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I have a question.  I haven't learned to knit yet, but some of the things I wanted to knit once I learn was dishcloths and washcloths.  I bought a knit dishcloth to see how I liked it, and it cleans well, but it takes forever to dry and sometimes sours.  I rinse it well in clean water between uses and hang it to dry.  I live in a humid climate, however.  Is this a problem for anyone else?

I've considered some of the older kitchen items (non-electric).  I have some - a box grater, sifter, slicer/cutter, can openers, bottle openers and grinder, the kind you clamp on a table edge and force meat or vegetables through as you turn the handle.  I've looked at rotary beaters but every one I've seen that is vintage is off-kilter or the gear is worn.  I've looked at an Oxo beater online - it has a lot of plastic parts, so I've hesitated.  

I am close now to retirement and I think this will make my experiment with living at least closer to living in the 40's style a lot easier.  It will be much easier to line dry clothes when I'm not confined to a weekend, and I swear, it only seems to rain on weekends around here.

I agree with home canning being a very satisfying activity.  I love to pull a jar of meat, fruit or vegetables out of the canned goods to use for a meal. 

I have somehow wound up in 1943/1944. I might transition to 1944, as this year was 1943 for me. I have been slowly moving through the times that way. Some part of me wants to study the Victorian era, but I dont think that will become a full study. More like, informing my 1944 study. I can't throw myself into these studies as much as some, because I do live in a household of other people who are not joining in. However I love to read the newspapers, and see what I can get up to in the kitchen.
Oh to have a pressure canner! It would make my canning a year around activity, an exciting, yet terrifying thought...
Can we trade weather? Over here the past week has been in the -20s (C) and today it went down to -31 :(  (that is -4 to -23 F)  The 'highs' have been a breezy -12. (10 F) It's always the windchill! We have strong cold winds that drag the temperature down a good 10 degrees or more.
It's definitely the weather for wool and a heavy coat. 

I am reading along.  I have many of those old kitchen tools that I have picked up at thrift stores over the years and really prefer them.  I started canning my stew with boneless pork loin because of the high price of beef and you really can't tell the difference. Canned meats on our shelves have saved the day so many times.

That pound cake looks wonderful! Reminds me of when mom made pound cakes. One of her favorites I think. I really should make one.

Due to family obligations I can't participate in the study 100% but I will read and try to incorporate the ideas where I can.

I love that you have the chair seats & backs covered to protect from wear. That too reminds me of mom. 

I am thoroughly enjoying reading along. I have many of the items necessary to do it but I’ve been sick for a while and I haven’t been doing much of anything. 
My hats off to all of you that are taking these steps. I know it’s a lot harder to do until you learn the new ways. I honestly believe that everything was better back then and there’s so much less waste. 
Being born in a different time I have a great appreciation for value. I practice that anyway.  And I taught my son to do the same. He like myself, can see a greater appreciation of this. It saddens both of us how in today’s world so much is taken for granted. I believe that we will be forced to do that in the near future. Reading this is helping me to learn more of what we will need to know and learn. 
i rarely use anything electric, so I’m at least a little ahead of the curve. 
I find all of this useful and valuable. I can’t wait for each article to come out. And I’m interested in learning more about this new canning method and tool. 
Keep up the great job. 

I love the way you have furniture arranged around the fireplace, I do also because it not only warms you but it is also very calming to watch the flames. I like the fire pit in the warmer months for the same reason.   

I love my pressure canner for making meals in a jar! I love canned pork heated with BBQ sauce and eaten on a sandwich.

Today I ground up the last of the Thanksgiving ham pulled from the freezer and ground half frozen.....made ham salad for myself and family. I do not like to keep ham too long in the freezer.

The hambone is simmering on the wood stove for broth either for soup or beans.

To keep a dish cloth from souring either rinse in vinegar or baking soda water.....I remember my granny soaking the tea towels and dishcloths in soda water after evening clean up.....she then wrung them out and had this little swing out metal rack below the sink to hang them to dry over night.

Very cold and nasty weather here, dreary and overcast a lot of the time, I have been using more lights in the daytime because I cannot work in the dark dreary light.

I am following the study and doing as much as I can.  

I have heard the leaves of the daikon radish are a bit like horseradish, it that true?

I've never grown daikon but have done regular red radishes. I love the young leaves in stir fries. I understand the radish seed pods are edible. 

Hello

 I just wanted to say how much im enjoying your post,

And what our grand parents would think of todays way of life regarding all the kitchen draws full of the latest tools/kit that never see's the light of day,

You just have to visit the boot sales / etc to see these tools to make life easier "but ended up on these boot sales,

I like nothing better than to learn something new every day if poss and just by reading todays offering by this forum I now know what the egg seperator you have shown looks like & Ive seen one only this last week in my local Red Cross shop, (I'll be making a U turn back tomorrow, 

Thank you once again.

I love going to the food storage room and getting home canned food. I used to do quite a bit of canning while our children were growing up. Now, I don't do much at all. My health and energy are obstacles on some days.

I have several of my grandmother's kitchen items and dishes. I have purchased hand cooking and baking items over the years and I use them frequently. 

