About gDonna
The photo is my son and myself. Now days you can get a photo made to look old like this one. This photo was taken when this was the new look.

Harry S Truman was president when I was born and world war II had ended. I grew up in a time when lunch was put in a brown paper bag and a sandwich was wrapped with wax paper. There was no such thing as pantyhose, we wore stockings that attached to the rubbery clippy things that attached to the girdle. Convenience stores were not common and when we took a trip we packed a picnic basket because many places did not have fast food. Highways had places to pull over and stop, some with picnic tables. Read more ....
 

Donna's Diary Posts

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Start At Home
The squirrels understand, they are wise, they know how and what to do. They forage for food, when it storms they stretch their body upside down on a tree and cover themselves with their tail. One year we had a storm and Charles was cutting up limbs that had fallen. He brought in and showed me this limb that he had cut into and found that a squirrel had stored acorns inside this tree. This was a squirrels pantry and was storing nuts for the winter season. Charles sliced off a piece of this extraordinary find and we preserved this to use as a reminder to always store extra food.Birds are truly amazing and have brilliant minds and abilities. Just look at a ......
The Diary of Sarah April 17 - 23 1932
Sunday, April 17. A fine bright, beautiful day, though still chilly. Had the usual morning tasks and then attended to the baby chicks. Dressed and went to the Sunday services. Prof. Alfred Watkins and the Boys Chorus of Lebanon Hi School gave a program of sacred music, occupying the house for regular preaching service. All enjoyed it fully. S.S. followed. Then we drove home and looked after the poultry & got Sherley and the little boys & all drove to Harry's for dinner. Home for evening tasks. Ernest here this evening. Monday, April 18. A beautiful, bright day. Though still cold. Did not feel able to wash on account of my ......
Springtime and Home
The seasons offer us many opportunities if we only pay attention. Late winter and spring is a time that wakens the resting plants and brings on blooms and this is our signal that we are getting to planting time. Summer brings on heat that certain fruits and vegetables need or they will not grow. Fall signals us with beautiful golden and orange colors that it is time to finish the harvest so that we are prepared for winter. Winter is time to nourish ourselves from our pantry with the vegetables, fruit and meat that we put away during the other three seasons. It is time to clean and repair our tools, to mend and work on those projects that make our home t ......
The Diary of Sarah April 10 - 16, 1932
Sunday, April 10. Another, gloomy, dark, drizzling, rainy day, all through. Had the usual morning tasks to see to indoors and outside. Made preparation and attended church and S.S. service. Home for dinner. This P.m. father, Joseph & I made calls on the sick - Mr. & Mrs. Wysong and daughter. Mr. and Mrs. Slagel and family, Mr & Mrs. Smith & family, Mr. and Mrs. Dan Singer. Home for evening tasks. Ernest, Vera, Jimmie here this evening. Monday, April 11. Still sizzling, sozzling, drizzling rain all this A.M. clearing this P.M. almost to brightness, anyhow to lightness. Decided to post pone the washing. Had the regular dail ......
Between the Storms
In between storms we have been working on projects in and around the house. The yard needed a major clean up and we have been making new garden beds.These are our yard work rockers. Inside I have been sewing curtains and doggie collars. The girls collars were very worn and I have been needing to take the time to sit down and make new ones. Here is Bernadette's new collar and as you can see the green one above was completely worn out. It lasted for several years. The large magnolia tree next door shares some of it's limbs and flowers on our side and I absolutely love them. I cannot wait until they are all open and the fragrance is wonderf ......
The Diary of Sarah March 27 - April 9, 1932
I started posting Sarah's diary on December 28, 1922. I took a little pause during some health issues but I am getting the diary postings back on track with this diary posting.In Sarah's writings she addresses her husband as Father. Many people did this in the past, when children address their father as Father often their mother will start addressing her husband as Father. Even though we have ended the great depression study and moved to living a simple old fashioned life, I want to finish this diary of Sarah because it is a great diary to learn how it was to work hard and live during the great depression years. Sarah and her husband live in Ohio. They have a ......
