Innholdsfortegnelse for December 2016 - January 2017 i Reminisce

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, I plan to make merry, bake a feast of treats, celebrate with friends, family and loved ones, and keep Christmas in my heart. Meanwhile, compiling and curating the stories for this issue was both poignant and purely uplifting. Our longest feature commemorates the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. As impactful as that day was, our readers relate personal tales of hardship, daring, valor and sacrifice that show a triumph of spirit. Their gritty stories begin on page 28. For a slice of holiday nostalgia, movie watching is a good bet, and It’s a Wonderful Life always delights. Readers share what makes this movie so special to them. We’ve woven in a few bits of trivia about the movie, too. See page 46. Others might…

A Sucker for Sweets EDITH GODLESKI HUDSON, FL My grandfather Joe Godleski was the caretaker of the Reed family’s summer home on Big Fork Lake in Three Lakes, Wisconsin, in the early 1940s. I couldn’t wait until Christmas when Grandpa would bring us Reed’s candies and suckers that he received as perks. There were other flavors, but I especially remember Reed’s Butter Scotch candies. Reed’s suckers had a ropelike handle, instead of a stick like most other suckers. These suckers were well-suited to young children because you didn’t have to worry about the kids choking or hurting themselves. “When it was warm outside, the candy didn’t stick together like other roll candies.”—SUSAN MALLINGER First Job with Benefits SUSAN MALLINGER FORT MADISON, IA REED’S BUTTER SCOTCH was my favorite candy growing…

Early Christmas tree decorations in America were often handmade, as store-bought glass or paper imports from Europe were expensive. Until the mid-1920s, most imported blown-glass ornaments in the U.S. came from Germany. When war in Europe threatened ornament supplies to the U.S.in the late 1930s, Max Eckardt, a German immigrant and ornament importer, persuaded Corning Glass Works of New York to modify its lightbulb-making machines and start producing glass ornaments. Corning shipped its first mass-produced glass ornaments in December 1939 to Woolworth stores, where they sold for 2 to 10 cents each. By the following year, Eckardt was using the Corning machinery to produce his trademark Shiny Brite ornaments: glass balls that were later silvered inside and hand-decorated and lacquered outside. Material shortages during WWII forced design changes. Pastel-colored stripes…

REAL DOLLS This is my Uncle Ken and my mom, Barbara—yes, they were called Ken and Barbie—visiting Santa in 1946. ANDREA TAZELAAR CRYSTAL, MN HOLIDAY PUPS Bobbie Davenport (wearing headband) of Huntsville, AL, and her twin sister, Becky, got their furry friends in 1964. “We had gone two long, sad months without a dog in our house. We came home and found these adorable puppies, Bebe (left) and Buffy, waiting for us,” Bobbie writes. “On Christmas morning in 1961, my brother Jimmy got a doctor kit and I got a Chatty Cathy doll. She was his first patient.”JEAN BORDT LEXINGTON, KY PRESENTS FOR ABSENT LOVED ONES In 1944 Carol Hanson Stirling, 2, of Hammond, IN, sits near photos of a family friend and her brothers Paul (bottom right) and Virgil…

Director Frank Capra had Lionel Barrymore—bad-guy banker Mr. Potter—made up to resemble the farmer in Grant Wood’s painting American Gothic. The script was based on “The Greatest Gift,” a short story by Philip Van Doren Stern. When he failed to sell the story, Van Doren Stern self-published 200 copies of “The Greatest Gift” and sent them to friends as a Christmas message in 1943. Four months later, reportedly at the urging of Cary Grant, RKO bought the rights for $10,000. To create the snow-covered town of Bedford Falls and the snowstorm on Christmas Eve, the special effects crew used: 300 TONS OF GYPSUM 3,000 TONS OF SHAVED ICE 6,000 GALLONS OF A MIX OF FIRE EXTINGUISHER CHEMICALS, SOAP AND WATER James Stewart told film critic Leonard Maltin that the telephone…

BOUFFANT The wide, rounded style made its appearance in the 1950s, thanks to a sticky new product: lacquer hairspray. Here’s how it worked: Women used large wire-mesh rollers and backcombed their hair away from their heads (sometimes adding hairpieces), then flipped the ends up or down. Heavy aerosol hairspray held those voluminous dos in place. The bouffant became hugely popular in the early 1960s, thanks to Jackie Kennedy, the always impeccably groomed first lady. Other bouffant buffs: Annette Funicello, Mary Tyler Moore, and Diana Ross and The Supremes. BEEHIVE Beehives: Bouffants gone wild. Beehives are styled to soar; bouffants use circumference as their guide. Invented by Chicago hairstylist Margaret Vinci Heldt, the loftier coif was curled, backcombed and wrapped in a conical shape for its debut in Modern Beauty Shop…

Christmas comes but once a year, yet some of us collect, save and decorate year-round. Bob Richter shares his passion for Christmas collectibles in a new book, A Very Vintage Christmas, available at amazon.com. My favorite highlights from the book include: A history of holiday decorating traditions Lists of where to find vintage collectibles Wonderful ideas for gift-giving Suggestions for old-fashioned entertaining More stories about readers’ collections begin on page 22 .…

