Cards from Flossie; Card from Debusz

Clara's zippered file from the early 1950s, introduced in Bowmansville Dreamin', was the repository of recipes, design ideas, baby notes, accounts, and a select few cards and notes from friends.

Here's one from Florence Mazurowska, aka "Aunt Flossie," typed by her at age 65 and stored by Clara in the old zipfile.

The "gourmet baker Gene" is Genevieve Stroinska.

Aunt Flossie always signed her cards with Xs for kisses.

Here's a Christmas card, kept in that file as well.  It looks 1950s-ish.  But look at the signature!

"Debbie Mazurowski!"  Okay, Deb, were you sending out Christmas cards
when you were a tiny little baby?  Or did you find a vintage Christmas card
as an adult?

It's an outstanding card.
"The Night Before Christmas"
is printed on the back.

What?  You're not in the mood for Christmas?  Let help you with that:

View out the Argyle kitchen window.

Best wishes of the season!

Truly, though, the hush of winter is conducive to remembering things.  Aunt Gene I recall in her kitchen upstairs, with her bright eyes, sweet smile, loving voice, and stand mixer.

Aunt Flossie I recall in her kitchen downstairs, with her bright eyes, sweet smile, loving voice, and cube steaks for lunch, on Saturdays after the piano lesson.

The kitchen images go 'round and 'round in a person's head, sometimes reposing quietly for years, unappreciated.  Then when you need them, they come up clearly.  Only a year or so ago I read a World War Two memoir about a young woman in occupied Poland who wanted to join the Resistance.  Someone instructed her to go to a certain house and ask for a certain person by code name.  She walked up the driveway to the side door and knocked.  A lady answered the door and was naturally cautious about a stranger come knocking, especially since this stranger was blond and blue-eyed.  But her Polish sounded right enough for the lady to invite her into her kitchen.

There they sat at the kitchen table, where she told the lady about her childhood, including, specifically, details about things like "her mamusia's pierogis."  So the lady believed she was as she claimed, and not a German agent; she introduced her to the Resistance movement.

While reading that memoir I had to think up a kitchen for that scene.  Poplar Avenue downstairs, by way of the side door, came right up and filled the bill; still does, although it had abundant food, whereas the Polish kitchen in wartime did not.

The book is In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer, by Irene Gut Opdyke.

Julie