Monthly Archives: April 2013

Sepia Saturday – All in the Family

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Sepia Sat 20 April 2013Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.

This week’s prompt photo is a peculiar one. I hope someone will explain it to us.

In the meantime, I’ll share some family pictures from a page in a photo album kept by my grandmother, Abbie Webber Smith Brender.

All of the pictures are labeled with Grandma’s identification of who is in the picture.

Our Family

Our Family

Looks like Grandma on the left and Grandpa on the right, proudly posing in front of their home with the kids. They had a big family. I’m having trouble counting the children. 11?

I wonder if one of those itinerent photographers stopped by and they impulsively agreed to have their picture taken so they’d have a current one to send to family.

Uh oh – I think I spot the black sheep – er, pig in the family. The little one on the left looks like he or she may be leading a sibling astray or at least plotting some mischief.

A Few of Our Chicks

A Few of Our Chicks

I’m not sure where the Chicks fit onto our family tree. I have some more digging, or should I say scratching, to do! Must be a really large family if this is just a few of them. I’ll have to print out about a dozen family group sheet forms.

Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa would round up the family for a trip into the city and meet up with friends at the park. This lovely family must be very close friends – almost family I’d venture – to have merited a place on this page of Grandma’s photo album.

Friends from Iowa City

Wait …. Those aren’t Grandma’s friends from Iowa City in the prompt picture, are they?

If you are curious about the feathered friends in the prompt picture and what others have to say about them, fly on over to Sepia Saturday and join the flock.

 

 

 

Sepia Saturday – Webber’s Mystery Parade No. 1

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Sepia Sat 13 April 2013Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images.

Today’s prompt photo is entitled “Palmer’s Mystery Hike No. 2”. My contribution is a photograph from my grandmother’s (Abbie Webber) photo album. It features people walking in a parade wearing hats – and it is a mystery to me and my cousins.

Webber.Myron David.parade

My great-grandfather, Myron David Webber, is the man who turned to face the photographer and there is an X by his legs. M. D. Webber was a school teacher early in his life and served as a pastor in several churches. He also learned the trade of plastering and earned, or supplemented, his income as a plasterer for many years.

Our best guess is that this picture was taken in Iowa City, Iowa, where M. D. Webber lived from 1926 until his death in 1959. My cousin thinks it looks like it could be on Iowa Avenue near downtown. Google doesn’t provide a street view of Iowa City at this time, so I couldn’t go panning up and down the modern street to see if any buildings look like those in the picture.

Although none of us are aware of Great-grandfather belonging to a union, I’m guessing that this is the local chapter of a plasterer’s union he belonged to – and maybe this was part of a Labor Day parade.

There is another photograph from the same page of the album that looks like it was taken the same day based on Great-grandfather’s clothing.

Webber.Myron David and Strange.Dorinda Rebecca

The woman in the picture is M. D. Webber’s wife and my great-grandmother, Dorinda Rebecca Strange.

I once posted “Strange in a Strange Uniform“. Here we have “Strange in a Strange Hat”.
Strange.Dorinda Rebecca in funny hat copy

Looks like a homemade hat for whatever the occasion or celebration.

Date? I’m guessing 1930s?

Now join the parade, hit the trails, or take a leisurely stroll to see what others have prepared for Sepia Saturday today.

Family Recipe Friday – World’s Easiest Cobbler and Corn-Oyster Scallop

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Westminster Presby CookbookMonths ago I started sharing recipes that my mom contributed to the Friendship Circle Cookbook from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Clovis, New Mexico. I got sidetracked and never finished. I’d like to check this off of my to-do list, so I’m finishing with the last two recipes that she contributed.

Recipes from this cookbook may appear again as some of the recipes contributed by other women in the church became family favorites.

DSCN3098Mom made this cobbler on occasion as it is easy and you can make it with what’s in the pantry. I’m pretty sure she usually made it with peaches. There are a few details missing in this recipe.

Let’s assume a moderate oven is 350 degrees. I made mine in a 11.5 x 7.5 (approximately) Pyrex baking dish. I used a 29-ounce can of sliced peaches with all of the syrup. It fit nicely in my baking dish, but did bubble over some during baking, so you might want to use some foil or a cookie sheet to catch the drips if you don’t want to clean your oven.

World’s Easiest Cobbler

1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 cup milk
1 stick butter or oleo
1 can fruit

Melt butter in baking dish. Mix other ingredients and stir slightly into melted butter. Pour sweetened fruit over batter and bake in moderate oven until batter rises to top and is lightly browned, about 45 minutes.

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I have no recollection of the next recipe. I’m sure I never tried it. It sounds like something she tried one Thanksgiving or Christmas and thought it would make a nice addition to the cookbook as something “unusual”. I’ve never heard of a frozen “can” of anything…. Maybe it should say “container.” I wonder if this is even stocked in grocery stores any more?

Corn-Oyster Scallop

2 (10-ounce) cans frozen condensed oyster stew
1 (1-pound) can cream-style corn
1 (1-pound) can whole kernel corn, drained
1 1/4 cups cracker crumbs, crushed medium fine
1/2 teaspoon salt
dash pepper
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tablespoons pimento strips
2 teaspoons melted butter
1/2 cup cracker crumbs

Place unopened cans of oyster stew in hot water for 10 minutes.

Combine oyster stew, cream-style corn, drained whole-kernel corn, 1 1/4 cups cracker crumbs, egg, salt, pepper and pimento strips. Pour into greased 2-quart casserole. Combine butter and 1/2 cup cracker crumbs. Sprinkle around edge of corn mixture. Bake in moderate oven (350) for 1 hour or until a knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean. Makes 8 servings.