Donna, your home is lovely. The warmth and coziness exudes through the computer screen.

Thank you for another intriguing post. I was just thinking yesterday about my grandparents and what they did during the depression. 

As I mentioned on the last post, we will be living in what I call our “timeless” season, incorporating good ideas, inventions, and technology from every decade.  As a good friend often points out, even books as we know they today were new technology in the past.  I do think that overall, the simpler living of the past was better for human health on a day to day basis, but of course modern medicine is far superior when faced with cancer, congenital heart issues, or autoimmune disorders.

We are nearly at retirement, everything is wrapping up.  It feels like we are hitting the “stop” button on our lives, in terms of our home and possessions.  I don’t see this as a bad thing at all, just the reality of moving to a fixed income, which in all honesty, is quite a bit more modest than what we were living on a few years ago.  When things break — and they will — we will have to decide between repair, replacement, and doing without, and in truth, for most things that require electricity, we will likely to choose to do without if the repair doesn’t make sense.

I have that same egg strainer, it came to me from my grandmother, and works better than others I’ve had.

We’ve talked about about gardening, not because we have a strong interest in doing it but because we think it would be prudent to grow some food.  We will put ourselves on the list for a community garden plot, because the annual fee includes water usage and will be far less than if we had to pay for watering at home in a hot, dry climate.  We also want to try canning, most likely water bath canning at first.  We have many ideas about our first year of retirement, many of which revolve around keeping home.

Our house is 100 years old, that puts us in the 1920s.  Some of my cast iron and Pyrex is from the 1930s, and some is new.  We have furniture from the 1940s and forward, most of it from before 1980.  My sterling flatware is from 1941, and my china is of the same vintage.  The 1940s and 1950s provide our radios, and luckily we live where radio is still broadcast and have a choice of stations.  Our record player console is from the 1960s, but has also been updated to allow streaming from a smartphone.  The 1970s provide more vintage housewares, books, and sewing/craft supplies.  We married in the 1980s, and still use some of our wedding gifts on a regular basis.  My KitchenAid mixer is from the 1990s, as are our knives and many other of our home goods.  All of our large appliances are from the last 10 years — we experienced many of them breaking at the same time.  I have a bin full of antique and vintage linens.  We have record albums from all decades.

As I said, it feels like we are pressing a stop button.  While it’s not exactly the same as rationing, it has a similar feel as we won’t be replacing most things that break and are unrepairable — it will be as if we couldn’t buy them.  Every bit of clothing we have will be worn until it is no longer able to be mended, and then replaced with the minimum necessary — much like rationing.  We don’t care about fashion in the slightest, my husband wears the same thrifted collared shirts to church that he wore a decade ago.  My dress shoes are 6 years old and in still excellent shape.  We are budgeting for one new pair of everyday shoes per person per year.  Our grocery budget is quite low, I am now at $600 for 3 adults and hoping to bring it lower — this is also similar to rationing, as the budget acts as the ration coupons would

I hadn’t realized when reading the last post about changing the study year how much our lives will already look like 1942.  But because I live with others who have no interest in doing a deep dive into 1942, I will stick with my timeless season instead.  Luckily, the finances will significantly slow any forward movement in terms of electronics and technology.

I'm reading along but love every single minute of it!  My dh would never embrace any of it.  (Thought I was nuts with the no tech month). However, I do what I can. I've made the Queen cakes (love) and the crackers.  I can't get those crackers right though; always too salty, or too thick. lol. I'll keep trying. I'm learning to master that rolling pin.  I just ate the last one and no matter how they come out, I love them. I'm cooking more than I used to - biscuits, bread, etc., which is good since I need the practice.  I absolutely adore that radio. What I wouldn't give to have an old radio like that. (And a fireplace.)  I was just at a vintage mall and had a great time.  I take into consideration a lot of what you do and store it in memory for our power outages which can be often.  At least annually.  The latest was a week ago for 15 hours! I have a Kitchenaid mixer but only use it for cookies.  It's getting pretty heavy to move to the island, and is quite a space hog for just that, plus the shredder is cracked on it, so I need to think about keeping it. Something about baking by hand is just more enjoyable to me.  With the mixer, I add one thing and leave it to find the next since it does the work for you.  Nice, but it misses the joy.  Your home looks so clean and comfortably cozy. I just love it and love moving stuff around (which I don't because it annoys Mr. Grumpy).  I think I could live pretty cheaply. I need to go check out that book.  :)

Grandma Donna Wrote,

Joan S, I have not had the issue with the knitted dish cloth souring.  I have seen some dish cloths that are knitted a bit too thick and take and they do take a long time to dry.  We are humid in our are as well.  I have a small metal swing out rack that holds mine over the sink.  I use 100% cotton to knit the ones I make.  I think that the vinegar or baking soda rinse that Joyce C mentioned could help. The vinegar smell goes away.    I have had a crochet dish cloth that would not dry because it was so thick.  I ended up using that one for a hot pad for setting something hot on.  

