The August Ekdahl House

Have you ever had a split second in time when you are taken by surprise, only to realize that what surprised you was exactly what you expected to see?

So intent was I to peek inside the little white house, stepping up the first step of the wooden risers, that I didn’t realize August Ekdahl was standing right there, cobbling a shoe. I let out a little gasp of startled surprise as my heart skipped a beat, then quickly realized it was just a mannequin, wondering if the children playing in the schoolyard across the way had noticed my moment of panic.

It was a cold but brilliant day, with the kind of sunshine that makes one want to be out-and-about, exploring. I was northbound through the town of Western Springs, a few destinations on my docket with a time to spare and made the impulsive decision to explore the little white house in a small park I often pass by.

As much as I love the cathedrals and museums, halls of learning, justice, and governance, I also appreciate the little framed structures of history that dot our Land of Lincoln and speak of the pioneers that settled. Many of them cleared the land and farmed, others followed with goods and trades and established towns.

August Ekdahl was a Swedish immigrant who eventually settled in what is now Western Springs. A cobbler, he built a small house and set up shop in 1887. While shoes were already being manufactured in factories in Chicago, land beyond the city limits was still open prairie. August worked in his shop, raised a family, and even shared his space with a postmistress.

I’ve been thinking a bit about these small post offices. Not only did they provide a more accessible place for people to pick up and send their mail, but, they also brought people into towns, which provided the opportunities for farmer and townsfolk to talk, share stories, exchange goods. I still look forward to trips to the post office to buy stamps and mail letters and packages, and I usually plan other errands around them, though I do it in my mocha colored VW with latte interior instead of a horse and buggy.

I also been thinking about local historical societies and the vital role they play in preserving history. There are the large, deep pocket organizations that bring about the grand scale preservations and I applaud them and the work that they do. There are also the smaller organizations; the grass-roots historians whose passion is to save the one room schoolhouses, general stores, and the homes of founding mothers and fathers. They are  folks are a mighty band of preservationists who hold in their purpose the salvation of our past. The Western Springs Historical Society is one such group. I’m sure you know of others.

Back to my brief encounter with Mr. Ekdahl.

Here he is, cobbling shoes,

and here is Mrs. Watson, sorting the mail.

The August Ekdahl house is more an outdoor museum and is unique in its approach. Risers are all around the building, leading to windows from which to peer inside, with information posters on the outside walls of the building. I couldn’t help but think of what a great place it would be for an afternoon field trip with children or grandchildren, with a picnic lunch, a visit to the post office or a local shoe repair shop.

The August Ekdahl House in Western Springs. Information is here.

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Once upon a time . . .

“Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs.”

Laura Ingalls Wilder. “Little House in the Big Woods”

That little girl’s name was Laura. She grew up to become one of America’s most beloved children’s authors with her books, commonly known as the Little House Books, still in publication.

Today is Laura Ingalls Wilder’s birthday.

Those of you who have been visiting with me here on the Cutoff for some time know of my love of Laura Ingalls Wilder and her stories growing up on the vast prairies of the midwest in the second half of the 19th century. You know how I often read “The Long Winter” during snowstorms and of my visits to several of the Little House sites, most recently the one in Burr Oak, Iowa. If you are new to my site, or don’t know about the Little House books, please feel free to click onto the links to learn a bit more.

It is “Little House in the Big Woods” that has started countless schoolchildren on the long journey with Laura and her family that begins in the North Woods of Wisconsin and is one of the first “chapter” books read aloud to children in schools.

This one little book. written when Laura was in her sixties, is a chronicle of midwestern settlers who formed and farmed the heartland of the United States.

“Little House in the Big Woods” was followed by more books that chronologically tell of the Ingalls’ journey across frozen Lake Pepin to Minnesota and Iowa and the Dakota territory. Laura Ingalls Wilder brought the pioneer spirit alive. She still does as her books take us into their sod house, log cabins and shanties, enduring grasshopper plagues, near starvation, and illness that leaves Laura’s sister Mary blind.  Ma’s cheery disposition and ability to cook anything and Pa’s fiddle strings playing the girls up to their beds at night and all the adventures, both big and small, continue to entertain, educate and inspire children young and young at heart

I was so excited to learn of her birthday today that I just may stop right here and read the first chapter of “Little House in the Big Woods” . . . well, you know what will happen if I do that, don’t you?

