February 2015 – Plain and Fancy

Moments of Discovery # 5: Mother’s Quilts

February 28, 2015March 23, 2015 marianbeaman34 Comments

Page from On Market Street, Anita & Arnold Lobel — illustration from On Market Street by Anita & Arnold Lobel

Bossler Mennonite Church was the hub of the Longenecker family’s spiritual life and the school beside it, Washington School, the place where the Women’s Sewing Circle fabricated comforters, baby clothing, blankets and quilts to help clothe the needy of the world. Some of these gorgeous quilts are displayed on a previous blog post. You can see and read about them here.

Quilt exhibited at the bicentennial of Bossler Mennonite Church — Quilts exhibited at the bicentennial of Bossler Mennonite Church

Even more than quilting I think Mother loved knotting comforters. For her, it was easier to see progress knotting a comforter. She liked the warm fluffy texture, and she could work on it by herself at home.

Last fall, on one of our trips to the attic cleaning out the house after her sudden death, we opened the yellowish, grain-painted blanket chest with turned feet where we knew we would find some of Mother’s prized quilts.

Can you identify the design above? I need help with the name of this pattern please!

Crazy Quilt design, 1999. Each of Mother’s grand-children received a quilt. This one now belongs to our son, Joel Beaman.

Joanne Hess Siegrist, one of my former students at Lancaster Mennonite School, has published a story in photographs from 1855-1935 entitled Mennonite Women of Lancaster County. In this pictorial overview of Mennonite life from this era, Joanne, who can trace her family back eleven generations, depicts the many facets of Mennonite women’s lives in chapters like these: The Tone of Their Lives, Motherhood and Children, Farm Life and Work, Faith and Family Outings.

Here is an excerpt from her chapter entitled “Quilting and the Arts”

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Mennonite women of Lancaster County spent many hours doing elaborate, colorful needlework. Young women worked especially on their dowries.

With a frugality that was part of their spirituality, these women often created handwork out of remnants and half-used materials. They crocheted exquisite lace tablecloths from the cord strings used to tie feed bags. They made hooked rugs using the unworn sections of old winter coats. They designed quilts with fabric from colorful feed bags found in the barn. . . .

In a photo dated 1948, Joanne showcases Anna Huber Good as she adds tiny stitches to a Grape Vine appliqué quilt. Author Siegrist adds, “Anna quilted all her life; in fact, after rearing eight children, she became even more intent on quilting. Anna got up at 4:00 a.m. and quilted until 6 a.m. Then she made a large breakfast for her husband Daniel and sent him off to his market work. After doing a few cleanup chores, Anna returned to quilting. She quilted all day long until about 9:00 p.m., stopping only for meals.”

Anna’s retirement years were even more productive, making “forty-two quilts for her children.” Amazingly, she charged only 15 cents per yard of quilting thread if she quilted for people outside her family.

Here are four friends quilting in the dining room of Enos and Annie Lefever’s home (1915). Their intent expressions (uh-oh, I see one smiling!) and nimble fingers are caught on camera by Annie’s son Harry, whose photography did not interfere with his membership at Mellinger’s Mennonite Church (Mennonite Women of Lancaster County,194). Just a mere ten years earlier, Mennonite farmer, John Kreider Miller, lost his church membership for running a photography studio (The Lancaster Intelligencer Journal, Friday, May 10, 1996). Photographs, apparently, at the turn of the twentieth century, spoke of pride, a cardinal sin in the Mennonite system of values. (Mennonite Women of Lancaster County, Siegrist)

Amish and Mennonite hand-made quilts are now marketed as a luxury item and often used as decorative wall hangings. There are numerous websites advertising such handiwork for thousands of dollars.

Until recently, the Quilt Museum at the People’s Place in Intercourse, PA exhibited cleverly crafted quilts from all over the United States.

The Mennonite Central Committee, providing aid to the world’s forgotten and neglected, often sponsors quilt sales and auctions beyond Lancaster County borders. Here is a link to one in Ohio.