Joyce C, the daikon radish leaves do have a slight horseradish taste and between horseradish and turnip leaf taste.  We sauté them or put them in with the cut up root.

Joan S, we at time have had issues with the hand knit dish cloths souring.  We have done several things to combat this.  One is that my husband washes out the dish cloth each night with very hot water and a drop of Dawn before squeezing it out well and hanging it to dry.  I also started using larger knitting needles for my dish cloths, which makes them dry faster.  Once we started line drying we noticed less souring which makes me think the UV rays from the sun have more disinfecting power than the heat of a clothes dryer, or maybe our dish cloths weren’t getting 100% dry in the dryer since they were thicker than some of the other towels in the load and I didn’t like to run it until they were bone dry.  Finally, as an experiment to use up some perle cotton, I held three strands together and crocheted a dish cloth using the half double stitch (I think it’s just called double in the UK).  Not only does this dish cloth dry faster, but it also scrubs better.

I’m not planning to purchase vintage kitchen tools to replace anything I have now.  I had a vintage rotary beater but it didn’t work all that well (I think the gears were worn because it would slip) and I was always fighting rust spots on it — many of the tools from my grandmother and mother had rust.

I love this post, because I think the things you have were made in the prime ... and from thereon out, didn't get better. Just cheap.  I find myself purchasing the older things and dumping the new.  I've embraced stainless steel (actually found a complete replica of the ss bowl I grew up using and purchased it) & cast iron. But I think I'd die if I could ever find some Revereware prior to 1960. LOL.  I've kept my 1980 electric hand beaters (b-day gift then) since they're strong!!! I haven't bought jeans in 10 years.  But you have vintage linens and albums... all bestill my heart.  Just turned 65 last week and frankly, stuff they made then was so much better.  I've been so sorry I've replaced some things with what I thought was better and it was junk.  I think timeless season is a good way to put it.

With many of us in retirement or on the cusp of retirement, I find Grandma Donna’s focus on doing things without electricity very helpful!  When I was growing up we had an electric hand mixer but often mixed things by hand — brownies were always mixed with a wooden spoon in a big mixing bowl.  I use a blender to mix my eggs for scrambled eggs, but growing up we just used a fork and I should go back to that

It makes me think of the different kinds of breads various cultures make.  Biscuits take less electricity to make than yeasted or sourdough breads loaves because they cook in less time.  Baguettes take less time to bake.  Tortillas cook very quickly.  English muffins use less electricity.  I am finding the home oven to be very inefficient — no wonder people use to take bread loaves to the village oven!

I am so aware of electricity usage now, far more than before we put in our solar panels.  Right now my house is using 200 watts, which means either the refrigerator or freezer compressor is on, as there are no lights on in the house right now and I’m not cooking yet.  This time of year cooking is the main use of electricity other than the basics of keeping the house running (refrigerator, WiFi, etc.).  I used the oven to make dinner yesterday and that took 3 kWh!  Tonight I’ll use the little rice maker and the induction cooktop, and will use less than half of that.

Ann E, I’m younger than you are but have inherited many things and thrifted others.  Most of our albums came from my grandfather, and the linens from my grandmother, which had herself inherited many of them.  And I went anti-plastic long before it was mainstream again — my children drank from small real glass cups and my friends used to be so worried that their children would break a cup but it never happened.

I use the same big stainless steel mixing bowl I bought in the late 1980s, and I have two matching smaller bowls that I thrifted.  In all truth, I grab that bowl more than any other, and I honestly regret the stoneware bowls I bought this year because they are just too heavy.  I can rotate my stainless bowl as I mix foods in, making it so easy to scrape the sides.  My other favorite mixing bowl is the largest size Pyrex bowl (not the one with pour spouts).  It’s also vintage, from my grandmother.  It wasn’t her favorite though, so she never put it in the dishwasher like the rest of her bowls.  I love looking at photos from my childhood and seeing it on her counter, when it was used on holidays.  That’s the bowl I use for biscuit dough or for anything I don’t want to react with metal.  My husband also uses it about 5 nights per week as a salad bowl, even though it’s never full, lol.

Most things were made better in the past!  People expected things to last and would be upset if they didn’t.  Now most people see broken things as an “opportunity” to shop.  I still use an Farberware electric skillet that was given to me used (a perfectly acceptable wedding gift to me).  I have a 1960s waffle iron from my stepmother that is so much better than the nonstick waffle iron I was gifted.  I also use a Farberware electric griddle for pancakes.  Everyone was worried about aluminum for awhile there, but I think it was really pushed in the media to get people to buy nonstick, and we all know how that turned out.  These vintage appliances work great, but I’ve never had an Instant Pot last longer than 4 years.  I’ve decided when my current Instant Pots stop working (I have an 8 quart and a 4 quart) I will replace them with a stovetop model — and I kick myself for having gotten rid of a stove top model back in the mid 1990s when I bought my first electric pressure cooker.  If I had kept that and not moved to the electric models, I would have saved a lot of money over the past 30 years!

