Dearest Luise ,
Hope this day will be as Special as You are .
Sending love on your Birthday ,
May it be filled with sunshine and smiles , laughter and love .
Happy Birthday ...... :-* :-*
Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday Ms. Luise!!!
Happy Birthday to you.....and many morrreee!!!!!
You are wonderful and real. Enjoy your day!
Happy Birthday to a very WISE lady, who is loved and respected by a whole lot of wimmen around the world. Hope this is your very best one ever!!!!
Have a wonderful birthday :D Luise, you are an amazing role model, listener, & motivator. Thanks for all the love and support you've given us, and I hope you feel we give those back to you. May your new year be even more fulfilling and joyous!
Thanks! It is on March 9th...but I am going to save all your messages! ;D ;D ;D Kirk always comes well before my birthday, stays after it...and spoils me rotten! :-) And just before he leaves, he is taking me over the pass to visit Sonja for a week. My cup runneth over! "85 and still alive!" Whoa!
Luise, I will never forget your birthday (now that I found out when it really is), because March 9th is also my DH's birthday!
IMO, birthdays should last several days. We're just getting a head start on yours, Luise :)
Thank you. I was raised during the worst of the great depression. In a suburb of Detroit, so there was no garden or chickens to see us though. The only two days we ever got any kind of a gift were Christmas and birthdays and on Christmas everyone else got one. (Gifts were things like home made pajamas, etc.) We got new shoes in the fall when school started and hand-me-downs otherwise. So, the message I got was that of course the banks and post office must be closed as well, on March 9th...and it surely was a national holiday! LOL! The other big deal was we got to pick the menu for our birthday dinner...but that was safe...we never picked anything expensive because we had never eaten anything expensive. I always picked baked heart or tongue...which were free because the butcher threw them away. The magic of it all is still in my genes and 85 seems like a really impressive number! :-)))
I love reading about your life, Luise. Thanks for sharing your stories.
My mom's dad lost everything in the Depression and had to move west to start over. They didn't have money to spend on celebrations, but instead did special things for the kids that cost next to nothing. I always enjoyed hearing about those times.
Those times were the "norm" for us...and we didn't really question it. I had one birthday party in my entire childhood. I can still see the St. Patrick's Day decorations! It always felt like a miracle to me and I never gave a thought to having any more. The gifts that I got were not home home-made pajamas...and I can still recall and "feel" the wonder of it all! That was 80 years ago! My idea of a "rich kid" was someone who got to have hot lunches at school. They were .25 cents each and way beyond our means. When we had a really special day...my dad would bring home a candy bar and cut into five pieces. We loved that!:-)
Happy Birthday to a Great Lady.
Jill
oh holy moly this brought back memories! I also had only one b/d party in my life Luise, I remember it like it was yesterday! It was combined with my Christmas, 13th to be exact. I got to have a skating party, and I got a tartan plaid wool mini skirt and dyed to match pull over sweater, and little white go go boots. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. And no, I never expected to have another one now that you mention it. I never got b/d presents either. Mama always baked us a homemade cake, sometimes with candles and sometimes not. I never felt deprived. ....how things have changed! Happy happy birthday Luise! I laughed so hard about your comment re. being married five times. You have changed my life in so many ways. I'm sure we differ in our views on life in some ways, but I believe you have brought an element of freedom and release into my life for which I owe a debt that would be impossible to repay. many joys to you! I do love you!
Thanks so much! :-)
well, luise, 85 IS an impressive number!
but I'm making you wait till March 9 to wish you a happy one..... ;)
My grandmother (98) told me some whopper of stories that are really amazing to believe.....the things that you depression era peeps endured is too wild to make up..... I love hearing the stories of my grandmother's childhood/young adulthood. Even though some of it isn't very pretty....but the way she tells it makes one feel like I'm looking into a window at it all. The things we take for granted today, no one takes for granted who went through the depression.
We sat down at a table where a pure linen tablecloth and matching linen napkins complimented bone china, crystal goblets and sterling silver...and all there was to eat was water based soup. The linen was laundered every week in a tub with a scrub board and rung through a hand wringer for multiple rinses, then starched and hung out doors, even in the winter where it froze as stiif as a board, and then it was sprinkled and ironed. My mother, who had a college degree, worked like a mule. She darned our socks, and turned the collars on my father's shirts and replaced his worn pockets. But we had no concept of poverty...everyone was in the same boat.
I love that your mom made things the absolute best that she could and took pride in making things nice with pride for her family. I would have loved to see that table. It sounded so beautiful even if there was just soup to eat.....but "just soup" filled bellies. What a memory for you.
If you wrote a book about your growing up days, I would buy it. Seriously I would.
When the Great Depression hit it caused some weird juxtopositions like Luise's story of the table set for an elegant dinner that consisted only of soup. My GF left his ranch and headed west w/his family. They were totally broke but well-dressed and riding in a luxury vehicle. Unfortunately all of their fine home furnishings were left in a storage facility to be shipped later and were said to have been 'lost in a fire.' A few years later GF saw those same items in the home of the man who had been paid to care for them.
In the 1930s my mother (playfully) threatened to give me to the "rag man." He had a horse and buggy...(we lived in a lovely suburb of Detroit)...and drove down our street crying "Rags! Rags!" He fed his family that way...one of the original recyclers!
Ms. Luise,
My Grandparents all grew up on farms and didn't know they were poor during the depression. My GM said that she and my GA used to look forward to dinner on the ground at Church once a month. She said that her DM would fry chicken and carry and she and her DS would look for light bread and get some mayonnaise that someone had brought and they would hide behind the shrubs and eat all the light bread and mayonnaise that their tummies could hold.
I think I wrote here before that for very special occasions, my dad would buy a 5 cent candy bar and cut it in five pieces! We were thrilled!
And we had friends that gave us their Goodwill bags to go through before they were donated...and it was like Christmas! :D
Your day is here ! Have a Happy one with your Kirk , hugs all round ......xx
Yes, happy happy day Luise!
It's actually Friday. I used to call it "The March of the 9th" when I was really little. LOL!I'm putting my cards in the window. I do that with my Christmas cards, too. We, Kirk and I and five very close extended family members, are going to a nice place on the water. We live on Puget Sound which connects to the Pacific. :-)))
Refuses to do it until tomorrow..................
;D
Just realised we are sharing the same birthday. March 9th. Enjoy the day. :)
It's today! So happy official birthdays, Luise and Forever!!!
Dear Luise ...
Age is just a number , especially where you are concerned ...Forever Young !
have a lovely day .... :-*
FS - Well, I'll be darned! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Happy Birthday, Luise!!!
Happy Birthday today!!! Ms. Luise. It's your day and hope you have fun with your son! :)
And wouldn't we leave it up to me to build up to all the drama and then not get a chance to even log on and say it, ON her birthday!
So sorry Luise that I didn't get to say it Friday!
Happy of Happiest of Birthdays ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever ever.....................................
Thanks, Pooh! The meals out and the card keep coming. I think you were right in the first place...it's my birthMONTH! LOL!
Out with Kirk last night. A tea-birthday-party for me here on Wed. And Sat., starts my one-week stay with Sonja over on the other side of the mountains, with a late party for me combined with an early one for her! It just goes on and on! 85! Wow! :D :D :D
Happy Belated Birthday Dear Luise.
Love you
Dear Louise,
Happy belated birthday and may you have many, many more wonderful years.
Love,
Barbie.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Luise, I think of you as family now because as with everyone else in my family this year I was tardy to the party. I hope you had a wonderful day.
Hey, Pam, you made it in the same month with a week to spare! :D Thanks! For some reason...85 felt like a bench mark!