May 1947

This Model Mother could write a book

IDEAS from a relaxation room

Among Ourselves

There's Always Tomorrow--Our dog editor, Russ Lowry, became interested in dogs some 25 years ago. He had a chance to buy an Irish Setter pup for $25. He did. One year later, Mickey (registered as Michael Bonnie Boyne) was entered in a Chicago dog show, competing against 40 of the country's best. He was judged Winner's Male Best of Winners, and was just nosed out for Best of Breed! Lowry was offered $1,000 for the dog--and turned it down.

It's NEWS to Me!

Cotton rugs as modern as tomorrow may be seamed together with iron-on tape for odd-shaped rooms or around heavy furniture. Seams are invisible; sections come apart for laundering. Firm construction and variety of colors make for comfort and beauty anywhere in the house. Checker pattern shown comes in wide range of sizes for interesting arrangements.

A Garden

EVERY child should have a little garden all his own. Let it be close enough to the big folks' garden so that he will feel secure, squatting on his haunches there, becoming intimate with clods and angleworms. But let it be far enough that he may learn the utter loveliness of grubbing the ground alone.

New Under the Sun

New, more sensitive chemical tests have shown that there's enough poison in one drop of DDT solution to kill a quarter million flies. Newest fly-killing job for DDT is the mushroom industry. There'll be many more mushrooms for steak dinners. Unless controlled, flies often ruin salabilty of three out of every five mushrooms.

The Earth Can Heat Your Home

I SAW something new in home heating a few days ago. I visited a two-story frame house in St. Louis. It was being warmed with heat pumped out of the ground.

GROWING PAINS

I shall never forget how my wonderful grandmother relieved me of my greatest childish fear, the thought of dying.

Can You Find the Seams?

Little Tables to Hold a Lot

New Chairs

Like a New Car

Tough little giants

70 Years a Crusader

IN THE 1947 Who's Who there's a man you may never have heard of unless you're a garden lover. Yet recording what this man has done for the world takes 6 inches, as much space as Who's Who devotes to Robert Taft, Thomas Dewey, and Henry Wallace put together.

How Does Your Home Look?

Decorations for Your Table

USE your table decorations for everyday family enjoyment. They create precious memories and help build family taste and culture. A harmonious table gives a man, his family and guests a sense of well-being and turns the simplest meal into a lovely occasion. Decorative accessories are the eye-catching center of interest that tie your furnishings together and give your table character. If your budget and storage space are limited, select dual-purpose items usable thruout the home-- on mantel, desk, console, and buffet as well as for table decor.

Clapboard Cottage Adopts Modern

We Built It!

"YES," we assure our visitors, "we really built the house ourselves." Then we hastily add, from a stroke of conscience, "...except we did have a contractor lay the asphalt-and-gravel roof."

These Make a Dining Room Worth Having

By Highway--Banff to Jasper

IT DOESN'T matter how you arrive, by train or bus, by airplane, or in your own car. Somewhere on your trip thru the Canadian Rockies you find yourself making connections, seeing the sights, even hiking along the Banff-Jasper Highway.

Bargains in Quick Bloom

Zinnias. Choose the dahlia-flowered varieties for the biggest blobs of color-- to 5 and 6 inches! For back rows of a new border, pick California Giants with blooms as wide, and almost as deep, as the dahliaflowered class. Buy a packet of Fantasy type for their curled and twisted petals. These and the big fellows in lovely soft shades listed as the David Burpee zinnias are "must-haves" for cutting.

Is One Bedroom All You Need?

FOR some people, one-bedroom homes just aren't practical. You can't bring up children properly in too small a space.

Extra Storage Space

What Would Grandma Say!

Kitchen Problems With Pretty Answers

Pillsbury's BEST

The Best Way to Freeze Sliced Strawberries

PICK choice, red-ripe, best-to-eat berries; work with speed and care; package properly. And you can have strawberries and cream and strawberry shortcake-- the real thing-- next winter.

The Best Way to Freeze Asparagus

IF YOU'VE cut the first tender asparagus shoots as they poked up thru a spring garden, cooked them briefly, then eaten them with fresh melted butter or rich cream sauce, you know asparagus at its best. That's the asparagus you're trying to capture for your freezer.

The Merry-Go-Round

(Backward John was so backward that even the story about him had to be written backward. Read it upward from the bottom of the page.)

So Your Kids Aren't Stokowskis!

JOHNNY ROGERS wants to play trombone. But because his Aunt Talitha willed him her violin, Johnny's mom is determined he'll play it if he literally busts an A-string. Why, she asks, spend all that money for an old trombone, when Aunt Talitha's fiddle has hardly got a scratch on it? And. besides, think how Aunt Talitha would feel!

Rockaby Bassinet

Fool the Moths!

STORING woolens safely against moths, protects a large investment of precious dollars and shopping hours. First kill any existing moths by washing or dry cleaning, sunning and brushing, fumigating. Then keep new moths out by sealing woolens in a tight chest, closet, or taped garment bag. The efficient Mrs. at work below shows you exactly how. Read about her foolproof anti-moth methods. She helps you select your storage spot, suggests right fumigant for each need.

