Memory Lane

The biggest project on my summer "TO DO" list is to deal with two huge piles of random stuff from my grandmother's house that have been stacked in my living room and hallway for way too long. She passed away a couple of years ago and I was the relative living the closest to her home, so the bulk of what was left, after everyone took what they wanted and the charity truck picked up the clothes and furniture, got stashed in my living room and hallway. The piles took over my living room almost completely at first, but I've whittled it down to the two piles, and was able to condense that down to one pile yesterday, with everything FINALLY out of the living room. (YEAH!!!) At this point I have it down to mainly pictures and paperwork. There are a few other things I am finding it hard to part with- her jewelry box with a little bit of costume jewelry left in it, her hair brushes, a few of my grandfather's things, but it's mostly pictures and papers.

The boxes I sorted through yesterday contained her recipe clippings. My grandmother had a major sweet tooth; the majority of the recipes by far were for DESSERTS! She clipped recipes from the paper and magazines, labels on cans and chocolate chip bags, and sent away for recipes from "Mr. Food". Some of the recipes dated back to before I was born. (Some of them probably go way back even before that, but only a few of them are dated.) She loved to entertain when she was younger and was very active in her church and missions program. She would have missionaries visit and stay with her, or at least eat with her, quite often back in the day. (I don't remember the visits personally but she told me about it.) I'm sure she fed them some desserts that were out of this world.

I remember hosting a shower with her once, how she prepared and planned. She could carry out a theme, that's for sure. I found some themed items from her church that she probably contributed ideas to. She attended several Mother/Daughter banquets and kept the invitation and other items from one that had a sewing theme, "Pattern for Living", from 1964. It was joyous to look at; the way they incorporated sewing into the banquet was so clever. They gave out the menu and favors in an envelope made up to look like a pattern. The favor looked like a little apron with flowers in the pocket; the flower pot was a thimble. The tickets were a section of a tape measure.

I almost cried when I found an autograph album she used when she was 18. Several of her friends signed it and she wrote in it like a diary. Unfortunately she wrote lightly and in pencil so it's hard to make out, but what I can read is priceless. I'm hoping to work on figuring out everything; maybe I'll be able to post it one of these days. (Adding it to the "TO DO" list...)

The pictures are wonderful, too. She gave me a lot of her pictures, especially the older ones from her childhood and early adult years, before she died. That still left a whole bunch for me to go through now! Family gatherings, vacations, her grandchildren, her sisters, holidays, and flowers. She took pictures of every bouquet of flowers anyone ever sent her. I'm hoping to scan all of them with a picture scanner my mom gave me, then I can send them out to any relatives who want them.

It's both hard and comforting at the same time to go through her things. I miss her so much and this makes me think of her even more, but it's almost like she's still here. It's so frustrating that I can't call her and ask her the stories behind some of her things, though, like what she remembers about that Mother/Daughter banquet, or what she wrote in her autograph album that I can't make out. I dream about her, about when she was a young woman. I didn't know her then but I dream.

Cold at Last!

We're finally getting a break from the heat! A chill came through last night while we were at our Girl Scout activity and continues today; we all took a family walk at sunset and enjoyed the change in the weather. (Except The Eldest, who is getting sick. She stayed home in bed, poor baby.) The sunset was gorgeous, as it is more often than not down our way.

For my first year of college, I attended a school in North Carolina where I saw snow for the first time in my life. (I've come to learn it wasn't much of a snow and barely counts. I didn't even get to make a snowball, sadly.) While the area was lovely, I missed my Florida sky. Most of all I missed the sunsets; we get a light show almost every day here. I try to take my walks around sunset just because it's so lovely; it's my reward for getting out there. (Plus it's cooler then, but not as buggy as it is when it gets completely dark.) We watched the sky change colors today as we walked. There weren't any clouds and the sky to the west was saturated with color that changed if you blinked. First pink, then peach, then a brilliant orange, with the blue layered on top of that. The houses and palm trees across the lake we walked next to were all in silhouette against the colors of the sky, with a few lights on here and there to add some sparkle. The kids walked along with DH and I and chatted about nothing and everything. It was one of those moments to treasure forever.

