Mrs. Hey's Hot Cocoa and Hoosier Headwork

Mrs. Dan Hey ~ From the Farmer's Wife Magazine ~ October 1938

One of my favorite all time articles from my vintage collection is that about Mrs. Dan Hey and her 'hoosier headwork' in planning school day meals. 

It is filled with wonderful tid-bits of the time. She came to St. Paul as a Country Kitchen guest, recommended by the extension folks at Purdue University as a rural homemaker who did a good job of planning meals and solving school lunch problems.  She was also the President of the Indian Home Economics Association. 

She put up 400 quarts of meats, fruits and vegetables the prior year, as well as home cured hams and bacon. The family doctor says the Heys do not give him a chance for living -- they are all so healthy. The Heys had three children, ages 18, 14 and 7.  This particular article was about Mrs. Hey's planning of the school day meals. 

According to Mrs. Hey, any plan for meeting the food needs of school children must take into account the whole day's meals. A glimpse into her own kitchen would show that the day's food preparation proceeds according to a well-planned  pattern.   Breakfast is not a heavy one, but quite satisfying for their needs.  There is fruit, orange juice, or tomato juice, apple sauce, canned pears or stewed dried fruit.  There is sometimes a cereal - a prepared cereal in the warmer weather perhaps with berries or sliced bananas, and hot oatmeal or a wheat cereal in the colder weather.  Instead of cereal there may be eggs or bacon and eggs.  Then there are rolls or toast, and always hot cocoa for the children and coffee for the grown ups. 

Since the children are away at noon the parents eat more of a luncheon than a dinner.  Then comes the extra meal in the late afternoon, for the minute the children are inside the door after school, it's eating time again.  They are always hungry then and again at supper time.  Supper then is the hearty meal of the day.  It is depended up on the supplement a moderately hearty breakfast, a fairly light lunch and a "piece," so it includes meat, two or three vegetables, one a green leafy one and a light dessert.  On Dad's night out -- Kiwanis Club -- the children could have their special favorites, which usually meant macaroni and cheese for one thing and on Friday nights, some of the children's friends might be brought home, and supper often boasted friend chicken.  The meals are easy to plan for their cupboards are always well stocked. 

Let's not forget Mrs. Hey's school lunch ideas:

I keep on hand a quart or so of homemade salad dressing in order to be able to mix up into sandwich filling any materials I may have at hand:

Minced ham and pickle

Hard cooked eggs and mango

Baked beans, even cold navy beans moistened with mustard or catsup

Left over meats or any kind ground with mango, pickles, pimento or onion

Carrots and raisins

Cream cheese and pimento

For vegetables I often send our favorite, tomato, but a whole tomato is rather soft and warm and quite unappetizing after a morning in the lunch box.  I peel one, cut it into pieces and place it in a small glass jar; then salt it and on top place a nasturtium leaf on which is a small dab of mayonnaise. When the child is ready to eat, he puts the dressing directly on the tomato, and the serving is much more attractive. 

The glass jar may also carry puddings, baked beans, custards, the dabs of pie fillings that are sometimes left over, fruit salad, slaw, stewed fruit, cottage cheese or anything that has been served on the family table that is good eaten cold. 

In the thermos bottle I have sent besides the customary cocoa and soups such things as creamed meats, creamed vegetables, spaghetti and tomatoes, fruit juices and jello.  

When baking a cake some of the batter may be dropped into muffin pans or paper cups to make just a few cup cakes to help in packing a school lunch.  

In years gone by I could not have sent school lunches, I sometimes think, had it not been for graham crackers and marshmallows.  I always kept these in the house and they served in emergencies many times. If you have too much cake icing use the surplus on a few graham crackers.  They will help you out after the cake is gone and you've forgotten to replenish the cookie supply.   Place some marshmallows on crackers and place in the oven.  When marshmallows just begin to melt, put another cracker on top and press down.  Toast slightly.  These marshmallow sandwiches stay crisp and help to give children their needed cereals. 

