage. And then this nice tribute: "Carter was a charitable, charming southern gentleman, who always put his family first." 

What a nice man!

Maybe it was just as well I couldn't find anything definite on the Princeton student on the right in the picture. I mean, who could top what I found for Carter! But James C. Crimmins is wearing a brown-black herringbone cheviot. I'm not sure what a cheviot is other than the fabric is from Cheviot sheep? 

All of these photographs are from the August 1955 issue of Town & Country, as were those from the previous post. 

I have one more fashion post from this issue that I'll share next. I'll go back to the women of 1955...the women of Seattle, Washington. And I've just begun researching them, already finding fascinating information on the internet about the real life models of the article.

I don't know if these 1955 fashion posts are of real interest to anyone else but it has made for some happy moments for me.

What an era! 

 

 

wrote about here...

New York Fall Fashions, 1955

 Some of my favorite magazines from my collection of vintage women's magazines are the fashion mags...Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Town & Country. 

And now that I can only fantasize about dressing up and going somewhere, I love paging through the old magazines that showed the fashions of my mother and grandmother's past. 

When I looked through my 1955 Town & Country I was reminded of the wool suits my mother made, beautifully tailored.

These two young women are posed on the George Washington Bridge. Mrs. Serge Sarasin, on the left,  wears a tunic suit in City Tweed by Davidow. I found there are still beautiful vintage Davidow suits for sale online.

I have to admit to snooping on the internet when I find the names of the models in my old magazines. Partly because I love researching for its own sake and partly because I'm nosy curious. 

1955 was a time when women were introduced by their husband's name with a Mrs. in the front. I learned that Mrs. Sarasin was Sue C. Nelms before her marriage in 1952. I love her tunic suit and her pretty red purse and gloves.

I have a thing about gloves, wrote about them in a post here in "The Shorter the Sleeves, the Longer the Gloves."  

The woman on the right in the bridge photo is Mrs. John S. Radway, wearing a beautiful blue suit of British Linton tweed, carrying a matching coat. I wasn't able to find out more about her but Linton tweeds are still being produced in England.

The next two models are posed at The Cloisters in New York, home of Medieval art and the famous Unicorn tapestry. The Cloisters have been used for backdrop in many movies, including my friend Tammy's favorite, Portrait of Jennie.

 Jane B. Gillespie, above, wears a three-quarters length coat and matching skirt of Anglo tweed by William Devitz. I wish more of these fashion shots were in color because when I googled both Anglo fabrics and the designer William Devitz I found the most beautiful colors and vintage clothing for sale online. Alas, I could not find further news of Miss Gillespie online.

 

 I love the fitted look of this suit above of Pinehurst hand-woven fabric by Bellciano that Cynthia Brooks Towell wears. I couldn't trace Cynthia any further but I'm guessing she was petite as Bellciano was known for their Bellciette line for women under 5 foot, 5 inches.

Town & Country described this suit as a taileur, meaning a suit meant for town wear. I love that word!

 

Let me introduce you to Mrs. Charles A. Dana, Jr., shown at her New Canaan, CT home. She's wearing a John Barr tissue tweed suit. I couldn't find out what tissue tweed is but it sounds as if it would be very soft and comfortable. 

I drew a blank at the fashion designer but discovered that Mrs. Dana was the former Eleanor Waters Langhorne and she and Charles were married in 1951 at Park Avenue Methodist Church. And Mr. Dana was head of the Dana Foundation that contributed to many worthy causes including a cancer institute.

I wish the magazine had given the name of her beautiful dog!

 

Our last model is my favorite, look at that smile! 

She was described as being Mrs. Thomas Morgan Schriber, the former Holly Seelbach, chair of the New Canaan, Connecticut Junior Red Cross. 

She is wearing a coat of O'llegro by Claire McCardell. I found out that fashion designer Claire McCardell is credited with first creating American sportswear for women. She inspired many of today's top designers and believed that women's clothing should "be practical and sturdy as well as feminine."

I found Holly's obituary and her picture shows that beautiful smile.

 Evidently Hilde (Holly) Seelbach Henderson Schriber Rohde graduated from Wellesley, married a Mr. Henderson and had two children and then was widowed during WW II. In 1947 she married Thomas Morgan Schriber and they had two children, the youngest who must be the small son shown with her in the picture.