Family Tradtions

We've started a temporary tradition for dinner on the nights The Eldest has her class. We discovered a new eatery that is open until 10:00 p.m. and has a great salad bar along with other menu offerings the kids like, plus I can get a take out sandwich for DH. We've gone over there two weeks in a row now and I think we'll probably do the same for the rest of the semester. The best part is that we can walk over to the bookstore after we eat, always a favorite activity for a family full of bookworms. A little dangerous to the budget, but I can just cut back on groceries, books being way more important than food, after all. (We saw a bag for sale at the bookstore with one of my favorite quotes: "When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes" -Erasmus.) I was able to pick up my new book club book, Shanghai Girls, along with several books for the kids. The Eldest just bought a load of books and wasn't planning on finding anything but then found a section on Steampunk. I told her I would buy one but she had to pay for the other three!!

As to my cookbook addiction, I didn't buy any new ones. I got those out of the library earlier in the day. (And you know it's been a good day when you get to go to both the library AND the bookstore!)

Granmother's Recipe Box

I have my grandmother's recipe box, which actually belongs to my aunt now. I have it since I've promised to transcribe the recipes... one of these days. Since it's been over a year now I figure it's about time I get the job done. I was thinking of typing the recipes up in Word then making copies for everyone, but then I thought, why not put them on the blog? Now family members can access them freely on the web. I'm not going to sit here and type them all in at once, but I will post a few at the time. She didn't have a lot of recipes in her box, sadly, since she cooked mainly from experience and memory. When I get the recipes from the box typed in I'll go to the recipe/memory book she made for me and post those recipes as well; after all, those are probably the ones everyone in my family wants anyway. I need to get the box done first, however so I can get it back to my aunt!

To start, she had a handwritten note about equivalents:
4 tbsp - 1/4 cup
5 and 1/3 tbsp - 1/3 cup
8 tbsp - 1/2 cup

The Recipes:
Monkey Bread, from Lori
3 cans biscuits
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup brown sugar
1.5 sticks oleo

Cut each biscuit into 1/4s, roll each 1/4 into a ball and roll each ball separately in brown sugar/cinnamon mix. Drop balls into buttered bundt cake pan. Combine oleo with rest of sugar and cinnamon. Cook until all runs together. Pour over biscuits; cook one hour at 350.

Banana Bread
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
2 cups flour
1 tsp soda
dash salt
1 cup ripe mashed banana
1/2 cup walnuts

Cream sugar and shortening
add eggs (beaten)
add dry ingredients alternately with milk
add bananas

cook 350 degrees 45 to 55 minutes

Apple Pan Dowdy
8 large apples peeled, cored, and cut into thick wedges
3/4 cup apple juice, cider or water
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
4 tbsp butter, melted
3 tbsp cornstarch

Crust: 2 cups flour, 4 tsp baking powder, 1/2 tsp salt, 3 tbsp butter or shortening, 2/3 cup milk

Butter a 9 x 13 inch baking dish and line the bottom with the apple wedges.
Pour apple juice over apples, bake at 400 degrees for about 15 minutes or until apples are barely soft. Mix together brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, butter, and cornstarch, then pour over apple mixture and stir gently.

Make crust: Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Cut in the butter or shortening with knives or a pastry blender until butter is cut into pea size bits. Stir in the milk, then spread batter over apple slices in the baking dish (if you want the result to be pretty, roll out dough and cut into rounds.) Bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes until lightly brown. Serves: 10 to 12.

Grandmother

My grandmother died a year ago yesterday. I still feel the loss so deeply; the oddest things remind me of her. We've been getting a lot of rain lately and she used to call me if there were reports of thunderstorms on the news to make sure we were OK. I have so many of her things still to sort through piled up in my house. As the closest relative I was responsible for clearing her home and it's so sad to see 50 years of living in her house narrowed down to one pile in my dining room and one pile in my hallway. Of course a lot went to various relatives, but to have a lifetime boiled down to two piles just doesn't seem right somehow. I guess it's good there's not more really, I mean what would I do with it all, but it's still sad.

My grandmother was the most amazing woman. She lived through so much, starting with the Depression. Her family went through it with a minimum of hardship thanks to the ingenuity of her parents; they were farmers in Alabama. Her dad also ran a barbershop on the weekends, did some veterinary work, and built houses later in his life. They had 12 children together. She's told me so many stories of her childhood, some happy and some not so much. From her accounts her mom was stoic and could be cold at times, but she says she always knew how much her mother loved her. Her mom died when my grandmother was 13 then she lost a beloved older brother shortly afterward in a traffic accident. The older girls married and moved away so she was left with the weight of the household on her too young shoulders. She had to quit school to take care of the family, including two little ones. She told me once she shuddered to think what those kids must have looked like when she sent them off to school in the morning. Her dad turned to alcohol for several years after losing his wife so she lacked any support that she might have otherwise found in him. She left home once or twice and lived with relatives to get away from her home life, but she went back until she got married.