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From Japan: Tasha

Tasha’s Hearth print from the Tasha Tudor and Family website

It is snowing here as I write; a crisp, clean sheet of page with a crisp white blanket of snow outside. I’ve been waiting for snow. It has been so long since we’ve had any here on the Cutoff. Downy snowflakes have been falling as I’ve critiqued a bit of writing for a friend, wrote up minutes for recording secretary duties, checked the availability of a few books in our interlibrary loan system, started a pot of chicken soup, and played around in cyberspace.

I found something, whilst playing, that I think you will enjoy. I promise, I will move on to something other than Tasha Tudor soon, but, so many of you had interest in her that I thought I should at least provide the link to the Tasha and Tudor and Family website, which is just a click away here. There is some Tudor history at the site, newsy information in grandson Winslow Tudor’s newsletter, receipts (old term for recipes), an online store with all sorts of wonderful items to buy, and, well, somewhere to go and while away an hour or two.

On my way to the website, I called upon Mr. Google to see if there was a video of Tasha Tudor. I do have two tapes (yes, tapes) that I purchased eons ago. They are now available on  DVD at the website. One is about her garden and home, aptly named Corgi Cottage, the other was filmed at Christmas, including roasting a turkey in a tin kitchen. I was hoping to find a clip of one of these to share.

Instead, I found this beautiful video that kept me entranced, as most things Tasha Tudor do, for a few moments in time. I thought you might enjoy it as well.

Some background information is needed. While Tasha Tudor is known and loved in the States, especially in New England, she is revered by many in Japan, whose citizens would often travel to hear Tasha speak or visit her garden. There are books about Tasha Tudor in Japanese; some are translations and others are written, photographed and published in Japan.

I always find it enlightening to see things as I know them through the eyes of others. This video does just that! It is in Japanese, but one doesn’t need language to enjoy it. I invite you to view it at your leisure, perhaps with a cup of something warm, or cold for my friends down under. You won’t need any music as it is beautifully orchestrated in the video. Whatever subtitles there are in the piece are in Japanese as you will hear Tasha speaking in English. I was elated to find this via the internet and my heartfelt appreciation goes out to its producers. Please, dear reader, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zU-15to8d4

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Tasha Tudor

I originally knew Tasha Tudor through the many books she illustrated, some of which she also wrote herself. “Pumpkin Moonshine” was her first published book, followed by the “calico” books, then her illustrations of classics, including those of Louisa May Alcott and Frances Hodgson Burnett, along with cookbooks, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and a host of other illustrative endeavors.

It wasn’t until the late 1990′s that I discovered Tasha Tudor herself when a series of books about her idyllic lifestyle on a hill-top “west of New Hampshire and east of Vermont” were published. A happenstance discovery of “The Private World of Tasha Tudor ” in a bookstore soon took me on a remarkable journey of learning about Tasha Tudor – and a little bit about myself in the process.

A diminutive woman steeped in old Yankee ways, Tasha’s book, “The Private World of Tasha Tudor” took me inside her Vermont farmhouse, Corgi Cottage, out to her gardens, and into her unique imagination. Tasha Tudor led much of her life steeped in the 1800′s, wearing clothing of that period, weaving her own cloth, making her own candles, and eventually building a house in Vermont that visitors were hard pressed to believe was built in the late 20th century.

In her lifetime, Ms. Tudor was asked by President Johnson to make ornaments for the White House Christmas tree, her hand crafted dollhouse with its furnishings and dolls, made by Tasha, were on display at the Abbey Aldrich Rockefeller Center, and Life Magazine once photographed the wedding of two of her dolls. (The dolls, being quite modern, eventually separated.) After a television interview, Tasha Tudor became an icon for those who sought the simpler life of getting “back to the land”.