I was fascinated reading that Hilde (Holly) Rohde (her second husband had also passed away and she remarried a third time) co-owned The Yarn Tree in New Canaan "where she sold yarns, and designed and knit sweaters and needlepoint."

This lovely woman with the radiant smile passed away this past May 27, 2020, "quietly at her home in New Canaan."

Her story and her smile touched my heart.

There are two more main fall fashion stories in this 1955 issue of Town & Country that I want to post about this month, one about what young men wore to college then--oh, how the times have changed--and one about the women of a city that has been much in the news lately. 

Vintage Fall fashions are my favorite, that is until Christmas fashions come along. 

Still Picklin'

Peppers, that is.

 

I no longer can do all the canning and preserving that I did when I was younger but pickling peppers, I can manage.

 

I happen to love all kinds of peppers and in May our son-in-law gave me two large jalapeño plants that have grown into fat bushes. 

 

 

I've made at least six jars of hot pepper sauce this summer for the pinto beans and cornbread suppers RH and I have once a week. I use a simple hot brine of 1/2 cup white vinegar and 1/2 cup cider vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 teaspoon kosher salt on top of the clean jalapeños, a slit cut in them, and a couple of garlic cloves and a few black peppercorns.

 

And when my brother-in-law gave us three bags of fresh purple hull peas from his garden, RH and I spent a Sunday afternoon shelling them, taking me back to summer days helping shell them for my father.

My largest colander was overflowing by the time we finished, ready to be blanched and shocked in ice water for the freezer with one pot cooked for supper. Fresh purple hulls are my favorite and were especially good with garlicky hot pepper sauce, last summer's jar shown here. Refilled with more brine, still good but maybe not as much flavor after having been refilled throughout the year. And exactly why I was determined to make plenty this year.

 

 

 

 Last week I made pickled jalapeños, hoping they'd turn out crisper than store-bought ones.

 

I opened the small jar after a few days and they were crisp! Recipe here.    

I hope the link works, it's from kitchendivas.com. "Homemade Hot Pepper Sauce."

 

 

By the way, I used empty jars from Trader Joe's giant Chalkidiki Greek olives for this, my favorite olive, even the brine is tasty. I love these so much that RH just bought me six jars for our anniversary this week!

We've been so blessed this summer with fresh vegetables from our gardening neighbors. I saved enough Hungarian wax peppers to make a jar of pickled slices that are so good.

 

 

 

 

 Then this weekend our neighbor brought us another basket of peppers, knowing how much I love them. I'll try these banana peppers with a sweet pickled recipe.

 

 Those tiny peppers are super hot so I made up a small jar of hot sauce with them. [That Cup O' Joe candle from Milkhouse Candle Co. is amazing! They don't sponsor me, I just like to share my favorite candle company.]

We've also been eating these mild peppers in salads all summer, the plant a gift from our daughter.

 

 Here's a bag of just-dug sweet potatoes our neighbor brought us.

    

 I never knew that sweet potatoes could be so good! Eating them reminded me of my father's stories of taking his sweet potatoes to Saturday market in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee when he was a boy. 

Blog friend Carla emailed me after my last post about family farms, telling me that she grew up on a family farm that still is in the family and saw what happened to the community when farms were foreclosed on. It affected the whole community and businesses closed in town as a result. She said she was also glad to see many of the old ways coming back among young families during this time of pandemic. 

My own pickling is small potatoes to what my favorite homestead bloggers do but it does give me a sense of satisfaction to be putting away for winter one of my favorite vegetables--peppers.

Garth Brooks' lines keep running through my mind when I see a neighbor coming with more peppers for me:

I'm a pepper he's a pepper she's a pepper wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?

 

The Family Farm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 "Corn Harvest" by Leslie Randall was reproduced full page in the September 1944 issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. 

I love this painting so much that I was tempted to cut it out of the magazine and frame it except that I am wholeheartedly opposed to harvesting pages from the really old magazines in my collection.  When I see pages for sale on eBay from them I want to steal the seller's scissors and remind them that once these old magazines are gone they're gone forever.