And now, for Mrs. Hey's unusual hot cocoa recipe:

Mrs. Hey's Cocoa

1 c. cocoa

1 c. sugar 

1/4 c. corn starch

salt

Mix and combine with water to make a paste.  Cook in top of double boiler 1 hour or longer.  Cool and store.  Add as needed to scalded milk and beat until frothy. (I have made this.  Do keep it on low and keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn't burn.  She doesn't give a water amount but I would start with 1/4 cup and add as needed.  Store in the refrigerator as ours did once mold on the counter top even though there was no milk or dairy in the mixture.  I'm guessing someone double dipped a spoon, but to be safe store in the fridge.)

The Poetry of Life

"I'd rather be knitting." ~ Me

"The poetry of life always has a practical side to it, and most practical affairs rightly worked out are full of poetry."

(Lippincott's Home Manuals ~Housewifery by L Ray Balderston, A.M. ~ 1919)

In the midst of wearing more hats than the cap salesman  in Esphyr-Slobodkina's 'Caps for Sale,' (which was one of my older son's most favorite books when he was little) and feeling more like the monkey than the cap salesman, I took a few minutes to take a break and post on more pleasant and comforting mundane things.

In case you haven't noticed, America seems to be in awful state right now, so I'm not complaining for the gift of being rather busy.  Very busy in fact and very glad to be so.

The school year usually means a return to 'the busy,' but this year is particularly so, as I myself am also back to a full class load, partially on-line and in person, including a full-day Saturday Anatomy and Physiology class. So, my days go somewhat like this:

Monday through Saturday, alarm goes off at 4:30 a.m, and I am up by my second alarm at 4:45.  Monday through Friday, I get up and prepare husband's breakfast and oldest son's.  I also prepare their lunches.  I get them off to work and school, and most days both are gone by 6:30.  My husband's schedule varies.  Saturdays I get up and prepare breakfast for everyone to leave out for when they get up, eat, get myself together and leave for class at 7:00 a.m, waking my husband up when I go.

Sundays, I allow myself the luxury of sleeping in until 6 a.m. I prepare everyone's breakfast, try to slow down a little and plan my day.

Monday, my younger son who I home school, is normally at his father's house doing his schoolwork there.  That is my day to run errands, make appointments, get groceries or work on my own home work.  I get my older son off the bus every day around 2:30 or so.  and on Monday's he goes to his father's that night for dinner.   I still have my husband's dinner to prepare. Monday is also my baking and meal prep day if I'm going to make anything ahead.  I've hopefully planned our menu the afternoon before on Sunday.

Tuesday through Friday I normally have both children staying with me.  The youngest gets up around 8, has his breakfast (which I normally make, but he sometimes prefers to grab his own,) and does his morning routine and begins his schoolwork which is in a planner prepared each week by me on Sunday afternoons. He is fairly independent in most cases, and about half the things we go over together. He also takes some classes on-line.

I have the house cleaning and laundry broken out to a few items a day so I'm not overwhelmed. If I stick to this I'm in relatively good shape.  The dogs and birds get daily care.

Assuming there are no pressing mid-week appointments, I start the day with the making of the beds (my younger son makes his own), start any laundry if it's a laundry day, tidy the upstairs and baths, and then check the calendar, take anything from the freezer or prep for dinner if needed, have my own breakfast if I haven't already, and get to work.

I work most of the day on my own course work and household things that need to be done.  Because I'm up so early, I strive for at least a 20 minute nap in the early afternoon.  That doesn't always happen.  I try to shower either just before bed, or first thing in the morning after my husband and older son have left and my little one wakes up.   Then the afternoon is bus duty, more school work of my own and then dinner preparation and clean up.  My husband and sons do help where they can.

Bills, appointments, extra-curricular activities are all in the digital and paper calendars.  I have a third weekly calendar where I note what assignments I have due.

By Friday, my sons are either with me or their father every other weekend.  During the school semester, most of the weekend will be spent on coursework for me. When I have the boys, I try to keep that to early mornings and later evenings and make sure we have some fun time together.  I am of course in class on Saturdays from 8-2 from now through the Spring semester.

On Sundays, my boys are normally with their father and I try to visit a hospice patient if I have one.  I also do my weekly calendar, meal planning and my son's lesson plans for the week (which I've already prepared ahead of time during the summer months.)

Somewhere in there I try to rest.

