Scrapbooking

About a decade ago my mother in law gave me  two scrapbooks that were created by one of Rick’s relatives on his father’s side of the family.   At the time I stored them away, not being overly impressed with the contents and crude archival techniques. 

I was searching through an old box last week and found them, wrapped in a vegetable bag (probably not the best storage practice) and pulled them out to take another look at them.

One of them is full of picture plates from old books or cut out of magazines.  There are poems either painstakingly typed out or, again, cut out of magazines.   The other is more like a binder full of newspaper and magazine articles. 

The top scrapbook is more interesting to me now because I do love my ephemera and the book is chock full of it.  The second one is kind of fascinating because it paints a picture of the woman who created it.  The topics that were important enough for her to save decades of articles on the subject. 

I gather Madelin Hebb Paulin was a lifelong teetotaler.

She was also a frugal woman.  Both scrapbooks were created using old catalogs as the base.  One from the Buick & Sherwood Mfg. Co – a fact she documents in the inside cover (pic above).   Madelin & Victor Paulin had a son named Wayne that was married to Rose Sherwood.  Victor Paulin worked at the Buick & Sherwood Mfg. Co. (evidenced by his name being stamped on the cover of the catalog – perhaps he was a salesman for the company).

She also clipped dozens of articles on the dangers of premarital sex.  Each topic having its own section in the second scrapbook.  The rest of the book is full of articles about various politicians and clippings from the House & Garden section of the local newspaper.  She did appreciate a nicely built house.

The first scrapbook is devoted to the arts – and is full of beautiful pictures cut from magazine from the 20’s and 30’s. 

I’m going to have to carefully scan some of the images.  There are some wonderful photographs of women from the early 1900’s

She really wanted to capture a time and place that was genteel and lovely.  Looking through these books makes me wildly curious about the woman that made them.   Was her home and life a reflection of images she carefully cut out or were her scrapbooks just the hopeful longings of a young woman.