It was “The Private World of Tasha Tudor” that took me in, made me feel at home, and spurred a rather large collection of all things Tasha Tudor, as well as an appreciation for the photography of Richard W. Brown, who lives in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.

“Tasha Tudor’s Garden” is where I often go for garden inspiration. I long to grow foxgloves six feet tall like Tasha Tudor did, and I wish I could encourage my roses to ramble with wild abandon as those in her garden. I’ve given up on sweet peas – well, almost given up, we’ll see. I’ll try them one more time. The point is that Tudor’s garden is lush, a bit whimsical in nature and all that a cottage garden should be. Some of the seeds sown in it are ancestors from two centuries ago. Richard Brown collaborated with Tovah Martin on this book. I love her style of writing and would not be stretching the truth at all to say that she has influenced how I “talk” about my own garden.

Together, Brown and Martin produced a third book, “Tasha Tudor’s Heirloom Crafts”, which is a unique glimpse into the many ways Tudor adopted a 19th century lifestyle into the modern era we all live in. It is chock full of pictures and words about Tasha’s kitchen, the extensive collection she amassed of 18th and 19th century clothing, her well utilized barn that connects to the house in the manner New Englanders use, and the marionettes that led to “A Dolls’Christmas” and helped keep her growing family fed with the performances they starred in. It is a book in which to find Tasha weaving and painting and making candles and all manner of other crafts that she continued to employ into her eighth decade.

Tasha Tudor died a few years ago, just before her 92 birthday, if memory serves me correctly. Some of her clothing sold for handsome sums. A museum is underway in her memory. There is still a family website for all things Tasha Tudor, as well as those of her family.

I first learned of a tin kitchen from books about Tasha Tudor. I was determined to try roasting a chicken in front of fire from the moment I saw her doing so using a tin kitchen. I looked at antique malls, fairs, and searched the internet for about six years before literally stumbling upon one at an antique fair one afternoon. My giddiness was a dead give-away to the seller if there ever was one as my foot brushed against it, I looked down to see what was in my path, only to hop back in pure glee, exclaiming “it’s a tin kitchen”! I lugged it home and before much time had passed, I cleaned it up and managed to roast a whole chicken in it in front of an open fireplace. I can’t begin to tell you how delicious it tasted, or express my sense of accomplishment at having figured out how to cook with it.  How I miss that fireplace of our old house. How I miss that roasted chicken.

 

Well, I rambled about much like Tasha Tudor’s roses. When Juliet mentioned she knew of Tasha Tudor’s books, but not much about her, I thought it might be a good spot in time to share some of the books I have that illustrate the life of such a well-known illustrator, thinking they might interest some of you as well.

It is very cold here, with the temperatures hovering around 16° F. Snow is dancing about, looking for trees and bushes and rooftops to cling to. I think I’ll make a cup of tea and invite Tasha Tudor to visit me for a spell. Which book will I select?

 

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The Mother Road

We get our kicks on Route 66. Not “kicks’, exactly, but Kix Cereal. You see, about a mile or so from the Cutoff, sitting on old Route 66, is a store where we buy groceries. Another mile or so east sits one of the many Historic Route 66 signs that dot the United States. As we hit a slight rise in the pavement, the magnificent skyline of Chicago comes into view. Some twenty miles away sits Buckingham Fountain, the gateway to Lake Michigan and the symbolic beginning of Route 66.

This now historic two lane highway once took travelers from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California, ending in Santa Monica. Route 66 was the 2,451 mile Mother Road to a better life for many and the great migration west; those escaping the Dust Bowl of the Great Depression, seeking jobs in the fertile fields of Southern California, looking for wartime employment, or the glamour and excitement of Hollywood.

