Tell me what company you keep, and I'll tell you who you are."
Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616 (Author of Don Quixote)
Norm's Daily Ramblins
HAPPY MOTHERING DAY!
WHAT'S BEHIND ALL THIS MOTHER'S DAY STUFF?
Let's see.... during the morning worship service, the oldest mother gets a rose. The youngest mother gets a rose. The mother with the most children gets a rose. The mother with the youngest baby gets a rose. The mother who had traveled the farthest gets a rose. The mother in a blue dress gets a rose. The mother with the most children in diapers gets a rose... and on and on it used to go, didn't it?
I know. I used to have to get the roses ready for the Sunday morning presentation. Seems like we may have been honoring the wrong thing in our attempt to honor mothers who were Godly, loving, kind, wise, caring, serving, patient, and -- again -- on we could go ad infinitum.
Has there always been a Mother's Day on our calendar of events? For most of us, there has. But where did it begin? If you do a "search" for Mother's Day you get hundreds of pages and articles giving the historical information similar to the article below. Don't know who wrote it the first time but it reads the same on every resource page. It's very interesting information. Here's your chance to review the facts and be the informed one for your family this Sunday.
Some historians say that the Romans had a spring festival that was committed to female, mother-type goddesses. But I like what happened in England and what they called it -- MOTHERING DAY! I have an incredible mother who beautifully cared for six children and raised them in love and an awareness of the Lord. I also know some non-mothers who have loved and mothered children as if they were their own. Wish we had some time for you to tell us about your mother. Don't you think the idea of a MOTHERING DAY says it all?
ENGLAND'S MOTHERING SUNDAY
The modern celebration of Mother's Day in England is called "Mothering Sunday", but also called Mid-Lent Sunday and observed on the fourth Sunday in Lent. People attended the mother church of their parish, laden with offerings. Also in England in the 1600's, young men and women who were apprentices or servants returned home on Mothering Sunday, bringing to their mothers small gifts like trinkets or a "mothering cake". Sometimes furmety was served - wheat grains boiled in sweet milk, sugared and spiced.
In northern England and in Scotland, the preferred refreshments were Carlings -- pancakes made of steeped pease (look it up) fried in butter, with pepper and salt. In fact, in some locations this day was called Carling Sunday.
Another kind of mothering cake was the Simnel cake, a very rich fruit cake. The Lenten fast dictated that the Simnel cake had to keep until Easter. It was boiled in water, then baked, and was often finished with an almond icing. Sometimes the crust was of flour and water, colored with saffron.
HONORING MOTHERS IN AMERICA
Anna M. Jarvis (1864-1948) is credited with originating our Mother's Day holiday. She never married and was extremely attached to her mother, Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis. Mrs. Jarvis was a minister's daughter who for 20 years taught Sunday School in the Andrews Methodist Church of Grafton, West Virginia. Miss Jarvis graduated from the Female Seminary in Wheeling, West Virginia, and taught in Grafton before moving to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, with the rest of her family.
Anna Reese Jarvis died in Philadelphia in May of 1905. Still unmarried and left alone with her blind sister Elsinore, Anna missed her mother greatly. Two years after her mother's death (1907) Anna Jarvis and her friends began a letter-writing campaign to gain the support of influential ministers, businessmen and congressmen in declaring a national Mother's Day holiday. She felt children often neglected to appreciate their mother enough while the mother was still alive. She hoped Mother's Day would increase respect for parents and strengthen family bonds.