This is our current living room radio — we had an older console floor radio but we really didn’t have room for it.  This one is from the 1950s.  My husband learned how to repair tube radios so we have a few.  Where it says “BC” that is what AM was referred to, and then this radio also has FM and short wave.  It’s rather large for a tabletop radio, so I have it atop a china cabinet

We also arrange our living room furniture around the fireplace!  We don’t often light a fire because it pulls the warm air right out of the house and as such only warms us if we are right near it — it’s a drafty old house.  The fireplace also doesn’t have a flue, which would probably be a problem in a colder climate  But we still considered it the heart of our living room.  We keep the TV in our son’s bedroom (largest bedroom in the house and he’s happy to share it) so the living room is more old fashioned and focused on connecting with each other.

One thing I wish our house still had was the wood cookstove in the kitchen!  We have the ash can in the ground outside so we know it had one — our fireplace ash drops to another place and is accessed on the side of the house.

I was looking at the rationing in 1942 US, and gasoline got rationed in January, but sugar and things didn't get rationed until May. It looks like rationing will be implemented fairly slowly during the year. I already grow a victory garden, so I wasn't sure what else there is to do to change to 1942. I know people are more prosperous in the 1940s, but I don't know a lot about this decade. I suppose we could send our husbands away for the year to pretend they were stationed overseas, but that's probably not practical. :) We haven't got an airplane plant for me to get a job at, so I'm very interested to see how others are planning their 1942 lives. :) Grandma Donna and Charles are obviously retired in 1942. What do you do if you're not retired and live in the US?

Donna, your home is so cozy.  It reminds me of my grandparents' home, which I adored.

Joyce, everyone beat me to the vinegar idea with sour dishcloths.  I change them every day. I soak them in hot water for an hour before running them through the shortest wash and use vinegar in the rinse cycle.  Works well.

Kimberly F. , we're heading for retirement in a few years, too.  We're looking to replace big things before then.  Our fence will be needing replacement in the next couple of years so that's on the list.  It was $7000 20+ years ago cuz our property is large.  Rather than paying for it, we'll be replacing it a section at a time ourselves.  Sadly, it's probably gonna cost $7000 again!!  But we have a list of things that we'll need to tend to.  I tell my husband that the bright side is that it's probably gonna be the LAST time lol.  I know we'll have to pay for a mowing service and one to shovel snow so that's another cost to consider.  Moving isn't even optional, not that I want to, because smaller homes are nearly twice the price of our current one.  Crazy expensive!!  Tiny.  Crammed together.  I really don't want to hear or smell my neighbors tooting, if you don't mind me saying so!!!

Debby B, we will be retired before Christmas :)  We had the solar installed, but most of what we want to do around the house we are going to attempt ourselves, other than the painting that involves very high ceilings.  I think we have a section of fence that needs replacing, or maybe two sections.  We have new neighbors behind us, so we’ll have to coordinate with them — the people who lived there before said they didn’t care if there was a fence and they wouldn’t pay for it.  We had that section done more than 15 years ago, and unfortunately the slats weren’t good quality.  Along the side it also needs fencing in the next couple of years, but that house is for sale, so we’ll want to wait and coordinate with those neighbors, as the fence line might get moved (that house’s yard currently borrows about 3 feet from our property).  We’ll probably do the fencing ourselves, we did that last time and it worked out well and is better than what we paid to have done.  Honestly, 15 years ago I wish we had done cinder block wall fencing for the whole property rather than cedar.  My parents bought a house with cinder block wall fencing and it was still standing 40+ years later, even though it wasn’t new when they bought the house.  Now it would seem like buying a fence for someone in the future.

My husband is going to start mowing the yard and doing the yard work, and then we plan over the next decade to change it all to xeriscaping and native plants so it needs less water and is easier to care for.  The water rates go up every year and we’re now paying about $50 - $75 more per month than 10 years ago, so I expect the trend will continue.  We don’t need the grass, we just need to make sure the big trees are getting watered.

Another interesting topic and I'm enjoying it immensely.  Sadly, can't move furniture around in this house, it just isn't built for it - lots of windows and doors in awkward places so what has been there forever has to stay there in place.  However we're looking at more cooling than warming in this climate and we don't have a fireplace at all, no need.

As far as I am aware the push down mayonnaise makers only made a type of runny mayonnaise not the very thick kind. I love finding non electric gadgets of yesteryear also,  all of them in constant use in my kitchen and way more robust than most items made now, plus the physical activity involved keeps arm muscles in good condition :) I also have an egg white separator but it was presented to me as an implement for drizzling melted chocolate.... I have found it equally useful to stir newly topped up sourdough mixture.
One item I have is a kind of pasta cutter  with a handle and a row of four wheels in front and four wheels directly behind/ inline, am guessing their is trick to using it that I've not mastered yet nor the purpose of the extra wheels, to date the front row cuts ok but then the back row sticks to the dough previously cut, causing a right mess ;)

I plan to read the local newspaper (online), and/or the Australian Women's Weekly.

What I'd really like is to get hold of a diary and find out how the women managed to continue running households while also taking on paid work and doing all the mens' yard work, while the men were away.