The Walking Flower
First off I would like to say that we are okay here where we live, storms have been very severe this past week in the southeast part of the country and they are continuing into this week. I took this picture yesterday as the storms had pushed away and the clouds were beautiful.I have continued to sort and organize and some things that were boxed up I am actually unboxing. Less stored and if it is not something that makes us happy then it goes away. I decided to lay out some doilies and things I have of my mother's and put them on top of the sewing machine which used to be her machine. She loved music boxes so these two music boxes bring me happiness. Her crystal pitch ......
Tuesday Post organizing and thrifting
I am winding down on my organizing. I hope to be finished by the end of this week and I should have the back guest room/sorting room finished as well. This has been a long project because I do many different types of hand work. The cleaning out of the old wood shop and storage building set us back because that required so much sorting. As soon as warmer weather gets here we spend a few days off and on at the Myrtle. Charles still visits Madge each Friday and takes her groceries. I was in and out to the clothesline yesterday and I had an interesting visitor.A hawk came for a visit here in the backyard. I went in and got my bigger lens for the cam ......
Peek Week Saturday
This was a busy day today. I finally cleaned the chandelier. I will take you along for the cleaning journey.It was so dirty! The floor dust probably did part of it but it has been overdue.So each round cup with crystals went into the bowl of shame to be washed.Then into the rinse...Ouuueeee... I love sparkly. See, this is just like everything it is just getting it started and then we are glad we did.I used a old art brush because I didn't want the glass to cut my fingers. Moving along...Now I have to get to the upper and lower crystals that are attached. Some fall off but I just put them back on when it is hanging.To get to these I just hold a bowl under them ......
Peek Week Friday
Getting the house put in better order is slow because many other things to do outside This is normal though, each of us is just one person. If our day is already busy it can be difficult to make room for something else to do and sometimes that requires putting something off until another day.This chair coordinates better in our bedroom since we put all brown furniture in the bedroom after the remodel. Our girls (our doggies) sleep in our room so they have a night time water bowl in the bedroom. We will see if using the portiere's at the doorways will help with cooling this summer. It helped this winter by directing the heat to the rooms that we were using or k ......
Peek Week Wednesday and Thursday
Charles and I both feel like we cannot catch up since the time change. We have lost an hour of sleep with the time change because we cannot seem to get our bedtime straightened out. When we change our clocks, we check our fire smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Then when we get up high might as well look for cobwebs and get them while we are at it. Remember our baby seedlings that I was putting in the window ledge? I planted them on January 19 & 20. This was only a few weeks later I took this photo above. Well, they have grown a lot since then. This is the same tomato seedlings. They have been outside basking in 80 plus degree temperat ......
Peek Week Tuesday
Yesterdays Post I talked about finishing up and starting to put the furniture back in the bedroom. I am re-arranging and swapping out furniture as I go. So I am putting the wash stand here. I painted this piece last year. We started putting the other pieces of furniture in the room. I decided to put all of our brown pieces together and the white pieces together in the guest rooms. But what this has done is I have had to take everything out of every piece of furniture. Oh the stuff!This brings us to the dresser, my dresser from when I was a child. If you have ever heard the saying, if only this piece could talk, well this one can by using my ......
They forgot to send the memo
It is late winter here but the flowers do not seem to understand this, they say that it is spring. They must have not seen the memo from the Groundhog. Since the leaves have come out on the apple tree, I wonder if this will become an apple on this branch? Our young tree presented us with one very delicious apple last year. We hope for more this year. Do you think this is a good house? Asks, Mrs. Bluebird. Seems like Mr. Bluebird has different ideas. Do you think the landlord will sturdy up this house? I'll go ask! Looks like it is not just the trees and flowers that think spring will be here soon. I have been quite a ......
