March • 2011 • NEWSLETTER

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Dear ##firstname[Friend]##,

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I encourage anyone who enjoys our magazine and newsletter to check out our new book, Growing Up, a 208-page hardcover volume that’s sure to become a Reminisce classic. Anyone who loves recalling their own growing-up days will delight in the 12 chapters of childhood memories and happy-go-lucky photos from the 1920s through the 1960s—all from our readers. Click here for more details.

Get in on the chance to be published in a Reminisce book as we solicit memories for another collection of memories, Around the Table, in the information below.

As always, feel free to forward our newsletter on to a friend or family member. If this newsletter was forwarded to you and you’d like a copy of your own each month, just clink this link to sign up yourself.

—John Burlingham at Reminisce

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In this issue:

• Living in “the Sticks”
• Picture from the Past
• Stirring Up Memories
• Off the Bookshelf
• Time Capsule Trivia
• A Thought to Remember

Join Us Around the Table

Nothing brings a family together like special times at the dinner table. That’s why we’re publishing a new Reminisce book, Around the Table, and we’d love you to be part of it.

Drop us a line, and tell us about marriage proposals made over dessert, Sunday meals at Grandma’s or soldiers returning home to surprise loved ones at suppertime. What were your holiday traditions at the table, kitchen bloopers and stories behind your first dinner party? Have you dined with a celebrity somewhere? Give us the details. Do you remember the first time you tried a TV dinner or fed your veggies to the dog? Share your photos and slides of things such as “the kids’ table.”

Mail your stories and photos to “Around the Table,” Reminisce, 5927 Memory Lane, Greendale WI 53129, or e-mail material to editors@reminisce.com.

Living in “the Sticks”

By Ginny Miller
Pottstown, Pennsylvania

After my parents married in 1940, they bought a lot in a small community called Oakview Park. Other adjoining towns used to call this area “the sticks.”

My father was very handy and started to build a house—one room at a time, as they could afford. He didn’t believe in borrowing money so they never had a mortgage. He had three rooms built by the time I was born.

As I recall, we had no running water, no water at all as a matter of fact. My mother used to carry water in buckets from a community well across the street from our home. She then heated it to do laundry. Everything was hung out to dry; no automatic washers or dryers for our house in those days. Water was also heated for our baths, and I got mine in the kitchen sink until I didn’t fit in it anymore.

After my brother was born, 7 years after I was, my mother informed my father that her water-carrying days were over and he could take over that chore. He soon had a well drilled on the property. Soon after, a bathroom was built (before that we used an outhouse). It consisted of a wall-hung basin, a toilet and a shower stall out of cement blocks.

Dad eventually built on a dining room and living room. These rooms had registers in the wall that allowed the warm air from the furnace to flow through. I almost always stood in front of one of them in the morning to get warm.

I remember Dad digging and carrying out buckets of dirt from under the side of the house to make the cellar larger. His brother and some friends helped him with that job.

When I was in grade school, Dad made one side of the attic into a bedroom for me. I loved my room! It had built-in dressers, a beautiful fold-down desk with drawers and storage underneath and a built-in bookshelf. Dad made use of every inch of space. That room was cold in winter and hot in summer. I often slept outside on a blanket in the summertime.

He eventually built a beautiful bedroom for my mother and him in that dugout basement.

After Dad passed on, Mom moved in with my family and our original home was sold to Waste Management, which tore it down—the sorriest day of my life.

All of my Dad’s hard work is gone, but the memory remains of all that he did to build a home for us—without any modern hardware stores around to help him out!

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Pictures from the Past

By Richard Becker
Portsmouth, Rhode Island

View larger image

This picture has been on a wall in my parents’ house for more than 63 years. My father, Richard Becker, after returning from the war (including the Battle of the Bulge) and recovering from injuries suffered in a German POW camp, married my mother, Elizabeth (Betty) Prashaw, on Sept. 1, 1946. They had met two years earlier Mom was working at the Western Electric Defense Plant in Brooklyn, assembling wiring harnesses for B-29 aircraft.

This photograph was taken on Sept. 28, 1946, as they attended the Interchem Club dinner dance at the Hotel New Yorker. The event was sponsored by Dad’s employer, Interchemical Corp. (subsequently named Inmont, United Technologies, and BASF), where he worked for 44 years. My parents are at the center table closest to the camera, with Dad’s arm around Mom’s chair and Mom wearing a white accoutrement in her hair.

My mom’s aunt Helen Houghton was a guest at the dance and is sitting at the same table on the right. I don’t know her escort’s name. Also at their table on the left are friends Brian and Peggy Bonney. At the table just left and behind them are six friends. Edward and Elly Milne are at the one o’clock position, William and Violet Amoroso are at nine o’clock and John and Pauline Calia are at six o’clock.

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Stirring Up Memories

Shamrock Stew

Here’s an award-winning recipe that’s perfect for celebrating St. Patrick’s Day this month and conjures up the kinds of stews that moms always pieced together. You don’t have to be Irish to enjoy this hearty stew featuring homemade dumplings, cubes of round steak and peas. We wish you days as lucky as a leprechaun’s and offer other stick-to-your-ribs meals from our friends at this Taste of Home link.

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Off the Bookshelf

By John Burlingham
Senior Editor

When author Ted Gup discovered letters secretly squirreled away by his grandfather Sam Stone in a suitcase, it began a journey of discovery that has produced A Secret Gift: How One Man’s Kindness—and a Trove of Letters­—Revealed the Hidden History of the Great Depression.

Shortly before Christmas of 1933 in Canton, Ohio, an anonymous newspaper ad was placed, offering cash gifts to 50 to 75 Depression-scarred families. All that was asked of potential beneficiaries was their stories of hardship, with identities never to be revealed by B. Virdot—the alias that clothier Sam Stone used in placing the ad.

Through the now unearthed replies to the ad and his ensuing research, Gup provides a remarkable picture of proud families living through financial and physical adversity without seeking pity. “So fraught with risk and hardship was their world,” writes Gup, “that the idea of voicing one’s particular plight would have struck many as curious, even presumptuous.” This was the reason for his grandfather’s guarantee of anonymity for those who wrote to him.

The book becomes a real page-turner as the author, through his research, also peels his way to the true history of Sam Stone, who changed his identity and concealed unfortunate and sometimes tragic aspects of his family.

Sam Stone’s economic rise, fall and rebirth initiated the plan to divide $750 between some of Canton’s most needy families. “I am convinced that he felt the need to actually connect with them,” writes Gup, “to reach out in a human way that would provide not only momentary financial relief but some measure of spiritual comfort as well.”

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Time Capsule Trivia

In honor of the Academy Awards being handed out recently, guess these Best Picture award winners of the past from the five clues. The answers are presented below, but no peeking!

1. This whimsical 1956 film adaptation of a Jules Verne novel about lofty travelers beat out blockbusters such as The King and I, The Ten Commandments and Giant.

2. The co-stars of this 1969 film, Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, were both nominated for an Oscar in the Best Actor category.

3. Alfred Hitchcock’s dark film about troubled newlyweds topped other 1940 classics, including The Grapes of Wrath and The Philadelphia Story.

4. Taking no less than 10 Oscars home, this 1961 musical featured the Sharks versus the Jets.

5. This Civil War epic had a lot of competition in 1939, going up against films that included The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Dark Victory, Ninotchka, Wuthering Heights and Of Mice and Men.

Answers: 1. Around the World in 80 Days; 2. Midnight Cowboy; 3. Rebecca; 4. West Side Story; 5. Gone With the Wind.

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A Thought to Remember

Age is akin to a balloon; as it rises, it broadens our view.

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