A gift poem
I’d been remembering how my grandmother used to write sweet and silly little poems to go with hand made gifts. Being relatively poor, gifts that she sewed or baked or otherwise crafted were often given to friends. Of course, the poems had all gone away and I so wished I had just one.
Yesterday, I was cleaning out an old wooden toy trunk from my childhood. Among accessories for my grandma’s old treadle sewing machine, I found this and immediately recognized her handwriting. It must have been the rough draft of a poem to go with some sort of soapy sewn gift.
I am so pleased to have found this precious treasure.
Gram’s scrapbooks: cats and dogs
cat and dog pictures from Grandma’s scrapbooks, assembled from 1914 to the mid 1930s
by Paul Branson
dream homes from Gram’s scrapbooks
from my grandma’s scrapbooks, created  between 1914 and the 1930s.
She began scrapbooking as a child and dreamed of the perfect cottage home, a dream that she did achieve in the 1930s.
by George Gillet Whitney
dream home
Old Dutch Cleanser ad from 1915 through the 20s
another dream house
dream home
Gram’s scrapbooks: black and white illustrations
From the scrapbooks that my grandmother, Gladys Corinne Walker, assembled from 1914 into the 1920s.  I have selected black and white illustrations for this post. These fascinated me when I pored over the scrapbooks as a child.  Many were as tiny as they look in this mosaic. You can click through these as a gallery to view the pictures individually..
Flapper Fanny
Grandma’s Recipe Box: Pie
My grandmother was renowned for her light and fluffy pie crust. Â I wonder if she used this recipe:
She also made a wonderful apple pie which she always served with a slice of cheddar cheese.
Gram’s Recipe Box: Cookies
Grandma’s recipe box: desserts
From the recipe box of my grandmother, Gladys Corinne Walker.
Gladys was a wonderful cook, and for collectors of old recipes, these may be interesting.
A lot of the details about the recipes came out of Gladys’s memory so only an experienced cook could re create them.
She made many different kinds of cookies, so those are on a separate post.
Grandma’s Recipe Box: pickles
Grandma made pickles every fall; her little red house smelled deliciously of salt and vinegar. Â I helped her prepare the cucumbers. Â These are the only pickle recipes in her recipe box. Â I also remember Virginia Sweet Chunks (her favourite) and water melon pickles.
Just because I could not figure out where else to put mayonnaise:
Grandma’s Recipe Box: main dishes and salads
I am not a cook. Â These old recipes of my grandmother’s from the 1940s and 1950s might be of interest to friends who are. Â I am sure many of the details were just kept in her mind! Â Gladys was an amazing cook and I still remember her dinners 50 years later.
The Grandma Scrapbooks 