NATURE/NURTURE "...you must do what you think will may you the happiest."
- Excerpt from a letter from my mother, August 19, 1957
An envelope from the Ladies Writing Room, First Trust and Savings Bank of Peoria. Filled with recipes and receipts, I found it in my great-grandmother's wooden recipe box.
My mother's recipe box, "The Joy of Cooking" and Craig Claiborne's "The New York Times Cook Book." Despite my mother's love for cooking and entertaining, she generally binged on big bags of peanut m&m's while preparing meals so that by the time the family sat down to dinner, 7pm on weeknights, she didn't eat the meal.
A drawer filled with monogrammed hanky's - many I suppose were gifts from the "hanky" invite, please see adjacent. Over the years my mother received many more from her mother, my Gram, who traveled to Switzerland frequently.
NATURE/NURTURE
Mother's Rules
1. Have your own money (because when you want to leave your husband, you can). Mother considered leaving Father. did not leave my father. Mother believed she would not be able to live independently.
2. Marriage is a business arrangement. If you are lucky, there is passion and pleasure. I don't disagree. But it's more than an arrangement. It's a partnership.
3. Don't talk behind anyone's back. If you want to yak, best talk with your mother.
1. Have your own money. It allows you to maintain your independence.
2. Marriage is a partnership. Support each other.
That's what partners do.
3. Don't get married until you are 30. Live your life, not the life you think you should live.
Part of parenting is feeding your children. Part of feeding is preparing. Before my own family took to the notion of room service, that is dinner delivered to our door by any number of restaurants, the women in my family cooked. The men did not. Fortunately, my son likes to cook and fancies himself a foodie.
Lots of events preceded the December wedding. This Hanky invitation is for Tuesday, August 20, 12:30. Sally had a lot of handkerchiefs. Mostly monogrammed.