Julia Ward Howe also tried to establish a Mother's Day in America. Howe became known as the author of the words to the "Battle Hymn of the Republic," but was horrified by the carnage of the Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War
in 1870, she tried to issue a manifesto for peace at international peace conferences in London and Paris. In 1872, she began promoting the idea of a "Mother's Day for Peace" to be celebrated on June 2, honoring peace, motherhood and womanhood in 1873. Boston celebrated the Mother's Day for Peace for at least 10 years the celebrations died out when Howe was no longer paying most of the cost for them, although some celebrations continued for 30 years
THE FIRST MOTHER'S DAY
The first Mother's Day observance was a church service honoring Mrs. Anna Reese Jarvis, held at Anna Jarvis's request in Grafton, West Virginia, and in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on May 10, 1908. Carnations, her mother's favorite flowers, were supplied at that first service by Miss Jarvis. White carnations were chosen because they represented the sweetness, purity and endurance of mother love. Red carnations, in time, became the symbol of a living mother. White ones now signify that one's mother has died.
FIRST OFFICIAL MOTHER'S DAY
The first Mother's Day proclamation was issued by the governor of West Virginia in 1910. Oklahoma celebrated Mother's Day that year as well. By 1911 every state had its own observances. By then other areas celebrating Mother's Day included Mexico, Canada, China, Japan, South America and Africa. The Mother's Day International Association was incorporated on December 12, 1912, with the purpose of furthering meaningful observations of Mother's Day.
The House of Representatives in May, 1913, unanimously adopted a resolution requesting the President, his Cabinet, members of Congress, and all officials of the federal government to wear a white carnation on Mother's Day. Congress passed another Joint Resolution May 8, 1914, designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day. The U.S. flag is to be displayed on government buildings and at people's homes "as a public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country." President Woodrow Wilson issued the first proclamation making Mother's Day an official national holiday.
The Parfitt girls with their Mom in Claridge, PA. Maude is the youngest and on Mom's lap.
Maude Plunkett, a student at Moody Bible Institute Chicago 1924
Meredith Plunkett proposing to Maude in a Chicago Forest Preserve. Neat car, ennah?
Maude and Meredith Plunkett in the 1930's
and Maude this April 2009" />
Our "Angel Caregiver" and sister Judy Kreklow and Maude this April 2009
Maude on her 102 birthday
Maude last month with Shelby Wikberg her great great grand daughter.
My mother has been a "Mom" for 84 years!
Moody is the eldest and Judy, who stays with mother, now is the youngest and was born when Mom was 39. With six children -- can you imagine all those years of rinsing cloth diapers in the toilet then laundering them and, as we use to say, "hanging out?" But this is only a tiny symbol of all that Mom poured into the lives of her six children -- two of us were born at home.
I have written about Maude Elsie Plunkett on several occasions. She has been one strong, courageous, committed, ministering 'Mama' who has been so faithful to her Lord, her faith, her family, her friends and anyone in need.
In Atlanta, I try to see her every day and Mary and I have an evening with her and Judy every Friday night. Except for arthritic pain that is extreme at times and some short-term memory problems that she is handling so well. Mom has been a rolling stone who has gathered all the moss she could on the way.
Mom had never been in the hospital until she was 97 years old, except for four of six births of her children. In 2003 she fell and broke her hip attempting to sit down to listen to Rush Limbaugh whom she felt expressed her political philosophy
Maude is now 104 years and four months and remains an amazing woman. Such an appetite! With perfect taste and smell she enjoys every meal to the maximum. And she's such a beauty - skin like a baby with a startling absence of wrinkles. A small chunk of Hershey's Cocoa Butter melted in a double boiler, cucumber slices on her face, spent half lemons rubbed on her elbows, lot's of garlic in the stomach and faithfulness to Evening in Paris until it was no longer available the switch to Oil of Olay with an occasional splash of Jungle Gardenia.
Such a heart for the Lord – she is an ordained Full Gospel minister and soloist who still sings a song with feeling and beauty.
I'll never forget a Mother's Day celebration two years ago. We had food from our favorite restaurant, China Inn, dinner and at the close Mom opened her fortune cookie and burst into uncontrollable laughter when it was read. "You should expect a very long life!"