* * *

Buy Joanne’s book here!

Is there quilting in your family history? Has a quilt been bequeathed to you of quilt-essential quality? Are you a quilter?

Wanda: Boring in Beige to Beautiful in Blue

February 25, 2015February 25, 2015 marianbeaman43 Comments

Two “Beautiful” Stories today . . .

Jenna’s Story

My auburn-haired granddaughter Jenna is very cute, and people frequently tell her how pretty she is. From an early age (here at 3 1/2), she has loved to primp and preen.

Even before she turned two, she would wake up, put on a gaudy plastic tiara and blue Lucite high-heels and toddle around her bedroom, every inch a princess. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with play-acting. But since then, in our Nana/Grand-daughter talks, I have reminded her that there are two kinds of beauty, the inside and outside kind. One lasts. The other one fades. Last year for her 9th birthday, her Grandpa and I collaborated on a gift to help her remember the meaning of inner beauty as she blossoms into a young woman.

It looked like this:

Here is the verse close-up:

We have talked about the meaning of those solemn and ancient words from the King James Version: favor, deceitful, vain — and have discussed what the verse written centuries ago might be saying to a young girl like her today. She knows for sure that there is nothing wrong with being attractive, but looks are not the most important thing in her life.

to be continued . . .

Wanda’s Story

I don’t know Wanda’s last name, but I know what she looked like before/after her appearance on the TV show “What Not to Wear.” Hosts of the show, Clint Kelly and Stacy London, help Wanda, a family therapist from San Diego, transform from boring beige to beautiful blue. In the course of the metamorphosis, the 47-year-old career woman, reveals that she grew up in a Mennonite culture and thought of beauty as something “to be frowned upon,” something even “dangerous” to use her description.

Here is Wanda’s frumpy before and stylish “after” look:

You can see her “before” pict and hear a snippet of her story on this short YouTube

For Wanda, no more “monochromatic modesty or khaki catastrophe.” She exclaims at the end of the show: “Now I can walk into the future with my inside and outside more coherent.” In the grand finale, a band of friends and relatives gather around the stage to applaud the transformed Wanda who glitters in stylish heels and a purple “date” dress.

As the banner on my welcome page shows (Mennonite prayer veiling paired with a pair of sassy red heels), I can certainly relate to Wanda’s viewpoint. You can read about it in a former post. My own metamorphosis from plain to fancy did not happen nearly as quickly as hers, but over the years I have tried to focus on the qualities that reflect inner beauty just as I try to model them for my grand-daughter Jenna.

What about you? Maybe you are not 40-something anymore. You might be 50, 60 or beyond. Still there’s beauty at any age. That’s certainly what I think.

Do you (as Wanda now thinks) believe your inside and outside appearance should match?

How do you define Beauty?

Coming next: Moments of Discovery: Mother’s Quilts

Purple Passages with a Weather Forecast

February 21, 2015February 21, 2015 marianbeaman37 Comments

To my friends both in the northern and southern hemisphere, some thoughts about the weather. All quotations from BrainyQuotes.

Sometimes I wish I was the weather, you’d bring me up in conversation forever. And when it rained, I’d be the talk of the day. — John Mayer

I like the cold weather. It means you get work done. — Noam Chomsky

Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. — Anthony J. D’Angelo

Scarves, mittens, and hats are a great way to express your personality in the cold weather. — Brad Goreski

Where’s my hat? Freezing temps on Chincoteague Island, VA Chic Dumps? Best guess: Chicken and Dumplings

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.

— Anton Chekhov

For there is no friend like a sister / In calm or stormy weather; / To cheer one on the tedious way, / To fetch one if one goes astray, / To lift one if one totters down,/ To strengthen whilst one stands. –– Christina Rossetti

(from “Goblin Market”)

A friendship can weather most things and thrive in thin soil; but it needs a little mulch of letters and phone calls and small, silly presents every so often – just to save it from drying out completely. — Pam Brown

The forecast: Spring will come!

