400 Mile Yard Sale 2013

Some of the sights around Hopkinsville, KY

Old iron tools

It's good that the 400 Mile Yard Sale is held for 4 days. This year, it rained all day Thursday and half of Friday. But Saturday was a beautiful day of sunshine. Keely and I left her house at 8:00 AM (which is early for us on a Saturday.)

First we went to some sales around Hopkinsville. Many of them were unimpressive, but we loved the sale at the Senior Center. The parking lot and auditorium was full of tables of merchandise, and many of the vendors were ready to deal. I found a 1902 health book for just $2. (I love old textbooks.) Keely bought a rock-band poster and a hat.

At the Senior Center in Hopkinsville

Bargain bling

A nice lady in a zany hat had a lot of jewelry on her table. I 'm collecting shiny things for a craft project, so I bought a bag of jewelry odds and ends and mismatches and another little set of matching earrings and brooch.

A bit of Hopkinsville history

Fun-to-see art at the Senior Center

From the Senior Center, we drove east of Hopkinsville on 68/80. There was at least one yard sale per mile between Hopkinsville and Fairview, and in some of the miles, there were several sales.  Keely was looking for baby things for her friend who is pregnant. She found a nice baby swing for just $15 -- it's the sort that can swing either sideways or back and forth.

Lots of baby items at this sale

Butler Antiques from Hopkinsville and several other antique and flea market dealers always set up their sales on a hill a few miles east of Hopkinsville. Two years ago, I bought a chest of drawers for my son there, and last year I bought a nice wooden cabinet for my utility room. This year I only bought little things, so I didn't have to go home and get the truck to haul furniture -- thank goodness!

I liked the red chest, but I didn't need it!

Loved the colorful glass in the sunshine!

The Eastview Baptist Church is usually our next stop after the sale on the hill. In past years, they've had a huge yard sale event with dozens of people selling. But this year they didn't have enough volunteers to staff it. The Kentucky New Era reported that they hope to participate again next year. We have always enjoyed their sale immensely,  and we felt a bit sad when we drove by their empty church yard.

To our surprise, an Amish lady was one of several sellers at this site. From the place where the two men are standing, the sales continued around a corner, up a little hill, and around another corner.

We weren't sure if the next sale was really a yard sale or not. The sign on the highway said, "Pool Table." But we turned off and drove up the hill, and sure enough, they were having a yard sale that included various pieces of art. I think the $2800 price tag on a sculpture was the most expensive thing we saw all day. But it was an interesting work of someone's hands, and I enjoyed seeing it. Coming back down the hill to the highway, we enjoyed the view.

Finally we arrived in Fairview. The little town was having a big day, and as always, the Jefferson Davis memorial was towering above it all. Lots of Mennonites were visiting the sales and riding through town on their bicycles and in horse-drawn vehicles. The buckboard in the photo below is essentially a one-horsepower pickup truck.

The Fairview Fire Department was selling barbecue sandwiches and cold drinks, as well as yard-sale items. The clothes on one of their trailers were 4/$1.00, so I bought some t-shirts to cut up. (I look for shirts that have no side seams so I can cut the bodies of the shirts into long continuous strips for crocheted rugs.)

Support your local volunteer fire department!

We were losing our momentum after seven straight hours of yard sales, so we decided to end this year's 400 Mile Yard adventure. We stopped at the Mennonite grocery store on our way out of Fairview, and then I took Keely back to Hopkinsville. As I drove back out to my country home, I thought about all the sellers who had started at dawn and wouldn't close until dusk. I was glad to be just a shopper, able to quit and go home anytime I wanted.

Old Movies for Me!

How a man I never knew changed my life forever

When I was a little kid, Brent was my dad's best friend. Mom will tell you that Brent was Dad's best friend many years before I came along, and that he is the one who introduced them to each other. Mom will also tell you that I met Brent, but I was too little to remember.

Even though I don't remember meeting him, I know that Brent loved movies -- especially old movies. He was an aficionado. He knew why a movie was unique, or what crazy stuff had happened during shooting. He knew what actors and actresses liked each other and which ones didn't.

