Fancywork

Older generations spent their time differently than many of us do today.  They took time to read, to cook, to write, to create.  This is evident in the items I see at almost every estate sale I attend:

* Back issues of National Geographic and Arizona Highways magazines

* Pyrex bowls and casserole dishes

* A drawer, a box, a glass jar full of pens and pencils

* Free notecards sent by Paralyzed Veterans of America (hey, they were free)

* A sewing machine

* Hardcover books

* Embroidery, usually on pillowcases, tablecloths and tea towels

Some of the embroidered items are beautifully done.  I thought I would share some of them with you.

The Southern Belle is a recurring theme in pillowcase art

She also appears on slipcovers and sometimes in wall hangings

Floral motifs were also popular, both small...

...and large.

But I don't think I've ever seen any embroidery as cute as the kittens on this tea towel:

With Love from Zoe

My grandmother used to say, "I never met a stranger."   Her collection of friends included people she met at work, people she met at estate sales (it runs in the family), and a number of artists, some of whom I met when I was a kid.   (I'll tell you about them sometime.)

But I never got to meet her friend Zoe.  (Her given name was Alice Adelaide Moser, but she painted under the name Zoe', putting a little dash after the "e.")

My grandmother and her friend from work, Georgia, met Zoe the artist in Arizona many years ago, when all of them were middle-aged. 

Georgia and Zoe, in particular, got to be very good friends.  When Georgia died in the 1970s, some postcards affectionately signed by Zoe were among the items left by Georgia to my grandmother.  The signed postcards were long ago sold to a collector, but we made color photocopies of them first.

"Love to Georgia, Zoe'"

"To my dear little Georgia, the best friend one can have.  Love, Zoe' Mozert"

"To my dear, dear Georgia, with much love, Zoe'"

"To sweet Georgia, Lots of love, Zoe'"

I think I know why my grandmother didn't talk much about her friend Zoe when I was young.  It's because Zoe, the artist who painted the lovely all-American mid-century girls on Georgia's postcards, was Zoe' Mozert (1907-1993), one of the best-known American "pinup" artists of all time. 

Back then, you didn't explain pinup art to a little kid.   Nor did you explain to a kid that, back in the day (as they say), Zoe often used herself as a model.  It was enough to say to a kid that Zoe was an artist, and look at how good she was at painting people.  

And she was good.  Zoe's art adorned countless magazine covers and ads for everything from perfume to swimwear to makeup.  She created iconic (and sometimes controversial) Hollywood movie posters.  Her critics have called her a "pastel master" and noted that, regardless of what they were (or weren't) wearing, the young women in Zoe's art did not all look the same; they were portrayed as individuals.

How did my sweet conservative Christian grandmother come to be friends with a pin-up artist?  I have no idea.  Perhaps it's because she was true to her motto:  She never met a stranger.  


_____

This is a "family" blog.  :)  If you want to see examples of Zoe's pinup art, you won't have any trouble finding them online.

Zoe was a well-known commercial artist.  Here are some examples of her work that appeared in magazines: 
http://www.americanartarchives.com/mozert,z.htm

The Blue Plush Bunny Rabbit

I have a soft spot for harmless things that are not particularly useful.  

This is a problem when I go to estate sales, because estate sales are packed with objects large and small that the previous owner acquired and which really don't make a lot of sense to own.  Gathering up a gallimaufry of odds and ends wouldn't make much sense.  This, combined with my inherent tightwaddishness, has kept me from any number of really silly purchases.  

But every so often I see something that I just can't leave at the sale.

Like the ceramic jam pot, minus the rest of its matching set.

The ornate sugar bowl, missing its lid.

I feel sorry for them.  

I bring them home -- if I can get them for 25 cents or less, that is.  That way, if I do end up asking myself, "What were you thinking when you bought that?" I can donate them to the Salvation Army and not be very much out-of-pocket.

I can reuse the jam pot -- to hold toothpicks.  I can reuse the sugar bowl, to hold potpourri.

But of what use was the blue plush bunny I spotted during the final hours of an estate sale a few weeks ago?  No one else wanted him.  

His ribbon was frayed.

His tail was loose.

His worn plush fur had more gray hair than I do (inch for inch).

His whiskers went in different directions.

He's shy.

But he's darling.  And he was ten cents.

I think I'll keep him.  

Remembering Sissie

As readers of this blog know, I often find (at estate sales) items left by members of the "Greatest Generation," the men and women who served during World War II.   Sometimes I can learn the provenance behind the items I find; other times, their origin is a mystery.

In talking with family members at the sales, I often hear them say, "Dad never talked much about his experiences in the war, unless he was with other people who'd served.  He said unless we'd been there, we just couldn't understand."

That makes me wonder:  How did the people who came under fire keep their composure, their sense of direction, their sense of humor -- their sanity?

