What she said

Marlene was always one for signature phrases – go-to stock responses she'd use without really thinking. These evolved over time, becoming part of her identity for a while before being replaced – like bookmarks on her chapters. Remembering some, I can hear her voice.

When I was young, "Oh my word!" was her classic comeback. A few years later, in response to blasphemy from her belligerent teenager (me), she would wail "Never mind the 'for God's sake!'" This came up so often my Dad got to saying it too, and we'd all laugh.

I've been working recently on a raglan sweater design – its shaping new to me, taking longer than I planned – and found myself anxious about upending my too-ambitious, self-imposed publishing goal. I had finished its knitting, but telling the tale of its making was proving unexpectedly difficult. It seemed that recounting the stitch sequence of every knitted row would be required for the clearest instructions, and I found myself now in the middle of that tedious task.

"A month of Sundays" popped into my head. "This is taking a month of Sundays!" I groaned. – yes, another phrase in Marlene's signature series. Familiar, and popular in its day, I don't think I've ever uttered these words before, but there they were. There she was. Mum sometimes makes appearances to me in this way if I'm paying attention, and happily, this time I was.

A Month of Sundays – my new sweater design has found its name!

Remaining open to guidance, there's one more of Marlene's phrases that bears mentioning, one I've thought of more than once during the traumas of our 2020. In her later years when life became sometimes difficult, "Don't let the turkeys get you down" became her mantra. It got her through.

I'm aiming now to make it mine too.

Stay safe everyone, wear a mask.

Going home again

Rooting around in the archives in search of a name for my next sweater design I came across this beaded toy in Dad’s keepsake box. A poignant childhood memory, I see it hanging from the rearview mirror of my parents’ gray Buick as he drove. Sometimes I sat in Dad’s lap as he did. These were simpler times to be sure, before we knew better.

In that same box and stemming from that same time period I found the purchase and sales agreement for the house I grew up in. It turns out that Dad saved things too. Renters up until this point, on July 18, 1958 my parents bought their first home for $14,200. We weren’t rich, and this was surely a financial stretch, but the bank granted the mortgage and there we lived, in this house in the suburbs of Boston, for 16 years – idyllic years as I recall them, through the haze of my childhood.

My memories of the neighborhood are good ones, with some of the friends I made there still in my life even now. And when I’m nearby I often detour through its streets to conjure up cozy thoughts.

Prompted by our current political and social climate I recently read The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein (A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America), and I thought back to my old neighborhood. In the mid 60’s a black family moved into a house on the next block. Following that, several of their neighbors – my neighbors – put their houses on the market and moved away.  I wish my parents were still alive so I could ask them more about it from their adult perspective at that time. My new classmate Teddy and his sister were the only two black children in my elementary school and I can only imagine their experience. The thought makes me cringe. Armed now with newfound knowledge from my reading I see that their ability to purchase a home in our middle-class white neighborhood was likely a result of Fair Housing Acts initiated by our government during that decade. Prior to that it’s very possible no mortgage would have been made available to them.

I was on my way to a pal’s house for dinner yesterday and decided to visit my neighborhood again for a quick reminiscence. As I traveled familiar streets, I now noticed many front lawns with newly placed placards posted in support of the police – coded racist responses to Black Lives Matter. Deflated, I turned around and went on my way. I don’t think I’ll go back. My comforting nostalgia is no longer found there. Maybe it never was. Maybe it lived only in my child-mind’s eye, recalled during simpler times, before I knew better.

Where My Heart Is – my latest knit design, published October 3, 2020.

Because she likes it

With my hair ever shorter these days, I felt suddenly adventurous about earrings. Let’s try something new, I considered. The thought led me next to the stacked boxes on my bureau – Container Store purchases that stored Marlene’s and Mildred’s jewelry, now intermingled with my own, and with Juliet’s left behind from her childhood. Armed with a dust cloth and silver polish I dived in – like an archaeological dig. The favored trinkets from four generations were sure to provide fresh styling perspective, and a surprise or two.

Each of us unique in our fashion choices, a sign of our times and our selves – we knew what we liked.

Mildred wore these in the 50’s, and later. During those years she dressed for dinner, even dinners she cooked herself for her family at home.

Marlene was a statement maker – the jewelry wearing equivalent of go big or go home. One of her last jobs was behind the counter in the Museum Store at our local mall. She spent most of her salary on the merchandise there, taking full advantage of her employee discount.

My taste has always been understated – plain, I dare say. I made the silver pendant shown below in the bottom row when I was 18 and hadn’t seen it since then. After a polish it came back to life and I was glad to find it. It still appeals to me. I’m wearing it now.