Grandma Donna, I was thrilled to see your wooden clothes rack! I remember Mum using one the same as that when I was little :)

I have been reading Grandma Donna's blog since practically the beginning, but maybe only commented/posted a couple of times here, and that was a long time ago. However, I'm jumping in with both feet for the history study this time!

I'm in the Gippsland region of Victoria, Australia, where after a long cold and rainy Winter and Spring, the sunshine has has finally returned, so I'm flat out getting my Victory Garden, catching up on a lot of weeding and getting planted for our main growing season. I'm hoping to scale up and get to a point by the end of Summer, where I'm consistently harvesting enough all year round to stop purchasing vegetables (and only minimal fruit) from the store.

I feel like I'm in a financial position similar to someone living in 1942, as I had only just started to get back on my feet financially over the past few months, after many years of hardship due to leaving an abusive marriage and many subsequent years of legal costs to protect my children, and now I've been hit with an enormous quote for rectification building works to my home due to old water damage, so I can definitely relate to someone that had just been through the Great Depression years. Researching how people survived those times (especially the single/widowed mothers) is inspiring me to battle on and find a way through my own challenges!

I'm going to start cutting my electricity by doing everything I can by hand rather than using appliances and save water by having daily sink washes instead of showers. I only have my youngest of 5 children still at home (almost 17yrs old) and he's very keen to help out by joining me in the cost saving measures, for which I'm very thankful!

Joan S, regarding stopping dish cloths from souring, I tend to boil a kettle on the stove top as I finish cooking dinner, then use that to both sanitise the dishcloth and keep my kitchen sink drain clear. If you lay the cloth flat in the bottom of the sink and pour some boiling water on that first, then use the rest of the kettle (after you've made a post dinner cuppa) to pour down the sink, it seems to do the trick. I did this in the tropics of Far North Queensland when we lived up there too, where nothing would fully dry on the clothes line, and it helped a lot.

Kellie O, I love reading the old Australian Women's Weekly magazines online too - I find them so much nicer and more interesting/helpful than modern ones! The next town over from me has much of their old newspapers online, and I enjoy reading through them also.

Grandma Donna, I was a little confused when I saw your fire on and how you'd moved your furniture to face it, then laughed at myself when I remembered that you're going into Winter right now whereas we're moving into Summer! Interestingly, our living room furniture was all facing the fire until a month ago, when we had a couple of nice Spring days, and one of my daughters helped me move it into a better Summer configuration, with our kitchen table now in a bay window to get some nice cross breezes, and our living area moved with the radiogram as the focal point on the side of the room where the kiwi vines outside the windows provide some nice shade from the harsh summer sun.

I'm so looking forward to following along with this study and reading all the blog and forum posts (as I always do), but hopefully chatting here a bit more from now on!

Rebekah

Thanks for another fine post. I thought others might enjoy this book I have about kitchens and kitchen gadgets from the 1920s to 1950. If you have kitchen gadgets that you don't know the age of it will help you determine the age. I love the colorful kitchens.

Greetings,

As part of the 1940s life I embrace, I collected Kitchen-Klatter magazines from the 1930s -1980s.The magazine and radio broadcasts was started by Leanna Driftmeier and continued with her daughter Lucille.  They lived in Shenandoah Iowa.The 1930s-40s magazines were filled with recipes, household tips, gardening tips and many articles of encouragement for keeping the home fires burning during the depression and war years. I remember listening to the radio broadcasts in my younger years. I wish I would have paid more attention to those broadcasts back then. However, I found my magazines on ebay, craigslist and garage sales. I use many of the recipes.  They also compiled a recipe book.  The recipes were sent in by radio listeners and magazines reader. Sharing good information and basic home cooking.  Very similar to the forum here.

As an avid canner I am starting a pantry challenge for the Winter months based loosely on the Three Rivers Homestead youtube channel by Jessica.  I have inventoried all my canned and dehydrated goods and those items that were not a big hit with the family or have older dates. And that challenge is to use up those items.  So far this week I have pulled 4 jars from the shelves and used with many more to go!

Really enjoy all the comments and ideas - look forward to each posting and comments.

Blessings,

Tammy

Kimberly F... that radio!!! LOL Love it!

Becky Sue K... I think I may need that book. :)

My fridge is like the one in the second picture ! The walls are about 5 inches thick and I just love it. I do have to defrost it but its fine, it gives me a chance to sort and go thru everything so no wastage.

Another thing I love about having a small fridge is I can't keep as much in it so things get used, not lost.

Today is a "soup" day, with biscuits or toast. It is cold and we got more snow overnight. I have been using a lot of wood because of this long unseasonable cold snap. I am keeping track because I need the $ figures for my budget. 

I hope to look up the magazines mentioned on the archives, I remember my grandmother getting me interested in the Gladys Tabor column "Butternut wisdom" and she clipped the columns from before I was even born.