This painting was on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1942. It speaks to my heart, probably because my father was raised in a farming family and my sisters and I were raised hearing the stories of farming.

To me, there is something almost sacred about a family farm and it hurts to see so many disappearing in our country. I guess it's why I follow so many of the homesteading bloggers and hope that one good thing to come out of this pandemic time is that more people are turning to growing their own food.

I remember one hot summer afternoon twenty years ago when my father and I sat on the front porch and talked about the book I was writing about two families of farmers. I took page after page of notes as he reminisced, giving me authentic details I had questions about. 

Then we started talking about so many farms being foreclosed on that year.  Daddy got almost emotional, telling me that it could only hurt our country when small farmers were losing their farms to the big industrial conglomerates. It really bothered him. And our conversation stuck with me.

I know he would be proud of the young adults today who are trying to raise as much of the food for their family as they can. His father would be, too. 

 

The hay appeareth, and the tender grass showeth itself, and herbs of the mountains are gathered. [Proverbs 27:25] The Book was made for those who live on the land.

David Grayson in The Countryman's Year, 1936

 

[I don't know why there's such a gap between the picture and the following paragraphs. It's not that way on my draft.] 

All Dressed Up

 

                                            [ad from Harper's Bazaar September 1942]

 

I'm all dressed up with no place to go.

      Even put on my favorite chapeau.

No church, no theater,

     No Frist Art Museum.

Can't visit Mamam and Papa,

     Not in this world, dear me.

So I'll fly away to Paris

     And join Armand and Reine-Marie.

I'm told they're wise as ever

     Via mon cher Louise.

Home sweet home is nice for PJs and jeans,

     But for really dressing up there's always Paree.

 

Wishing you all a good book and time to read it.

 

 

     

Nathalie Dupree's Mint Julep Meatloaf

 There aren't many cookbooks in my cookbook library that make me cry.

 

But I cry every time I read Nathalie Dupree's recipe for Mint Julep Meatloaf from her Matters of Taste cookbook, a cookbook of personal stories based on the 27 menus included in her early PBS show of the same name.

 

Nathalie Dupree, recently called by Garden & Gun magazine the Doyenne of Southern Cooking, started Rich's Cooking School in the large Atlanta department store in 1975 and her fifteenth cookbook was recently published. I have seven of her cookbooks that I use all the time. 

 

Hers and Lee Bailey's would be the last cookbooks to go if ever forced to winnow down my collection to two authors. (That's my maternal grandfather in a snapshot by Lee's stack of cookbooks. He--my grandfather, not Lee--owned a butcher shop in the small town where my mother grew up.)

 

Matters of Taste is a book of personal stories along with recipes, some sad stories, some funny, and one for Cold Curried Tomato Soup that is the sexiest love story I've ever read in a cookbook. But her Mint Julep Meatloaf story makes my heart ache for every child who ever heard angry arguments between their parents, including my own children.

 

 

 

Her parents quarreled all the time when they were together. She thought her father was leaving them all soon. He always said he was going to...The little girl felt it was her fault that her parents constantly argued. If she left home her father might not leave...Her parents were still shouting when she left the house, and no one asked her where she was going...After a day of trying to find a house that looked like a new little girl might be wanted, she returned home...It was late when she walked in, and the heat of the day was gone. No one said hello. No one had missed her...Her dad left soon after and never came home again.

 

 The little girl grew up and all her life believed that good food is a way to nourish people.

When she moved to another country, she served American meatloaf, macaroni, and greens to her exiled friends. When she was left alone, she cooked onions to comfort her in her loneliness. And always, she kept gingersnaps on hand and a jar of peanut butter. All of them, when she need them, soothed and comforted her.

 To all the children who probably aren't getting off a school bus this fall of pandemic, may the cookie jar be full and their homes filled with love and laughter. To all their parents, here is the Doyenne of Southern Cooking's recipe for Mint Julep Meatloaf that she attributed to Charles Carden Snow. The recipe says to make two loaves; I've done that but this time just made one large one. 