Harlan Kreklow is Maude's son-in-law and one Polski from Milwaukee we all tease. The 'Big H' captured the meaning of Maude's life in a beautiful way on one of Maude's recent birthdays. I want to share it with you:
Maude, you've lived through the terms of 18 presidents from Theodore Roosevelt to George W. Bush. You've lived through six major wars beginning with World War I. The Titanic sunk when you were six years old and the last Czar was thrown out of Russia when you were 11.
Names like Man of War, Calvin Coolidge, Enrico Caruso, Fritz Chrysler, Al Jolson, Babe Ruth, Albert Schweitzer and a host of thousands of others including the Beetles are not just names in history books for you. They have been your contemporaries.
You experienced primitive telephones, gas light, horse travel and crystal radio sets to cell phones, cyberspace, hundreds of millions of vehicles of every description, television, the Internet and space travel. What has past before your eyes and entered into your mind is truly the "stuff" of great novels. You've lived through the most exciting, exhilarating, wonderful, difficult, tragic, and challenging time in the history of the planet. You have live through 43% of our nation's history. What an incredible run you've had! And, we all so proud of you."
And this is what I have to say about Mom: What a woman -- that Maude Elsie Parfitt Plunkett. Born in a small coal mining town just east of Pittsburgh where her dad, Tom Parfitt, was an electrical engineer responsible for "air and light" in the mine back when 1800 turned into 1900. Tom was a Welsh coal miner who had the traditional golden singing voice and was a minister in the Primitive Methodist Church in Wales. He and three other friends formed a quartet and did deputation ministry in various churches, singing, teaching and preaching.
They also became involved in the condition of the coal miners. It was the time of "How Green Was My Valley". They reached a point of success in their cry for increased safety and benefits for the Welsh miners, the four young men were accosted by a group of men and threatened with death if they continued. With few on their side, the men left Maude's father was the first Parfitt to immigrate from the British Isles to America and was later responsible for paying for all of his relatives who wanted to come to the Land of Opportunity and Promise. Two of his sisters tried it and didn't like it so he had to pay for their return passage. I'm not sure I would have done that.
The family later moved to McKee's Rocks where my grandfather served as an electrical engineer for the City of Pittsburgh Water Department. After high school, Maude began working for the dressmaking department of Horne's Department Store in Pittsburgh when she was 16 and in a matter of months became a buyer for all the materials the custom dressmakers used. They then had her traveling all over the back streets and warehouse areas of downtown Pittsburgh searching for materials used in dressmaking from buttons to bows. They were training her to become a buyer.
A woman, a young girl, a big city, a large corporation and an employee in training. My conservative mother didn't know it then and doesn't recognize it now, but she was a trailblazer. There were few women and especially young girls in the work force in the early 20's. She was in this job at Horne's when the Lord directed her to further her education at Moody Bible Institute -- again, not many women involved in higher education at that time in our culture.
Maude had thought of going to Nyack College in New York, however was influenced by Evangelist Bosworth to choose Moody Bible Institute in Chicago in the fall of 1923 with a call to become a missionary to India. What an incredible experience those two years of school were for her -- away from home, alone and doing deputation mission work in downtown Chicago. In 1923, at age 17,
That first year she had ministries in downtown Chicago at such historic places as Pacific Garden Mission and Madison Avenue. That first year, she met my Dad and the "Plunketts of Chicago." I'm so glad she did! From the thousands of feet of 16mm film my Dad took it's so easy to recognize how beautiful, self assured, and vivacious she was even as a teenager. No wonder my Dad fell for her. She was athletic, intelligent, committed to living for the Lord, and so very beautiful. Meredith Plunkett was Class of 1924. and Old Dad persuaded Mom to leave school in her second year and marry him.
The Plunketts were one of the first caterers in Chicago in the early 1920's and Maude became involved in the business until Dad and Mom moved to Milwaukee in 1935. They ran an advertising food business and helped The Wisconsin Tabernacle, a mission of Paul Raders's Chicago Gospel Tabernacle. Dad would have been an associate of Paul Rader had they stayed in Chicago.