Route 66 wound around and through small towns and large, from the midwest to the southwest and the Pacific Coast, It brought tourists to their diners and motels, offered a place to settle down and start a family, or provided the opportunity to see local attractions as more and more people began to own cars. This long stretch of highway and the cars that rode on it helped support the economy of many towns. When the interstate highway system was completed and Route 66 was decommissioned as a highway, many towns and villages suffered economically, changing the way of life for many.

Many of us remember Dinah Shore as she blew us all a kiss each week from her television show and encouraged us all to “see the USA in your Chevrolet”. 

Then there were these two fellows on the television series, Route 66. They made young girls’ hearts go pit-a-pat each week as they drove the cars that all the fellows longed for – and still do.

When I first left home for college, we drove Route 66 to Normal, Illinois. I will always remember that first trip to school, my dad behind the wheel, my mom trying to keep a stiff upper-lip, my own mixed emotions at leaving home for the first time. We drove out of the Chicago suburbs,  past cornfields, Joliet, more cornfields, on and on. It seemed forever, until we approached Dwight and the first stop light from Chicago. There was a diner at the light were we often stopped for coffee and a piece of pie.

As long as I’m riding along on the memory lane of Route 66, I should mention the Dixie Truck Stop near Funk’s Grove. Heading toward Springfield, they had some mighty tasty hamburgers and interesting people to watch. I believe it is still in operation, though with new owners. More “kicks on Route 66″ through part of Illinois. The phrase was first made popular by Nat King Cole. It is fun to listen to as he sings about all the places the Mother Road passes.

Do you have any memories of Route 66?

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Evelyn

I had a post brewing about crickets and Candleford and women in sports when synchronicity stepped in and steered my thoughts elsewhere. It happens, now and then, and, well, really rather often as I putter about here on the Cutoff. Does it happen to you as well?  When Miss Synchronicity stops by in such a way,  I cannot ignore her. This is a replay of a very early post that I have rewritten to fit in today. 

A gathering of old friends occurred last week, brought on by the out-of-town visitors, Jeri and Kyle. We were eating desert in Vickie and Mike’s charming and rustic gazebo, catching up on our children and grandchildren, adventures and endeavors and those sort of things when we got to talking about movies. Not the blockbuster types, but the little gems we’ve discovered. Everyone had something to recommend, some seemingly tailor-made for each one of us.

I suggested a movie I thought Cathy and Bill would enjoy. Both are Chicago born and bred; South Side Irish with roots deep into the soil of Ireland and a love for our own Windy City. They are the “salt of the earth” sort of people, longtime friends, and godparents to our Katy. Both seem to enjoy history and Bill law and the judicial system. I thought they would enjoy a little film of about ten years ago called Evelyn.

As I was channel surfing Monday night it was none other than Evelyn that popped up on my television screen. Miss Synchronicity had come to call, so I happily let her in. I was once again enchanted by angel rays, love of family, and how a few good folks really can change the status quo, right some wrongs whilst tilting at the windmills of life.

 The story is fictionally based on a real incident in Ireland in the 1950′s involving a father trying to regain custody of his children. They are placed in orphanages by the state because their father, Desmond Doyle, is a single father with unsteady wages and the “love of the drink”. His wife has abandoned the family, but, because she is still alive, the children are taken from Doyle, who cannot get them back without her signature. The Irish Children’s Act of 1941 is what allows this to happen. His only recourse is to challenge the Irish constitution, which, at that time, was unheard of.

The children are two boys and a girl, Evelyn, who is the oldest. The young actress who plays her is engaging and believable as the movie portrays both the good and the bad sides of the Catholic church in Ireland at a time when much of its children were in church run orphanages.

There is a scene of the first night Evenly is in the orphanage, where Evelyn is reprimanded for sleeping on her side, an act that would allow the devil to do his work. A nun tells her she will watch her all night to make sure she didn’t sleep this way. There is also a scene where Evelyn is beaten, which later figures in to the court case.  There are, however, equally tender moments, with a loving Sister who is kind to Evelyn and the other girls. It is really a movie of hope and optimism that things can be changed for the better.

