Starched Cotton Dresses

At the start of the school year Mary had 4 new dresses. With mother Eva , Mary picked out fabric—100% cotton at 39¢ a yard. Mrs. Ott, who worked in a local factory as a seamstress, sewed the fabric into dresses, using patterns from which Mary selected. 3 or 4 additional dresses were added to her wardrobe throughout the school year. Mary had 2 or 3 “good” dresses for church and special occasions. She wore her “old” dresses to work around the house and to do field work. She changed into these “old” dresses as soon as she came home from school. She had a pair of oxford shoes for school, a pair of “good” shoes to wear with her “good” dresses, and a pair of “old” work shoes.

Her sister dressed similarly. Her brothers wore shirts and ties to school. They would never think of wearing their work clothes, denim overalls or dungarees off the farm, that is, if they went into town.

The family had plenty of laundry that mother Eva washed every Monday—piles of underwear and socks, of course, along with work clothes. Dresses and shirts (which were worn until dirty) got special attention. Eva scrubbed collars and cuffs on a washboard. After coming out of the wringer washer, they were dipped in starch, and hung out to dry. After being dried they were “sprinkled” lightly with water and rolled up in preparation for Tuesday ironing. Damp, starched cotton was easier to iron.

For Eva, ironing was more than an all day affair done at the ironing board pulled down from a kitchen closet. Mary remembers her mother sometimes ironing until midnight.

When she was old enough, Mary ironed the smaller boys clothes.

Gradually, as she grew older and more siblings were born, Mary assumed more and more of the responsibilities of caring for Frankie, Georgie, Stevie, Paulie, and Tommie: washing them, getting them ready for bed, waking them up, and getting them ready and off for school, as well as ironing heir clothes.

September Moon

At 92 Mary remains inquisitive and full of wonder for the natural world. She recently woke up before dawn on an early September morning and saw the full moon in the western sky. She sat by the window in the family room and watched it set, growing larger as it arced to the horizon. It was a beautiful sight. "I never saw the moon set before," Mary declared with awe.

After the first morning, Mary rose early to watch the moon set for three more mornings. One morning she left her chair to wash her face and comb her hair. When she returned the moon had already set. She was astonished that it moved so quickly.

Fascinated by the moon cycles, Mary wondered how long the moon would "remain full."

2641 Foulk Road

In 1949, after borrowing $5,000 from Mary's father Joe, Clint and Mary purchased land from Hyland Gaynor, a nearly acre wedge ($1200) within the northern boundary of Delaware. Gaynor had once operated a small milk bottling business--buying local milk in bulk. On a hill, 165 feet into Pennsylvania, stood the Gaynor's modest field stone farmhouse and gray sloping barn.

The property to the south of 2641 Foulk Road was a farm field that sometimes grew wheat. South of that stood a substantial serpentine (green) stone Methodist church with sprawling graveyard dating from the 19th century. There were 2 houses across the street, the abodes of the Petit de Manges and the Burroughs. South of these houses was a farm field with a wooden windmill in its midst, boundaried by a low, masoned granite stone wall along Delaware 261, Foulk Road. (In the early 1950s it was spelled Faulk Road.)

Clint, with little training, determined that he would build the two story Cape Cod bungalow himself. He relied on U.S. government pamphlets for information.

An acquaintance with a tractor and a clam shell digger helped him gouge a foundation from a shallow slope. Clint laid the concrete block foundation: each block weighed 23 pounds. He hired a carpenter to be sure that the framing was done properly. Once the basics were in place, Clint did the rest of the construction and finishing with hand tools, a process that continued for more than a decade.

At first, there was a kitchen with knotty-pine cabinets and eating area, living room, and two bedrooms on the first floor. Clint laid oak flooring on the first floor, which Mary waxed and polished by hand every Friday.

The second floor was an attic. Later, room by room, Clint built 3 bedrooms upstairs. The basement was unfinished--housing a small workshop in the midst of a gas furnace and water pump. The pump drew water from a relatively shallow, hand dug well. (Conservation of water was a family virtue enforced by Mary--only an inch of water was allowed to take a bath.) There was a utility sink, washing machine, and chest freezer in the cellar entrance way. Since the basement was mostly below ground it was cool in summer and warm in winter. It held aromas of seasonal vegetables from the garden.

On the backside of the house, on either side of a corridor leading into the cellar, Mary cultivated a sloping "rock garden" that featured multi-colored portulacas and cascading mountain pink.

A vegetable garden dominated the long yard, along the PA border. Clint turned the soil and dug furrows with a one wheeled hand cultivator. In the garden's front was a cascading concord grape arbor. Rows of radishes, cabbage, carrots, beets, lettuce, potatoes, and such led to rows of yellow corn--Clint was a yellow corn man as opposed to my Mary's farm family championing of white corn.

Toward the narrowing point of the wedge-shaped property stood a chicken coop with a small and low cold sash in front of it, for growing seedlings in the spring. Near the garden were two apple trees (Macintosh and Delicious) and a Bing cherry tree. Alongside the chicken coop was a strawberry patch. On the other side of yard grew a bramble of raspberries canes. I have faint memories of a goose berry and a quince bush.

A dog house above the raspberry path had a circular dirt apron, worn of grass by Spot who was contained by a 12 foot chain. Spot was a hunting dog, configured like a Brittany Spaniel. His pedigreed mother had mated with an unknown male.

Popular shrubs of the era served as borders and boundaries: privet (with stinking flowers) and fire thorn (with thorns and red berries). Eventually these plantings grew rank and deeply rooted and with considerable effort were torn out.

