Two Pictures

I had a great time at the show and am now in the throes of unpacking and putting models away. Unfortunately I have a lot of numbness and weakness in my right hand this morning and it is difficult to type. The blog post(s) about the show will have to wait until my hand is better.

So, here's a sneak peek to tide us over until then.

My sister Leslie was delighted to see that her one of her favorite carpet herd pieces was on the show table. (She gave me her carpet herd years ago and I brought Old Maude to surprise her), 

and, a photo of some farm field artwork near Chenoa, Illinois. I didn't take this picture, but I have driven by this field - it's quite a fun sight!

Fingers crossed for tomorrow - stay 'tooned!

A Surprise at Thanksgiving

As Thanksgiving Day wound down, I decided to end the day by going through a box of my mother's papers and photographs. She was a historian who knew the value of those old photographs, papers, and documents, and I never know what I am going to find. 

Horse lover that I am, it is always a delight to discover old photos of horses like this one.

I'd never seen this horse before and wondered why its photo was in with my mother's things. My guess was that it might be connected to my great aunt, Clara Honeywell Canady. She and her husband farmed in nearby Watseka, Illinois, and my mother had been very close to her.

I flipped the photo to see if anything was written on the back. I was right.

"Old Maude - had her all the years on the farm that we used horses. Taken possibly 1942-3 in our drive way. Fern - Aunt Clara 1965." (I love that you can see the rise of mechanization with the reference to "all the years we used horses.")

And then another photo - on its back was simply written "Fern and Maude." My mom looks about 13, so this photo is from around 1941. And what a sweet looking mare. I am guessing she is a Percheron.

But there was another reason that I found these photos so intriguing. I have a china horse from childhood named Old Maude.

Old Maude originally belonged to Leslie and she was the one who named her. I have always thought the name was really odd, and when you take into consideration that Leslie was 6 or 7 when she named this piece, it is not the name a child normally thinks of.

Now I know. No doubt our mom suggested the name to her, remembering Maude from her girlhood. And that speaks to me of the relationship my mother and my great aunt had with Maude. Because cameras and film development were so expensive in the 1940s, people usually took photos of family and friends although taking take a photo of a girl on a horse would not have been too unusual.

But to take a photo of the horse all by herself? Old Maude had to have been a special, beloved horse. And that makes me glad that her name and memory continue on through a little "glass" horse in my china cabinet.