Joining the NRA. Because We Don't Have A Marine Sentry Post of Our Own.

This is a picture of the Marine Corps Sentry Post behind the Little White House in Warm Springs, Georgia, where President Franklin Roosevelt spent much of his time. Aside from the "Servants Quarters" and this Marine Sentry post, it is very much a typical example of a modest American home of the era.

What does this have to do with the National Rifle Association? Well, it is like this: we love our Marines (and we are SO PROUD of the two in our family), but unlike the President, Congress and assorted very wealthy actors, we don't have one stationed full time on the property to protect us. And our modest little American home is no one's "servant's quarters".

 I like knowing that if I ever needed or wanted to, I could choose to learn to shoot and purchase the weapon of my own free choice, and have the capacity to protect my ownself and those around me. And I have always felt very safe knowing that any or all of my neighbors may make that choice for themselves as well.

Without having to get permission from anyone. Especially not from people who are supposed to be servants of my freedom, but who seem to have forgotten that I am not their serf (and God bless you, Joshua Boston, for telling the truth so eloquently. Ooorah!) .(PS Dear Veterans, please see this post about how much we need you here now that you are home again)


So, thanks Mark Levin for the link and the nudge to join the NRA. Right now is as good a time as any. No organization is perfect, but the NRA is a more reliable protector of the US Constitution & the liberties it spells out for us as individuals, than most of the people in Washington are.

Talk to your congresspeople (there are links in my sidebar to sites that will help you id who they are and how to contact them).  We are so grateful to have Governor Rick Perry and our State Representative Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, who are faithful to the best purposes of government in promoting genuine liberty for individuals to make our OWN decisions.

But one of the most powerful ways to make our voices heard right now is to join the NRA. Because the news media doesn't report on how many people are writing our Senators. But the media - and Congress - always notice how many new members the NRA has.

"Normandy: A walk through history"

Mom in High Heels is one of the brave spouses of our military, and is with her Army husband stationed in Germany. Her blog is a lot of fun, she's homeschooling their son, but my favorite thing is her travel writing. Being in Europe, they take the opportunity to see so many historic places. Her photos and commentary are always special, with little details you might not hear anywhere else.

"Normandy: A walk through history" is one of those, a chronicle of their visit to Sainte Mere Eglise, Dead Man's Corner, Utah Beach, Pointe Du Hoc,and Omaha Beach. It's a good article for family reading, and her photos bring it to life.

Of Omaha Beach, she writes:
" I could not in my wildest dreams comprehend the scale of this beach. It's not a small beach. It is huge and deep. I had no idea how far these men had to go once they hit the beach. Remember that they came in at low tide to avoid obstacles in the water (we visited at low tide too). As we stood at the head of the beach looking out over the water, my breath was taken away. The wind was whipping around us, but we walked down to the waters edge, which took us a good 20-30 minutes and we weren't weighed down with gear, waterlogged or being fired at."

Take your time on this tour. Walk slowly and click open the photos. They are real, not set designs. No crew came in and staged the area. This isn't some planned PR event, it's three generations of a real family considering together the utter reality of these places and the history of the men who did the job they had to do to guarantee their children could live as free people.

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Photo: "French civilians place crosses at the graves of American soldiers in a cemetery on Omaha Beach" from the Eisenhower Library. And something else, from the same page to ponder.

Cottage Industry, Vintage Christmas Toys, and WWII

Before WWII broke out (for the US - it had already started in Europe) with Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States imported vast amounts of the goods in our stores from Germany and Japan. Once we were at war with these countries, suddenly there was a dearth of products. US factories that might have picked up the slack were diverted to production of necessary items and defense material.

Retailers around the country began looking closer to home to source toys, dishes, printed items, novelties and other non-essentials that, then as now, made up the bulk of their profitable sales.

This created an opportunity boom for families everywhere. Then as now, families were always looking for ways to bring in extra income, whether by taking second jobs or producing sellable goods from home businesses.

Some bought small printing presses and set up businesses doing custom printing of business cards, Christmas cards, and wedding invitations out of a corner of their house. New potteries sprang up in areas that had good sources of clay in the ground. And some, like Nandy and Mema, used their home workshop to build toys.


With metal rationed, the raw materials available were perfect for small-scale manufacturing: wood, cloth, paper. Nandy started a business building small wooden toys that he sold to Kress Department Store, which was located downtown on Main Street. I don't think Kresses was still in business when the boys were little but if you have ever been in an Alco or a Dollar General, it was a lot like that. These stores were a mainstay and everyone shopped at them. Kress, Woolworths, Ben Franklins were the Walmart/K-Marts of their day.

