Eula Lee White

Since this is White Wednesday, I figured that I would feature my great-grandmother, Eula Lee White. She is the reason why my middle name is "Lee". I never met her, but my father loved her dearly. When she gave birth to my grandmother she was very premature so Dr. Matlock just wrapped her up, put her in a little box and kept her next the oven. My grandmother grew into a beautiful woman. A few years after my great-grandfather passed away, Eula Lee married Dr. Matlock, who was a widower. My grandmother was always full of medical advice and I think it was due to Dr. Matlock. Eula Lee was quite the "beauty and health" consultant, advising to scrub callouses with corn meal, never pluck your eye brows too thin because someday they will not grow back, and a cup of warm water in the morning is good for the digestive system. Wish I had known her.

Milk glass for bananas

This is one of my favorite milk glass pieces. It is for bananas, I think. At least when I have bananas this is where I put them, just as my mother did some thirty years ago.

My White Milk Glass Collection

Here is part of my milk glass collection. A friend has posted some of her beautiful pieces and I find that she loves it as much as I do. So was this so collectable in our mothers' day as McKenzie-Childs is now? I do believe Avon got into the act and frankly I now realize I need to do a little research about these beautiful dishes, containers, platters and such.

Fishing with my father

My Godchild wrote on her blog today about her husband taking their little girl fishing with a "real" fishing pole. It reminded me of my father taking my sister and me fishing with him. There were no cute fishing poles for children in those days so my father would cut a stalk of cane, add a long piece of kite string to it, tie a huge safety pin to it and ... now if you have a delicate system you might not want to read this part... hook a horned toad to it. (Actually we called them "horny toads".) My father had figured out that if he kept us busy then he could fish in peace... for awhile. We never caught anything but we were amazed at how quickly the horned toad went to horned toad heaven. I was probably five and my sister was four. Glad our two brother came along later so my father had some fishing buddies.

My mother, Rosemary

Rosemary DePasquale Boykin had a father who insisted that it was important to "leave your mark". I think my mother was determined to do this and worked at it until the day she left this world, June 15, 2008. Graduating from high school at the age of 16 and starting college at SMU in Dallas at that same age was a major accomplishment. My mother majored in biology and art and minored in German. Her desire was to translate German scientific reports and possibly be a medical artist. What she ended up doing after graduation and marriage was washing test tubes for 60 cents an hour in a lab on the Texas A&M Campus. Later though she was hired to work in the Oceanography and Meterology Department at A&M and worked with oceanographers who had been deeper in the ocean than any man. She actually wrote her first book while working there and was studying the currents in the Gulf of Mexico. It was all a far cry from being a wife and a mother of four children... which she also was. She definitely left her mark... and that was only the beginning for her.

Hobo Party

Theme parties were fun back in the fifties. My girl friends and I (that's me with the "beard" and hat on the back row) all dressed up like we were a hobo. Of all things. But had a great time. It was another one of my birthday parties. My mother served beanie "weanie" stew and we ate out of coffee cans.

Two years ago was our high school class of '66 reunion and I rekindled some of these friendships. So much fun. Most of these young girls are grandmothers now. The little boy in the picture is my brother who is seven years younger. Couldn't leave him out. lol