In the late 1920s, Maude was the feature actress in hundreds of commercials Dad filmed for the advertising dinners the family served in Chicago, Milwaukee, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Cleveland. After serving the meal that was basically free, the attendees at churches and clubs were presented with a lecture about Kraft Foods, Pepsi Cola, Sealtest products, Tenderoni Salad, Mickleberry sausage, Karo Syrup and scores of other products. Dad spiffed up the lectures with 16mm movies of how the products were made and how they were to be prepared which is where Maude came in. She still uses many of these products.
When Mom was 80 and still a beauty, we informed Kraft Foods that they could use a film of Maude making salad in her Los Angeles kitchen in 1928 and a current segment to show that Kraft Mayo is a great product of choice that stands the years, but they were not interested. The family still has thousands of feet of film from the 1920 through the 1940's when the advertising dinners turned into catering. Dad was using film for advertising before there was such a thing. We have thousands of feet from those days
During her church years, Maude conducted neighborhood Sunday Schools, Co-pastored the Church of the Open Bible near Allis Chalmers in Milwaukee, and was an accomplished musician -- piano, marimba, and had (has) an operatic soprano voice that is as sweet as one could imagine. The small church of less than 100 was made up of a lower economic group became an extended family who all of us loved, fed and helped.
As a pastor's wife, a minister herself, a mother of six children, an educator, an administrator, and a love for people, Maude Elsie Plunkett has never stopped blazing trails. In total control of her personal affairs and totally intellectual sharpness (her wit, sense of humor, reasoning and problem solving remain superb! She spends most of her time in a wheelchair because of her knees but still uses the walker, dresses herself and dries the dishes and folds laundry.
The hero in this story is my sister, Judy Kreklow. Judy has been with mother in Atlanta for the past eight years, leaving her job at St Luke's Hospital in Milwaukee to take on the assignment. Her husband, Harlan, cares for his 96 year old mother in Milwaukee and they see each other every six weeks. Amazing.
Maude Elsie Parfitt Plunkett is a Conestoga Woman who always met life straight on, seeing to it her six chidren knew the Lord perosnally and had the tools to face life. WHAT AN HONOR TO BE ONE OF HER SIX CHILDREN. -Norm P.
(Harvey Nowland, writer and longtime family friend, is no stranger to the Norm's Ramblins Page. His contributions, reflecting his broad talents, have ranged from Poetry to Reminiscences -and even spoofed complaint-letters to the editor. We know you'll enjoy this memory vignette.
Fords "ran" in our family, so to speak. Dad even owned two Ford Mustangs after he retired. My father always drove Fords, that is, until they moved from Rhinellander in northern Wisconsin to Florida. Then he bought a dinky little Opel, his last car.
My first two cars were a 1935 Ford convertible coupe, and a 1940 Ford two door sedan. As I said, Fords ran in our family; that is, until I went into the Army. While in Germany I was temporarily converted to a different stable and breed.
The first Ford I remember was the one my Dad bought the year I was born, a 1932 Ford coupe, with rumble seat. It was in the Ford owner's favorite color at that time, black; and it had wire-spoke wheels that were painted red. Whether the wheels were painted by Ford or by Dad I cannot say.
As I think about it, could it be possible that my father's 1932 Ford coupe was the "Little Deuce Coupe" that the Beach Boys made famous with their California singing during the Sixties?
I have two distinct memories of that car. The first is rather pleasant, and is a memory of sitting on the dirt floor of our garage washing those beautiful red wheels.
I was about four or five at the time. The wheels were probably cleaner before I started, but I thought it was great that Dad would let me help him clean the car. My wife now wishes that same desire for car cleanliness would strike me, at least occasionally.
The other distinct memory of the 1932 Ford has to do with that wonderful invention, the rumble seat. Old car buffs that have restored models such as that 1932 Ford must take great pride in their vehicles as they drive the local homecoming queen down the main street. Seated on the upper edge of the back of the rumble seat, they wave their smiling way down the parade route.
