My Aunt's Recipes

My dear Aunt Loraine of Cincinnati passed away in 2007. She was closer than a mother to me, and a large and cherished part of my life. I miss her dearly and am so grateful for the many fond memories I have of times spent with her over the course of our lives.

Among my aunt's possessions passed down to me I found a recipe book she had been maintaining for many, many years. Weathered, worn, and rubberbanded to hold the many loose pages and clippings, it contained handwritten recipes, newspaper clippings, printed and typewritten recipe cards on everything from cardstock to the back of old maps and sticky notes. I smiled as I browsed through them, as many of them she had received from me, and there they were, stuck in her recipe book in my handwriting or within a card or letter I had written her. Many more dated back to the years she was working as a secretary for Puncheon Engineering in Cincinnati (where she met her late-husband and my uncle, Otis), as they were typed on old Rolodex cards from the firm's files. A meticulous saver, I can't say how many she actually tried for herself, but certainly all of them left an impression on her and a thought that "she might try that some day."

In her memory, I have started another blog: My Aunt's Recipes. It contains all of her notes, recipes, and helpful hints as I found them in the book. More for myself and a tribute to the memory of Aunt Loraine, I am working on the blog as I have the time. Quite a few recipes are up already, and the link is here in my sidebar in case you want to take a look or try a recipe or two. We also have another family cookbook that my Uncle George has compiled and maintained (The Matthai Family Cookbook link also in my sidebar), and some of Aunt Loraine's recipes are in there as well. (Uncle George, you can add any you like.)

Enjoy as I share my memories and tribute with you.

Vintage Cartoons

We found these vintage cartoon/poems among my late uncle's possessions as we sorted through the remnants of his and my aunt's estate. I've never seen anything like them before, and find them most interesting, if not entertaining.

I've tried to research their origin to no avail. I've seen similar cartoon pages, but nothing quite like these; and most of the ones I've run across have been printed in black-and-white, with or without poems, mostly without. They probably also pre-date these quite a bit, perhaps the early 20th century.

So, where did these cartoons come from? Some sort of book or magazine? When were they published? By whom, and who is the artist/poet?

Why did my uncle keep these (besides the fact that he apparently kept EVERYTHING, down to dime store receipts and operator manuals from appliances long since discarded)? Did he find them personally significant, some sort of commentary on his own life or emotions? Did he just find them humorous, nothing more? Could it have been my aunt who saved them, and not my uncle? If so, the same questions apply.

If anyone knows anything about the origination and history of these or similar cartoon pages, please comment. It's a mystery I would like to see unraveled.

Have a blessed day!

Theresa Lillian Matthai

Just realized that my cousin Cathy submitted a new comment on a previous blog entry of mine which I wrote this past birthday. Noticing that I had referred to my mother as Theresa Lillian Matthai, Cathy stated she never knew her name was Theresa and asked why she had always been called "Lilly." My Uncle George, Cathy's father and my mother's brother, had also mentioned to me sometime back that he would like to see me write more about my mother since he felt he hardly knew her, at least in those early years of our lives as he was away in the Navy and she was so much older than he. It also occurred to me that perhaps Uncle George did not know my mother's first name was actually Theresa, so let me explain.

Indeed, mom had always been called Lil or Lilly, and for most of her life believed her first name to be Lillian and her middle name to be Theresa. That is what she had always been told and, of course, had no reason to doubt it. The story went, as she related it, that my grandmother loved the name "Lillian," but my grandfather, Karl, wanted mom to be named after his mother, Teresa, still in Germany. They couldn't agree so, mom was told, settled on the name "Lillian Theresa" (spelled with the "h").

Mom had always hated the name "Lillian;" and, in fact, while growing up and particularly in high school and her early adult years, refused to be called Lillian at all. She went by her "middle" name and all of her friends called her "Terry," short for Theresa, but not nearly as pretty. Somewhere along the way, she dropped the "Terry," and went back to Lillian, as I do not ever remember my father, grandmother, or aunt or uncle calling her anything but Lil or Lilly. Perhaps she outgrew the novelty of it all. (In my youth, I changed the spelling of my name from R-o-b-i-n to R-o-b-y-n because I thought it was cuter.....but, I digress.)

So, mom was Lillian to most of us and certainly to Grandma. Here's the twist: After Grandma passed away in 1977, mom found her own original birth certifiate among other of Grandma's important papers and personal effects. Apparently, mom had never had occasion to look at her birth certificate before because she was certainly surprised to find that her name was listed as "Theresa Lillian Matthai" on the birth certificate, not vice versa. It seems Grandpa Karl had had his way after all! Mom was a bit perturbed to say the least, as she spent all those years remaking herself into "Terry" when she was "Terry" all along.

I personally can't picture her as "Terry," or "Theresa" for that matter. She just seems like a Lillian to me. I miss her.

As an aside....did you know that Aunt Loraine was always adamant that her name was misspelled as well? I believe her name is "Lorraine Roselle Matthai." She always insisted that "Loraine" should be spelled "Lorain" (one (1) "r;" no "e"), but to compromise, she kept the "e" at the end of her name, although she refused to keep the two (2) "r's." Uncle George, did you happen to find HER birth certificate among all the paperwork you recently had to sort through?????????

Have a blessed day.