And here are the sweet jewelry vestiges of my teenage Juliet whose style preferences were just then coming into her view.

I apologize in advance for all of this that’s surely heading her way someday, though she’ll likely enjoy its explorations as I am now, while adding more of her own adult collection to the mix.

There have been other discoveries too, worthy of note, such as this charm bracelet – my first piece of jewelry.

And this.

As I recall, my standout early childhood toys were Lincoln Logs, an Erector Set from Uncle Sonny, a miniature car racing track, and a cowboy costume complete with this sheriff’s badge – shown peeking in from the lower edge of my portrait.

“Why do you let her play with these things,” my uncle once asked Dad, his question undoubtedly prompted by the gender roles of the times.

“Because she likes it,” my Dad responded, as simply as that. He knew his girl well, and let her be.

How lucky am I.

How Lucky Am I, my latest knit design, published 6/20/2020, and

Because She Likes It, published 7/1/2020.

Johanna revisited

I’ve just republished my Johanna design, named for my maternal great, great, grandmother – prompting my customary pause to get to know her, my knit pattern namesake. Always a welcomed offshoot of my knitwear enterprise, off I go to research physical and online family records, and reveal her story.

In July of 1858 Johanna was born to George Stepat and Anna Puttenat in Speyer, Prussia (now Germany) – a city on the left bank of the Rhine River, near France. Quite the older sister, when she was thirteen her brother Otto was born (1866), and at nineteen brother Julius joined the family (1872).

Johanna married Albert Stieg in 1874, and together they had one son (Oscar 1876) and seven daughters (Martha 1877, Louise 1878, (Annie 1879 and Annie 1880, both of whom died in infancy), Emma 1881, Bertha 1882, and Augusta (Gussie) 1886). Soon after Gussie’s birth, Johanna, then 28, and Albert 33 moved their young family to the United States and settled in South Boston. Her parents, George and Anna, and her brothers, moved with them (my great, great, great, grandparents, and uncles). Once they settled in, two more daughters (Harriet (Hattie) 1888 and Florence (Flossie) 1891) were born. Of them all I knew only Hattie, my knitting mentor, who lived a good long life – overlapping, in fact, with the birth of my daughter Juliet. With no obvious unrest that I could find during that time in German history, it’s likely their migration was motivated more simply by a search for new opportunity. On October 28th, 1886, President Grover Cleveland oversaw the dedication of the Statue of Liberty in front of thousands of spectators.  Immigrants were welcomed into our country back then, they are less so now.

Census records provide a window into the family’s whereabouts. By 1900 they’re renting an apartment at 633 Seventh Street – to my delight and by way of Google street view, in a house that is identical to my own current residence. Occupations on the form list Albert’s as cigar maker, Johanna’s none implies homemaker, and Bertha’s as making paper boxes. The remaining children, Gussie, Hattie, and Flossie, are at school. Fourteen years after their arrival the 1910 census finds them at the same residence with fewer children at home. Hattie and Flossie have joined their father at the cigar factory. By then, sadly, Bertha has died and Oscar probably has too since only five children are listed as number now living. (They lost Emma at age three before leaving Germany.)

By 1920 they’ve moved to 25 Hallam Street, a house I once drove by on an idle Sunday afternoon just to see and feel it, though I imagine it’s quite different these days from how it had been 100 years earlier. The Spanish Flu epidemic that ravaged Boston in 1918 seems to have left the family intact. It’s an experience I can identify with now. I wonder if they were afraid.

In 1930 I was surprised to find Johanna and Albert living in Chicago with daughter Gussie (listed curiously by her middle name Elizabetha) and her son, named (funnily to me) August, after her – almost a Jr., close enough. When Johanna died in 1934 at the age of 76, Albert moved back to Boston, and lived out his remaining days with daughter Flossie and her family. He died six years later.

A few family photos follow, from the archives, shown in estimated chronological order based on scrutiny and a bunch of educated guesses.

Albert and Johanna c1900

The Stepat family, from left - Otto, mother Anna, Johanna, and Julius c1900

Albert, Johanna (center), and family c1905

Johanna (back right) c1919

Family reunion, Johanna (lower right, second row) c1922

My study has been time well spent. Tracking her life Johanna is more real to me now, in a broad-brush view. She’s part of me and mine.

Keeping kindred spirits alive.

On Guam

Looking through the family albums recently I came across my father’s Brownie snapshots documenting his deployment to Guam just before the Korean War – 112 two inch, black and white photos, a sampling follows. The year was 1946, Dad was 18, and had just enlisted in the Navy. How wonderful to see him here so young.