So Nandy and Mema made little cars, trucks, trains out of wood. Nandy would cut out the pieces at night after work, and Mema would help paint and assemble them.

Do you remember that Mema was missing part of one of her thumbs? She helped with cutting some of the parts while Nandy was at work and one day the saw went through the wood and cut off her thumb, and into her pointer finger. She always told that when she called the hospital, they asked "Are you sure you cut it off?" to which she replied "Yes I am sure, I am in the house and my thumb is laying out in the garage on the saw!" Her first finger was always stiff after that - and Nandy did all the cutting with saws after that too!

Mama still has a few of the toys Nandy made at that time: a black Locomotive, and a little army jeep. The toys that the boys made with him in his workshop were from the same kinds of patterns, and same materials. These toys were a big success and, along with renting out the other half of their duplex, helped them pay off their mortgage ten years early.

Other people all over the country made toys and souveniers like this too. Some mixed glue and sawdust to form a "composition" material that they molded into toys, like the little battleships and planes pictured above. Some items were decorated with paint and others were woodburned with heated pokers or special woodburning tools.

These little items are readily available still in antique shops and flea markets - since they were unbranded, they have never been "hot" as collectibles. True to their era, they have an enduring charm and lasting appeal.

They also remind us of the unbounded creativity that allows us to find and make what we need in our own back yards.

Maple Furniture and Llama Fur

Picking up on the post below about the Little White House, here is one of our beds. This one is quite similar to the beds in FDR's getaway home, and it dates from the same era: my grandparents bought the suite for my mother when she was a young child.

Actually it is Nick's bed - he has the dresser and chest of drawers that go with it, but uses a different bed. The dresser you see here was Thelma's (my mother in law).


The quilt was a mark-down somewhere (tip: always buy "all cotton" when it comes to quilts - cost is a bit more but it is so worth it) several years ago, and the shams I bought last year at Walmart. That cute little bolster I found at a yard sale. Check out the detail on the ends:



That is just printed fabric on the ends but it looks embroidered. Isn't it pretty?

And the Llama pillow... well there is nothing softer than llama fur, so that is a sneaky way of getting a stuffed animal on the bed in a home that is between cats! :-)

FDR's Little White House: A Simple American Home

Last summer, we went to the Little White House, in Warm Springs, Georgia. This is where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent much time during his presidency, and where he passed away in April 1945.

The thing that most struck me about this house is how very ordinary it is. Anyone's grandmother could have lived here. There was no ostentation, no luxury. It is a simple home with maple furniture, twin beds, well-read books near the fireplace, and the comfort of homeliness.


The kitchen had no cabinets, only open shelves along the walls. The things we would put into cabinets were stored in the pantry/closet - it was lined with shelves and is shown in the first picture, above.

They told us the living room is exactly as it looked the day he passed away. The nautical decor was a favorite of his, as he was a Navy man.
President Roosevelt's bed, on which he was lying when he passed away suddenly from a stroke. The room is very small, with a single bed, and the furniture you see is pretty much the whole of the room. It is located right off of the living room.
This was Eleanor's room, with a pair of twin beds. The guide told us that their children especially enjoyed coming to The Little White House, and would stay here in Mrs. Roosevelt's room when they came.
The Dining Room is not separate, the table is simply across the room from the living area, with the hutch sitting opposite the fireplace shown in the living room photo. Even so, the whole room is rather small. The proportions of the furniture help keep it from feeling crowded.


This unfinished photo is the one for which President Roosevelt was sitting when he passed away.


There is a small garage apartment over the garage that is labeled "servants quarters", but these were a cook/housekeeper, and a driver/butler whose assistance was necessary to our paralyzed president.

The live-in housekeeper was not unusual even for middle class families who didn't have a grandmother living with them in those days when labor was cheap and goods expensive. Without the labor-saving devices that became common after WWII, help of some kind - whether family or hired - was essential. Notice in the kitchen photos how bare of "things" the kitchen was. Yet nearly all food was made from scratch or preserved at home, so much more time was involved in the preparation.

Oh, he and Mrs Roosevelt had luxury in their lives - both were from wealthy families and they did live in the White house, after all. But this little place where he escaped for treatments at the natural hot spring spa up the road in Warm Springs, and where his children came to spend time with him after they were grown, is by far the best example of an American Home of the era.

Although I am not decorating my little cottage in this same style, I do find much inspiration, and comfort, in these rooms.