Week 14 - Brides Knot

This week's block is Bride's Knot, and the discussion was about how women, under British common law,  lost their property rights when they got married. Everything they owned or earned belonged to their husbands.  This practice ended in the U.S. by about 1900 as the states each passed legislation allowing married women to own property.

However, for my block I am continuing to celebrate my Grandparents' 99th Wedding anniversary a few days ago, and chose some fabrics that reminded me of my Grandmother's living room, as it was decorated in the late 60's and early 1970's.

My grandparents had moved off the Waterman farm into a bungalow with the front porch fully enclosed in windows, on Pierce Street in Elburn. Faye did all her own decorating, including the wallpapering. Although she used generally neutral colors, she had a large green leaf patterned area rug.  She chose the stylish Avocado Green and Harvest Gold for accents.  The leafy pattern of the darkest fabric in my block serves to remind me of the rug. The other fabrics I chose to use with it have ornate patterns accented with gold , which she also used tastefully.

Faye was a skilled needleworker.  Probably in the late 1960's, she crocheted a two-sided afghan for her front room. It was folded over the back of the Davenport - a common word for sofa for people of her age.  She continued to make this style of afghan, and give them as gifts even when she was losing her eye sight.  My sister has one in colors that went with her townhouse in the mid-late 1980's.  But I got the original one -

 

It has been used and washed over the decades but it is large and warm and we have it in our bedroom where we can put it over the covers on a chilly winter night.  I photographed the entire afghan here on my "Davenport."

Thinking about the Pierce Street bungalow, I wondered what it looks like today, and checked Google Maps.  Too bad the folks at Google have not taken their camera down Pierce Street, but I did enjoy seeing the overhead image. It's the light gray house in the center of the image. Someone has finished off the former attic space and created two bedrooms and an additional bath (I learned from a description of the property).  I don't remember any porch gable when my Grandparents owned the house.   I wonder if subsequent owners have also converted the porch into a regular room.  If they did, they probably don't know they could have grown amazing African violets there -  assuming they had Faye's talent with indoor plants.

I was interested to see the oval is still visible in the back yard. That is the concrete edging of a former croquet court.  Fielding used it for an extensive flower and vegetable garden.
 
Now I wonder if Joyce, current keeper of the family photos, has any pictures of Faye and Fielding's living room, in color? I'm pretty sure we have home movie footage of the beautiful sunken garden in the back yard.