He didn’t talk to me much about his service experience so I know only two things for certain about this time in his life. The first is that he was miserable and wrote sad, complaining letters home to his parents. And the second is that after a while his older brother Clem wrote back telling him to knock it off. “Cut it out, you’re worrying Ma.” as the story goes – the stuff of legends, the phrase that has lived in infamy as a laugh line in our Luke household. I still use it today when circumstances permit, and sometimes for a laugh, even when they don’t.

By 1952 Dad was home, married, and working as a civilian at the Navy Yard – the Boston Naval Shipyard. He began as a pipe fitter, installing and maintaining pipe systems in ships, and by the end of his career there had graduated to designing them. Predating CAD software, he drew large detailed maps by hand and to scale. The work suited him. I know because it appeals to me too. I am my father’s daughter.

We collaborated on several projects over the years. In the 70’s we made clogs, of all things. He cut the wood for soles and I shaped the leather uppers. A few years later we built a floor loom, and in the mid-90’s we partnered again on our Luke family tree. It was the last project we worked on together and a suitable swansong. While I provided tech support, he and Marlene trekked to east coast archives searching for documentation of our heritage.

Out of the blue the other day, my cousin Jerry (youngest son of infamous Clem) texted, asking if I had a copy of what Dad had compiled. I dug into his boxes and found his paperwork, all neatly organized – copies of birth, marriage, divorce, and death certificates, a large hand-drawn tree-chart, and galleys of the 125 page booklet he distributed to family members. It was impressive, complete with the following Introduction.

I love that he wrote this, that he had a good time on our project, and that he spelled my name Debby with a Y. Only a few people do, from my childhood. In these past 24 years since he’s been gone I’ve continued our work on family records, keying his hand-drawn charts, incorporating Marlene’s tree line, and tapping ancestry.com for new leads. I printed an updated family chart for cousin Jerry from my Epson.

For the past few years I’ve been using our research as source for my sweater names, and each time I go there I find something new. My Johanna design is currently on my list for reworking. I’ll change its knit direction and add metrics. Experimenting with its stitch pattern has led me to two new designs that I’ve now got underway. I’ll be publishing these next and they’ll be needing names.

Taking Jerry’s request as a sign…

Don’t worry Ma and Debby with a Y, two knit designs, coming soon. I’ll text and tweet upon their release.

Update:
Debby with a Y, published 4/1/2020
Don’t Worry Ma, published 5/12/2020

Skating away

During the winter of 72 the temperature dropped well below freezing for four straight weeks. I confirmed this recently by a google search of meteorological history in the Boston area. And during that time, unbelievably, the Charles River froze over.

Knowing my father, he watched the river during those frigid weeks on his commute from work, traveling its route home every evening as he, and it, wound through Cambridge. He watched as each cold day followed the next, and he waited. I’ll never know the brave soul who ventured out first on that impossibly frozen river, but it’s likely Dad watched for that too, and once enough people did, so did we.

Since the onset of adult responsibility, the winter season has admittedly lost much of its luster for me. Childhood excitement of snow forts and cancelled school days has long been replaced by requirements of shoveling and ice melt – but I’m working on it. There’s nothing like grandchildren for prompting a freshening of one’s jaded perspective.

It snowed last night and I woke up to find a measurable amount on the ground. This time I returned to bed, quieting my familiar monkey-mind thoughts of winter dread, returning instead to that day on the river.

And although Dad and I had many more skate days together, this was definitely our best – the day I’ll be calling to mind with forecasts of snow.

Skating Away, my latest knit, coming soon.

Update: Skating Away published 2/5/2020

Win place show

With a few of Marlene’s boxes still in the basement after 10 years, by now almost 11, the review of their contents was long overdue. Plus we needed the space. When I finally took a look, to my surprise amidst packing peanuts I found them filled with Juliet’s keepsakes – the toys that lived at my parent’s house, bought by them so their granddaughter would feel at home when she visited. Some were familiar to me, even duplicates of those she had at home, while others were not. As I unpacked and assembled each among the new toys I’ve got now for my Violet and Jack, I found I liked the idea of their mother’s toys being part of their treasures here, along with even some of my own – such as my storybooks from great aunt Hilda. It flattens time.

There were other things in the boxes too, her dishes, and drawings – and these.

Their flip-side tells the tale.

