Visiting A Royal Couple

and other things.

King Leopold III of Belgium with his wife Queen Astrid. The photo above was taken in somewhere in spring of 1935 and published in an April issue of the Catholic Illustration, a magazine I wrote about last year. He is 33 in the picture and she is 29 and they have just being the king and queen for a year, since Leopold's father King Albert's death.

They had three children together, one daughter and two sons
(Here is Astrid with their youngest)

and lived in  the palace Stuyvenberg in Laeken. Raised in Sweden in all simplicity, Queen Astrid cooked for her children herself and took them out for a walk, saying that she was just an ordinary mother.

Here you see her arranging flowers.

The queen was raised Lutheran and had to convert to Catholicism in order to marry Leopold. Their marriage took place in 1926. According to the article, this was one of the pictures she kept in her bedroom, presumably it was of her father? Or may be her father-in-law?

They were a beautiful couple but she had only a short time to live after that article was written. In August of the same year, they went on vacation to Switzerland where the queen died in a car crash when her husband lost control over the steering wheel.

Here is King Leopold working:

He mourned her for several years but remarried again in 1941 and had three more children.

Since it was an Easter edition of the magazine, there was an article about a special form of Easter Liturgy taking place in Sint Andries Abbey.

Taking the Holy Communion:

It included, among other things, blessing of an Easter lamb on the church altar:

The end of the Mass, the deacon is singing Alelluia

 The monks awaiting the blessing of their abbot:

That was about all for today, till next time:)

Carnival Ideas From 1940

It's this time of the year again - when Catholics celebrate Carnival. Here are some cute costume ideas from the war year 1940:

The lady on the left represents Mrs Sale. She is wearing a simple dark dress with two different sorts of fabric hanging on both sides. A clock is attached to her waist belt, pointing to 12 (midnight), the hour when all the masks are removed. She is also decorated with a milk jug, a container for sugar and various stickers with sales announcements.

We further have a lady Goldfish, a Mr Dolphin and an Unlucky Number. He is in the possession of an old black umbrella decorated with those ages old symbols of bad luck, such as spilled salt and crossed knives.

The second picture features The Market Star (on the left), with beer barrel sleeves and other consumer items, such as scissors, spoons and the like.


The lady dressed as a candle represents Light In Dark Times (God knows they needed it that year), with the candle made out of stiff carton. There is also An Archeologist and The Symphony In Black And White.

Personally I find these costumes more interesting than ready-made cheap store stuff we witnessed yesterday and what do you think? Do they celebrate Carnival where you are from?

War Time Menus

Here are two menus from Libelle No.1, 5 Jan. 1940.

First, a simple menu:

Sunday: Brown soup (no idea what it could be, may be a soup with brown beans?). Roast beef. Endive. Potatoes. Pear dessert.

Monday: Cold meat (apparently the leftovers from Sunday). Cauliflower. Potatoes. Rice pudding.

Tuesday: Cauliflower soup. Pork cutlets. Stewed leeks. Potatoes.

Wednesday: Ground meat. Cabbage. Potatoes. Chocolate vla.

Thursday: Split pea soup with bone (Google says it must be translated as a knuckle bone but I'm not sure. I think they really meant the sort bone one would use to make bouillon). French toast.

Friday: Vegetarian tomato soup (it was, after all, Friday). Shrimp ragout. Potatoes  in peel.

Saturday: Hutspot with brisket. Corn starch pudding.



The second one is for those more fortunate in life:

Sunday:  Vegetable soup. Beefsteak. Endive. Potatoes.

Monday: Pork chop. Savoy cabbage. Potatoes. Zwieback with berry juice.

Tuesday: Fried bacon. Himmel und Erde. Mini pancakes.

Wednesday: Ground meat. Cabbage. Potatoes. Chocolate vla. (yeah, it's exactly the same)

Thursday: Potato soup. Rice with currants.

Friday: Milk soup. Herring. Potatoes in peel.

Saturday: Sauerkraut dish.


I actually don't see that much difference between the two, and it's obvious that during the first war winter folks had to scrimp and save to feed their families. Yet many women were home!

How It Should Be

Advice on hospitality and manners from the year 1940.

If you are giving a dinner, you present a drink to every guest who arrives. The dinner should begin strictly on time as folks will probably have hunger. So you don't have to wait for someone who is late, unless this someone is the chief person for whom the dinner is given. That's why it's an offence against propriety to be late for dinner!