I don't know that I've quite reached the level of poetry, but I have at least established a mostly reliable routine. My sons and husband do their share, and my youngest is learning to help with the cooking where he can.  (A blessing for his future wife.)

In between I squeeze in a bit of gardening, and was able to put up some elder flower and elderberry and wild black raspberry goodies this year, the Rumptof of course and hope to dry a batch of hops for tea, and I also to keep up with the inevitable little touches that make a house a home.

I have learned the hard way to let nothing wait until tomorrow if I can help it.  I planned for Halloween mid-September.  The decorations (although few in number and mostly vintage style black cats) were out almost a month ago.  Why? Practicality.  We cleaned out the garage at the end of August, and there was no good practical sense in taking things out and putting them back again only to take them out again three weeks later.

If it's dirty and I have a minute, I clean it.  If I find myself idle (say waiting for something to cook,) I put something away, or take a few minutes to read an assignment.  Somewhere in there, I also try to maintain contact with my older daughters, by at least texting or phoning weekly.  Sundays are usually the day my husband and I can enjoy a movie at home together if I don't have too much course work.

I promised myself on the decision of returning to school that I would not let my children's childhood suffer in any way if possible.  Yes there has been some belt tightening on mother's free time, but the baking of homemade goodies, the little reminders of holidays (even though they are much older now at nearly 12 and 15) and my youngest son's flights of fancy on random small projects, I do my best to indulge. Even if it's just for popcorn and a movie on the couch.  After raising two children to adulthood, the fact that the time flies and childhood is over faster than the two shakes of a lamb's tail is not lost on me.The time is so brief, yet its effects are so eternal on the minds of children, so I strive to keep in the forefront of my mind what my sons will think back on when they remember these days.   There is nothing wrong with demonstrating a good work ethic to your children by any means, but it also must be that joy and magic remain to feed the soul.

In all of this, I am looking forward to the winter break, the quiet, and some hand work.  And maybe, just maybe, a little rest.

Signs of Spring and A Good Bi-annual Cleaning Circa 1919

Can you find him? He almost escaped my view as I was cleaning up the yard and garden.  To get an idea of size, he's on our chain link fence, next to a clematis vine.  He isn't more than an inch long.  He changed colors several times while I was working around him.

Spring is arriving late this year in Western, New York.  The lilacs aren't even fully out yet and today after several days in the 60s, 70s and even 80s, it's a rousing 40 degrees outside. So glad the scarf and wool coat were within reach. 

I've been immersed in Spring Cleaning and Yard Work.  

Spring cleaning is actually a seasonal cleaning.  I generally do the same thing with minor modifications in the Autumn as well.  It requires a stalwart commitment and fortitude and a great deal of stimulant beverages. The potential for procrastination is terrible, until one can no longer stand the ever present bits and remnants of old house dirt, dust, cobwebs and general clutter that no matter how regularly one cleans, in a house with two dogs, two children and one husband, it accumulates.

According to my 1919 copy of Lippincott's Home Manuals Housewifery by L. Ray Balderston, A.M., a regular room cleaning looks as follows:

• Dust and remove or put under cover small articles and bric-a-brac.
• Dust or brush furniture; if small, remove from the room. If large, cover with a dust sheet.
• Shake and brush curtains and hanging; remove the room or pin in dust bags.
• Roll up small rugs and remove from the room to clean; if large, sweep and fold back the edges toward the center.
• Dust ceiling and walls.
• Dust window shades.
• Clean radiators.
• dust closet floor.
• Dust floors.
• Dust doors, baseboard, and other woodwork to the floor and baseboard.
• Clean windows.
• Clean chandelier.
• Wash globes.
• Wash mirrors.
• Wipe pictures.
• Polish floor.
• Return rugs, furniture and bric-a-brac.
• Polish brass and silver unless all are done on a special day.

Living in a 224 year old home means dust is generated by the home's own unique life force.  It could be totally empty and without human or animal inhabitants and dust would happen.  I dust each week. We have no forced air or air conditioning, or duct work.  Dust just is. I don't even have a fireplace left within the home, so I can't blame that.  Whatever wood burning devices were here were taken out or bricked up long ago.  It's just one of the many bars in the song of the old house blues.  Along with plenty of ventilation year round, whether you want it or not.