In the early 1960’s my parents and I would play Community Auditions after dinner. Community Auditions was a popular New England based television show first airing in the 50s when I was a kid. Local talent performed and was voted on by the viewing audience via postcard. Winners were announced the following week. I can sing the entirety of its theme song even now – Star of the Day who will it be? Your vote may hold the key… – as can everyone else of my generation who grew up in the area, I’d say.

Mum, Dad, and I would separately dance or sing, then vote, and I would win. I would always win – except the night I didn’t. Apparently earlier on that particular evening Mum and Dad had had a parental discussion, and believing it would be better for my childhood development for me not to expect to always win they determined Marlene would take the prize that night. So after our performances, the drum roll… and I still remember the shock of Dad’s announcement. “Wow,” he would say even years later, recalling my reaction, “Imagine if…” And while I’m not entirely sure it was my loving parents who needed to teach me that lesson, the one I’d most certainly learn on the playground soon after, it’s no matter. On the front lines of raising me right I know that my well-being was their only concern.

Years later, with their granddaughter Juliet spending frequent weekends at their place, my parents created a world for her filled with cardboard playhouses and plastic tea sets, games of miniature golf, and, come to find out, their own version of Community Auditions. Who knew! It’s noteworthy that in those keepsake boxes I found no paper medals for Juliet in 2nd place – on their 1st place pedestal she stayed, always winning the gold.

Grandparents. That’s how we roll.

Win Place Show, my latest knit design, published 1/8/2020.

For the record

The September arrival of Ellie and Mark at the little house (Dianne and Stephen’s Scituate rental) has become a new tradition, ushering in family reunions, and signaling to me that the time is right to conjure up our Christmas pick toys for upcoming Hoss holiday gift giving assignments. And when sister-in-law Ellie posted an image of her needlework creation on Facebook recently, this year’s toy topic became clear.

I finished the 15 decorated ornaments shortly before Ellie and Mark’s arrival, in plenty of time for distribution at Madeline and Paul’s dinner party that followed – later documented in Ellie’s sketchbook diary shown below. She paints too.

All of the Hoss women cook very well and know a lot about fine foods – their interest instilled at an early age by mother, Lavalie. They raise their preparation and delivery to a form of art, while I as one of their lucky recipients watch from my culinary distance.

Ellie’s pot luck luncheon followed Madeline’s dinner a few weeks later, shortly before their return home to West Virginia. “Would you bring chocolate chip cookies?” she asked. Yessiree, that I could do – an assignment totally within my wheelhouse. She knows me.

My first experience with the Toll House cookie came by way of my grandmother Mildred. For several birthdays during my early teen years Nanny would deliver a shoe box lined with wax paper and filled with cookies made from her version of the Nestle recipe. These, she would announce, were to be ONLY for me – much to the annoyance of Marlene. And as I recall, brat that I was, I did not share.

I found her cookies to be exceptional, too often almost finishing the box in a sitting. And although we never made them together, I do remember her saying she used shortening instead of butter and increased the amount of brown sugar – doubled? The question led me to her recipe box sitting on my shelf, one of my few possessions from the archives not yet explored. (There’s a sweater name in there too I’ll bet, its discovery left for another day…)

You can see that the C divider has been ripped away, certainly from repeated use I reasoned, giving me hope that within that alphabetical slot I would find a card written in her hand entitled “chocolate chip cookies” recording the details of her recipe variation.

I found cards for cocktail sauce and chicken casserole and custard, among others …. but sadly not my cookies.

And then, tucked away in the back among the newspaper clippings, I found this – carefully cut. Circa 1965 would be my guess.

Clearly I was on my own. So in preparation for Ellie’s, experimentation followed. In the first batch I used butter, just to get grounded, and in the next two made with shortening I used increasing amounts of brown sugar. I felt I was getting close...

I brought them all to Ellie’s pot luck the next Sunday for a Hoss vote – butter on the left and shortening on the right. The verdict? Shortening clinched it, by just enough to validate my preference and retain Nanny’s crown.

Ellie and Mark are home by now and summer is officially over. It’s been another September for the record books, our recipe and sketch books that is, with another round of paper toys – as we look forward, and backward, while aiming to stay in each moment. It’s all good.

Nannys Crown, published 11/17/2019.

Sisters, and also brothers

I spent my afternoon digging through the archives in preparation for a blog post about my great aunt Hilda whose namesake knit design I’m reworking lately, and have found myself happily reacquainting with the five siblings of the Ziegler clan.

c1920 Running clockwise from lower left, the siblings Albert (b1911), Hilda (b1898), Walter (b1906), Arnold (b1900), and my grandmother Mildred (b1901) surround mother Martha (front and center).