If there are some circumstances which prevent you from coming on time, you should in all cases give a phone call to the hostess. When you finally arrive, you apologise to her, quietly take your place and pretend that nothing happened.

Aperitifs should never be presented in the same room with the dinner table. (Rather difficult to follow this rule in modern houses without a special reception room for visitors).

A good guest first greets the lady of the house and talks to her. Then he addresses others. He shouldn't try to monopolise the attention of the hostess since there are other guests, as well. The hostess herself should be available to greet her visitors. It's also her task to introduce those who don't know each other. Normally you first introduce the gentleman to the lady, unless he is much older or a famous individual. In other cases you introduce people of lower social status to those of higher status first.

When introducing people always use Mr, Mrs, or Miss. By young people we name their Christian name and surname, the same manner of introduction is also possible in informal company.

If you have a maid to serve the drinks (who doesn't?), it makes it easier for the hostess to give more attention to her guests. If you only have a kitchen maid, then it's more passing for the host to do it as presenting drinks (and cigarets) is more of a man's job. One should have a special table for the beverages and the glasses. The half-full glasses are then placed on a special tray and the maid will go around offering them to people. You can thus choose what you wish. (It's still normally done at parties when you have a catering by). However, if the host has to do it, he will first  ask his guests what they are wishing to drink.

If the dinner is given for a big group there should be a special buffet (in the same room) where one can order his aperitif and the maid will serve it. The hostess in the meanwhile should try to bring everyone into a positive mood, thusly she shouldn't all the time disappear in the kitchen or even show that she cares at all!

Then the meal begins. Gentlemen accompany ladies to the dinner table. Not just any ladies, mind you, but those who were shown to them as their table company. Everybody sits down and the dinner begins....

(to be continued...) 

According to the article in Libelle No. 1 from 5 Jan 1940, translation mine.

In Other News...

...from the first week of January 1940:

Swedish family wearing traditional clothes

Swedish princesses

and their mother

stay fit!

our guys in uniform

more of our guys in uniform together with patriotic gals

winter sport d-i-y fashions

English nurses taking tea

Next vintage installment will discuss war times menus. Stay tuned!

So What Would You Wear?

What were you supposed to wear as the middle class lady in the war winter of 1940?

Here are some suggestions from France for the month January:

Don't forget to buy a new hat during a seasonal sale:

According to the description, the one above is especially practical:)

For those less fortunate there are D-I-Y ideas in the form of sewing patterns:

Except for the outlandish hats, I'd say the suggested daily wear for ladies was rather simple, and yet distinctly feminine. What do you think?

A New Beginning

First of all, best wishes to all my readers!

I haven't forgotten about my historical research project from last year, but since the magazines I was reviewing were from spring and summer months, it seemed a bit strange to post about Easter and Midsummer Eve in November. The good news is that I have more vintage stuff at home, including vintage Libelle issues from 1940, starting with January 5.

Besides recipes, articles about fashions, knitting patrons and advice on how to take care of your house plants, it deals with more serious things, as you may well expect. Anything to do with politics is studiously avoided, though, but war is looming in the background. The editorial urges women to be like a sun in those dark times, and to meet the dangers with smile upon their lips.

The lady author reminds her readers that not only the inner qualities such as self-sacrifice are important, but that the outside matters, too. If you want to support your men who have to fight, pretend that nothing is wrong, she suggests. Conceal your tears, put on some make-up and nice clothes and try to cheer up those around you.

She goes so far as to state that a woman has a duty to look her best, to be the jewel of her surroundings and to create a warm, cheerful atmosphere wherever she goes.

While our circumstances are luckily not so dire, sometimes when you read the news it's difficult to stay cheerful, so this advice is not so dated as one would believe. The world keeps promoting "strong independent womyn" whose chief achievements seem to be throwing tantrums whenever they don't get their way and slutting it up with scores of men. They'd probably scoff at the idea that women have any duties to their men, let alone the duty of looking her best and smiling, and yet those women who had lived through the war were a real life example of strong women.

Cursing like a sailor doesn't make you stronger. Controlling your emotions and smiling through your tears does. So may be, it's a good idea to make a New Year's resolution about trying to always look and behave your best?