She married my grandfather and went through times when they really struggled to make ends meet. She worked in a cotton mill for a while and has told me how physically demanding that work was; it took a horrible toll on her. She also worked in a rocket factory briefly during WWII but she had to leave when the paint fumes made her nauseous since she was pregnant with my aunt. She was a real Rosie the Riveter, even if it was for a short time! She had a rough time of it with my aunt, too; she's told me several times how difficult that birth was for her. She thought she was going to die at one point from loss of blood but she pulled through. She had my mom first, then my aunt close behind, then several years went by and she had my youngest aunt. They made a move to another state when my youngest aunt was a toddler, I believe, and established a new life away from Alabama and the cotton mills. My grandfather became a plumber and their life revolved around their family and their church. They bought a house, always had a decent car, and got their girls educated on a blue collar salary. My grandmother worked on and off over the years, one time as a pharmacy technician and several times as a salesperson and cashier for local stores.

My grandmother was the family matriarch in so many ways. She was the glue that held us all together with her big family get togethers. I remember Christmas at her house when everyone would be there. My family, my aunts, cousins, even a few friends would join us. She cooked for days before these events, sometimes longer than that if you count the cookies and desserts she would freeze weeks ahead of time. (And she LOVED her freezer; we would shudder sometimes at what she would pull out of there as she got older since it could have been in there since the Dark Ages. The desserts were always good but there were some other things…) I asked her to write down all of her recipes for me one time in one of those fill in the blank books and she did; that book is one of my most treasured possessions. I’ve tried to replicate her feasts a few times but it’s too much work! It leaves me utterly exhausted; I don’t know how she did it, but she did, and thrived on it. She would let me bring a side dish a couple of times, but mainly she wanted to do everything herself so she could bask in her well deserved glory. ;)

She was a story teller, too. I spent so much time with her when I was younger listening to tales of her childhood, frequently with my head on her lap while she rubbed my hair. She was a comforting presence for my childhood, too. I loved spending time at her house. Some of my memories include sleeping over on Friday nights and waking up to the sounds and smells of her cooking her big Saturday morning breakfast, bacon, eggs, biscuits, gravy, the works, and coffee perking away in the percolator. I would luxuriate in bed listening to her moving around in the kitchen until time to get up. I remember watching Sesame Street at her house when she was babysitting me and my brother. I made a city once at her house, cutting it out of paper like paper dolls and making all the buildings stand up. I also read a lot since my youngest aunt kept all of her books on the bookcase in her room, Bobsey Twins, Nancy Drew, and the Hardy Boys among others. When my grandfather arrived home he would park in his recliner and watch the news or read the newspaper until time for dinner, which was always so good since she was a fantastic cook. The drink of the house was tea. She made it with sugar when I was little but when they came out with the artificial sweeteners she would leave the sugar out and everyone would sweeten their own glass, a definite change for the negative in my mind. She never called it “sweet tea”, like you hear in the south, but that’s what it was by default.

I went on a trip with my grandparents when I was 12 to visit my aunt in college in Illinois at a school near Chicago. It was the longest trip I’d ever been on and I felt so lucky to be able to go, just me, not my brother. (Sorry kid.) We went by car and stopped to visit relatives in Alabama. We saw mountains as we drove through Tennessee. We went to the top of the Sears tower and saw the elevated trains. I went up to my aunt’s room when we visited her and felt so cool to be in a college dorm. I loved being with my grandparents no matter where we went.

She stopped traveling as she got older since she developed agoraphobia. She was able to get out around her neighborhood but wouldn’t go more than a few miles from her home. My grandfather passed away when they were in their mid sixties; she would go on to live another 20 years or so without him. He passed away after I met my husband but before we got married; I’m glad DH met him before he died. My grandmother carried on and did quite well, all things considered, for a long time. She was my rock when there were problems with other family members. She didn’t take sides, she just continued to love us all. Absolute unconditional love for everyone in her family. Oh, there was friction between her and her daughters on occasion, but the love was always there. She was always there. I don’t know how I’ve gotten through this past year without her; I miss her so much.