Adjusting to changes
Since my last post about leaving the great depression study and moving to settling down somewhere between 1947 & 1965, I have kept moving back and forth to what I want to do and where to land so to speak. It is not a simple thing for me to stop doing studies of different era's in history and just organize and decide what style is best for our home. Most people choose a style for their home or a feeling of how they like it. Even though I lived all of the years of the 1950s I found myself searching through the microfilms of the fifties this past week. As I thought about this, I have never been drawn to modern styles. After being in the studi ......
The Diary of Sarah February 28, through March 26, 1932.
Even though I have ended the great depression study and moved to living a simple life resembling the 1948 -1965 years, I want to finish this diary of Sarah because it is a great diary to learn how it was to work hard and live during the great depression years. Sarah and her husband live in Ohio. They have a busy life, Sarah a housewife, involved with her church and activities and she is also a local news contributor for their community. Her husband she calls Father, is a farmer. They have five grown children, two sons and three daughters. A total of 14 grandchildren at the time of this diary. Their son Joseph, his wife and children live in another hou ......
Going Back to Basics in a different way.
Some of you have seen this picture before of my brother. We are 14 months apart born in the 1940s. I am making a big change on my blog and I want to explain. I am going back to basics and basically going home to a time my past. A more simple part of my lifetime. My Brother, my father and myself. I have decided to discontinue the 1930s Great Depression Study, it is not meant for me to do this study. I tried three years ago and Covid began that year and I had to drop the study. The second week of starting the great depression study this year, Charles and I both came down with covid and we have had a difficult time getting over it. ......
The Diaries of Rose and Emma February 16 - 22, 1932 & 1933
The year 1932. Rose is a thirty five year old school teacher in a country school. She is unmarried and lives at home with her parents and family in a rural area in the state of Iowa. Rose has not been teaching and is helping with the house and farm work.We ended last weeks diary reading with this post. Monday, February 15. Helen baked bread. Misty a.m. quite good P.M. Thompson out to work on coup. Bill Corwin and Floyd down in eve. Sewed. Now we continue with the new readings for this week.Tuesday, February 16, 1932. Cloudy, Rainy P.M. and evening. Down to McFaddens to play cards. Started to snow and froze up. Se ......
The Diary of Sarah February 21 - 27 1932
We continue the Diary of Sarah. Sarah and her husband live in Ohio. They have a busy life, Sarah a housewife, involved with her church and activities and she is also a local news contributor for their community. Her husband she calls Father, is a farmer. They have five grown children, two sons and three daughters. A total of 14 grandchildren at the time of this diary. Their son Joseph, his wife and children live in another house on the same land as Sarah and her husband and Joseph farms with his father. The other four children live on their own farms. We left off last week with Sarah's last post. Saturday, February 20, 1932. &nb ......
False Spring
We have entered into a time that we call false spring. We leave behind freezing temperatures and go into this wonderful warm weather only to return back to the freezing temperatures. It will dip it's toe back down to frosts and freezes and then back up into the 60 degrees and then even seventies this week and hold that temperature long enough to force some plants out of their winter dormancy. I am even seeing the insects and gecko's stretching their bodies in the warm sunshine. But winter is not over.Here where we live it is common to see our camellias in full bloom this time of year but too early for our fruit trees and for several years now the fruit trees have bloomed to ......
Diary of Rose and Emma February 9 - 15, 1932 & 1933
The year 1932. Rose is a thirty five year old school teacher in a country school. She is unmarried and lives at home with her parents and family in a rural area in the state of Iowa. Rose has not been teaching and we are thinking they have possibly closed her school. We are not sure of the reason why, many states, counties and cities have been having problems paying salaries during the great depression, there is also very bad flu at this time as well as scarlet fever. The diary of Rose is a simple diary a bit like the diary of Bob and Lil. It is still part of history and we can get hints of home life during this time.We continue our readings of this diary.Tue ......
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