However, not since my childhood, have I seen the rumble seat used as my father said it was intended; he claimed the rumble seat was for transporting children”specifically my older sister -- no matter what the weather. If you have ever lived in Wisconsin, you know the only two seasons officially observed there are winter, and the Fourth of July.
Weekly we traveled from the north side of Milwaukee to Bay View on the south side. The reason? My uncle, aunt, and cousins lived there and we made the trek for our weekly reunion. I have fond memories of those visits, especially the part where we were inside a warm house, eating and playing together. But, the trip to the warm house was a killer.
There was no such thing as too cold, as far as Dad was concerned. He was one of those hardy men who delivered milk every day of the year. After all, the cows had to be milked every day, and children needed to drink their milk every day.
He felt that his children were as capable of getting about in the bitter Wisconsin winter as he was. It never seemed to occur to him that his first work-related transportation, his horse drawn wagon, was covered. Later, his truck was covered too, and the truck even had a heater.
I never saw a rumble seat with a heater.
What my sister and I got was two woolen paper mill blankets. These blankets were very scratchy and provided adequate warmth when used indoors on a bed. Dad seemed to think there was not significant enough difference between rumble seats and beds to warrant argument over the warmth element.
Fortunately, for me, I had a kind sister, nine years older than me. She always made sure that I was bundled up with her in the rumble seat, with as much of us covered as was possible.
I suppose that Dad never drove over 25 miles per hour. However, when you consider what we know today about wind-chill factors, and take into account that Dad considered ten degrees below zero balmy weather in Wisconsin, you can guess that the ten mile trip from one end of Milwaukee to the other was no pleasure outing.
I have often wondered if the tendency for my ears, hands, feet and other body parts, to begin to feel first, very hot, and then completely numb after being in the relatively mild southeastern winters, has anything to do with those sub-zero trips through Milwaukee in the rumble seat of Dad's 1932 Ford.
I'm sure that Dad would certainly say, "NO!"
Rumble seats may bring memories of picnic outings with the warm summer breeze gently mussing one's hair to some; but those folks never lived in Wisconsin, and, they never knew my Dad.
But, hey, I'm not complaining. In fact, I sort of wish Dad's last car had not been that dinky Opel, but could have been like that 1932 black Ford coupe with the rumble seat and red spoke wheels. "Little Deuce Coupe," you know what I mean. -Harvey Nowland (Interested in Harvey's great newsletter? Send me a note using the Contact link and I see that Harvey contacts you.)
The Lux Radio Theater radio broadcasts from October 1934 to June 1955 on the Blue Network, CBS, and NBC.
The Lux Radio Theater was the most important and prestigious dramatic program on radio. During the show's heyday almost a third of the country could tune in on any given week and its producers had at their service the biggest stars in Hollywood, who viewed an appearance on the program as something approaching an honor or privilege.
The Lux Theater first began in New York City making modest radio adaptations of Broadway stage productions of the day. The guiding principle for the program was to buy the rights to a good play, adapt it into a one-hour radio format, and try hiring the biggest stars possible in hopes that audiences would tune in. In New York the competition for big name actors was fierce; by then most film stars had migrated to Hollywood and when they did come east, it was usually just a short stint between movies or a stopover on their way to Europe.
Whenever a star arrived in town, they were mobbed by hordes of agents seeking their appearances on various variety shows. To appear on one of the big radio-variety programs was far less demanding than the commitment of learning the part for an entire play; this made the Lux Radio Theater's work at attracting stars all the more difficult! It was said that on one occasion a Lux Theater scout managed to steal Leslie Howard from a gauntlet of waiting agents by taking the actor's suitcases and marching them straight to a waiting cab.
In 1935, with big-name talent growing rarer by the day and the Lux Theater's ratings on the wane, a Danny Danker was hired to revamp the show. Danker recommended moving the program to Hollywood, for ready access to major stars and, once there, making extravagant radio adaptations of popular films.
