Welcome to the National Bread Museum's

(7) A GLIMPSE - Looking into the PAST

and preserving so as to not forget, so we can prepare for the future and also teach future generations.

Welcome to Mary's daily BLESSINGS - although a life of labor.  For all in America today, we should give endless thanks for the toil of our ancestors in providing the foundation & innovations of modern times.  Then, too, don't forget to give thanks for you living in this day & age!



Fundraising --- a $25 million dollar project to establish The National Bread Museum project.  

      There are multiple facets within this National Bread Museum program, but first & foremost is the impact the museum complex & its programs will have on our communities near & far --- especially with the digital world of being able to broadcast far & wide today.  (You can scroll through the MENU link of
"NBM Program in Action" to learn of what we can do when we have a "home" on the land!) 


Getting the water to make noodle dough.
Getting the water to make noodle dough.
Flour, egg, water, salt - mix & roll out.  Eventually with age, it's a back-breaking job.
Flour, egg, water, salt - mix & roll out. Eventually with age, it's a back-breaking job.

With your connections of knowing people and your help to spread the word and encourage people regarding the importance of this project, we need to elicit financial support from not only you, hopefully, & other individuals, but also companies who are in business & exist because we purchase their products or services for 1) home baking & related Bread Culture activities, and/or 2) to keep men & women in bread culture occupations throughout this land.  

Anything you might be able to do toward donations & endowments, if you have connections with a decision maker or one with influence within a Bread Culture-related business or company, will be greatly appreciated.                               


The goal to "raise the dough" is in part a Tribute to those who helped build our Bread Culture throughout this nation  (ag/food grains - milling - flour - bread/baking). Their lives & heritages influenced A) the land & local communities, & B) their baking, which had great significance in many people's lives.  Its' our obligation to preserve the beloved artifacts of their lives in order to tell their story, & document their contribution in our families' & country's history, lest memories fade and we forget.  Remember, we're honoring the lives of all of our grandparents, & helping to link each of us to our past - our roots - and especially a Mom - who then became a/your Grandmother - who built the Heart of the Home.

Drying out the dough for half a day or so.
Drying out the dough for half a day or so.
Roll up the dough w/a good coating of flour.  Cut.
Roll up the dough w/a good coating of flour. Cut.

We are losing precious history every day related to our ancestors from the 18 & 1900s. If we who are still here right now (especially age 60+), who have knowledge and access to family history info, don't record our past generational lineage whose lives built this country's agricultural foundation of grain's "heart-of-the-home baking heritage," our "dear ones' lives" won't be noted or remembered in history!

NOTE:  At almost age 70, all of Mary's work is done bending over a knee-high stool!  (Poland - 1991)

Firing up the "wood stove" / "cook stove" to boil the water that boiled the noodles that we ate.  Yummy.  A tribute to Mary in Poland, July 1991.
Firing up the "wood stove" / "cook stove" to boil the water that boiled the noodles that we ate. Yummy. A tribute to Mary in Poland, July 1991.


Our children, grandchildren, & future generations will be the losers in not having a connection with what our past relatives went through to give us the benefits of the life we have today in this world, especially if we live in the United States, if we don't take action now to preserve the historical artifacts collected over the past 40 years, representing our families' 1860-1999 era.

The age old questions:  If not now, when?
If not us, who?  


An idea to bring back the teaching of the cursive script in schools or through a community center: Ask if you can bake a batch of cookies and voluntarily teach a 3rd grade+, middle, or high school extra-curricular "Cursive Cowboy Cookie Club" or "Cursive Chocolate Crackle Cookie Club":  (Mix 1/2 c. oil, 2 eggs, & a dry 2-layer cake mix; shape into 32-48 balls, roll in powdered sugar; bake 350 about 7-8 min. on an ungreased pan - yummy!  Any cake mix flavor will do except Angel Food.)

Mom's original recipe from the 1940s (or earlier???).  Add vanilla w/the eggs!
Mom's original recipe from the 1940s (or earlier???). Add vanilla w/the eggs!

MIX 2 c. flour, 1 t. bak. soda, & 1/2 t. each salt & baking powder.

MIXER 1 c. shortening/marg., & 1 c. each granulated sugar, & brown sugar firmly packed.

Add 2 eggs & 1 t. vanilla.  Mixer/Beat until L&F = light & fluffy.

Add flour mixture & mix well.

Add 2 c. rolled oats & 12 oz./2 c. chocolate chips.  Stir well.

Drop by teaspoon on a greased cookie sheet.  Bake 350° 15 minutes.  (I'd start with 10 min. & see, then 2-3 min. more, etc.
I says it makes 11 dozen = 132!  They will be 2" cookies (small).

We wonder what you have in your drawers, dressers, closets, cupboards, attics & hay lofts, machine & tool sheds, mills & factories and such, that is a piece of our Bread Culture history, that would do more good to be preserved for your grandchildren's and future generations' knowledge than for it to go into the garbage.  Let's raise the funds to be able to find and restore a building as the National Bread Museum, et al, and see what you can also do to help preserve our history.  Join with us to make this happen!

The following were essentials in Grandma's house in the USA in the 1800s-first half of the 1900s, and are still found in some working hands of lives around the world today.  Each historical artifact is a testimony, and an unwritten diary, of someone's life. 


The secret of life is not to only do what one likes,                                                                                                                                        but to try to like what one has to do.