From the photographs and letters I’ve found it’s apparent that the family members, shown above in their South Boston neighborhood were close and remained so throughout their lives – especially sisters Hilda and Mildred.

Most of the correspondence I have between Hilda and Marlene had been written by Hilda when she was in her 80s. Her return addresses show her first residing on Park Drive in Boston where she lived for most of her adult life, then later in North Easton, where she moved to be near her brother Walter who looked after her. The texts of the thank you notes and hellos are a brief and unexpected chronicle of family events – events that I’d forgotten or had questions about. I discovered Dad had surgery to repair his hearing in 1981. I remember that happened but wouldn’t have guessed when. I was glad to find this in a note of hers now.

In 1979 we lost my grandparents Mildred and Harold within months of each other. Harold died in late February and Mildred followed in early August. In May of that same year Peter and I were married. I was close to my grandmother and very glad she was able to attend my reception. Her death a few months later was unexpected. I guess I hadn’t fully processed it by the time of her funeral and caused quite a stir by leaving her service in the middle, as this note highlights. Oy.

And then there’s the third paragraph above –

I keep thinking of the things I want to say to your mother [Mildred], and one of the last things I heard that she said was “I have so many things to tell Hilda.”

Oh my heart.

My top-down Hilda redesign to be republished soon.

Update: Hilda, republished 9/6/2019;

one turtle, two turtles

I spied this sweet porcelain turtle on my bureau the other day. A gift from great aunt Mitzi brought back from one of her trips to England in the 60’s, it had been sitting there for a while, but for some reason it caught my attention just then. Mitzi had brought us two – one for Marlene and one for me – but with only one in sight by now, I was certain its mate was sadly gone for good.

Then yesterday while steaming my new knit currently underway I glanced over at Juliet’s storage area. We have her old toys in plastic bins, and thinking our Violet and Jack will be ready for them soon I took a random look inside one.

See what I found!

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My new knit underway has been spawned from my previously published Innamorata (shown below), a short sleeved pullover that I named for one of Marlene’s favorite Dean Martin songs.

Innamorata c2014

Drawn to its romantic front and back V-neckline, I went at it again, this time with new yarn and the Mock English Rib texture I’ve been exploring in At the seaside and Carousel. In addition to the change in texture, this new design has longer sleeves and is worked top down – my preference of late. I’m almost finished.

Once done I’ll revisit Innamorata to revise its knit direction, and following the lead of our turtles, I’ll offer them up as a pair.

Back then, while Marlene was listening to Dean Martin, it was Joni Mitchell for me.

Both sides now – my latest knit design, and top down Innamorata, coming soon.

Update: Both sides now, published 7/25/2019; and Top-down Innamorata, republished 8/6/2019

The circle game

Sometimes, when I'm in the area, I drive by my childhood home. 

This came to mind recently when Karen texted to tell me that our Carousel School was closing – the nursery school we had attended in the late 50’s.  There would be a farewell open house, a chance to revisit.

Karen was my first friend and we found each other again a few years ago, on twitter. 

"Do you have a mom named Tina?" I tweeted, after some online sleuthing.  "Yes!" she responded, and we simply picked up where we had left off years before – like bookends on our lives I sometimes think, appealing strangely to my penchant for neatness.

I lived on Temple Road during my formative school years, from the age of four through my high school graduation when my parents felt finally free to spread their wings, forcing me to spread mine.  They moved six times after that, the last after Dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer – his last selfless act to ensure Mum would be near to me.  Thinking of you today and always Dad, Happy Father's Day.

I used to check the open house listings in the home sales section of our Sunday paper to see if I'd find my old address there.  I hoped only for a walk through, to see my bedroom again and retrace my steps. I've lived longer by far in my current residence, and yet my childhood home still calls to me.  I know it would be different now, with its new occupants and the passage of time, but I’m sure there'd be hints of us still.  Dad had built on an addition back then and we had dug our initials in the new cellar's wet cement.  I'd definitely find that.  And with luck and some magic, maybe I’d find that missing puzzle piece on my closet floor – that dragonfly inside the jar. 

 Carousel – my latest knit design, coming soon.

Update: Carousel, published 6/20/2019.

At the seaside

When I was down beside the sea
A wooden spade they gave to me
To dig the sandy shore.

My holes were empty like a cup.
In every hole the sea came up
Till it could come no more.

As usual, my sweater name search yields unexpected finds, such as this poem At the Seaside, by Robert Louis Stevenson from A Child’s Garden of Verses – a tattered book by now, given to my mother as a child by her aunt Hilda, and these “a day in the life” family photos – interesting to me both visually and historically, from the archives.