There must be several answers, and they are probably different for each serviceman or woman.  One answer might be that, even in a time of war, there are small instances of "normal" life that transcend the horror of battle, that give perspective and humor, grace and hope, to the men and women fighting for their country.  

I found a couple of scrapbooks at an estate sale this week, and I think perhaps the items carefully pasted and taped inside provide us with some insight.

Corporal Schultz, who assembled the scrapbooks, had been a member of the 165th Infantry Regiment during World War II.   I looked up the 165th on the Internet and found a page devoted to them:

The 165th Infantry Regiment, originally the famous 69th New York Infantry or the “Fighting Irish” traces its roots all the way back to 1775. The first elements of the Regiment fought throughout the Revolutionary War and later became Company A of the 69th New York Infantry. 

Since its inception, the 69th served in the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, the Mexican Border dispute of 1916, World War I, and World War II. The long legacy of the 69th, and then the 165th has earned the Regiment fifty-two battle rings on its flag, more than any other United States Army Regiment.... 

During World War II the 165th contained 12 companies, all of which were recruited solely from New York City.

The website noted that the 165th served in the South Pacific during World War II.  Apparently Corporal Schultz was a member of the 27th Division:

...Following a lengthy period of maneuvers and training, the 27th was ordered to California in December following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor.... The first elements of the Division boarded ships bound for Hawaii on February 27th 1942, the first Infantry Division to leave the states following Pearl Harbor.

The Division remained on Hawaii for a number of months....  On November 20th 1942, the 27th Infantry Division embarked on its first combat assignment, the capture of the coral atoll of Makin. ...Units from the 27th Division also occupied the Majuro atoll on February 1st 1944 and successfully assaulted Eniwetok Island on February 19th of the same year. In June 1944, the Division landed on Saipan, where its regiments fought together for the first time as a full Division. Following Saipan the Division was rested and reinforced at Espirtu Santo for seven months before any further operations. 

On April 12th, 1945 the Division landed on Okinawa, where it would remain until September when it was sent to Japan briefly for garrison duty. The Division was mustered out in late December of the same year. 

Since its arrival in the Pacific, the 27th Infantry Division had suffered 1,512 killed in action, 4,980 wounded in action and 332 who later succumbed to their wounds.

I flipped through the pages of the scrapbooks.  Most of what Corporal Schultz saved were newspaper clippings about the war, cartoons (he was particularly fond of "The Sad Sack")...

Some greeting cards he sent his wife during the war...

But my attention was caught by a picture of a mother dog and her puppies.  Schultz had written the dog's name carefully under one of the photos with his fountain pen:

A few pages later, there was another photo, this time of three soldiers each holding a puppy or two:

More newspaper clippings, more pictures.  And tucked inside one of the scrapbooks was a copy of an Army newsletter, the Galla Vanter, from January 1945.  

Inside, along with inspirational messages, jokes and sports reports, was an obituary:

I like to think that having Sissie and her eternal litter of puppies, helped the fighting men deal with the stress of battle.  As author Andrew Carroll wrote in Grace Under Fire:

...I discovered, like most who have lost faith at some point in their lives, that [God] never stops sending us messages of hope.  Sometimes we're just unable or unwilling to see them.

Somewhere on the South Pacific island of Espiritu Santo, there may still be a small grave with a marker that reads:

Sissie 

Dog -- In Name Only

The Greatest Generation is passing away, and with it their memories.  So on their behalf we say thank you, Sissie, for helping keep a few of them entertained and uplifted during their most difficult and challenging times.  

___

Thanks to the website of the New York State Military Museum, I was able to research the history of the 165th for this blog post:

http://dmna.ny.gov/historic/reghist/wwii/infantry/165thInf/165thInfMain.htm

Local Celebrity

I waited in line for quite awhile to get into an estate sale a few weeks ago.  

I wanted to look at the old post cards, the hardcover books, the vintage linens and so on that the estate sale company had posted in their ad on EstateSales.net. 

But what I really wanted to see, was Harbie.  

I mean, how often do you get to see a Harbie the Harbor Seal in person these days?  I had to at least see him.

The estate sale company had photographed Harbie in the back yard of the house where he had apparently been living since the Harbor Gas station closed years ago.  

Not that I would have bought him, mind you.  For one thing, I heard they were asking "four figures" for him.  And I have enough trouble finding room for the 12" model horse figurines in my built-in bookcase, much less a six-and-a-half-foot tall fiberglass seal.  I have to draw the line somewhere.

So I contented myself with taking Harbie's picture.  The sellers had moved him into the garage for the sale.  People were walking by and patting him.  I had to wait a few minutes to get a clear shot.