Brent knew that Isaac's and my education in the great classic movies was being neglected. When I was about 10, he started sending us movies that he thought we should see, that were appropriate for kids. I remember being so excited to get Brent's boxes. Isaac and I would look up all of the new movies in Dad's movie books to see what they were about. Even though I never watch VHS anymore, I still have all of the movies he sent us, because they bring back such happy memories.

I watched those videos hundreds of times over the next ten years. I can recite huge swaths of several of them. Our favorites were the "Road to..." movies, and the Marx Brothers. I still have to restrain myself from quoting them to people who will have no idea what I'm talking about. I've even gone so far as to infect my husband with my old movie love. He still swears that he doesn't like black and white movies, but he loved Harvey.

Brent is the reason that I sing Marx brothers songs. He's the reason that when all of the other little girls in my class had a crush on a member of Hansen or Leonardo Dicaprio, I had a crush on Errol Flynn. And the reason that I view the new Flight of the Phoenix movie with much skepticism. How can you replace Jimmy Stewart? All of these years later, I still don't like modern horror movies. Give me Vincent Price or Boris Karloff any day over these movies with all of their blood and gore.

Brent passed away when I was in high school. Mom tells me that we're his legacy, because he was the last of his line. He passed on his love of those movies to both me and my brother. He also passed on the knowledge that the truly great stories never get old.

- - - - - - - - - - 
Thank you, Keely. Here's Brent  in about 1979, in the kitchen of the first apartment Dennis and I had after we were married. I can't believe it, but he appears to be washing dishes!

Brent has a starring role in many funny, happy memories of our college and newly-wed years in Warrensburg, Missouri. He had juvenile (Type 1) diabetes, and he died at the young age of 38.  G.L.N.

The Elkhorn Livestock Company

One of my unsolved mysteries

About five years ago, I found an old seal on eBay. Or maybe I should say that I found a seal-maker. When you insert a piece of paper and squeeze the handles of this little tool, you get a tidy embossed circle that says "Elkhorn Livestock Company, Bassett, Nebraska" around the edge and "Seal" in the center.

You may remember that Bassett, Nebraska, is my hometown. I grew up on a ranch out south of Bassett. So when I saw this nifty device that was connected to the place of my childhood, I bid $5 for it, and after a few days, I became its owner. No one else even bid on it. It was meant to be mine!

I was very curious about the seal's history, but the seller had no information to share. He found the seal in a box of stuff that he bought at an estate auction in Minnesota. He didn't even remember whose estate it was.

I wrote to the Rock County Historical Society and asked if they knew anything about the Elkhorn Livestock Company, but they had no information, either. And  I couldn't find anything about the company on the internet. So with little hope of ever learning anything about the Elkhorn Livestock Company, I filed my questions in the back of my mind.

Then, a few months ago, I was looking at a 1912 plat book of Rock County, Nebraska, on Ancestry.com, and I noticed a couple of landowners south of Bassett whose names are similar to "Elkhorn Livestock Company."

An "Elkhorn Valley Land Company" owned 2920 acres, all in one piece, in the northeast corner of Thurman Precinct. And an "Elkhorn Land and Cattle Company" owned an adjoining 360 acres in Lay Precinct. If these two outfits were one and the same, they owned over five sections in total, one of the larger spreads in that part of Rock County at the time.

I also found a possible clue in a 1911 book of discontinued American corporations and securities. It says that the Elkhorn Livestock Company (the name that's on the seal) of Embar, Wyoming*, cancelled its Nebraska charter in 1909. Maybe the "Elkhorn" names in the plat book are different than the name on the seal because of legal changes?

Tonight, I searched the internet again for "Elkhorn Livestock Company" and I learned that the University of Nebraska at Lincoln has a document that pertains. Box 4 of their Mari Sandoz papers includes the following:

Item 174. W.B. Hodge to Mari Sandoz, 1937, Nov. 10 [frame 1037]
Regarding Elkhorn Livestock Company; the hanging of Kid Wade; Doc Middleton; someone claims to be Mari's sister.

Kid Wade and Doc Middleton are well-known names in early Rock County history, so I'm virtually certain that this letter has information about "my" Elkhorn Livestock Company.

I sent the UNL library an email asking how to get a transcript of the letter's text or a photocopy of it. The library's website says that I should get a reply within 48 hours, and I'm waiting with keen anticipation to see what they say. Maybe the story of the seal's first owner will be revealed at last.