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On July 29, 1922 the Stieg clan enjoyed their day at the seaside.

In the photo above, my great great grandmother Johanna stands in the center of the back row, with great aunt Hilda on her right side and great great aunt Hattie on her left.  Hattie’s husband William kneels in front of her holding one of their 3 sons born by this time – it’s most likely Paul at 2 years old given the dates I know. Paul was my godfather. Their oldest, William Jr., is the 5 year old wearing the sailor top with the dark tie, and their youngest, Donald, is the infant in Hattie’s arms.  Donald died too young during WWII at the age of 23. 

Taking a deep dive into my family tree, the rest of the children likely belong to my great great aunt Flossie, the younger woman wearing glasses.  She had 6, and among the 5 born by this time, 3 were girls – matching the number of those unidentified in the photos, some wearing bows in their hair.  Flossie’s first marriage to Joseph ended with his death after only one year.  I don’t know what happened. Their son William, the 9 year old in the photo above, was later adopted by James, her second husband, and took his name. 

Knowing bits of how their lives turned out makes me stop and wonder what’s in store – but I guess it’s best not to dwell.  Why spoil the surprise.

The weather’s getting warmer in the northern hemisphere these days, and I’m surely ready for it. My yarn’s lighter and my needles are thinner.
Summer knitting has begun.

At the Seaside – my next sweater design, coming soon.

Update:  At the Seaside, published 5/29/2019.

Shawl collar v-neck

I’ve been working on a new knit design lately, coming back slowly and surely from the mysterious injury of my knitter’s elbow. The project is nearing its end and soon I’ll be needing its name, but so far none have come to me. Last night I went looking through the family binders for inspiration with no luck. So today I decided to focus on my hard drive – where by now I’ve been for a while.

Before it was all knitting all the time for me, I enjoyed making books and boxes for my printed photo collections. I came across one while name searching – a project I worked on in 2007. I had been taking a photography class at NESOP and self portrait was the assignment.

The photos were taken on my birthday that year – a coincidence for sure, but I like the added autobiographical emphasis. And 12 years later a self portrait series by me that includes my Bill still rings true – though sadly by now, same love, different kitty.

A while after these were taken I reused the photos in a new collection, as the basis for one that now featured the pattern instructions for the purple knit I’m wearing throughout,

and one that I bundled all up in its own paper cover, for posterity.

I was glad to have found all the files for this project on my hard drive stored in a folder of its own – even though it was named tragically as Shawl collar v-neck.

Needless to say, my name search continues. I’ll report back.

Time trackers

I discovered twelve wristwatches while taking stock of Mum’s possessions after we sold her condo. There’s no doubt she saved things. Of the find, nine of the watches were hers (that included Windfall), two belonged to her mother Mildred, and one was my Dad’s – the last one he wore. Although I was able to find homes for most of her things after she passed away, the watches were personal and too meaningful to me, so I kept them. I felt they deserved a place of honor.

Later, while integrating her things with my own, I found fifteen more watches stored away. As my mother’s daughter I tend to save things too. Five were mine, seven were Juliet’s, and the last three were Peter’s – a total of 27 family wristwatches in all, and my Watch Box project was born.

That was back in 2010 just after I retired from my day job and my new found time was my own. The Watch Box had all my attention and my project had a healthy start. Over those few weeks I built 27 - 2” boxes to contain each watch and wrapped each with silver paper. Then I found and scanned 27 photos of the watch owners in their representative time and place. It was a healthy and strenuous start for sure – that stalled out pretty soon after due to my indecision and project fatigue, I’d say, and also because my knitting was calling to me.

So I packed it all up and stored it neatly in a clear plastic bin, just to make sure it could be easily resumed and stayed within my sight, and I promised myself I’d get back to it soon.

Fast forwarding to now, 2019, and as luck, or fate, would have it (though I tend to go with fate) – for the past few weeks I’ve been nursing a tennis (knitter’s) elbow that’s forced me away from my needles. And it’s been during this knitting drought, in an uncharacteristic bout of housekeeping, that I came across that neatly packed, clear plastic bin containing my project, still underway.

Taking advantage of serendipity, I went at it again, this time with fresh energy, and this time I finished.

Introducing my Watch Box – a collection of wristwatches

with those who wore them, where and when.