Originally the house was sheathed in red brick patterned fiber-board panels. (It would much later be covered in white aluminum siding.)

In the beginning there was no garage. Alongside the gravel driveway, near the house was a mound of soil that had been dug from the foundation.

Finishing the rooms, maintaining the property, keeping a garden plus husbanding chickens consumed Mary and Clint's evenings and weekends.

The property and house, so hands on for Clint and Mary, was the center of their life together. It was a source of pride, as well as a symbol of their work ethic and private sense of responsibility.

First Home

Little Mary spent her first few 4 years in a modest two story frame house in Paulsboro, NJ at 25 East Washington Street. Her father Joe worked at a DuPont Plant in Gibbstown that made black powder. E va, Mary's mother, spoke scant English. So German was the primary language of the home for Mary and her two older brothers Joe and John. Sister Eva was 2 years younger than Mary. Tony was a baby.

The Paulsboro house had a front porch with a child's rocking chair. Circa 1920, little Mary loved to climb up on the seat, make herself comfortable, to sit and rock. She fell asleep in the rocking chair. A neghbor alerted Eva that her little girl was asleep. Her mother woke her up and took her inside. Mary cried. (Her mother always said she was a crybaby.) After a while, when no one was paying attention, Mary returned to the front porch and her rocking chair and rocked herself asleep again.

[Ed Searl]

70 years (x) 365 days = 25,550 main meals

Mary stretched a dollar with frugal shopping and a liberal garden. Yet her main meals were abundant and varied. She cycled through a two week schedule, putting dinner on the table when husband Clint came home from work at 5:15. Saturday evening was more casual but supper was still early. Sunday dinner was served at 1:00 p.m., after church.

Weekday meals Tuesday through Thursday: Spaghetti and meat balls, chicken pot pie, beef stew, meat loaf, hamburgers (no buns) with gravy, chile con carne, roast chicken, fried chicken, stuffed peppers, cabbage rolls, vegetable soup, chicken soup, broiled steak, breaded veal cutlet, fried calf liver, creamed chipped beef, macaroni and cheese, navy bean soup, green pea soup.

Friday: breaded fish, fried tomatoes and white gravy, breaded zucchini, potato soup swimming in butter and dusted with paprika served with fried doughnuts rolled in granulated sugar, New England clam chowder, fried breaded oysters, crab cakes.

Saturday: pancakes, waffles, scrapple, bacon, hot dogs, sausage links, rarely--creamed kidneys or shrimp, scrapple.

Sunday: roast beef, roast pork, baked chicken. (Son Clint called the roasts “boiled” when cooked in a pressure cooker.) Sunday evening--no cooking, a self-serve slice of pie or cake.

Monday: “leftovers” from Sunday.

Vegetables and fruit: nearly every meal had mashed potatoes with gravy for husband Clint. (He claimed repeatedly he could eat a mashed potato sandwich.) In season--from the garden—peas, carrots, beets, radishes, corn, green and yellow string bean, cabbage, zucchini, and leaf lettuce, apple sauce. Out of season, from the big chest freezer in the basement—yellow corn, green and yellow string beans, lima beans, succotash (lima beans and corn); or from the cupboard under the cellar stairs—canned tomatoes, bread and butter pickles, beets, and strawberry, cherry, and grape jams beneath crowns of white wax.

Constants at the dinner table included mashed potatoes (of course), iced tea with wedges of lemon, coleslaw, bread and butter (never margarine because of husband Clint’s aversion to it). Homemade butter rolls appeared on many Sundays.

Desserts peaked on Sunday. Cakes included lemon with lemon zest icing, white cake with boiled coconut icing, brown sugar with burnt sugar icing. Pie with flaky, tender crust ran a broad range of berries and fruit—strawberry, pumpkin, rhubarb, blueberry, cherry, peach, apple, lemon meringue. Coconut cream and pineapple cream were custard rich. Passing trends were shoo fly pie, pineapple upside down cake, Boston cream pie (from a box mix), jelly roll (thin sponge cake spread with home jam), lemon chiffon/buttermilk pie (a puffy concoction with a sweet-sour, melt in your mouth texture), cream puffs and éclairs, strawberry shortcake made from sweet biscuits and homegrown strawberries--in more frugal days topped with whipped evaporated milk.

Mary made butter cookies in various shapes extruded from an aluminum Wearever cookie press and garnished with multi-colored sprinkles, Toll House cookies, (Br’er Rabbit) molasses cookies, and at Christmas walnut balls dusted with confectioner’s sugar

Mary’s signature confection , of course, learned from Eva her German mother, was “torn britches:” an eggy dough rolled paper thin, cut in rectangles and slit two or three times, deep fried to a golden brown, and when cool sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Making torn britches took at least two hours.

Around 90, after planning, preparing, and cleaning up more than 20,000 meals, Mary decided she needed a few "cookless" days a week. Since then, on Tuesday and Thursdays she's allowed a frozen dinner for her and Clint.

Simple Days, Simple Pleasures

When young, Mary would sit on the front stoop of the farm house. She'd smooth the sandy soil and with a stick she'd write in dirt. At 92 she can still see herself doing that.

Mary also liked to sit on the steps and look for out-of-state license plates on passing cars.

"We didn't need fancy toys to make us happy. They were simpler times. And, oh, how much things have changed. You should see the farm now! You wouldn't recognize it." By this she means the old homestead isn't well taken care of.

[Ed Searl]

Typical Mary Meal

Green beans, corn, cole slaw, stewed tomatos, buttered noodles, and chicken tenders plus a glass of iced tea with lemon: a typical Mary meal.