As Evelyn is dropped off by her grandfather at the orphanage, there is a pivotal scene in the movie. Her own father, Doyle, played by Pierce Brosnan, to perfection I might add, is simultaneously bringing the boys to their own institution. Evelyn is sitting with Grandad by a window when a ray of sunshine suddenly shines through onto her hand. He tells her that it is an angel ray, her guardian, always waiting to help her.

Desmond Doyle is eventually aided by local and not-so-local solicitors, played by the likes of Aidan Quinn, Alan Bates, and Stephen Rea. It is ten-year old Evelyn whose light really shines on the screen as she gently shows how truth and tolerance, faithfulness and forgiveness can make us all better persons.

This morning,  I once again let the sunshine dance upon my hand.  I felt its warmth,  even though I knew the day would become simmering and hot, and I pretended it was my very own angel ray sent to help me along the Cutoff again today.

Here is an article that I found, which seems to have just been published today, about the real Evelyn Doyle. Synchronitic?

The clips above were from Google.

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Telstar

As I was driving along the by-ways of the Chicago ‘burbs on Monday, Gertie, our trusted GPS system, was ordering me to hee instead of haw, while my cell phone signaled that a message was pending. I wondered to myself if our internet service was still interrupted at home and what I could warm up in the microwave for supper. As I drove along, our local public radio station began broadcasting NPR’s  All Things Considered. Host Robert Siegel began with this opening line:

“Fifty years ago on this date, space became TV-friendly. It was one small moment for an orbiting satellite called Telstar 1, one big leap for couch potatoes everywhere.”

Fifty years ago . . .

. . . I was a young girl, on the cusp of becoming a teenager, with my head usually buried in a book, dreaming of knights in shining armor defending the castle gates or a chance encounter with George Chakiris, snapping his fingers and dancing westward along the Eisenhower Expressway toward me. My world still felt idyllic then. I felt safe in the bosom of my family. The brutal assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King had not yet occurred, nor the civil unrest that would come as the decade wore on. I was too young to understand Viet Nam, and there were but three national television stations to choose from, ABC, CBS, and NBC – and they went off the air every night to the tune of our national anthem.

As I listened to NPR yesterday, the music of the Tornadoes’ playing Telstar filled my head. I  thought of Walter Cronkite’s broadcast, live, across the United States with Chet Huntley, his competitor, in San Francisco and across the Atlantic Ocean to the BBC’s Richard Dimbleby. There was even a cheer from the crowd at a Cubs baseball game in Chicago’s Wrigley Field. How exciting it felt back then; this idea of instant communication across continents and oceans and outer space. I had little idea of what it truly meant or what phenomenal changes it would mean for all of us these fifty years later, but, looking back, the changes have been nothing short of mind-boggling. I think I am more in awe now when I think of all that small satellite in outer spaced, birthed by Ma Bell and raised by the enterprising minds of those who dared to think outside of that little box that sat in our homes all across this globe.

I could wax on about all that the Telstar broadcast shepherded into our lives. Instead, I think I’ll just let it speak on its own as you ponder how instantaneous communications now is and how we take it for granted. The link above is about 10 minutes in length, narrated by Walter Cronkite. I think you will find it interesting if you are so inclined and have the time to listen to him as he talks about this moment in time and how they were all  ”creating an event to serve technology” when many of us were young girls and boys, and many of us were not even born yet.

You might also enjoy hearing The Tornadoes and their hit song, Telstar.

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Maisie Dobbs

I love it when you recommend books. I jot the author and title down in a notebook I keep for just these books to be read. I usually include who or where the recommendation comes from;  a book blog, a newspaper or magazine review, NPR, PBS – or, most importantly, one of you.

Maisie Dobbs came to my attention through several of you, first Marilyn Ritter, then Dee Ready, and soon word seemed to spread of Maisie, like a daisy in the garden scattering her seeds. I finally picked up Jacqueline Winspear’s first novel of the series a few weeks ago. I know I want to follow Maisie through the rest of the series as well.