Paperwhites from the narcissus family, with their “delicate color and sweet, musky fragrance,” a forecast of spring to come.

While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease. Genesis 8:22 KJV

I’m guessing you agree with some quotes more than others. One or two you may completely disagree with.

Can you add another one? We’ll be listening . . .

Coming next: Wanda: Boring in Beige or Beautiful in Blue?

Signs and Wonders: Chincoteague Island

February 17, 2015February 17, 2015 marianbeaman59 Comments

Once upon a time, there were five memoirists who met online through their writing websites. One of them, Janet Givens, who had a rustic log house on Chincoteague Island, Virginia, invited four blogging friends to join her for a writers’ retreat: Kathy Pooler, Joan Rough, Shirley Showalter and me.

According to Janet, “It was grand.” At the end of the week, we all agreed. Now, you ask, what made the week so special?

First of all, the spacious log house was charming:

And there is an enclosed porch where we ate breakfast overlooking a canal and the shimmering Oyster Bay facing east.

All around the house were clever or catty sayings on wooden plaques:

No one was voted off the Island. We all stayed! — No one was voted off the Island. We all stayed.

That’s right: Everyone behaved!

As we began, we did have a plan to include the clichéd 3 F’s and a W: food, fun, fellowship – and writing, of course. In a joint effort, Shirley recorded on paper how our days might unfold.

Every day, we enjoyed breakfast together, one day with French toast oven-baked by our host Janet with Joan beaming her blessing:

Then we had writing time and do-it-yourself lunches with afternoons for more writing or walks.

Some days it was cold!

One fairly warm day, we all took a hike into the Assateague Preserve to see the world-renowned ponies, made famous by Marguerite Henry’s Misty Books. According to one friend’s pedometer, we logged about 3 miles walking the beach and side trails.

And we enjoyed the exhibit at the Visitors’ Center:

Other Days, we wandered along the main road in Chincoteague. As we explored, we found some interesting sights.

And a mailbox replicating the house of the owner in the distance:

Every evening, we had healthy meals: Chicken chili, frittata, stuffed sweet potatoes, pasta fagioli. This night, Joan is helping Shirley serve broccoli soup with Waldorf salad.

After dinner from Tuesday – Saturday, we gathered on the comfy sofa and chairs close to the wood stove. From 7 – 9:30 one of us had the spotlight with an opportunity to get feedback on our writing or blogging. As a beginning memoirist, on Tuesday night, I got clarity about the focus for my story. Distributing a preliminary outline, I asked, “Where in all this muddle is my true story?” Happily, I got wise words from three women who’ve already published memoirs (Kathy, Janet, and Shirley) and one (Joan) with a book poised for publication.

After struggling through revisions, my room-mate Kathy, gestures her approval of my story blurb and synopsis:

On Sunday, our last full day together, we joined Janet at the Sundial Book store for her author talk/book signing.

Afterwards we bought books and other gifts for our loved ones. Leaving the store, we spotted the theatre marquee across the street . . .

. . . and behind the store, outsized LOVE chairs by the bridge. (Think Lily Tomlin dwarfed in a big chair here.)

Finally, we gathered again to celebrate the productive week and our deepened friendships as we watched back-to-back episodes of Downton Abbey. As the week ended, we all wrote off into the sunset.

* * *

Our story, like Downton Abbey, proceeded in chronological time but with some flashbacks, like many good stories.

My version of The Week at Chincoteague is based on a variation of the story model by PIXAR, the moviemaker who tells perfect stories like Toy Story I and II. Since 1995, their storytelling wisdom has spawned many a tall/true tale. Yes, Shirley shared this link with me last week, which I pass on as a template for your own story. Here is the PIXAR prompt page.

My husband Cliff designed the cover for our photo albums of the week:

In today’s post title, I promised you a Wonder, and here it is:

Standing: Janet Givens, Kathy Pooler, Marian Beaman Seated: Shirley Showalter, Joan Rough — Standing: Janet Givens, Kathy Pooler, Marian Beaman
Seated: Shirley Showalter, Joan Rough

Five writers, none of whom had met all the others, retreat to a magical island for a WONDERful time, honing their writing skills and deepening friendships.