But I wouldn't trade it for a brand new home, although sometimes I do fantasize about a mudroom, a separate laundry room, and a fully insulated, cook's kitchen with cupboards and drawers that work.  But I can't imagine living in a home without a soul. As much as  I wove a tapestry of obscenity in the air over my home the first two years I lived here as things broke, were never done right to begin with and DIY'd incorrectly to the point that the men on This Old House would openly weep, I have a strange and deep romance with it.  

The .75 acre yard that allows me to garden and plant until I run out of time, money and energy is a big selling point.  Along with the simple solidness of the structure itself.  When the wind blows, this house simply doesn't move.  There are days I vacillate between giving it all up in a few years and moving on, and being inexplicably pulled towards staying a little bit longer and leaving the old girl better than I found her. God knows when I do move, leaving the garden will be the hardest part.  All those years of mature perennials and fruit trees.  I can barely consider it at this particular moment.

Tradition ~ And why it doesn't always matter....

I have to admit it has been a ridiculously busy stretch for me from September to now, one which I always seem to so desperately try to avoid and yet fall into anyway.

It starts with back-to-school, which for most of my friends who are parents means quiet days as the children head away on the bus each  morning.  Only one of mine does, the other is still home schooled.  That means my presence is required every school day as though I were going to school with him on the bus. He is older now, 11, and with the gift of on-line learning now does four out of six subjects on-line and through video instruction, but I still need to be available.

The other young man who has special needs has a very difficult 6:15 a.m. bus time each morning for which I arise each morning at 4:45 a.m. to make sure he is up dressed, fed and packed for school and delivered safely to the bus.  I then have to be available again to get him off that bus at 3 p.m.

In between I have a husband who very much enjoys eating regular meals, a home to clean (for which I am grateful), the laundry of three males to do, two dogs, four little birds, household administrative duties (groceries, bills, etc...) and somewhere in there, my own enrichment.  

I am currently taking two distance courses which will increase to three in January and carry through May.  The garden is quiet now, but the snow if there is any must be kept up with and the outdoor bird feeders filled, and meals planned a little more regularly as easy, last minute shopping isn't always an option during the winter.

Overall, I have no complaints.  I am grateful for the home, the laundry, the two boys and the man I live with.  I am grateful for the food in our pantry and bellies, and the clothes on our backs.  I am grateful for the electricity and heat, and the clean running water.

And yet, there never seems to be enough hours in the day.

This past Thanksgiving was the most different I've had in over ten years.  Over the last decade we ate the day after Thanksgiving and invited family friends.  Sometimes there were as many as 16 or 17 people.  I cooked for a week before, turning out a turkey, a ham, five sides and pies and a birthday cake for my youngest son.  This year dear friends were experiencing some issues due to an upcoming surgery, other friends no longer attend, and my eldest daughter needed flexibility to work around her jam packed thanksgiving day meeting three other family obligations.

So we ate rather quietly and unceremoniously Wednesday evening, with only one kind of pie in a store bought gluten free crust and my son's birthday cake.  I made it all about turning 11 for a very special boy instead of a giant feast.  My heart wasn't in it this year.  And although a little sad (as change usually is), it worked out just fine.

My daughter and I discussed just how much we should really reschedule our annual Thanksgiving Day to sometime in October.... it's too close to Christmas... and food overload.  My son celebrates his birthday on the 29th, then Christmas, then my other son's birthday just after the new year.  It all felt too much all at once.  It always has.  But in the past I marathon-ed my way through it, checking lists as I went .... one... two.... three....!

It made me think about tradition and how much, in the end, it doesn't really matter all that terribly much.  My friend and I were discussing how it was all about getting together.... not the correct Thursday or the food.

This Christmas, my younger daughter will home for the first time in three years on Christmas.  We will all be together for a short time before we rush off in our prospective directions.

This sort of thing never would have been acceptable to my Grandmother.  We ate promptly at noon on Thanksgiving Day....if you were late they started without you.  Not coming home for the holidays despite the cause (unless it was complete bodily traction in the hospital) was generally frowned upon.  Sometimes the joy is in the simplicity and flexibility is beautiful.