Martha

Peter and I have a daily ritual of watching Leave it to Beaver each morning over coffee. It’s really kind of embarrassing. Initially we just wanted to get away from the news – we’re up at 6 each day and by the time Beaver comes on at 8 we’re toast – but by now we watch because, well, we like it. Jerry Mathers, the actor who plays Beaver, is about my age and it’s set in the late 1950’s early 60’s – the time of our childhood. June Cleaver is his stay-at-home mom, and a homemaker who does housework wearing a dress and pearl necklace. She doesn’t drive (at least I don’t think she does – otherwise wouldn’t she have been able to take the boys to the track meet in the episode when Lumpy’s car broke down?), and she defers to her husband Ward on all matters of importance.

It’s an idealized view to be sure, but the series makes me think. Although Marlene often allowed Dad to take lead, not much of the rest rings true for me. Mum had a job and went to work each day while I attended nursery school, elementary school and so on. She drove. Was she ahead of her time?

I recently updated a knit design named for my great-grandmother Martha, once again giving me the opportunity to dive into family records, this time for a closer look at her story.

Martha Steig c1893

Martha Theresa Louisa Steig (b. 1877 in Germany) migrated to the US with her family in 1887 when she was 10.

At the age of 20 she married Albert Ulrich Ziegler (b. 1874). They had 5 children: Lillian Hildegarde (b. 1898), Arnold (b. 1900), Mildred (b. 1901), Walter (b. 1906), and Albert (b. 1911). The oldest, Lillian Hildegarde (Hilda), contracted polio as a child that left her handicapped.

Martha and Albert c1905

Martha and Albert c1916

Sadly, some years later Martha and Albert divorced, their discord caused primarily, as the family story goes, by their disagreement over Hilda’s college attendance. Huh?

I have confirmed that they were divorced at some point between 1920 and 1930 since the 1930 census indicates Mrs. M T Ziegler’s status as such and shows them living separately. Divorce was spoken of in whispers during the time of my childhood, never mind 2 full generations before that – and undertaken for reasons of a female child attending college?! Just wow. Although the messages were mixed – Martha feared that Hilda would not find a husband to support her financially – I’m struck by Martha’s obvious innovation, and courage. There was likely more to the story, but she wanted Hilda to attend college and Albert did not.

Fast forwarding to the end, college was attended and Hilda became an MIT librarian where she worked until her retirement in 1969. Thanks in part to mother Martha, she lived independently for all of her days.

Martha and Hilda c1925

Circling back to the beginning of my post, I like to think that the variation in Marlene’s 1950’s lifestyle might stem in part from something in her DNA, something maybe from Martha, that hopefully I got a bit of too. I’m going with that.

Martha, my latest knit redesign, just republished 3/27/2019.

Delicious toast

My grandparents Mildred and Harold (My Valentine), aka Nanny and Gramps, were fresh on my mind as I searched recently for the name of my latest knit design. We were close throughout my life, and they were often present, but it’s a few early memories that got me smiling, and as a new grandmother myself, began to resonate.

Sometimes when my parents had a late night out I would be lucky enough to have an overnight with Nanny and Gramps. It didn’t happen often and I was too young then (or maybe too old now) to remember too many details, but the experience based on early impressions was a good one.

There was the black alligator-printed valise just big enough for a 3 year old’s pajamas and tooth brush, a dinner stand-out of white rice with ketchup, and sleeping in the middle of a huge-to-me double bed. And in the next day’s sunny morning, I would eat Arnold Brick Oven white bread toasted and spread with margarine. Bliss.

I’m grateful for these memories, and all the rest from my loving and supportive home that shaped my filter on the world. This I don’t take for granted – which brings me next to my young occasional charge.

Whatever will this ladybug remember of her visits with me, Ninny, and her grandfather, Bop.

Perhaps this.

Delicious Toast, my latest knit design, just published 2/25/2019.

My valentine

I’ll be digging through my family photo archives soon in search of a name for my next design, currently in the works. What I find there is always a surprise. I wasn’t intending to post on my blog today, but on this Valentines Day something prompted me to take a peek into the folder labeled with my own name, where I discovered this small envelope, yellowed with age.

I do love that Marlene saved things. This was my valentine to my grandfather Harold (Gramps – a name I gave him) Welch, c 1961. And since most of my posts highlight the women in my family due to my feminine knit designs, I’m pleased to take a moment and say hello to Gibby (soft G), as my grandmother Mildred called him – her rock of Gibraltar she was fond of pointing out, and that I love remembering.

This was me then, posing in one of the few sweaters Marlene made for me, beside my parakeet Pete. Coincidences abound as I married Peter 18 years later – not the parakeet :).

Undoubtedly Mum knitted this drawstring top using Hattie’s needles, on which she later taught me – one of the rivers that runs through my life. (They’re there if you look for them as I tend to.)