Don't Let Moisture Rot Your Walls

DURING cold weather, moisture collects under siding or shingles and freezes there. With the return of warm weather, this ice melts (see above). The water, gathering pigment and dirt, runs out between joints leaving unsightly coffee-colored streaks.

Do You Like Your Name?

CHILDREN outgrow their clothes. They progress in school and eventually earn their own livings. In time, most of them marry and have families. Yet thru all these changes, one thing remains with them to their dying day. That is their given name.

An Old Salt Goes West

LIKE many couples who build their own homes, George and Evalyn Timby of Amarillo, Texas, chose the Cape Cod style. Thus they brought a touch of New England to the broad plains of the Texas Panhandle.

Report Card for Parents

EVER stop to think, parents, that what you do at home has lots to do with son's or daughter's success at school? In this third quiz in the series (Helping Child Socially, March, 1947; Home Relationships, April, 1947), our noted authorities on young people's problems check you to see whether you are being a help or a hindrance to teacher.

WE GOT A Library Into a Closet

Bless the Little Cup Hook

MY HUSBAND insists I should own a controlling interest in at least one cup hook factory, considering the number of hooks I've bought in the last six years. But he admits cup hooks really are a neat and simple way to keep your small utensils in place.

How to PAINT

That DEADLY Extension Cord

NOT long ago, a homemaker in Memphis was cleaning a mattress. The vacuum cleaner was served by a faulty extension cord. To get more freedom of movement, she picked up the cord, at the same time touching a metal part of the bed.

Husbands Have Things to Think About

DO YOU sometimes suspect that your husband is not thinking about what you are saying to him? You have probably suspected it before as he tries politely to keep up the appearance of listening while attempting to go on with his own thoughts.

Early Sunbaths for Baby

How to Use a Tinker's Dam

OH, YOU like to tinker! Well, string along with me then. You may learn something. Then again, you may not. So let's begin.

DOLLAR STRETCHERS

The Cave Man's Buddy Is Still Man's Pal

MOST people take a dog as they find him. Cute? Sure! Lovable? You said it! Faithful? And how! They'll bestow a friendly pat on a dog-- even say a few kind words to him, on occasion. And that about sums up man's relationship to his pet these days.

Christmas Contest Opens Now!

OUR Christmas Cooks' Contest opens now. We have $70 ready for your leftover Turkey and Fowl Dishes and for your Gala Holiday Puddings. First prize of $10 and magazine tribute go to our December Cook-of-the-Month; $3 goes to each of the 20 contender cooks.

A Nickel Plus a Nickel

WHEN your babies are tiny, it is hard to think ahead to the day they will become grownups. Yet this is the time to start savings accounts for them and plans for financing their higher education. A reader, Mrs. Marjorie G. Gerhardt of Rutherford, New Jersey, describes her method of saving for her children.

MAY GARDEN GUIDE

MAY is last-minute time for transplanting evergreens. After the new growth gets 2 inches long, you'll have to wait until the summer heat slows growth enough to make the shoots firm enough again.

How to Pick Strawberries

THE DIARY OF A Plain Dirt Gardener

May 1 Donald, with strange enthusiasm, cultivated the peonies again with the garden tractor. David failed to do any more lawn mowing but vows he is inventing a gadget to repair the clutch on the power mower.

The truth about moles!

WHEN your lawn is crisscrossed with mole runs, it's little comfort to know that the mole is a useful fellow, that bugs, beetles, cutworms, spiders, and grubs constitute the main items of his diet, or that a mole in a single day may eat more than his own weight in pests.

How to Kill Ants

KITCHEN, lawn, or picnic variety-- bite- or king-size, ants are a nuisance. But whatever the type, squashing or swatting the worker ants-- those you see outside the nest --doesn't affect the queen or the new brood unless so many workers are killed that the colony starves.

You're Not Crazy if You Don't Want a New House!

SOME of them have come right out with it. Some hesitate to whisper it lest it be taken as the first implication of a psycho-disturbance. I mean the people who don't want a new house.

Cook to Cut Food Costs

BAKE one-crust pies to save shortening. Just before serving your open- face cherry pie, top it with cottage cheese, or softened /cream cheese pressed thru a pastry tube. Cover your baked peach pie with combined chopped nuts, cinnamon, and a little sugar, or a layer of flavored whipped cream.

Helps Around the House

Cane rakes that have lost their bite can be retoothed readily and made to last for years. Soak ends of cane in water overnight. Then heat underside of canes gently, about 1 inch or more from worn end, and bend the tooth down with pliers, holding tightly until cane cools.-- Michael G. A. d'Amico, Hoboken, New Jersey.

THE MAN NEXT DOOR

"I'd vowed to build my outdoor oven in May," says Les Gowan, broiling a bot dog over the small gas burner of his kitchen stove. "But now I think I'll try it out as a mobile oven this summer, to find out which way the wind blows."