Candy brings out the child in us all. Whether we browse through penny candy offerings or treat our taste buds to a blast from the past, making connections to candy gives us reason to reminisce. So says the owner of Iconic Candy, Kenny Wiesen. Iconic Candy bought the rights to Reed’s in 2015 after the brand had been discontinued for nine years. Now Iconic cooks up the most popular flavors—butterscotch, cinnamon and root beer—using the original formulas and packaging traditions. To find a store near you that sells Reed’s Rolls, visit iconiccandy.com.…

A Ship and Its Crew Remembered CAROL KITANO BURIEN, WA My father, William E. Clothier, was a 20-year-old Marine private aboard the battleship USS Nevada when Japanese torpedo planes and dive bombers attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Although he recently died, he was interviewed many times about his experience. He recalled that fateful Sunday with a cold feeling in his stomach. My father said the day was bright and beautiful just before 8 a.m. when he and a friend were dressing for church. That’s when they heard gunfire. “We had been undergoing several alerts, and we were sure that it was someone playing with the guns,” he explained. Even after an officer came through the ship yelling “General quarters! We are being attacked!” he and his friend still…

THIS COLORFUL KARO AD ran as a full page, while ad copy on one-third of the adjacent page (not shown) contained a basic candy recipe—Karo, margarine, vanilla and confectioners’ sugar—and directions for making all the treats on display. The ad touts Karo as “a wholesome kind of sweetness” because it adds “dextrose—a sugar that needs no digestion!”…

TELL US HOW TO FIND YOU: Whether you send your submission via mail or email, include your full name, daytime phone number, email address and mailing address. If you have a PO Box, be sure to tell us your street address too. HELP US SORT THINGS OUT: Include the name of the department your submission is for (Growing Up, Name That Car, etc.) on the first page of your submission or in the email subject line. All photos should be high-resolution (at least 300 dpi on 8x10). Please identify the people, city, state and year the photo was taken. We reserve the right to use submissions in any section of our magazine or elsewhere. WHAT YOU’LL GET: For stories we publish in the magazine, we’ll make a one-time payment of…

I had never been kissed like that before. I completely forgot my boyfriend’s name. In 1947, my sister Marion and I were invited to a friend’s birthday party. My boyfriend planned to meet me there. (He later called to say he couldn’t make it. Talk about luck.) When I arrived, a young man opened the door. He was the most handsome man I had seen in my 16 years—with a black crew haircut, a small mustache and beautiful blue eyes. His name was Tommy. “He’s mine,” I whispered to Marion. After the party started, we played post office. I was extremely shy, but I cheated and got Tommy’s number, 13. Before I could call it, he called my number, 10. (I later learned that he had cheated, too.) I had…

1 ONE-OF-A-KIND ORNAMENTS Thanks for the Memories CAROLYN J. “CARI” THOMAS SANTA BARBARA, CA My mother, Anna M. Fischer McQuaid, was a saver and a collector. She kept beloved ornaments from Christmas trees at Dad’s and her childhood homes, some of them with antique candleholders. After 1931, she added ornaments that she and Dad bought or their children and grandchildren made. After our daughters were born in 1960 and 1970, I started buying special ornaments for them every year and putting them on our tree. I’d mark the year and the recipient on each ornament, forming a starter set for each daughter. Later, when they married and moved out, each received her own traditional ornament collection. Just about that time, my mother started to sort through her prized collectibles to…

The attack on Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Hawaii, occurred 75 years ago, on Dec. 7, 1941. The hallowed ground where servicemen and civilians gave their lives is one of three locations now designated as the World War II Valor in the Pacific National Monument and managed by the National Park Service. The Pearl Harbor site comprises the USS Arizona, USS Utah and USS Oklahoma memorials, along with mooring docks and residences along Battleship Row, where eight U.S. battleships were in port that day. The two other locations of the war monument are on the Aleutian Islands in Alaska and at Newell, California. For information, go to nps.gov/valr.…

When he was younger, my brother-in-law Jim loved to eat, and it took a lot to fill him up. Whatever you put in front of him, Jim quickly devoured. He, my sister Jeanette and their son lived about an hour away from us, and in the mid- to late 1960s, they came to visit almost every weekend. Mama loved to cook, but even she was pressed to find ways to satisfy Jim’s hunger. “Why, it takes two whole cooked chickens to feed him,” she said before one of his visits. One weekend just before Christmas, I spent quite a bit of time making holiday cookies. It was a new experience for me—I was only 14 and not used to such an undertaking on my own. I made everything from scratch,…

IRIS ATKINS SUMMERS’ bouffant gets its altitude from a hairpiece she nicknamed Myrtle. Cookie, a hairdresser in Pasadena, TX, would pin Myrtle on top of Iris’ head, smooth teased hair over the wiglet, and add curls on top. “One man in my office said my hairdo looked like ‘an explosion in a spaghetti factory,’” recalls Iris, now of Fort Worth. CLEARLY TRESSED TO IMPRESS, 15-year-old Barbara Bierbrodt, now of Southaven, MS, accessorized her beehive with fresh daisies. The occasion? An annual Valentine’s Day banquet in the early 1960s at her church, in the Memphis, TN, area. Her mom, Frances South (now 89), made the gown of red dotted swiss. “I remember feeling so special that night, like a princess,” Barbara says. “WHEN I WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL in Minnesota in…