Harbie the Harbor Seal was the mascot of Harbor Gasoline, a chain of stations in Southern California.  I wasn't able to find too much information on Harbie's employers online.  The Harbor Refining Company was established in the 1930s.  Like a lot of gasoline companies, they produced road maps with nice artwork. 

At some point, Harbie got his picture on the front of the map:

A couple of online sources I reviewed, reported that Harbor Gas was the victim of a corporate merger with a larger company during the "Gas Wars" in the 1970s.

But even though the regional chain of neighborhood gas stations is gone, Harbie is still at work in other locations around the country because people still value him.  

Blogger Quartz City recounts some of Harbie's glory days:

http://www.quartzcity.net/2005/03/29/harbie-the-seal/

Several people have commented, sharing fond memories of seeing Harbies in front of gas stations when they were kids.  A couple of them have acquired Harbies of their own.  

Roadside Architecture.com has kept track of where a number of Harbies are now living:

http://www.agilitynut.com/critters/sea2.html

And the folks at Vintage Roadside, who collect fiberglass mascots, are the proud owners of at least two Harbies, which they transported up Interstate 5 a couple of years ago:

http://vintageroadtrip.blogspot.com/2011_09_01_archive.html

Robert Leicester Wagner and The California Almanack

I'd never heard of this little book before, but it looked interesting so I brought it home from a recent estate sale.  It's a slender volume, in the proverbial plain brown wrapper, with the title Rob Wagner's California Almanack, Sixth Edition.

Inside, it's dated 1922.

I had never heard of Rob Wagner, so I started looking for information on him on the Internet.  What I discovered was absolutely fascinating.  Someone needs to write a screenplay based on the life of this man.  Or a biography at least. 

Robert Leicster Wagner (1872-1942) helped pioneer film criticism and coverage of the film industry with his magazine Rob Wagner's Script.  Born in Detroit, Wagner started out as an artist for the Detroit Free Press and The Criterion magazine, and was art editor for Encyclopedia Brittanica in London from 1900-1902.  

Wagner moved to Paris to study art, then returned to the States and worked as a portrait painter.  He moved to Santa Barbara, California and in 1910 he migrated down the coast to Los Angeles. There he connected with his cousins, who were working for a guy named D.W. Griffith in the nascent film industry.  It didn't take Wagner long to jump into the film industry with both feet.  In 1911 he made an autobiographical film featuring his two sons and his own artwork, called "The Artist's Sons."  

Wagner got a job teaching at Manual Arts High School in LA and in 1915 filmed a documentary about the Los Angeles school system. Among Wagner's students at Manual Arts were a young man named Frank Capra and another named Jimmy Doolittle.

The Internet Movie Database picks up the story:

During this period [Wagner] switched from portrait painting and teaching to writing, penning a series of articles on the film industry for the Saturday Evening Post, which was eventually compiled into a book, "Film Folk" (1918). The series helped revive a sagging industry that was suffering economically before World War I.

By 1918 he was a good friend with Charlie Chaplin, becoming his publicist and confidante. ... He briefly worked for Mack Sennett as a gag writer, and then shifted over to Hal Roach Studios to direct a series of short films featuring Will Rogers. He also was under contract for Famous Players-Lasky where he wrote for or directed some minor films. He also was associated with actor Charles Ray.

[Sidebar:  Someday I'm going to tell you about Charles Ray.  He's another lost star of early Hollywood.  Now back to the story....]

In 1921, Rob Wagner, Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith co-founded the Motion Picture Relief Fund, which later became the Motion Picture & Television Fund, to provide financial aid to film industry workers who fell on tough economic times. Wagner was an original member of the Board of Trustees, along with Harold Lloyd, William S. Hart, Jesse Lasky, Irving Thalberg and others. 

During the 1920s, Wagner wrote for many magazines including Liberty and Photoplay. In 1929, he founded Rob Wagner's Beverly Hills Script, which later became simply Rob Wagner's Script. It carried film reviews and features on film, art and literature.  Wagner never paid his writers (some things never change) but his contributors used Script as a forum for their own views.  Script's contributors included Charlie Chaplin, Upton Sinclair, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Will Rogers, Louis L'Amour, and Ray Bradbury.

IMDB.com continues:  Often Wagner, who was an ardent Socialist, opened his magazine to explore political issues. He gave Upton Sinclair fair coverage of his bid for governor of California in 1934 when most other news organizations refused. And he published the controversial final speech from Chaplin's "The Great Dictator" in 1940.

In 1942, Wagner died of a heart attack in Santa Barbara with his wife and brother, James R.H. Wagner, at his side. His son, Leicester, took over the magazine for a short period. His widow continued publishing Script until 1947 when it was sold to Robert L. Smith, general manager of the Los Angeles Daily News. But without Wagner, the magazine lost its personality. It folded in 1949.