I have been reading you for years and only commented a couple of times, I love this group , I'll be reading all about you all and this study but I don't think my husband will  want to go along living in the 40's.We do live in a log cabin and have a greenhouse and chickens and I do a lot of pressure canning and water bath canning.I love pressure canning meat, our area in east Kansas has a ground beef sale so I bought 20 lbs and pressure canned it.I call them "jars of freedom"  so we're not slaves of current grocery prices.Hubby has been retired 3 years and enjoying it immensely.He grows beautiful veg and is growing lettuce now in greenhouse.  I do have a lot of the old time hand tools for the kitchen but I need to dig them out of basement and use them again.Keep up the good work ladies!! ❤️❤️

Grandma Donna Wrote,

I am happy to see Rebecca G & Rebekah C  posting today. It is nice to know that you have been reading the posts and the forum. :)  

Tammy K_2, I also have the Kitchen-Klatter magazines. :)

I did some researching this morning comparing the grocery prices from 1931 and 1941.  It seems that the staples flour, sugar, and bacon are about a 8 to 12 cent increase.  Since we need to know what we would have experienced in the 1930s and before, I realized when I looked back in the 1931 grocery ads to get a comparison to 1941 I feel that I have memories as my mother or grandmother would have had.  

I have studied the years of 1917-1924 quite a bit to learn about my Father and mother's young years so I do not have their memories but an understanding of what was going on in time they were babies and understanding what life was like for my Grandmothers.  With old photos and the research I feel I have memories of that time.

After studying the years of the Spanish flu pandemic I have an understanding of what my Paternal Grandmother must have gone through with my Grandfather dying from that flu and being a young widow with two small children.  

As far as the great depression goes, verses 1941 going into 1942 and a new world war my maternal grandmother would have not changed the way she cooked or cleaned her house, the money they spent, and her furniture would have been the same because much of her life she lived much the same other than moving from one house to another.  The big difference was that her children would have been ten years older which is quite a difference with children and young adults. 

Charles and I plan to read about each day and live as much as we can as they did each day during this new December 1941 and through the year of 1942.  We know that our ancestors were organizing right now understanding that there will be much required of them even before rationing starts because they have already gone through ww1.   Donna

My friend Laura and I are known as the Home Front Kitchen Girls and we attend 1940s events and give talks on life in the UK during WW2. We decided to raise money for a local museum and education centre which is taking over ownership from the Ministry of Defence and spent two weeks in July this year on the rations available during the same two weeks in 1942. We managed to raise £500, and I lost 7lb that I definitely needed to lose. We will be repeating the challenge in January, so that we can try some of the recipes that are more suitable for colder weather - and though we will have fewer 'points' available to us, the first couple of weeks of January 1943 did permit 8oz of cheese a week (we are particularly looking forward to having more than just a sprinkle of cheese to flavour meals).

Pamela N, I just watched a video of you and Laura at The Cornish Times from July about your challenge! 

Very interesting!

I have 3 of the little ration “coins” that were given as change for the blue ration stamps.  These came from my grandmother’s jewelry box.  She was in her late 30s during WW2.  Unfortunately she died when I was a teenager, before I was interested in her history, so I don’t have her stories.  She was introverted and didn’t really ever talk about herself.  My other grandmother was about 13 when the United States entered the war after Pearl Harbor, so she did have some stories to share.  She knit bandages, which put her off knitting for the rest of her life.  Her family did have a victory garden and her aunt planted food everywhere she could find a few inches of dirt, including planting onions along the side of the garage in a bed only 8 inches across.

We had such a great day with the folks from the Bodmin Keep - we'd presented a WW2 Easter for them before the Keep was closed for renovation and had been hoping to present a WW2 Christmas too. We had a taste of that on Thursday, when we were at The Pad/Equally Abled in Bodmin, showing how to make 1940s Christmas decorations and can't wait until the Keep reopens and we can partner with them to show what the Home Front was like during the war years!

Oh, I'd love to hear more about 1940s Christmas decorations, as I got rid of all the plastic/trashy ones last year (unless they were sentimental) and am working on making more myself this year. I particularly wanted to string popcorn for the tree too, but am still undecided on that as I'm concerned the cats may decide to snack on it, or that it will go soft and mouldy in our summer Christmas here in Australia.

I grew up stringing popcorn and cranberries as a child and I hated it!  I was always poking my fingers with the needle.  My mom was a child in the 1940s and it’s something she used to make.  She would enlist all of us children to make the garlands and I was the only one who would stick with it.  At some point after I was an adult she bought fake plastic popcorn and cranberry garlands — she really liked the look.  Even if I wanted to make them now I wouldn’t, because my dogs would be sure to eat them — they love “pawpcorn”.

I’m a paper chain fan, lol!  This year I bought a sheet music book for 10¢ at the thrift store book clearance and plan to use it for paper chains.  I’ll use staples because they are cheap compared to glue dots or tape.

Part of my “timeless study” is using the ornaments and decor we already own.  I don’t want to do a study and start throwing things out and replacing them with period appropriate items, which is antithetical to what my ancestors would have done!  Even my mom would still be using her plastic garland if she were still alive.  But making ornaments and decor with things we already own is exactly in the spirit of the generations past!  I do have a Baby Boomer family member who threw away all of the Christmas ornaments after their spouse died, so they could start over with things they liked.  Turns out they weren’t a fan of ratty old handmade ornaments made by the children (who were now young adults) or even the classic glass balls.  To my eye, the new ornaments looked like a generic department store tree, and I gained a better appreciation for the decades of ornaments we have, some made by us with our children, some made by friends and family members, some gifted to us, some chosen by our children and yes, they are plastic characters like Blue from Blue’s Clues and Thomas the Tank Engine.  But they are so full of memories!

