Antique Gramma - Wedding Dress Wednesday

A neighboring small town has an "historical village" with a large brick mansion and several barns, buildings and even log cabins have also been relocated to the site over the years. They were celebrating their 50th Anniversary and asked on a Facebook post if anyone had antique/vintage wedding dresses they would be willing to lend for a display. 

As the keeper of all family memorabilia, I have a closet of generations of  wedding dresses so I wrote a message describing them all. To my surprise, they were interested in my polyester 70's wedding gown. I shouldn't have been surprised. I know I am an antique. 

I invited my youngest daughter and her children to accompany me to the birthday party. Unfortunately it was a very rainy day and most people were not as willing to brave the elements as my granddaughter. 

And here we are with my antique wedding gown! Lydia asked if, since we were visiting antiques, would there be dinosaurs, too? 

Here are a few others on display. 

We played Birthday Party Games! 

Our favorite discovery was TWO doll houses. This one was created many years ago as a replica of the mansion on site.  This photo features the third floor ballroom which is still available for rental today.  My next post will feature photos from inside the mansion. 

The second dollhouse was a huge masterpiece created as a labor of love by a husband and wife, now in their 90's. They were present to show it off. The rooms were protected by plexiglass panels which made it difficult to photograph and the lighting system was not working. 

An upstairs room had toys we knew better than to touch.  

Then we went outside to play with some vintage toys that we were allowed to touch. 

And there was a food truck! 

One log cabin featured a quilt show, another had a civil war historian who was familiar with my identical twin 1st cousins, 4x removed, who served in the OH 123rd Infantry, one held as a prisoner at Andersonville. There was a petting zoo, a school house, musicians, and a baked good auction where we spent too much money for a worthy cause.  There were many more cabins and buildings we were not able to visit. 

It was quite the afternoon and it is a shame that more people did not attend. 

Church Festival

My small country parish has a summer festival ALMOST every year on the second Sunday in July. We skipped the festival for the first time in decades in 2020, due to the pandemic. In 2021, since we were having a surge in cases in our county, the festival was changed to a drive-thru chicken bbq with opportunities to purchase raffle tickets through your car window as you circled the building. 

This year the decision was made to hold the festival complete with children's games, a softball tournament, raffles, bingo, games of chance (including a "hog drop"), concession stands, and more on a few acres surrounding our church. We serve ham and chicken dinners complete with mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans with bacon, roll and butter, and a slice of homemade pie. If you eat in our air conditioned dining hall, we serve coffee, iced water and lemonade. You can get carry out to take your dinner home or to eat in our open air rebuilt barn from the 1800's which is roped off as a "beer tent" that overlooks the softball field. 

I got busy baking pies. I ended up with 6 apple, 5 cherry and 6 pumpkin. 

Our county is low in vaccination rate and common sense. This made my husband very concerned and me somewhat concerned.  My husband was the head of the "dishwashing" committee and usually works 7-8 hours in the kitchen. He resigned.  I am in charge of dinner ticket sales. I contacted my shift workers and my first two shifts had no problem working. My third shift had a grandchild who ended up being born yesterday so that left two shifts for me to cover by myself.

Next cupcakes for the cakewalks. 

I decided to go forward with my masks and hand sanitizers and worked on comebacks when being told how silly I was being, sitting in a hallway crammed full of people who lean into tell me how many dinner tickets they require. 

Pardon the lighting at 11:45 p.m.  Next year, bake cupcakes first so that they can cool. Then frost while pies are baking. 

I dropped off my baking early in the morning. I returned about an hour before my first shift so I could peruse the silent auction.  And learned the meals had sold out 4 1/2 hours early.  I did help wash the rest of the roasters and mop countertops in the kitchen.  But I did not have to engage with the public at all. All my worrying for nothing. 

Financially I am not sure how the festival did. Many people arrived for dinner and, when they found we were out, just left. We did have several food stands, but it wasn't what they were looking for.  And that meant they weren't spending money at games either.  I guess time will tell. 

Back From The Beach

 

The car before we picked up my oldest granddaughter and her bags. We used the third seat to stack suitcases, too. A car seat, a booster seat and a 12 year old were squeezed in the middle row.

The pool and hot tub area at the marina.

My oldest daughter and three oldest grandkids drove up for a day (and night, the house was huge). There was a pizza place right on the beach. 

The whitest white lady on her third day at the beach. Day One was fine, but despite sunscreen, I was getting pink on Day Two. Despite the temperature in the nineties, there was a nice breeze on the water (thank goodness). 

The chair, which is currently on sale at Walmart. It worked perfectly. There is a handle which doesn't help a short person lift it high enough from the ground. But I used it like a crutch or cane on the sand, gripping the arms of the chair. Folded, I could use the bottom squared legs to balance on the sand while walking. Great help getting up small hills of sand. I think I might still be maneuvering in the sand without it.  It was very sturdy and easy to rise from, too.  I saw a few other people my age with similar chairs and also some people my age eying my chair. 

One of the boutiques featured these "granny square fashions"

I think I remember something similar in my early 1970's Seventeen Magazines. 

End of June and it's Daylily Day

 It's the end of June and my Daylilies have bloomed! 

Thank you all for your suggestions on how a fat old lady can possibly rise from the sand while on the beach.  All the suggestions were great, but after discussion with my daughter, I am taking my heavy director style chair with arms and we will just walk to the parking lot to stash it in the car before walking to restaurants and such. 

I have less than 48 hours before we leave on vacation so today I need to do laundry and pack. I did empty my closet and dresser (what a project!) and discovered I have an entire summer wardrobe I had forgotten about since two years ago and it still fit. 

I am shell shocked by the Supreme Court decision on Friday. I was in high school in our small community before Roe vs Wade. When a girl from a wealthy family got pregnant, she would visit an "aunt" in New York or go on a "family vacation" to Mexico or the Caribbean. Everyone else either dropped out of school to marry a willing boyfriend or had to wear a girdle so the school would not find out and expel her. I know two girls, one in my class and one in the class ahead of ours, who hid pregnancy from their parents who then put the babies up for adoption without the consent of the girls (parents could do that if you weren't 21). The girls were not even permitted to see the babies. One girl did go to a Catholic home somewhere. I don't know the details because she was silent and withdrawn when she returned to school "from mono" and really never spoke to anyone at school again. 

I also have a friend whose daughter was raped in college during her junior year. A stranger climbed in a second story window during the night and assaulted her.  It is a long story which results in a pregnancy. When she found out, she attempted suicide and was hospitalized on a mental ward. After release, she decided to get an abortion. Fortunately this was following Roe and she had the opportunity to make a choice with her supportive family and, just as importantly, the time to make the choice. With the time that Roe bought her past the first six weeks, she decided to carry the baby and put it up for adoption. Then, at the child's birth, decided to keep the baby. She was not pressured into a hasty decision she might have regretted.

I would like to add that the serial rapist, who broke into other college girl's apartments was apprehended. A woman in law enforcement whispered, behind closed doors, that she needed to consult an attorney if she was keeping the pregnancy. The family visited their lawyer and discovered that if she assisted in the prosecution, she would have to get a DNA test on her baby daughter. And those test results would give him parental rights in our state. His parents could even use his visitation rights to take the infant to the prison to see him.  Needless to say, she cut all contact with law enforcement despite their pleas for this evidence. 

I never thought this would be the world I would leave for my granddaughters. One family has the financial resources they would need if necessary. I need to work hard to make sure options are available for all our other granddaughters.