It's all so Mickey Mouse

(please visit Suzanne at Colorado Lady for more Vintage Thingie Thursday fun!)

I saw Suzanne's post today for Vintage Thingie Thursday and although I should be doing (many!!!) other things, I just had to contribute some of the mickey mouse stuff that I've found up at my parents house recently.

Please forgive me, my dear VTT friends, I won't be able to visit all of you and make comments today as I have done in the past. I am so overloaded with my father's Estate and I hope you will understand. I did want to share these things with you though as I've had so much fun participating in VTT and enjoyed all of you so much and miss you.

If you're a child of the fifties and sixties, you may well remember these things ...

My mom saved (almost) everything and here are my brother's Mickey Mouse bath toys, which were handed down to me. Gosh, I loved these so much at bath time!



Boy my brother was a lucky kid! He also had this fun Mickey Mouse Club Newsreel Camera.



Sadly it's missing a leg and won't stand up anymore ... sniffle sniffle boo hoooooooo


I also found two issues of my brothers Walt Disney's Magazine (formerly the Mickey Mouse Club Magazine), which I'll share down the road but I wanted to share two merchandise ads with you today since they have MM in them.

(I came across my brothers Mickey Mouse Club membership card and have no idea where I put it among the gazillion of boxes - hopefully it will resurface soon!)

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You're as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse!

Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse club
We'll have fun
We'll be new faces
High! High! High! High!

We'll do things and
We'll go places
All around the world
We'll go marching

Who's the leader of the club
That's made for you and me
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E
Hey! there, Hi! there, Ho! there
You're as welcome as can be
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Mickey Mouse!

Mickey Mouse!

Forever let us hold our banner
High! High! High! High!

Come along and sing a song
And join the jamboree!
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E

Happy Vintage Thingie Thursday!

A belated Memorial Day remembrance

My maternal grandfather and his Swedish parents.

How do you like the length of my great grandmothers skirt?
And how about that mustache on my great grandfather?!
It's as big as a push broom!

Oh my gosh, the things I am finding!

I wish I had found these for a Memorial Day post ... my grandfather was in the Navy in WWI, on the USS Minnesota.

I found this on Wikipedia ...

On 6 April 1917, as the United States entered World War I, Minnesota rejoined the active fleet at Tangier Sound, Chesapeake Bay, and was assigned to Division 4, Battleship Force (BatDiv 4). During the war, she was assigned as a gunnery and engineering training ship, cruising off the middle Atlantic seaboard until 29 September 1918. On that date, 20 mi (30 km) from Fenwick Island Light, she struck a mine, apparently laid by U-117. Suffering serious damage to the starboard side, but with no loss of life, she managed to reach Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she underwent five months of repairs. On 11 March 1919, she put back to sea as a unit of the Cruiser and Transport Force. Assigned to that force until 23 July, she completed three round trips to Brest, France to return over 3,000 veterans to the United States.

I found these holiday menu cards my GF had kept from Thanksgiving and Christmas of 1918, holidays occurring after Armistice Day and I gather from the Wikipedia passage, the USS Minnesota was back at home in the States for those holidays, having struck a mine and returned for repair.

Those were days for celebration, we had won the war, the war to end all wars. WWI.

(Proclamation by President Woodrow Wilson)

(I chopped off my grandfather's name for privacy from the peeping Tom's
of the internet. I wonder who he was extending his compliments of the season to?)


(He even saved his cocktail napkin - yeah Grandpa!)

Later on, the USS Minnesota went to Europe and my Grandfather to Paris, specifically. I've found a ton of postcards from Paris that my GF brought home with him, showing the devastation in France.

He also brought home some books issued to him about Paris. I find this one rather odd in it's "up" attitude about our A.E.F. getting the most out of Paris in their short time there. Pointing out restaurants, theaters, etc., seems so very strange juxtaposed next to the heartbreak and ruin and rubble.

Forget me not

(I found this lovely book at my parents house. When I can figure
out how to take pictures of the illustrations inside, I will share them.)

I am of two minds - I curse the mountains of things I have to go through at my parents house but mostly, I celebrate.

My history is buried there and I feel as though I am meeting my own life for the first time. Precious photos of love and family, remembrances of friendship and loyalty, tug at my heart.

I am the keeper of the flame now, the passer on of stories. How I wish I had listened harder, had asked more questions, delved deeply into the lives of those who came before.



I found this really rather beat up photo of my great grandmother yesterday, taken in Redwood Falls, Minnesota (only the slightest evidence of this fact is left, the "alls, Min"). It is water stained and taped together and taped together again. Instead of being discarded, it was held onto dearly.

After my mother's mother passed away in the nineteen sixties, this charming and much beloved sampler below, came to live in our home. It was stitched by my great grandmother (pictured above), I was thinking as a young girl all this time but I just noticed that her initials are for her married name. She was married in 1892, so it could be as old as that, or more recent. Oh, how I wish there was a date on it!!!



It has the sweetest little verse ... probably seen on a bazillion samplers, but it was new to me.

dear little house
dear shabby street
dear books and beds
and food to eat
how feeble words
are to express
the facets of
your tenderness

nature or nurture

One of the fun items and treasures I've found at my Dad's house is this small cigar tin of recipes from my mother's family. It appears to have been begun by my great grandmother and then added to by my grandmother.

So it must be hereditary, the very tapestry of my being, this love of recipes and recipe collecting ... and some occasional cooking bwahahhahha!

The most fun was finding this Nestle's wrapper with a "new recipe" for Toll House Chocolate Cookies!!! OH! I love me some warm chocolate chip cookies ... mmmmmmmmm! I am guessing this wrapper is about seventy + years old ... since it says the recipe is "new" and the instructions state to chop the chocolate bar - chocolate chips had not been invented yet.

Imagine that, a world without chocolate chips. WOW!