Click HERE for more information on how to reserve Janet’s log house for a writers’ retreat or your own family vacation!

We love words! Share some of your thoughts here . . .

Coming next: Purple Passages and a Weather Forecast

A Box of Choc’lates

February 14, 2015February 14, 2015 marianbeaman45 Comments

Actor Tom Hanks in the movie Forrest Gump tries to strike up a conversation with a tired nurse seated beside him on a park bench. Holding a box of chocolates in his hand, Forrest offers her a treat, “My mother always said, “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” You remember the scene. Here is a 38-second clip from the movie:

“Health by chocolate” is one of the phrases that popped up on the web when I researched the health benefits of eating chocolate, which may stem from the antioxidant flavonoids find in the cacao bean. Another website listed 9 benefits of eating chocolate. Rich and delicious dark chocolate especially (at least 70 % cacao, a disease-killing bullet) is “good for more than healing a broken heart” it touts.

Among the nine benefits included in this article were a healthy heart, possible weight loss (because it lessens one’s cravings for other sweet, salty, and fatty foods), stress reduction, and even higher intelligence in the short term because chocolate boosts blood flow to the brain.

The box of chocolates Forrest Gump was holding contains way more calories than this article suggests because the candies were probably filled with nougat, sweet cherries, caramel, and other taste-bud ticklers. But he’s right, unless the box lid is imprinted with the different flavors, you never know what you are going to get. Usually, though, the surprise is pleasant.

In the 2000 movie Choclat, Vianne Rocher, played by Juliette Binoche, tries to guess Roux’s (Johnny Depp’s) favorite chocolate confection. Vianne tries more than once to offer the treat that will get an “Aha” from him, including presenting him with one in a special white box. Later she succeeds unexpectedly as you can see here:

Receiving or giving a box of chocolates (or even savoring hot chocolate) is a welcome experience any time of year.

What is your relationship with chocolate? What is your favorite kind of chocolate?

What do you think of the Forrest Gump quote?

Coming next: Signs and Wonders at Chincoteague!

Valentines: Scissors, Glue, a Bottle Cap or Two

February 11, 2015February 12, 2015 marianbeaman35 Comments

Remember punching out valentine cards that came 8-10 to a page and addressing them to send to your classmates? Back then the do-it-yourself craze hadn’t caught on in the Valentine’s Day department. A least, not at Rheems Elementary School. Though we may have made a special card for Mom in art class, shiny, mass-produced cards were de rigueur for others.

Now websites galore displays steps, even videos, for creating your signature card. Author and Visual artist Kathryn McCullough suggests: “If spending a small fortune on store-bought greeting cards doesn’t appeal to you and you have an old phone book, scissors, and glue, maybe a bottle cap or two (and a bit of imagination), you can create a Valentine that expresses love for both your partner and the planet.” She promises that if you can cut and paste, you can create a card from scratch that looks like this:

My husband Cliff, like Kathryn, is a visual artist and sometimes comes up with hand-made cards, none of which requires a button or a glue gun.

I, on the other hand, buy my valentines in a store. Once though I got up the nerve to make my own card, raiding my sewing closet and cutting up old cards, fashioning lace and felt paper into my version of a DIY Valentine. Here is the result, a little worse for the wear:

Kids create spontaneously and usually don’t want to bother with bottle caps, lace or fancy paper. Crayons, construction paper and doily hearts will do too.

Did you ever create a valentine from trash? When was the last time you made (or received) a home-made valentine?

Share your story: A Memorable Valentine’s Day

Credit: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathryn-mccullough/valentines-from-trash-a-d_b_4759148.html

Coming next: A Box of Choc’lates!

What’s in a Name?