Maisie Dobbs is a private investigator/psychologist whose story is one of a poor girl who does well, initially through the help of benefactors and through her own gifts of intelligence and kindness. It is set primarily in post WWI England with flashbacks to Maisie childhood and her experience as a nurse in the war.

After Maisie’s mother dies, Frankie, her father, a well liked chap who makes a meager living as a costermonger*, finds Maisie a job in service at the estate of Lord Julian and Lady Rowan Compton. Maisie, a young girl at the time, does her fair share of the work, but, she sets her internal clock for the wee hours of the morning so that she can sneak into the Compton library to read as many as the books as she can, teaching herself Latin along the way.

One night, Lady Julian, who has returned home very late with Lord Julian and Dr. Maurice Blanche, slips into the library and discovers the young Maisie there. She soon realizes Maisie’s aptitude and arranges for Dr. Blanche to tutor her in between her household chores. Eventually higher education is arranged, until the outbreak of WWI, when Maisie become a nurse.

The book is about more than Maisie’s lessons, work and wartime service, however. Much more. It is about the aftermath of World War I and it is about compassion, especially when it comes to wartime disfigurement, and it is about the unfortunate manipulation of veterans. Maisie Dobbs is a mystery with a soul.

Maisie’s first client, which is how the book begins, is a man who suspects his wife is having an affair. Maisie takes on the case, following the young woman to a cemetery and watches her put a simple bouquet on the grave of a man with only a first name. Maisie soon discovers that there are several other soldiers of the war buried there, all in simple graves, all without a surname.  Maisie suspects far more is going on – and it is. When Lady Rowan’s son decides to move into a home called The Retreat for veterans, Maisie steps up her efforts to discover what is really going on.

Maisie Dobbs was a quick read that held my interest and left me wanting to learn more about post WWI – and more about Maisie Dobbs.

I look forward to reading the next Maisie Dobbs book, and the next;  and to following her about she solves crimes, and other life mysteries.

Thank you, Dee and Marilyn, for introducing me to Jacqueline Winspear and Miss Maisie Dobbs.

* I didn’t know what a costermonger was and so, Mr. Google led me to Ms Wikipedia where I learned that a costermonger is someone who sells fruits and vegetable from a cart. Common pre-WWI, I imagine them less so now, though I do remember a street vendor from my early childhood when we still lived in Chicago. 

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A Sense of Place

“Gardening is not intellectual, you must get out and do it, ” she reflected later in life. “The absolute contact between the hand and the earth, the intimacy of it, that is the instinct of a gardener.” page 153, One Writer’s Garden: Eudora Welty’s Home Place

Every so often, a book stares down from a bookcase at me. It looks right into my soul and bids me to spend some time languishing upon its pages as it wraps me between its covers like a shawl. One Writer’s Garden did just that from the moment I first saw it sitting on prominent shelf in a local public library.

The book grew out of Susan Haltom’s efforts to restore the home gardens of Pulitzer Prize winning writer, Eudora Welty. Haltom, along with Jane Roy Brown, collaborated on the book. Told in chapters that span more than forty decades, we come to understand how the many plants and garden influenced Ms. Welty’s writing and we also learn how home gardening grew through much of the twentieth century.

Eudora Welty’s remarkable body of work has to do with her strong sense of place. It is easy to understand how this garden played a part in this and I am eager to read more of Welty’s books and stories, especially The Optimist’s Daughter, which just followed me  home from the library.

The Welty garden was originally planted and maintained by Eudora Welty’s mother, Chestina. It helped her through the grief of her husband’s death as it helped them both as they saw loved ones going off to World War II.

I’ve been reading One Writer’s Garden just as my garden club is busy getting ready for our annual Garden Walk and Faire on July 8. I read the book in between visiting featured gardens on a preview walk for the homeowners and attending to details for the Faire that I am responsible for, as well as handling reservations for a Garden Clubs of Illinois luncheon later in July. Both organizations are under the umbrella of the National Garden Clubs. I write this not to draw attention to my endeavors, but to just say how enlightening it was for me to read this book right now and learn more about the founding of the National Garden Clubs, the history of women in gardens, and how vital gardens were in the early decades of the 20th century. Among other things, they yielded nosegays to be given when visiting, as well as floral arrangements to be taken to homes where deceased were waked. Our garden club members still bring a floral arrangement to members who have lost a close family member. It was heart warming to learn of how this custom came about.

