Home Ec and Cooking

Yes, for certain, home EC was offered for three years; grades seven, eight, and nine.

A reach for a year book from Thief River Falls picked, at random, the 1959 Prowler offers photos. The mission statement reads:

Future Homemakers strive to promote appreciation of joys, satisfaction, and the importance of homemaking and to develop an interest in community life. They are hoping send some of their members to the state convention in March and a summer camp. The money for the projects will be raised through bake sales and dues.

Anyone who has one year of home economics or is now enrolled in home economics may join the group. Meetings are held twice a month. One is these is a business meeting and the other is a program.

It appears there were a few students in the organization that were also 1962 graduates. I am hopeful these ladies' did learn something from meeting together and went on to be truly great seamstresses and cooks.

The yearbook states that Mrs. Pound was teaching ninth grade Home EC and Advanced Home EC.

Old Trunks doesn't remember much about two years of Home EC. A few things come to mind.

1. We were required to peel and section oranges and display them on a plate. We were NOT allowed to break the membrane and remove the seeds. THEN HOW??? How do you get the seeds out of a section of an orange without breaking the membrane? Did she teach us or was we suppose to know?

2. We made cookies. We had Home EC last period. Most of the kids in the group I was in were farm kids; we had to catch the bus. The bus driver would not be waiting because we were making cookies. I do believe, in this case, she did tell us how much batter to use for each cookie. But we doubled up and made monster size cookies to get things done, cleaned up, and make the bus. When she walked around and judged the cookies, she said ours were too big. I remember telling her we were farm kids, people who were doing the harvesting wanted a big cookie. We didn't get an F but we probably didn't get an A either. If there had been a jelly roll pan, we may have opted for bars!

What else did we do in Home EC? Darned if I know. I suspect we did a lot of reading about grooming, healthy foods, and attitudes. Maybe we talked about marriage and raising children. We were never certain if our teacher's husband ran off or died, we just know she was raising a male child alone. I came away with this concept:

"At the end of the day, husband is tired from a hard day at work. Put on a clean apron, fresh lipstick, and greet him at the door while supper is ready to put on the table".

The idea of healthy eating was a mute issue; Mother cooked and offered a balanced diet. I didn't need to read books and study nutrition. Segmenting oranges and making cookies was not my idea of learning to cook. I didn't cook at home, nor did I need to. I decided I would learn when I needed to and I have and can offer you an excellent meal for even the most discerning palette offered on a functional feng shui room with a beautifully set table.

As young teens, we needed to learn about life. Home EC could have been the best of classes. It could have offered us real meat for the times and uncovered those hush-hush subjects of the 1950's. It could have enlightened us; the teacher could have been a best friend.

Instead, the classes were based on old books with an old concept teacher. The mission statement to "promote appreciation of joys, satisfaction" did not appear to exist. It is a painful memory for me for the teacher to make a case against my best friend for wearing ill fitting clothes. She had no right to attack her in public for having a baggy skirt and comment on her hips and butt being too prominent to wear that sort of skirt. And on the next day, when the second half of the style show happened, and I wore my friend's clothes, I was not docked for baggy and big butted. The only good thing that came out of it was AY and I would change clothes in the bathroom and she wore mine until mother wondering why the seat of the skirt was stretched out and forced me to quit exchanging. AY and her sister wore each other's clothes all the time, it is not certain just who's derriere's print it was. We just know that wool shapes around you.

I read a newsletter recently. It was from Thief River Falls. A former student talked about his favorite teachers. He did not have Home EC; the teachers he mentioned where respected for their teaching abilities, they made the subject come alive.

Pass the spatula.

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