Wagner's personality also shines through in the little Californa Almanack I found at the estate sale.  He modeled his Almanack after others:

"Courteous Reader [Wagner wrote]:

" There are two great geographic divisions on the earth's surface -- California and Elsewhere; and as the Almanacks of Elsewhere, with their absurd seasons, weather predictions, and hints on the care of the body are utterly useless in this Terrestrial Paradise, I feel it my duty to publish a California Almanack, both in the interest of science & the Wagner family.

"...I shall include recipes for making griddle cakes and glue, suitable epitaphs, hints on health, happiness and vacuum cleaners, the best times for marriage and divorce, snappy stories from Hollywood, the use of divining rods in oil speculation, how to get into the Movies, and other useful information." 

Wagner even created an "advertiser" for the Almanack: 

"CAL-ORINE -- The Fountain of Perpetual Youth!  For ages men have sought it...but it was not until Cabrillo said his galleons int San Diego harbor, that the age-old search was rewarded!  Here in CALIFORNIA men first bathed in The Magic Fountain and were made young.  Here they came to partake of The Lotus, never caring to return Elsewhere.

" Since that time the sons of Adam have poured into CALIFORNIA -- somnambulists, scenario writers, neurotics, ne'er-do-wells, morons, extra people, sad-eyed Susans and weary Williams -- all the inframen of Elsewhere -- and after one bath in the glorious sun and moonshine, have come out beautiful in body and spirit.... For sale by all Elsewhere druggists (except in Florida where the word California is forbidden by law).

"If you can't come to CAL. -- use CAL-ORINE."

Since this is a family blog, I'll let you decide whether you want to squint at the picture above to see what Wagner's "Cal-orine" was supposedly made of.  No wonder they called this era "The Roaring Twenties."

Bohemian lifestyle references and tongue-in-cheek approach notwithstanding, Wagner articulated the California dream that so many people sought between the Civil War and the middle of the 20th century:  the land of sunshine, where you could reinvent yourself.  How interesting to know that this fellow most of us have never heard of, was so deeply involved in the industry that (for better and worse) promoted and perpetuated the dream.

____

Here's the IMDB short bio of Rob Wagner:  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0906080/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2

You can look at a back issue of Rob Wagner's Script here:

http://www.oldmagazinearticles.com/Rob_Wagner_Script_Magazine

Wagner's papers are stored at UCLA:  http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt2n39n8xr/

The Tiny Tea Set, During a Time of War

From time to time I find children's tea sets at estate sales.  This morning I found several pieces that looked like the kind of vintage glass called "jadeite" for its milky green color.

Each tiny cup is about two inches across, a perfect little Art Deco design.  There were also two pale milky blue pieces, a creamer and sugar bowl:

The mark on the base of each piece looked like a large bird superimposed over the letter "A."  A few minutes' online research pointed me to a company called Akro Agate.  The Kovels.com website says:

Akro Agate company was founded in Akron, Ohio, in 1911 and moved to Clarksburg, West Virginia, in 1914. The company made marbles and toys. Before Akro Agate produced marbles of its own, it distributed marbles made by other companies. In the 1930s, it began making other products, including vases, lamps, flowerpots, candlesticks, and children's dishes. Most of the glass is marked with a crow flying through the letter A.

The Three Rivers (Pennsylvania) Depression Era Glass website provides more information.  It seems that the crow in the Akro Agate maker's mark is holding a marble in each claw, and has another one clutched in his tiny beak.  Three Rivers adds to our store of information:

Akro Agate added an extensive line of children’s dishes in 1942 and during the WWII years, the operation grew from $600,000 annually to almost $2,000,000 annually. The growth came almost exclusively on the strength of their children’s dishes.  So the tiny tea service dates to World War II.   Two million dollars in 1945 is the equivalent of almost $26 million today.  (That's a lot of tea parties.)  Three Rivers continues: After WWII, plastic children’s dishes became the hot item and it spelled the beginning of the end.  In 1951 Akro Agate closed its doors and went out of business.  I'm glad someone played carefully with these pieces from their tea set, and thought to save them.   It's not difficult to imagine a group of little girls (and maybe some of their brothers, if they promised to be nice) during the war years, carefully pouring "tea" into the cups and adding imaginary milk and sugar, reenacting a cherished ritual of innocence while the grownup world was going mad.    Or the war-weary father, home at last, sitting slightly bemused on the floor of his daughter's bedroom, surrounded by her dolls and stuffed animals, patiently watching his little girl pour out a cup of imaginary tea for him.  A cup for herself.  And a cup for each of the toys.   She won't really understand until she is older that Daddy was willing to lay down his life in war so she could safely enjoy her tea parties.  A man at war is a symbol of strength.  But a man is also strong when he's being gracious, and patient, with a child.   "Thank you for coming to my tea party, Daddy." "You're welcome, sweetheart."