-------------------
*Researching the Elkhorn Livestock Company of Embar, Wyoming led to a strange discovery that I'll write about another time!

Old Green River Whiskey Advertisement

A curious advertising image from 1899

I once bought a grimy box of junk at a farm sale to get an old scales I had seen in it. This picture was in the box. I think it might be a calendar illustration.  It is mounted on cardboard, and it's very brown with age.

Today, I've been looking through some closets, and there was the whiskey picture. I decided to make a digital copy of it. It's just a little too big for my scanner, so I had to merge four different scans to make this image.The image above shows the actual color of the paper, and the image below has been doctored to show more detail. (I'm an amateur, so no miracles were achieved during the doctoring.)

 I couldn't decide what I should do with this picture, so I packed it up again. I don't know whether it has any significant monetary value to a collector of whiskey memorabilia. With the two big cracks, it's not in very good condition. My indecisiveness about things like this are why I have too many boxes in my closet.

Hidden Log Cabin Museum

History preserved in Van Buren, MO

Wanda Newton is the owner of the Hidden Log Cabin Museum in Van Buren, MO. She was born and raised in Van Buren, but she lived in Chicago for a while as a young adult. When she came back to Van Buren, she was surprised how times had changed. The old ways of Ozark life were being abandoned.

Miss Wanda noticed that antique dealers from distant cities often attended estate auctions and farm sales in Carter County. She watched the dealers leave with their loot, and she worried that Carter County was losing its history, one auction at a time. She decided to start a collection of items that would be representative of life as it had been.

It was a good thing that her husband supported her, Miss Wanda says, because the auctions took all the money she made at her courthouse job. She dreamed of having a place to put her collection on display.

The hidden log cabin

Finally, an opportunity opened. The house next door to her home was put up for sale, and Miss Wanda bought it. Despite its mundane exterior, it was no ordinary house. Under the siding, it was a log house with several frame rooms built onto it.

And it was an exceptionally historic log cabin. The little village of Van Buren, on the west side of the river, was burned during the Civil War. When the war ended, the residents decided to rebuild on the east side of the river. The first building that went up was a new Carter County courthouse.

When the lots for the new town were surveyed, it turned out that the courthouse had been built in the middle of the street. It was moved back a few yards, onto the corner lot of John and Ash, and there it still sits.

When Miss Wanda became the owner, she undertook a massive restoration. She stripped the log room down to its whitewashed walls of hand-hewn native pine. The large yawning fireplace had been closed off and partially torn down, so she hired a stonemason to rebuild it. She didn't have enough money for the project, so she borrowed from her husband. It took her a couple of years to pay him back.

In the other rooms, she removed modern wall coverings to reveal the walls as they had been when the addition to the house was built. She did most of the work herself, and it took her several years.

Tour of the museum

When I visited the Hidden Log House Museum, Miss Wanda walked me through the first room and told me about it. "Don't you want to take any pictures?" she asked. I told her that I would take pictures on my way back through the house, but first, I wanted to give my full attention to what she was telling me. Every item in the house has its history, of course, and Miss Wanda is a good storyteller.

So, these photos are in reverse order, starting from the back of the house in the kitchen and summer kitchen and ending in the log room which is at the front of the house.

On the back wall of the kitchen, there's a large, antique sink. Miss Wanda's sister, now in her early 90s, washed dishes in that very sink as part of her room and board when she attended high school. (It was in another house at the time.) I should have taken its picture, but I didn't. I also regret that I didn't take a picture of Miss Wanda.


The center room of the house was probably a dining room or parlor, and it has a bedroom on the side of it. Miss Wanda left the first layer of wallpaper-- a bold burgundy and white pattern -- on the dining room walls.

The big memory jug is old; the small memory jug in front was made in recent years. Just in front of the chair, a small bowl holds some bits of jewelry and small mementos. There's also a jar of buttons. These are the sorts of things that people used when they made memory jugs and jars. Miss Wanda is not sure what sort of adhesive was used in the old memory jug, but the newer one was made with window putty.