February 7, 2015February 7, 2015 marianbeaman44 Comments

My high school yearbook The Elizabethan sports such 3-syllable last names as Aschendorf, Biesecker, Espenshade, Hippensteel, Oxenrider, and Zimmerman. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania any roster of names would be heavily represented by families of German-Swiss origin.

Yes, there were Smiths, McLaughlins, and Youngs, but the Pennsylvania Dutch names far outnumbered them. On class rosters there were no names from the Cyrillic alphabet like Lyashchenko or like Chang, formed of Asian characters. Not a one. Yet as our world has grown more culturally diverse, so have the class rosters and phone directories of small towns like Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania.

In the January 6, 2015 edition of Performance Today, Fred Child referred to a list of musicians with jaw-breaking names. You can find the complete list on their Facebook page, but here are a few choice ones:

Composer Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf

Conductor Hans Knappertsbusch

Poet Walther von der Vogelweide

Composer Einojuhani Rautavaara

Composer Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber

Conductor Gennady Rozhdestvensky

Musicologist Cuthbert Girdlestone

Tenor Wolfgang Windgassen

Ditters von Dittersdorf rolls most trippingly off the tongue as does the very onomatopoetic Windgassen. Imagine a tenor named Wind-gassen. Or even a wood-wind player with such a name!

My journal of our trip to the English countryside records place names that also tickle the tongue and the funny-bone. As I admonished my husband/driver to keep left while driving with a right-sided steering wheel, cute towns whizzed by with no-kidding names like Gigglewick, Blubberhouse, Wigglesworth, Nook, Cow Brow, Button Moon, and Hutton Roof. No, I didn’t make these up! There was even a Curl Up and Dye Hair Salon.

In Scotland menus feature haggis (chopped sheep hearts, livers, mixed with oats and spices), bashed neeps (turnips), and champit tatties (mashed potatoes). In Ireland we encountered the quaint village of Ballyvaughan, and Cairig Beag, a Bed & Breakfast not far from the town of Sneem with houses colored bright orange, Kelly green, and sunny yellow.

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet . . . .

In Act II of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare writes of the star-crossed lovers who bear the names of their feuding families, Montague and Capulet, implying that the names of things [people] do not affect who they really are or their love for each other.

"A rose is a rose is a rose . . . " Gertrude Stein — **“A rose is a rose is a rose . . . ” Gertrude Stein**

Actually, in the expression “a rose is a rose is a rose,” Ms. Stein was referring to the English painter Sir Francis Rose, not to the flower as is commonly supposed. Now the phrase has come to define anything that is incapable of explanation.

What place or people names strike you as fanciful or interesting in another way?

I love words! Share some of yours.

Bonus: As it happens, this week memoirist/friend Shirley Showalter blogs on the power of naming as a way to find one’s vocation and calling. Read about it here.

Teaser or Cuppa Coffee?

February 4, 2015February 28, 2015 marianbeaman32 Comments

What is your favorite warm beverage? It’s February, and by now you have tweaked the art of finding comfort in a cup. Is it tea, coffee or a hot toddy?

Maybe it’s hot chocolate!

In promoting the Fifth Season of Downton Abbey, PBS used tea to tantalize. Twitter was chirping with the hashtag #BIGsip and illustrations of how to party like the British:

The tea at these fancy gatherings was probably brewed through ceramic or metal sieves. I doubt there was a tea bag in sight!

Once I was invited to a tea party at my professor’s home. There was a bold disclaimer on the invitation: Tea will NOT be served. Instead, there were other fanciful beverages, none of which was served warm. Twice I invited faculty to my home, and we actually had flavored tea – and coffee.

So, back to the question: What is your favorite warm beverage (and/or treat) this time of year? Spread some sugar, honey, or . . . .

A woman is like a tea bag ~ you can’t tell how strong she is until you put her in hot water. Eleanor Roosevelt

Bonus: RANDOM ACTS OF COFFEE! Coffee drinker pays it forward ordering coffee for the next 500 (gasp!) customers at Canadian coffee shop. Read all about it here!

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