I could go on about how the Garden Conservancy was called upon for advice on the historical significance of Eudora Welty’s garden, or even how often the Silver Moon rose is mentioned in One Writer’s Garden. I could point out how many wonderful personal pictures and quotes are in the book, or how relevant Chestina’s gardening journals were in the garden’s restoration, but I think, instead, that I will just urge you to read One Writer’s Garden and discover the many treasures growing there on your own.

Doesn’t this photo, found in the book, evoke a sense of place?

Eudora in the garden, undated © Eudora Welty LLC, page 163, One Writer’s Garden

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A Downton Doll to see you through

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST EPISODE OF DOWNTON ABBEY, SEASON 2, BE ADVISED. SPOILERS!

Isn’t it amazing what you can find on the internet?

Downton Abbey. Google. A few clicks of the mouse here and there. Up pops Lady Violet – as a paper doll! There are Ladies Sybil and  Mary. Even Thomas and O’Brien. You can enlarge them, print them out, and have your own collection of paper dolls to while away the hours as you brave the long months ahead before season 3!

Speaking of Lady Violet, wasn’t she was in rare form Sunday night on Downton Abbey? After her girlish gushing over Lord Hepworth’s father’s long ago attentions, I just loved how she laid into this cad. After Sir Richard and Matthew Crawley slug it out over Lady Mary, I loved Violet’s snappy  retort of “Do you promise?” as he states he won’t return. It sent me cheering her on. Richard was despicable, the leering villain of old, lashing the fair maiden to the railroad tracks, sneering and demanding her to “pay me the money”.

I digress. I know that Downton Abbey is a bit of a soap opera, but, I simply do not mind. I love the characters, both upstairs and down, and the historical eras it takes us through. The costuming – oh, the costuming. Did you notice a bit more ankle showing in Mary’s elegant ball gown? A hint of the Roaring Twenties?

I felt a sense of relief that Lady Cora finally told Lord Grantham about Famuk. Lord Grantham’s encounter with Mary warmed my heart as he told her to go to America, marry a midwestern cowboy and shake things up at Downton. He freed her from Sir Richard. Now, he needs to set things right with Sybil.

I wonder about that story line of Famuk. What DID he die from?  We know where he died – in Lady  Mary’s bedchamber – but of what? Methinks Thomas slipped something into his drink and as I’m methinking, could Thomas be the murderer of the first Mrs. Bates?What do you think? Whodunit?

The very last scene, in the snow, at the dawn of 1920, with Matthew on bended knee proposing to Mary. It bids all the foretelling of a wedding next season and hints that exile to America for Mary won’t happen.

Or will it?

The most touching story line, for me, has been the character development of Daisy. Her conflicted feelings, the deathbed wedding in earlier episode to the war injured William, her refusal to accept William’s military pension, her scenes with Mrs. Patmore and the Ouija board, Lady Violet’s conversation with Daisy, and Daisy finally going to tea at William’s father’s farm where she finds a father and some self-esteem. They are all wonderfully acted out scenes. Daisy is an endearing character. What are your thoughts?

I loved every minute of the Christmas episode, as I did this second season of Downton Abbey. I thought, however, that last week’s episode with the horror of the Spanish flu, the death of Lavinia and Bates being led away in handcuffs should have been the season’s cliff hanger. Did it have that effect on you? I think I wanted season 2 to end there. I would have savored the wait until next December to have last night’s episode be a bit of a Christmas gift and a teaser for the new season in January.

Well, dear reader, this is getting a bit lengthy, but, I promised some of you I would share a few thoughts on Downton Abbey. Please share your thoughts. I look forward to them.

To pass the time, you can download those paper dolls here. Just in case . . .

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