Miss Wanda says to watch for the "Knickerbocker" label when you are at a sale that has old stuffed toys. Someone in her family liked to laugh about her stuffed animals, and as sort of a joke, gave her a book about collecting them. When Miss Wanda looked up some of her stuffed toys in the book and showed the relative their value, he didn't tease her anymore.

The photos that follow are in the log room that was the Carter County Courthouse for a number of years. I'm amazed that Miss Wanda was able to find and buy all the items displayed here. She says she collected all these things in Carter County and the surrounding counties. The antique furniture you see in this room is handmade, and many of the other items are also.

I was surprised how much room the spinning wheel took. Miss Wanda told me that she used to have a loom, too, but it took up twice as much room as the spinning wheel. She finally sold it to a lady who weaves.

The coverlet on the bed was woven on a loom over a century ago, with handspun wool yarn. I believe Miss Wanda said that she made the rag rug in the bottom photo herself.



Miss Wanda receives no funds for the museum beyond what she charges in admission. She has decided not to have the house declared a historic site because she's afraid of the restrictions and obligations it might bring. She closes the museum over the coldest months of winter so she won't have to heat it.

Sometimes, classes of school children spend an afternoon at the museum and Miss Wanda enjoys telling them about the simple lives of the people who lived in the Ozarks a few generations ago. But what she likes best, she says, is when someone stops who is really interested -- someone who asks questions and wants to take pictures. It absolutely makes her day.

On the web:
A description of the Hidden Log Cabin Museum in Patti DeLano's Missouri Off the Beaten Path.

Related post:
Van Buren, Missouri

A Good Wife in 1948

Faithful service rewarded with a watch

Quoted from a Hamilton Watch advertisement that appeared in the December 1948 National Geographic magazine:

To Peggy --

for marrying me in the first place...

for bringing up our children -- while I mostly sat back and gave advice.

for the 2008 pairs of socks you've darned.

for finding my umbrella and my rubbers Heaven knows how often!

for tying innumerable dress ties.

for being the family chauffeur, years on end.

for never getting sore at my always getting sore at your bridge playing.

for planning a thousand meals a year -- and having them taken for granted.

for a constant tenderness I rarely notice but am sure I couldn't live without.

for wanting a good watch ever so long ... and letting your slow-moving husband think he'd hit on it all by himself.

for just being you...

Darling, here's your Hamilton with all my love!

Jim

In fairness to Jim, I must say that a Hamilton watch was a nice gift. Watches pictured in the ad include a platinum watch, set with 32 diamonds, that sold for $725. (It was similar in design to this Hamilton watch, set with 48 diamonds.)

However, this one was what Peggy really deserved for darning all those socks and putting up with years of insults about her bridge playing!

Related webpages:

Vintage Watch Ads
Brief History of the Hamilton Watch Company
Watchmaking at the Hamilton Factory in Lancaster, PA, 1947
1913 Hamilton Railroad Watch Manual

Buildings Are Not Forever

Get a picture while you can.

Two red barns in evening light

In April, 2007, I wrote a post titled "Two Red Barns on Edwards Mill Road" that included morning and evening photos of a couple of old barns.

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to drive down Edwards Mill Road on my way home. I was shocked when I saw that both my red barns had fallen down, sometime during the winter. I don't know if they were bulldozed, or if a bad wind toppled them.

One day this week, I decided to photograph them in their fallen condition. I was too late. The farmer has burned them and bulldozed their remains into a couple of piles. In a year or two, there will be little to suggest that those barns ever existed.

I know they weren't important structures, but I liked them. I'm glad that I have a nice photo of them.

I didn't do so well with another old building. About a year ago, a large farm in our neighborhood was sold at auction. The property included an old white farmhouse with a big front porch. It had stood empty for a number of years.

I had been inside the house a couple of times. It had an old-time floor plan with a large central entrance hall. I'm sure it was well over 100 years old. I had always wondered if the house might be made of logs under the siding.

One night several months ago, I came past that farm on my way home. I noticed the glow long before I knew what was burning. As I came closer, I saw that the old house was on fire. Flames were shooting through the roof. The whole area was illuminated. It was a frightful sight, but it appeared to be a planned burn. The owner was standing by with a bulldozer and a crew of helpers, and the fire department was nowhere in sight.

