Anthropomorphic food in 1948 Children's Activities recipes

Children's Activities for Home and School was a large-size (10½ inches by 13½ inches) staplebound magazine published during the middle 20th century by Child Training Assocation Inc. of Chicago. It seems that "Fun in the Kitchen," edited by Louise Price Bell, was a regular feature that showcased recipes submitted by children. (The guidelines do stipulate: "No recipe will be accepted for publication, however, if it is not accompanied by Mother's statement" the the recipe has been checked for accuracy.)

The recipes in the January 1948 issue of the magazine are accompanied by cute illustrations of anthropomorphic food by Sonia Roetter. (For more about Roetter, check out the sleuthing done by Rachel for a 2017 post on The Wandering Bunny blog.) 

The recipes and illustrations are pictured below. For search engine purposes, they are:

• Scalloped Potatoes by Evelyn M. Gavin of Lindsay, Montana
• Bran Muffins by Robert Ann Edgcomb of Ottawa, Illinois
• Tossed Salad by Sally Glensky of Tarentum, Pennsylvania
• Icebox Pudding by Pete Beltemacchi of Chicago, Illinois
• Rice Krispies Cookies by Betsy Pierce of Bismarck, North Dakota

Previous posts featuring anthropomorphism:

• "It's Time To Renew," according to this anthropomorphic alarm clock
• "The Owl and the Eel and the Warming-Pan" (1890)
• Vintage, punny get-well-soon card
• Freaky illustrations found within "The Story of Soil"
• Five groovy ads from the 1933 Furst-McNess cookbook
• 1960s Russian С Новым годом postcard ("Happy New Year!")
• Slightly creepy vintage Valentine's Day postcard
• Potentially unnecessary bonus image of a blender with a face
• Peachy little corned beef loaves and healthful cheese dishes
• Everything's better with anthropomorphism (1949's Plant Maintenance Manual)
• A fun "Merry Hallowe'en" postcard
• Happy Thanksgiving: Enjoy vintage anthropomorphic vegetables
• The one with the anthropomorphic light poles
• Anthropomorphic Bockwurst would be a terrible band name

When teenaged me tried to draw Cory Snyder

As I detailed in 2020, I was a big fan of MicroLeague Baseball as a teenager in the late 1980s. Using the "General Manager / Owner Disk," I created my own super team, called the Wallingford Smashers. For versimilitude, and because I never had a girlfriend during high school, I took the time to create a yearbook for each season of the Smashers' existence. (Yes, we're deep in The Universal Baseball Association, Inc., J. Henry Waugh, Prop. territory here.)

Anyway, I still have most of the yearbooks. For this one, I got creative and did my own freehand sketch of Cory Snyder, who in addition to being a Smasher in my fictional universe was a young slugger on Cleveland's real-world MLB team. That season Snyder batted .321 with 33 home runs and 81 RBIs for the Smashers, edging out Eric Davis for team MVP honors.

So this very poor drawing by me (sorry, Cory) completes the unlikely trifecta of Hideko Takamine, Toshire Mifune and Cory Snyder drawings on Papergreat. 

City of Wilmington, Delaware, scrip from 1862

Here's an interesting piece of U.S. currency history that was tucked away with some of my family's ephemera. It's a note measuring 5¾ inches by 2⅜ inches, with a value of 5 cents. 

It's dated September 1, 1862, and the text states: "Twelve Months after date the City of Wilmington Will pay FIVE CENTS to bearer in current funds when presented in sums of One Dollar. No. 2962."

There are two signatures at the bottom and two sketches of mystery women.

This is scrip, which is any substitute for legal tender. It was issued five months after the start of the Civil War, which went from April 1861 to April 1865. Coins were in severely short supply during the war. Many were hoarded because the metal used to make them had intrinsic value, and people had greater trust in coins than in paper currency. However, there was still a need for small change to keep the economy functioning, so these paper notes were created to take the place of pennies, dimes and nickels.

This one was never cashed in. So I reckon the City of Wilmington, Delaware, made a nickel off my family. Written at the top in pencil is Helen Simmons. Our family tree has a Helen Simmons Carey (1894-1957) and a Helen Gregg Simmons Chandler (1857-1913), the latter being my great-great-grandmother. I suspect this was hers, perhaps passed to her by her parents: Bauduy Simmons (1805-1882) and Ann Gregg Simmons (1811-1886).