Kimberly F.,

Awhile ago I watched an old newsreel video of those change tokens being made, with a woman sitting there working the machine that stamps them out.  It's very cool that you actually have those, and that your grandma hung onto them.

Rebekah C,

I wouldn't risk it around cats.  The popcorn itself isn't the problem, but if they eat the thread along with it, it will kill them.  Something which happens to cats all too easily, because if they get thread in their mouths the instinct is too keep swallowing (as if it were just hair they can harmlessly cough up later) rather than to spit it out.

The only cranberries I've ever seen here in Australia are the dried "Craisins" ones, but I always admire the popcorn and cranberry garlands I see in winter Christmas pictures. I hadn't thought about paper chains though - I loved making them as a child and think I'll make some of those! I had bought a 20c music book from the opshop recently to make a paper star garland, so I can easily pick up a couple more for loose change while I'm out doing errands today. I didn't throw out any sentimental ornaments (just the gaudy plastic ones that noone could remember where they even came from, and there weren't too many of them) and still have some child-made masterpieces on the tree. Not as many as in previous years though as All my children take their own ornament collection with them when they grow up and move out of home, including their handmade ones that have definitely seen better days, but they laugh over and remember making them every year when they get them out. A lot of our precious child-made ornaments (as well as others) got lost when we left home in a hurry with the police's help 10 years ago, but we do still have a handful left, which make them even more precious due to all those we lost. I also gift a new (usually handmade) ornament to each of them every Christmas to grow their own collections. Now that there's only one child left at home, I'm needing to make more of my own to fill out the tree anyway! Thankyou for the paper chain idea, now I'm looking forward to making up some glue tonight and sitting down to start cutting and sticking some together.

I hadn't thought of the issue with the string, thankyou Tea S for the warning. I will definitely stick to the paper chain idea instead!

I’m sorry to read that you lost some of the handmade ornaments to what sounds like a very difficult situation.  Some of my childhood ornaments were lost in a similar fashion, some were eaten by mice, and the rest were thrown out after being damaged by rodents and water in an old shed.  That’s probably why I refuse to store our Christmas decor outside in a shed!

My youngest took most of their ornaments last year, leaving a few they didn’t feel a strong connection to.

In addition to paper chains, I have plans to make ornaments this year.  We’ve done salt dough in the past, but I read that cornstarch and baking soda dough works better, so I am going to try that.  I want to make some ornaments for my youngest, and also reusable gift tags.  Of course, Christmas is less than 2 weeks away and this project may have to wait until next year.

My husband raised his eyebrow at my buying the 10¢ music book to cut it up, but my response was that it had been at the thrift store for at least 3 months based on the color dot, and clearly there wasn’t a booming secondary market for “Celebrated Opera Arias for Baritone”.  But there are lots of chords and eighth notes and sixteenth notes, which makes for pretty paper chains!

Grandma Donna, perhaps you could create a very short post about Christmas ideas for us to add comments to in the forum, so it can be easily referenced later.  I know a few months ago we ended up sharing ideas for homemade gifts on one of your posts, but I can’t recall which one.  It would be lovely to see everyone’s inherited and thrifted decor, homemade ornaments and gifts, etc.

That’s why you changed years a little early- you wanted to rearrange your furniture again (heehee).  I would certainly try a piece of that pound cake. It looks delicious. 
I probably won’t take part in the study since we have some large projects on the docket since moving, but will certainly follow along. I always learn something and either do or try many of the ideas.  I am getting our pantry in a little better form since moving. Crazy how the space you’re in affects how you keep things, even foods. I do think many of the things you’ll be doing will be good for all of us with this wonky economy. 
Thank you for continuing to share with us. It’s helpful and so encouraging.  

Grandma Donna Wrote,

To those that read the posting above from Pamela N My friend Laura and I are known as the Home Front Kitchen Girls and we attend 1940s events and give talks on life in the UK during WW2.   We decided to raise money for a local museum and education centre which is taking over ownership from the Ministry of Defence and spent two weeks in July this year on the rations available during the same two weeks in 1942. We managed to raise £500, and I lost 7lb that I definitely needed to lose. We will be repeating the challenge in January, so that we can try some of the recipes that are more suitable for colder weather - and though we will have fewer 'points' available to us, the first couple of weeks of January 1943 did permit 8oz of cheese a week (we are particularly looking forward to having more than just a sprinkle of cheese to flavour meals).

This is Grandma Donna again, I contacted Pamela and asked permission to put a link to their video that was made at of of their events and she gave me permission to post the video for those interested to watch. Now I want to sew a new apron and scarf :)   

Here is a link to the video.  https://www.cornish-times.co.uk/news/home-front-ki...

