If I could choose a superpower it would be Time Travel. Among other history I’d love to witness (which includes everyday life, not just big events), I’d really like to meet some of my great-grandparents. I have some letters they wrote to one another while courting, between 1898 and 1902, when they finally married. He was a CPA in Alabama who worked for a timber company, and did a fair bit of traveling by horse and wagon. She was a school teacher in Mississippi who was earning wages to put her brother through medical school. For years he begged her to set a date, and for years she put him off. Only single women were allowed to teach. Eventually her brother finished school and became a fine country doctor, calling on his patients by horseback. My great grandmother agreed to a wedding date, and she and her mother sewed her wedding dress of white satin, and her trousseau. His father, a locally famous and well respected pastor from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, married the couple. They set up housekeeping in Mobile, Alabama, where I was eventually born. I love the reports of their daily activities, the tenderness, the private jokes, the teasing, and even the jealousy that comes across in their letters. I wish I could meet them, in their time, and see their sepia world in full color. If I could choose any place to live in the world, it would be London. The city has SO much history and is rich in culture, art, and architecture. I could spend the rest of my life in London and traveling around England and never learn everything I wanted to about its history. I have visited four times, and I never leave without promising to come back. If I could choose to do anything for a day? Time Travel in England, of course! But I’d need a heckuva lot more than a DAY! My favorite toy as a child was my Barbie Doll collection. I had a cheap ‘look-alike’ for a long time before my parents bought me a real Barbie. My collection started off with the Malibu dolls, and grew. I loved dressing them and setting up rooms for them all around my bedroom or the den – or even the driveway – and posing them in the rooms. I made clothing and furniture for them. Every birthday and Christmas I wanted Barbie stuff. When I was 14 my mother told me to get rid of them or pack them up. I couldn’t bear the thought of getting rid of them so I put them all in a trunk, which I opened as an adult and began collecting again. My new purchases began with the Twist N Turn Mod look dolls – the ones from the 1960s with ‘real’ eyelashes. My collection grew. And grew. And grew some more, until I had expanded my collection to the earliest dolls and the latest box dolls. But the Twist N Turn Barbies are still my favorites, even if they are all packed up! On the topic of collections – I have several collections of widely varied things. I need to distribute, sell, or dispense with most of the things I have collected, as they are just taking up space. Apart from the Barbie doll collection which ended up way out of all logical proportions, I collected alligators and crocodiles. Not real ones of course, but decorative ones, plush ones, toy ones, and even a couple of useful ones such as oven mitts. I have since decided it’s okay to like alligators and crocodiles without owning their likenesses in so many forms! When I was a child I collected small ceramic and glass animals. I still have a few, but I donated some to charity. I have a collection of Nancy Drew books I can’t yet part with. I have a collection of craft supplies that is screaming to be thinned out - again. I have a collection of books about my favorite town in England – THAT’S not going anywhere, lol. They stay right here in my desk hutch. I have a collection of DVDs and CDs that have been thinned out once or twice but probably could use it again. And I have a collection of Board Games that I love and play often. Those, at least, are getting some use!
To finish off we would love to share some of Elizabeth's Market Cross' favorite layouts:
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