Executives followed Danker's advice moving the show West in 1936 and went a further step by hiring film-mogul Cecil B. Demille as the program's host and contributing producer. The Lux Radio Theater made an overnight sensation. The Music Box Theater, broadcast sight for the program, was filled to capacity for each show -and on one occasion was the scene of a small riot, when Robert Taylor and Gene Harlow fans invaded the theater by storming a fire door.
The size of the radio theater productions were unprecedented; a minimum of 50 people were involved in each program - the orchestra alone numbered 25 persons, with 20 or more speaking roles and the remainder consisting of various technicians. Each play was a five-day commitment for the actors, including transcribed recordings and dress rehearsals.
At the program's peak, Hollywood movie sets were know to halt production for a week, if one of their top stars was appearing on Lux. Even the biggest of stars, once thrown into the unfamiliar environment of radio, sometimes reacted with severe cases of stage fright when confronted with the live microphone and the invisible specter of 40 million fans across the nation listening in.
The Lux Radio Theater went through several hosts over its 20-year broadcast life. During the show's New York days the role was played by John Anthony, who carried the stage name Douglass Gerrick for the broadcasts. The illustrious Cecil B. DeMille carried the program through the bulk of its Hollywood heyday, enjoying the program immensely. He was once quoted to say that, "I wouldn't take a million for the experience I've had in radio. But in 1945 he was released from the program over a dispute in which he refused to pay a $1 union due to the American Federation of Radio Artists. William Keighly took over as host from 1945 to 1952, with the program's final few years presided over by Irving Cummings.
Near the end of The Lux Theater's run it was estimated that the program had gone through 52,000 pages of script, 500 stars, and 1500 supporting actors. The two stars to top the list for number of appearances on the program are Fred McMurray and Loretta Young, with 26 and 25 roles respectively. Other frequent guests include: Claudette Colbert (24), Barbara Stanwyck (23), Cary Grant (22) and Don Ameche (21).
Click the links below to hear some of the programs from over 60 years ago.
RAMBLINS HAS BEEN LAID UP AND UNABLE TO MOVE TIL NOW
Please forgive for our not being able to maintain the Norm's Ramblins website for the past two months. Back in March, we were informed by Google that a Malware attempted to attack the website but was not succeessful. Google, however, put a quarantine notice on the site to keep visitors away from possible contamination - which was not possible because the site was not 'hacked'. But the warning was extremely successful.
In case you didn't know, it is impossible to contact Google as their policy is to not interface the general public, and understandably so. Out tech help finally was able to release the site from the quarantine.
At that very time, the Mac Laptop I use for the site had a massive Hard Disc
failure. It was not a virus or other nefarious act. We were told it was probably heat or a bump as laptops have very limited space variances. It's taken well over a week to have a new 500 gig HD installed and now I am
involved with restoring sections and apps that could not be transferred by the back-up data migration.
So... here we are again -- limping with our equipment and dealing with Arthur Itus advancing to the appendages on my hands. 'Oh, Land 'O Goshen' as my mother used to say. Do you know where that might have come from? What next?
It's good to be back for Mother's Day Week. My Mom is now 104. I'm going to have to write about her again.
HEMA is a Dutch department store. The first store opened on November 4, 1926, in Amsterdam. Now there are 150 stores all over the Netherlands.
Take a look at HEMA's product page on its website. You can't order anything and it's in Dutch - but just wait a couple of seconds and watch what happens.
Don't click on any of the items in the picture, just wait and see what happens.
This company has a sense of humor and a great computer programmer, who has too much time on his hands.
Click link below and enjoy - you need sound to enjoy it best!!
OH, WHAT'S A RUBE GOLDBERG? YOU MUST BE TOO YOUNG TO KNOW .
DO A GOOGLE AND FIND OUT -- IT'S REALLY AMAZING -- BUT ONLY AFTER YOU CHECK THIS OUT BELOW.
and Maude this April 2009" />