Kimberly, I will look into what I can add for the Christmas Ideas..  Donna

There was a time there were so so many ornaments on the tree it almost became a burden to get them all hung. When the children moved out I gave them their ornaments. Now decorating takes no time at all! And so of course, I'm considering creating some new ornaments in the new year for next Christmas!. I guess in some way I'd like some ornaments I'd enjoy!

This is amazing!!!

Pamela N -- I loved the video of you and Laura! I do admire those in Europe who had quite a different experience of WWII than we did in the US. It's such important information to keep alive. :)

I have been enjoying this Good Housekeeping magazine from January 1943. I thought others might enjoy it too, as it has articles about making good meals even with rationing. I don't know if you can find this on Archive.org or not. I got mine on eBay. I was surprised to see how many of the same brands were popular back then that we have now. They had Del Monte, Pepsodent, Campbell's, Ivory, Fels Naptha, Listerine, Birds Eye, etc. I am going to have to try Pepsodent again. I don't think I've used it since I was a kid. Also, the molasses ad says you can add molasses to milk for more nutrition. I think I will try that. They encouraged using molasses in place of sugar to save on your ration stamps for sugar. 

In the magazine, there was a Del Monte ad for a Wartime Meal Planner on page 75. You can see the ad for it in the pictures. I don't know if a person emailed or wrote to Del Monte if they would email a copy of it. I am sure they have it in their archives. It might be worth a try. It would be very interesting.

* Note Grandma Donna Wrote, Just a reminder to not post photos that have copywrite unless they are free from their copywrite or have permission such as from a magazine. Articles and photos over 100 years old are "generally" in public domain and a copywrite lasts 95 years if renewed. It is a complicated thing.  We can take photos of the actual items in our possession such as our furniture or something we made or old kitchen items.  We can post our own personal photos of family photos, old handwritten diaries. We can post pictures of a the outside of a book but not it's content.  It is difficult to get permission so when I cannot get permission I draw the item, describe the item or take a picture of the actual items such as this photo I took. 

I'm new here, but I'm enjoying looking through the blog archives and loving the whole concept of doing a dedicated study of a particular year. I was tossing up between looking at 1931 or 1948 next year as I'd like to have the calendar line up as well and have delved into the past like that before. I've decided to go with the flow and follow along with Donna in 1942 in 2026 instead, so I've been looking at the papers from 1941 to ease into it. And what a week it's been since Pearl Harbour -- now the entire world is at war! It's unimaginable, and already I'm seeing things that make our first-world 21st century 'problems' so trivial as to be inconsequential. Such as the search being called off in December for the crew of the HMAS Sydney, which was attacked by a German ship disguised as a Dutch merchant ship and sank on 19th November 1941 with all 645 crew dead. And we think it's a bad day if we can't get in Facebook! It's insane how soft we've become, and my aim is to become more resilient, stronger, and self-reliant, which seems to have been the norm in the 1940s and earlier. Nowadays a lot of people can't even boil an egg for themselves, and I don't want to live like that.

I'm glad to see others here from Australia. I've been using our free national library Trove resource to look at the newspapers from the period. I started with the Adelaide Advertiser, but found it lived up to its name and was all advertising (and sport), so I've now moved to the Sydney Morning Herald instead, which does have a lot of news. I'm also looking at the Women's Weekly for the period, again at trove (https://trove.nla.gov.au). I was born and grew up in England, so my parents and grandparents grew up there, so I'm interested in the conditions in England in 1942 too. In that year both my parents turned 14.

One of the resources I'll be using precedes the period, but would have been widely used in the '40s. It's the Mrs Beeton Cookbook. My copy was given to my mother from an elderly friend of hers called Lizzie, who was given the book in 1924. One of the things that's obvious from this book is that nothing ever went to waste, and that's one of the things I want to learn.

On the subject of Christmas tree decorations, this doesn't relate to the 1940s, but some of my own decorations date from my years as a poor university student in the 1970s. I couldn't afford decorations, so used things like toothpaste boxes or matchboxes, wrapped them in paper, and used some ribbon for decoration. I still use these on the Christmas tree to this day.

Linda E  I love your homemade decorations . They must bring such special memories every year as you place them on the tree:)  I will be participating as much as I can this year for 1942. My family and I are planning on moving 2400 miles in February. So there will be no garden planning for me. But I will continue with the skills learned from the 1930’s study of frugality and resourcefully. I enjoy knitting socks so I plan on making some socks to send out to my daughter and some of her friends that are in the service. I think it is important in this study  to remember those who are in the service. They make such a great sacrifice for all of us. I will also be joining Grandma  Donna knitting bandages .  I have lots of apples from my trees  and will putting up some applesauce before the coming year. I would also like to can some more stews, meats , and ready made meals this coming year.  I have a couple new books I purchased to read too. One I am very interested in reading is called “Our Mother’s War: American Women at Home and on the Homefront”. I also have every issue of woman’s day magazine for 1942 . So I will read them monthly. They were a magazine my great grandma subscribed to and I believe would have been reading at the time.  Its going to be a fun study . I am looking forward to to hearing what everyone learns and tries for this new stud