The Famous Easter Bunny Cake

It was an annual tradition with Grandma and Grandpa Johnson (Alfred Armfield Johnson and Bessie Mabel Mathena)-- the Easter bunny cake. White 7-minute frosting sprinkled with coconut. Under the frosting was one layer of a white cake, cut in half and stood up on the cut side. Jelly bean eggs scattered around the tin-foil-covered-cardboard-box base. Face made out of more jelly beans and ears cut from some heavy paper and painted white with pink in the middle.

Here's a picture, taken in 1961 in front of our house at 1913 George Street in Sioux City, Iowa. The dress was one of my favorites. It had different shades of orange and red-orange and orange sherbet.


This photo was taken in front of our house at 2127 West Fifth Street in Sioux City, Iowa. Judging by the brown "corral" fence in front of the house on which my brother Steve is perched, I am guessing that this was somewhere around 1963, give or take a year. That's Grandma and Grandpa Johnson (Bessie and A.A. Johnson).

We had bunny cakes every year. I wonder where photos for the other 16 or so years are?

Saturday Blogger Fun ... My Genealogy Space

Randy Seaver came up with another good Saturday Night Genealogy idea. He inspired me to do something I've meant to do for a while: to take photos of my office, where I do my genealogy work.


Here's my work area. Desk and mobile file cabinet from Ikea. Six-foot table from Office Depot. The shelf unit and printer stands are left over from a desk that I used for over 20 years.

The plastic drawyer units hold the genealogy filing that I need to do. I'll have more time to devote to that these days. There are two clocks on the wall -- Eastern time and Pacific time, from the days when I worked for a company in back east. Zack is perched on the table and Mr. Peavey is stationed on the floor, close to the towel that he snuggles when he sleeps.

The top drawer of the horizontal file cabinet holds my tax and personal files, and the bottom drawer is devoted to family genealogy files.

Here's the other part of my genealogy world. It's a 9-foot, double-sided library bookcase that I picked up in an auction in the mid 90's. It is one of my favorite pieces of furniture. The other side of the shelf holds our DVDs, software packages, and some of our fiction collection. I have several city directories in extra-tall shelves out in the living room.


The genealogy books are on the shelves in the rightmost section. My family notebooks and magazines are in the middle section. Pieter's stuff is in the left hand section.

In the background you'll see some of my '60's rock poster collection, including both original Woodstock posters and a few of my 9 Crosby, Stills and Nash posters.

And yes, that is a monkey wearing a tiara from New Year 2000, sitting on the rocking chair that I sat on when I was a little girl.