4 pounds lean ground meat [she uses 1/2 beef and 1/2 lamb but I use sirloin or very lean ground beef]

2 eggs, beaten slightly

1/8 teaspoon curry powder

1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup bread crumbs

1 onion, chopped

1 beef bouillon cube, crushed

2 garlic cloves, chopped

1 large handful fresh mint leaves, dried and crushed [I use fresh mint, slivered, not dried except in winter]

1 cup chili sauce [divided into 1/4 cups]

1/2 cup water

3/4 cup bourbon

Garnish: fresh mint leaves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F. Combine meat, eggs, curry, salt, pepper, bread crumbs, onion, bouillon, garlic, mint, and 1/4 cup of the chili sauce. Form the meat mixture into two thick, oval-shaped loaves. Pour the water into a greased baking dish that has a cover. Gently place the loaf into the dish. With a tablespoon, make a deep indentation down the center of each of the loaves. Combine the bourbon and 1/4 cup of the chili sauce and fill the indentations, pouring any remaining mixture over the loaves. Cover and bake for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Uncover, spread each loaf with 1/4 cup of the remaining chili sauce, and bake uncovered until brown. Remove from pan. Garnish with mint leaves. Freeze one loaf and serve the other.

 

This meatloaf is a far cry from the dry onion soup mix meatloaf I grew up on. Mama's was good, almost any homemade meatloaf is, but I went on to two better recipes and now this one that we think tops them all. No need to get the ketchup bottle out for eating this meatloaf. The sauce is sensational! 

 

   

Thank you so much to so many who emailed me that they understood my reasons for turning off comments here at this stage of my life.  

Concerning Blogging, and Quatre Epices

 Lately the world has been too much with me and in a desperate desire to find tranquility of mind and spirit, I'm pulling back my involvement in social media to a comfortable level. As a small part of this I'm suspending comments at both my blogs and, for an as yet undetermined time, will be posting only as a personal journal of my thoughts and interests.

[Tuppy thinks to herself] Seventy-seven. What had happened to the years? Old age seemed to have taken her unaware and totally unprepared. Tuppy Armstrong was not old. Other people were old, like one's own grandmother, or characters in books. She thought of Lucilla Eliot, in The Herb of Grace. The epitome, one would have thought, of a perfect matriarch.

                            from Under Gemini by Rosamunde Pilcher

I am now the same age as Tuppy and am examining how I want to spend the energy and hours I may have left. We live in unsettled times, to put it mildly, and owe it to ourselves and our loved ones to weigh how we want to spend precious time that will not always be there. 

One thing I don't want to spend my hours on anymore is elevated stress following the political story of the day on Facebook, or, God forbid, ever again participating in what Mrs. Minerva called, "tedious and unprofitable discussion...clear from the outset that neither side was going to budge an inch." 

Good grief, how such discussions drain one! 

Tuppy refers to Lucilla Eliot as truly old and maybe I am too because I agree with Lucilla in one of my favorite books, The Herb of Grace (American title: Pilgrim's Inn):

Lucilla knew always...that it was homemaking that mattered. Every home was a brick in the great wall of decent living that men erected over and over again as a bulwark against the perpetual flooding in of evil. But women made the bricks, and the durableness of each civilization depended upon their quality, and it was no good weakening oneself for the brick-making by thinking too much about the flood.

                      Elizabeth Goudge's The Herb of Grace/Pilgrim's Inn

I've come to realize that in this stage of my life I need to be careful to redeem the time (Ephesians 5:16). I will still try to see what's happening in my dear blog friends' lives during R & R time, how could I not? But I thought it only fair to warn you that I'm closing comments at both blogs in case you don't want to bother reading.

In order to have a few pictures here I'm including a recipe for one of my favorite seasonings, Quatre épices from James Beard's Love and Kisses and a Halo of Truffles. Note my own new truffle pig in the pictures!

   

Mix together 1 1/8 cups ground white pepper, 3 1/2 tablespoons ground nutmeg, 3 1/2 tablespoons ground ginger, and 1 1/2 tablespoons ground cloves. 

 Keep tightly sealed.

 Use with roasted and braised meats, stews, soups, sweet potatoes, gingersnaps or whatever your heart desires, because James would.

 

 

Sending love and kisses to you! God bless and keep you!

Dewena

Do not be afraid, stand firm and you will see the deliverance the Lord will bring you today...The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.

                       Exodus 14:13-14