It reminds me of the ever popular "pot roast" story, many variations exist:

The new bride is making her first big dinner for her husband and tries her hand at her mother’s pot roast, cutting off the ends of the roast the way her mother always did. Hubby thinks the meat is delicious, but says, “Why do you cut off the ends — that’s the best part!” She answers, “That’s the way my mother always made it.”

The next week, they go to the grandmother's house, and she prepares the famous roast recipe, again cutting off the ends. The young bride is sure she must be missing some vital information, so she asks her grandma why she cut off the ends. Grandma says, “that’s the only way it will fit in the pan!”

The moral of this story is; some traditions are temporary and by necessity, some we honor just because "that's the way we always do it," and some we have no idea why.  Are they necessary for the moment?  Not always.

As we go forward into the holidays keep this in mind.  Ask yourself what is really important?  What brings you joy?  What can you add and what can you take away?

Presence is often far more important than 'presents,' and sometimes that requires change.

Outfitting the Bride's Kitchen Part II ~ Utensils in Glass

~~~~~~~~

From Cheating the Junk Pile by Ethel R. Peyser ~1922

Chapter XIX

'We favor glass whenever it can be substituted for kitchen utensils as the most ideal oven utensil.  If your purse can stand it and its initial expense, it will save fuel, time and energy in the end and therefore money.'

Utensils in glass:

Three kitchen glasses................................ $.10
Baking dish oval............................................55
Baking dish deep........................................1.50

Lemon Squeezer with holes..........................25

Measuring glass.............................................15

Casseroles from 2 1/2 qts to 1/2 qt....up to 3.00

Spice Jars................................ (no price listed)

Individuals at.................................................75

Pie dishes shallow.........................................90

Bread pans..................................................1.75

Layer cake dish 9 1/8"..................................90

Custard cups 4 oz.........................................25

Fruit jars 1 qt.............................................1.20

Fruit jars 1 pt.............................................1.05

Glass butter crock, 1qt.................................45

Glass butter crock, 2 qts..............................70

Glass butter crock, 4 qts ...........................1.00

Outfitting the Bride's Kitchen Part I ~Utensils in Aluminum ~1922

From Cheating the Junk Pile by Ethel R. Peyser ~1922

Chapter XIX

'We moderns are so up to date that although we expect our women to marry, they know less of the kitchen needs and the infant's psychology than of the constituencies of the planets' atmospheres.  So to correct some of the deficiencies we are going to list in this article the prices of the necessities of the bride's kitchen at the present...

A first-class aluminum manufactory believes the following to be a complete set of aluminum for the home.

Tea Kettle............................. $7.05
Double boiler......................... 4.05
Sauce pan and cover.............. 1.40

Straight sauce pan (2)............ 2.35

Preserving kettle, cover......... 3.62

Strainer...................................1.20

Steamer Section.....................1.80

Coffee pot..............................4.15

Tea pot...................................5.85

Fry Pan..................................3.60

Griddle..................................5.55

Waffle mold..........................3.65

Pudding Pan (2)....................1.60

Bread pan..............................1.15

Tubed cake pan.....................1.85

Mountain cake pan...................85

2 jelly cake pans (ea).............1.20

Corn cake pan........................1.20

Gem pan.................................1.60

Roaster....................................7.20

2 pie pans (ea)............................62

Measuring cup............................60

Tray..........................................1.65

Water Pitcher............................6.00

Jelly Mold.................................2.90

 (additionally recommended per the author)

Funnel...........................................90

2 Muffiners, 6 cups...................1.65

Dish drainer...............................4.00

Ladle..........................................2.25

Quart measure............................2.00

Dripping Pan..............................2.95

Categories to be continued:  utensils in enamel, glass, earthenware, japanned ware, tin ware, iron ware, woodenware, cutlery, hardware, brushes, wireware, fabrics and paper, machinery and general.

A Timely Introduction or Everything Old is New Again

Courtesy of Vulcan Stove Co.  The smooth top 38" gas range takes the stoop out of stoopid cookery.