I wish I had a picture of that old house, but I don't. However, I did happen to find a 1930s photo of a Christian County, KY, house that is similar. Therewith, I must be content.

I hope I've learned my lesson now. This is not the first old building that I should have photographed, but didn't!

All that remains of the two red barns

Old-time Corn Varieties

Another Tall Corn Image c. 1920

A homesteading book lists eight different types of corn that have been developed over the years. How many can you name before you read them? I certainly couldn't have named them all!

The 8 basic corns, in roughly chronological order of development are Indian (hominy and flour) corn, popcorn, pod corn, flint corn, dent corn, sweet (and supersweet) corn, high-lysine corn, and waxy maize. Some of these corns, including Indian corn, popcorn, flint, and dent, are sometimes referred to as "field corn" because they are left in the field to dry on the cob and are stored on the cob. Sweet corn, on the other hand, is picked fresh from the stalk and hurried to the house to be frozen, canned, or dried.

Quoted from The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book by Carla Emery (p.160). Published in 2003 by Sasquatch Books, Seattle.

I think the corn in the picture at right (scanned from my 1920 geography book) would fall somewhere before sweet corn in Carla Emery's list. The little boy appears to be holding some ears of dark-colored corn, and the man is holding some lighter-colored ears. It's very likely that the farmer wasn't even planting a named variety of corn. He probably just saved some seed from his best corn each year.

The Dallas County (TX) Archives on Rootsweb contain an interesting story of tall corn in 1895.

When the TIMES HERALD of Friday reached Mr. Jeff Hill, of Egypt, on White Rock creek, he read about County Commissioner Smith bringing to town, a stalk of corn sixteen feet high, and to himself said: "Pshaw! I can beat that, myself," and so saying, he went to his field and took the first stalk he came to, which measured twenty-one and one-half feet in length...

This morning, Mr. Hill called the attention of his neighbor, Mr. P. A. Howell, to the stalk, and Mr. Howell brought it to town, and it may be seen at the court house.

Mr. Howell states that this corn is of the "Mexican June" variety. It averages two ears to the stalk, and the ears run from eight to eleven inches in length. The ears are large in diameter and have plump, full grains...

Source: Dallas County Archives, Miscellaneous Articles Part 4 (Scroll down to 1895.)

I was surprised to learn that "Mexican June" corn seed is still around. One vendor, Gourmet Seed International, gives the following description of the variety:

(80 to 95 days) Mexican June is a very old and formerly widely used white field corn by settlers in the old west as well as the U.S Calvery [sic] and Mormons. Edible in the very early stages as a fine sweet corn, but not extremely sweet. In the dent stage it is an excellent variety for grinding, feed or masa for green corn tamales. Does quite well in moderately cold climates. In spite of continued demand for this heirloom, it is in danger of disappearing from the US market.

Source: Gourmet Seed International's Corn and Popcorn

The various heirloom seed companies describe many varieties of old time corn, such as "Bloody Butcher," "Country Gentleman," and "Peruvian Purple." I've included a few links below that you'll enjoy if you're interested in this sort of thing. A Mother Earth News article about "Uncommon Corn" suggests ordering heirloom seeds from a company in your region, so the plants will be better adapted to your climate.

Related post:
Tall Corn and Steel-Wheel Tractors

Related links:

Giant Olotillo Maize seeds for sale on eBay
Heirloom corn varieties at Victory Seeds
Rare corn varieties at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Old-time corn varieties at Heirloom Seeds
Corn seed list at Tradewinds Fruit

Old Adding Machine Stirs Memories

All In The Family... Another Trip Down Memory Lane... History and Old Stuff...

Isaac and I traveled a few miles of the Kentucky 400-Mile Sale on Saturday. We bought a few things, including this old Burroughs adding machine. Isaac paid a dollar for it.

The wall plug is missing, so we don't know yet if the machine works. No matter. Isaac likes its old-time appearance. He calls it a "primitive."

Isaac is intrigued by the mechanics. He likes to push down lots of buttons and watch them pop back up when he presses the "E" (at lower right.)

"Better not do that," I warned. "The buttons might jam." I know this from my own experience of playing with a similar adding machine.

