Calendars from the past

This morning the oil man came, and I found between the doors not only the bill, but also a 2010 calendar. It got me thinking about my childhood when our house was full of calendars given out by local businesses. I don't ever remember my mother buying one. I'm so happy to still have two of these old calendars with her well-remembered handwriting.

This one came from the drycleaners, in the days when the dry-cleaner man stopped by the house to pick up and deliver the week's cleaning. It had just one little picture glued in at the top with these words beside it. As the months rolled on, there were informational pages for each one.



Here's a closeup of the February 1963 page. You may see a faint circle around my 15th birthday, and that I noted an upcoming haircut. It's hard to believe that's my handwriting since I have printed for so many decades now.


And then there were the mostly one-function calendars, like this one which came from the milkman. Those are my mother's words on the side: August 1 - Apron to guild sale.


On these pages were written the deliveries for each day. In this leap year, on the 29th, my mother bought '3 qt m and 1 pt c' - 3 quarts milk and 1 pint cream. And she had just bought 4 quarts of milk and 1 pint of cream two days before. Ah, the days of milk drinking! Well, we still do drink this much but most people don't. Each month had a page of recipes, of course all calling for milk products, along with milk information.

about two thirds of our butter is made from milk produced in months when the cow's feed is largely green grass. This summer butter is extremely rich in Vitamin A value. Its full flavor and food value are retained in refrigerated storage for winter use in every delicious way.

And here's the one which arrived today. Though the photography is modern, it is still quite typical. If you live in New England, you often get a calendar with photographs from each state. This is one thing which hasn't changed much over the years.


Nowadays, this is the only calendar that arrives at our house. For a long, long time I've thrown it out in favor of calendars of English gardens or Irish scenes or dogs or Susan Branch, but this year I'm feeling a little wistful and nostalgic and I think I'll keep it. I'll still put up my Susan Branch calendar by my desk but I think I'll put this one up in the kitchen as a reminder of the days when my kitchen was the heartbeat of my childhood home. The calendar, the wall phone, the memo pad were all together keeping track of milk deliveries, and haircuts, and dropping that apron off at the guild sale.

After I wrote this, I found myself thinking of a post which Beth did. Although it isn't about old calendars, it is about remembrance and family keepsakes. If you haven't already read it, you may find it here. It is really very special.