As we deal yet again in 2017 (some 95 years later) with the struggle to establish and maintain women's rights, Ms. Peyser's words could have almost been written yesterday.  There should be no negativity attached to the home being a woman's domain.  For even today as working women, mothers, caregivers of our adult parents or siblings, single or married, we find ourselves still the primary purchasing agent of home goods, decorator, and home maker.  Making a house a home still remains largely a feminine task.  The ability to do so should be a badge of honor, and not a prison or mark of shame.

From Cheating the Junk Pile ~1922 by Ethel R. Peyser

Introduction

The Housewife as Manager and Purchasing Agent

'Several years ago we heard a great deal of talk about women's place being in the home.  The slogan was used as a campaign challenge and as a sneer.  It was bandied up and down the country-side until we got pretty tired of hearing it.  Since the privilege of voting has been given women and since their weight is being felt in the elections, the cry has died down.  The simple reason is that neither the employment of women in war-work nor the radical challenges of the ultra-feminist has altered the  fundamental fact that the home is a women's realm.  Now you can banish her to the home and make it such a place of drudgery that she loathes it; or she can abide there as a queenly figure, director of its work.'

Housewifery -~Schedules, Dishwashing as Meditation and Work for the Common Benefit

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A well arranged and well equipped kitchen, New Rochelle, N.Y.
From The Efficient Kitchen by Georgie Boynton Child ~ 1915

This past month it finally happened.  My aged dishwasher that was here when I moved into my aged house, died an undignified death that involved smoke and the smell of burning electronics.

And I did the unthinkable...I chose not to replace it.  Cost was one reason.  The wiring would need to be updated, a plumber called, an electrician and more fees, fees and fees.  So I did what I had done in the past year when my toaster oven died (it was a taco shell related fire, let us never speak of it again...) I waited.  

I (overly) analyzed the purpose this dishwasher played in my life and I realized it was really a glorified and sometimes (smelly) dirty dish retainer and nothing more.  I couldn't be absolutely sure that it saved me any actual time between loading and unloading and rinsing and I knew for certain it didn't always get things clean and it certainly couldn't fit my greasiest, largest pans and cast iron ware that had to be washed by hand anyway.

I cook A LOT.  My son has celiac's disease, so by design, it is safer to eat at home most of the time.  I cook for two children, myself, and now a carnivorous husband.  I chalk up hours in the kitchen.  So with fear and trepidation, I gave it a week and I surprised myself.

Washing the dishes by hand wasn't nearly the horror story, time bandit I imagined it to be, and...my dishes were actually cleaner...and, I actually enjoyed it and found it somewhat calming and meditative.

It took me back to my childhood and standing at the sink next to my grandmother and how she taught me to run my hands over them to make sure they were truly clean.  It reminded me to slow down and be present. It reminded me of Brother Lawrence, in The Practice of the Presence of God who answered those who inquired about his devotion among the menial, monotonous tasks of the kitchen with "We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him..."  and focused on God's presence by doing the dishes as though he were doing them for the Lord.   In short, it turned out to be somewhat of a gift.

In Lippincott's Home Manuals-Housewifery, L. Ray Balderston, 1919 a woman's day was estimated to look as follows, a mere estimate due to change on size of family and availability of help:

Food work 4-6 hours per day with 2-4 additional hours per week

Laundry-washing- ironing 3-5 hours per week

Care of clothing (likely mending and sewing) 4-6 hours per week

House care, cleaning, etc. 1-2 hours per day and 4 additional hours per week

Children and Miscellaneous 2-3 hours per day and 2 additional hours per week

Management, Accounts, Planning 1-3 hours per week

Of those 4 to 6 hours per day, dishwashing was a part of it.  Per most home manuals of the day and particularly The Efficient Kitchen from which the photo above came, there is a specific process.  

Two pans or sinks filled with hot water, one with soap (as hot as you can stand it)

silverware is put in to soak, along with plates and bowls if there is room

glasses get washed first

then dishes, bowls

then silverware

and then pots and pans

At this point any additional things that need soaking go in and then finally the water is poured out and the sink thoroughly cleaned.  Dishes can be put in a rack or if you are lucky dried by a helper along the way with a towel and put away.

"The advantage of this method is that it offers an opportunity to the children to work with their mother, giving them valuable training while they are greatly lightening a rather dreary task.  Where there are no children it cultivates in grown-ups the habit of burden-sharing and comradeship in the daily tasks, thus transforming the whole atmosphere of the home from one of drudgery to happy cooperation and companionship in work for the common benefit."