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@graveyarddirt

Girl dressed as Motanka - Oksana Onysko

The Motanka is a traditional doll used as an amulet in Ukrainian culture, dating back thousands of years possibly to the Cucuteni–Trypillia culture. It represents the unity between ones family and ancestors - once also believed to be a vessel of the ancestors of the person who possessed it. It was also viewed as a tool that helped protect a person from the evil eye and curses, and that the person creating it could project powers into it based on what they were thinking at the time. The Motanka is created faceless with a cross covering its head, as Ukrainian folk believe claimed that etching a face onto it could drain a living spirit into it.

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I finished this one 9 years ago today

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Hagging Out: Veneration

Great-Grandma Hazel has been on my mind a lot this Thanksgiving weekend.  We used her china at Mom’s dinner and while tracking down the pattern to answer a question from @hrusewif I started looking for an old photo of my great grandparent’s wedding and stumbled on her recipe for poppy seed torte.  So I decided that since she seemed to be reaching out to me I’d spend some quality time with Great-Gran.  I went ahead and made the poppy seed torte and after lighting a candle and some incense I moved into the other room and had a cozy, informal sit down with her over a cup of tea (this time for real the very last teaspoonful of Russian caravan, I actually threw the packaging away this morning) in one of her old china cups (pattern: Homer Laughlin “ferndale”), and a slice of the torte.

Transcript from an article I wrote over a decade ago:

John Marlow and Hazel Caldie Marlow on their Wedding Day in 1912

After I got off the phone with Mom and then my maternal grandmother (“Granny”) this Mother’s Day morning, I was thinking about food–as you know I often do. Go figure! Several years ago I was reading a book about ethnic food traditions in America and the foods we inherit through our mothers. I remember quizzing Mom and Granny to death on the foods that they both grew up on. I have tons of notes somewhere that I took, probably buried with my genealogy stuff that is a come and go hobby, but some of the things I remember them talking about was the huge gardens (Granny was raising twelve kids on Grandpa’s small salary) and all the potatoes down in the cellar, about night-time smelt runs, and kolaches, the Friday fish fries at Grandpa Thibodeau’s ice cream parlour, and my mom’s paternal Grandma Hazel Marlow’s frosting–which was evidently something amazing.

Great-Grandpa Thibodeau’s ice cream parlour (in an earlier incarnation as a “confectionary store”) in Ashland, WI. Pictured are his brother William and sister Gertrude, circa 1910. My Granny, Lorraine Thibodeau Marlow, grew up in the above apartment.

You may have gathered from the above description that my Mother’s family is not from the South! Mom is mostly descended from French Canadians who immigrated to Wisconsin at the turn of the century. Except that my Great-Grandfather married a half Scottish lady (the other half, of course, was Canadian French), Hazel Caldie, whose grandfather Thomas Caldie had hacked their farm out of the wilderness in 1862 near what would become Stiles, Wisconsin.

The extended Marlow family sometime in the twenties, probably on the farm (I think outside Denmark, Wisconsin). Grandma Hazel Caldie Marlow is circled, one of my great uncles is directly below her, the man above her is my Great-Grandpa John Marlow, and on his lap is another of my great uncles (my Grandpa wasn’t born yet). I believe the rather stern looking lady in the top row center is my great-great Grandma Marlow (doesn’t she just look like the matriarch of a farm family?), and the graying gentleman with the moustache and white shirt to the left is my great-great Grandpa Marlow.

I never did get the frosting recipe, but Mom managed to track down some of Grandma Hazel’s other recipes from my Great Aunt Bev, who still had an old recipe box of Grandma Hazel’s. My Aunt Mary requested this recipe, which she had childhood memories of:

Grandma Hazel’s Poppy Seed Torte

Ingredients:

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

¾ cup brown sugar

½ cup butter

½ cup poppy seed

½ cup sugar

6Tbls. flour

Dash of salt

2 cups milk

3 egg yolks

1t vanilla

3 egg whites

6 TB sugar

Directions:

Mix crumbs sugar & butter. Reserve ½ cup for topping.

Mix poppy seed, sugar, flour, salt & ½ cup milk to smooth paste.

Scald 1 ½ cups milk, add the flour mixture slowly.

Boil 5 minutes (turn the heat down if necessary)

Beat egg yolks & vanilla, add slowly to custard white stirring rapidly & cook five more minutes.

Cool.

Put the mixture of crumbs, brown sugar & butter in pyrex pan. Pour custard over. Beat egg whites stiff , add 6Tbls. sugar, beat until thick & holds peaks.

Put over top and sprinkle with crumbs. Bake 15 minutes at 325 degrees.

Like most of the family recipes from Wisconsin, this is not Scottish, or French Candadian, but Eastern European! Which, I always find rather amusing, since it is actually on my Dad’s side of the family (Nebraskan pioneers) that I’m descended in part from Moravia (the Tesars, Yuraceks, and Ludvics).  

One of my favorite pics of my great grandparents–what are they smiling about?

Great Grandma with one of my mom’s 8 brothers.

End Transcript

Doing research this morning I realized that what we thought was an Eastern European recipe is actually German, however it is very much a regional Midwest, especially Wisconsin, traditional favorite.

I’ve been told I look a lot like my Great-Grandma.  She, my mom, and I are tall ladies and all exactly the same height!

I really enjoyed going down this rabbit hole of memories and spending some time with my Great-Gran.  Thanks for hosting @graveyarddirt​ I know I’m early, but I wanted to get it all down while it was fresh.

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Bottom band more than half way complete.

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Bottom band more than half way complete.

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Happy Birthday!

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A cold front came through last night and I’m trying to decide whether it’s time to pack up the Dusicky altar now that Martinmas is past and bring out my Morana embroidery. (Photos from winter 2023/24).

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Ukrainian pattern book

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Currently my two favorite bands, Wunderhorse and Fontaines DC—just finished up their European tour.

Pooneh Ghana

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Björk as the Seeress in The Northman (d. Robert Eggers)

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My recreation of this 19th century Russian piece is coming along.

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I made my first fresh ginger gingerbread of the season! 🫚 🍊

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This is a Pattern book. It is dated 1760 and we (Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum) acquired it in 1961. Its medium is leather, paper, metal. It is a part of the Textiles department.

It is credited Museum purchase from Au Panier Fleuri Fund.

Explore the book on line here.

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