Welcome to my blog. May I ask if you like museums? If so, you will like it here. My older brother once remarked, “Your house is like a taking a stroll through time.” Point taken. As newlyweds on a shoestring budget, my husband, Pete, and I piece mealed our home décor with distressed mid-twentieth century furniture purchased at auction; a hall tree, a hutch, an icebox, a dough table and mis-matched bedroom sets. Eight years and $800 later a 1942 Dodge Power Wagon followed Pete home like a new puppy. A restoration project he rationalized at the time. A truck he believed our eight-month-old son would drive when he turned sixteen. Top speed 45mph.

The snap of a 35mm Canon Sure Shot camera captures a 1990 moment.

As a new mother, a wise soul once confided in me, “Children are your mark in time.” Every parent eventually comes to understand that universal truth. Then, as the generations that precede us pass, we wake up to the fact the line to the hereafter is suddenly shorter. That’s how it works.

Brides of 1941 reminds us of the elasticity of time. It is a case study that reveals the words, thoughts, deeds and actions of a sampling of twentieth century American families. To quote this letter from my mother to my father: I got the full force of your ideas for the future – one of social justice, equality, and democracy for all, which I never had applied specifically before… Here is a tremendous field for work, dearest.

Nearly eighty years later, how it can be so many fellow Americans and members of the U.S. Congress still question the equality of basic human worth?

My muse? Just when did America get so messy?

I can’t answer it yet, but I have faith our divided country will do better if only because of our children leading with social conscience and scientific fact.

What we know of the Greatest Generation, and world freedoms they fought for, is worth preserving. From letters fashioned into this story we remember our America.  And in the restoration of militaria that lived through the action, we will never forget.

A Power Wagon restored, June 2018