Marlene and Harold (Gramps, Gibby).

Sometimes brushing my teeth in the morning I see him looking back at me. Marlene and I tend to favor his lineage. It’s usually a sign that I should get my eyebrows done – reported lovingly.

Happy Valentines Day Harold-Gramps-Gibby. I’m thinking of you.

Hattie's needles

I relaunched a renovated Hattie pattern over the weekend. She’s top down now and reknitted in a worsted yarn, replacing the DK that had been discontinued. My only regret is that required new photos now replace the originals of my girl. See? Alas.

My Hattie pattern was published initially in January of 2011 – the fourth design in my newly formed Deb Hoss Knits endeavor, released after Marlene, Mildred, and Martha, (named for my mother, grandmother and great grandmother, respectively). Hattie deserves this prominence in my lineup as she was an early champion and mentor of my interests. It was on Hattie’s needles that Marlene taught me to knit after all. I gathered them up for this writing and was pleased to find so many – my old friends.

Sticker decorations courtesy of my Violet.

Harriet (Hattie) Stieg was born in 1888 in South Boston, the second youngest sister of my great grandmother Martha and 11 years her junior, nearly overlapping generations. I never got to meet Martha, who died when my mother was in high school, but I did meet Hattie. One summer day in the 60’s her son drove her out to our Waltham house. She would have been in her 70’s around then, and I would have been around 10. After birthing 4 sons, Hattie was likely delighted with my sewing interest and, no longer knitting herself, with finding a home for her fabrics and tools.

In researching for this post I came across these fun photos of Hattie’s crowd on a Florida vacation back in her day, c.1908.

Happily, as luck, or fate, would have it, Hattie had many, many days. She died in August of 1980 at the age of 92, overlapping 1 month with the life my daughter, her great great great niece Juliet born in July of that year. Amazing right?

Thank you Hattie, for your motivation and support. I carry it with me still.

For our wild child

Highlighting November activities – I’ve recently updated and relaunched the pattern for my Gussie design, a sport weight lace pullover.  Originally published in 2011, I reformatted the instructions and schematics, and added metrics with a row tracking tool – just to save knitters the step.

Gussie c 2018

While I was at it, I re-imagined her as Chunkie Gussie, recalculated stitches for aran weight yarn, and launched that pattern too. 
It’s fun to see how a simple change in the yarn effects the overall character of the design.

Chunkie Gussie c 2018

Which brings me next to their namesake – my aunt, my great great aunt, that is, and according to legend, our family’s wild child – Augusta Elisabetha Steig, aka Gussie.

In these photos taken around 1905, she would have been about 19 years old, and since the only images I have of her are at this age, there she stays for me.

I’m thinking of her now, forever young – and wonderfully wild. 

You go girl.

Mrs. Donahue

Peter received a gift from a friend recently of carefully packaged vintage newspapers where headlines highlighted historic sports events.  It’s a fun keepsake for sure, and one that our babies Violet and Jack might well enjoy too, someday… but knowing my penchant for neatness, and tendency to too quickly recycle (guilty as charged), he decided to store his treasure box deep in the bottom drawer of his bureau, where, come to find out, he puts other special items to ensure their safety – like our old address book, newly discovered.

Judging from its contents this is circa 1990s, right about the time I was keying our family data into my new apple computer – moving us too quickly into the future for my husband’s comfort I guess, hence its stashing. He came clean and revealed the find, expecting me to rip out the pages and uncoil the wire binding as prep for the recycle bin, but I couldn’t – at least not yet.  This was a time capsule and I needed a closer look.

Area codes were just then being assigned and required for calling.  I’d forgotten that transition.  I found addresses of friends and family who had moved away, or passed away, phone numbers for old employment, business contacts, and service people.  We were immersed in Juliet’s world then – her classmates and their parents, summer camp, her orthodontist.  My parent’s page had been erased and rewritten several times as evidence of their multiple moves since my high school graduation years before.  I kept them in my hometown too long, and they were like a clock wound too tightly that needed release.  And there were some names I don’t recognize at all, such as Mrs. Donahue, that honestly would freak me out a bit, except that Peter doesn’t remember them either.  It’s nice, at least, to have company on that front. 

I’ve lost track of many – no, most – of the people on these pages.  It happens, life goes on.  But remembered or not, as thank you to all the people who have participated in and enriched our lives along the way Mrs. Donahue will be the name of my next soon-to-be-published sweater design.

Let the recycling begin. 

Update:  Mrs. Donahue, my latest knit design, just published 9/15/2018.