I was about 7 years old at the time. It was winter, and my mother was doing the bookkeeping and income tax. She decided to rent an adding machine for a few days, knowing that she'd sleep better if she was sure the numbers were correct.

Mama set up the adding machine on her library table. When I finally got a chance to look at it closely, I decided to see how it worked. You already know what happened next. I pushed keys and more keys until the machine was jammed. I decided to exit quietly and maintain a low profile.

Later, from my bedroom, I heard my parents talking. They had discovered the jammed adding machine, and they were discussing who had done it. They agreed that it had to be me.

Very soon, my dad came to question me about it. He thanked me for my honesty when I confessed. He told me that adding machines were expensive and reminded me that the machine didn't even belong to us. Then he spanked me.

I felt a great burden of guilt, shame and humiliation for what I had done. The story ends happily, though. My dad took the adding machine apart and fixed it, my mother got the income taxes done, and the adding machine was returned in good working order.

I don't think my parents would have ever mentioned that adding machine incident again if I hadn't melted Mama's funny little plastic adding machine the next year.

She had bought it to help figure the income tax. To enter a number, you set a sliding tab to a value between 0 and 9 for each digit. Then you pushed a button for the operation (add or subtract) and cranked the handle to enter the number and print it on a tape. (If I remember right!)

One day my brother and I were alone in the house when we got home from school. I set the adding machine down on the heating stove in the living room when I got done playing with it.

By the time my mother came home and found it, the stove had turned itself on and off a few times. The bottom of the adding machine had a new shape, and the little tabs didn't slide anymore.

I don't remember getting spanked that time. I do remember the fire glinting in my mother's eyes and the smoke boiling out of her ears as she warned me to never, ever, touch another of her adding machines and stay away from the typewriter, too!

How did she know that, I wonder?!

Technorati tags: vintage electronics, primitive electronics,old adding machine, antique office machines, Burroughs adding machine

1937 Plymouth 4-Door Sedan

History and Old Stuff...

I believe this is a 1937 Plymouth. If you disagree with this identification, please let me know!

This vintage auto is awaiting restoration at a shop north of Hopkinsville, KY. The owner saw that I had stopped to photograph it and came out to talk to me. He told me the year and make of this antique and a dozen others that he has sitting in front of the shop. I should have taken notes, because I couldn't remember any of them with certainty after I left!

I do remember one interesting comment that he made, though. He remarked that people must have been smaller when this car was new, because the interior of the car is so small.

Technorati tags: 1937 Plymouth

Seen at the Thrift Shop: Rustic Wall Plaques

History and Old Stuff...

Remember when these wooden wall plaques were very popular, back in the 1950's and 1960's? It would be impossible to estimate the number of art prints that were glued to slices of tree trunks. And it can't be denied that some did have a rustic charm.

I remember larger plaques with "The Lord's Supper" or "Jesus at Gethsemane" pictures on them. I think I can remember one hanging in our church -- or somewhere?!

Soon after I made this photo, I saw these plaques at the cash register. A lady had them and dozens more items piled in her cart. She had such an excess of merchandise for checkout that I wondered if she might be a compulsive shopper. Or maybe she just happened to hit the jackpot at the Goodwill yesterday.



On the web:
Retro Housewife
Google Directory: 1950's Memorabilia

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retro

1954 Ford Bread Truck

History and Old Stuff... Blogs and Blogging...

One of the interesting things about having a blog is observing the many internet travellers who pass through it and sometimes hearing from them in comments or via e-mail.

A few days ago, I had an email from a reader in California. He said he had visited the photos I posted a few weeks ago of a 1951 Ford F5 Cab-over truck and mentioned that he has a 1954 Ford bread truck that he might sell to the right person. He bought the truck to save it from being melted down or stripped for salvage, but he's not sure if he has the time and talent to restore it. He's torn between keeping it and selling it, but if he sells it, he wants it to go to a person who appreciates it.

I asked if he could send some photos and he did. Two of them are posted below. If you have any advice or comments about restoring this truck or if you are interested in owning the vehicle, you can send e-mail to imagedump2003 at yahoo dot com.

I don't intend to turn the blog into a used-car lot, but I appreciated the uniqueness of this vehicle and the desire of its owner to do right by it.







Technorati tags:

1954 Ford truck
bread truck
1954