Fall memories 2012

September was the month for canning at my grandmother's who we called Mama, Vera Leonard.  She would get  bushels of corn and would shuck it and cut it off all day long. She amazed me because she could go for hours and not get out of the chair. She would then can all the corn for winter. We also would pick green tomatoes and make green tomato relish. It was a long process. You had to wash the tomatoes and peel then and chop them with green peppers and onions. Your cooked it with sugar, vinegar, salt and pepper. You then put it in a clean pillowcase and put it on the clothes line and let all the juice drain off. It took days. You had to bring it in at night. After about one week, you put it up in jars and sealed it. It is great on beans and hot dogs. Another thing we did was pick apples and make applesauce for fried apple pies. We had to peel the apples and slice thin. We would put a clean sheet on the roof of the back porch which was a tin roof. We placed the apples on the sheet to dry. We would have to bring these in every night before dusk. It took about two weeks to dry, according to the weather. This meant we had applesauce all winter. There was nothing better than coming home and smelling the pies frying. Mother would have them stacked on the stove.
   I was just thinking about things I used to do and thought I would share with you. I hope you enjoy.

End of Summer 2012

     It has been some time since my last post and I will try and do better. I retired in 2009  and it seemed like all kind of things started happening. It has been along 3 years and now we are all on the mends and trying to adjust to the lost of my brother-in-law, Sonny Williams, who had Parkinson's . He died in January, 2011 and my dear sister, Claudine Williams fell and broke her hip while at her granddaughter's, Cara Cronk. While at rehab she fell again and broke her leg and never recovered. She passed away in July, 2011. Sarah and Jeremy lost their baby in July. Her was Alexa. My other sister, Marjorie Ward fell at my nieces house in North Carolina and broke her hip and arm in July, 2011. She has recovered and is doing well. We were all on our way to visit my brother, Cecil Ray, in New York when all of this happened. I finally drove with my brother to New York and spent three weeks with him. I had a great time with lots of rest and relaxation. He and Mary were the best. I come back through North Carolina to check on Marge and she was doing really good. I come back in October and brought her home. We stopped in Palm Coast to see Celeta, Greg, Jennifer, Cara, Sarah and all the kids and rest of the family. Marge made the trip really well.  I have caught all of you up to date on my family. Now we can have some fun time.
    Jon and Heather Duncan had a baby girl born in March and her name is Cassidy. We had a mini family reunion in Asheville, North Carolina this summer. The reason I said mini was it was everyone who lives in North Carolina and my brother, Cecil Ray and his wife, Mary Ellen, Marge and me. The rest of the family had other commitments. We missed them but we all had a great time. We had barbecue from 12 Bones in Asheville. It was delicious. Marge and I got to pend three days with Cccil Ray, Mary Ellen, Jon, Heather, Ben, Cassidy, Jim and Cheryl. We had such a good time and great food. Marge and I went back to Glenville, NC to spent some time with Sherry, Lily, Lisa, Chrissy, Lydia, Jim, David and Brad. What a great time we had. We also spent time t the reunion with Michelle and Katie Blaine.
    Reunions are so much fun and you get to be with family that you don't get to see very often. I had an email from a dear friend, Nancy Tapscott and she reminded me that she went to a family reunion with me in December, 1958. She had found an old diary and it was in it. The reunion was at my grandparents. I wish we had photos from all the old reunions. I am sure it was also a Christmas get together. I can imagine what we had to eat.  I think I have gone on long enough today. I will post again soon and bring back some old old memories.

Quilts

This the time of year that my grandmother would tell my grandfather to get her quilting frames in the house so she could quilt. She had already pieced together the tops that she was giving for Christmas. She usually gave solid white quilts to her children at Christmas.

She would have quilting ladies, usually her sisters to come and help quilt. I really wish I had paid more attention to the ladies and watched how they quilted. I regret we never got a picture of Mama (my grandmother) quilting. My most priced possession is my Dutch Doll quilt. My grandmother put it together and did all the quilting and gave it to me when I graduated from high school. All of my nieces really love the quilt. Fall brings lots of memories about quilting and other family events.

Lydia Grace Hughes Bake Day

Lydia Grace is 7 months old and October 7 was her first bake day. We baked chocolate chip cookies for the military, who are stationed in the Middle East and are members of Hamburg Baptist Church, Glenville, NC. Lydia, her mother, Chrissy and me enjoyed baking for them. I tried to make small cookies because I thought they would travel better. Please enjoy the pictures if Lydia stirring the batter with her Aunt May and her MiMi, great grandmother.

We arrived in NC on October 5 to see the fall season and what an amazing site. It has been many years since Marge and me have been up to view the mountains in the fall.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter ( 2 sticks)

1 tsp. vanilla extraxt

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups Milk chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar and brown sugar in a large bowl, add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each egg. Add flour mixture a small amount at a time and mix well. Add chopped pecans and mix well. Use a small cookie scoup and put on parchment paper on cookie sheet. I add a sprinkle of granulated sugar on top of each cookie. I do not always use the pecans.

Bake for 9 -11 minutes. Makes about 80 cookies.

Bake and Cooking day at Celeta's

Rebecca and Micayla May Cronk

Rebecca and Micayla May

Micayla May and MeMom's Apron

Micayla May and Aunt May

Marge Ward making spaghetti sauce

Greg Brown and grandkids

We had a bake and cooking day on September 7 at Celeta Brown's, who is my niece and we had so much fun with the girls. Micayla May and Rebecca baked a strawberry cake with me and boy did we have a good time as you can tell by the pictures. Micayla May and Rebecca had a huge success cracking the eggs because they remembered how to do it from our previous bake day. Marge Ward, my sister cooked her special Italian spaghetti and I made Greg's favorite, Macaroni and Cheese. We didn't have a menu, just favorite dishes for some of the people there.

Here are a couple of quotes from the girls: Hailey Cronk said, "Kitchen is a place where dreams are made." Rebecca Cronk said, " I guess the kitchen is the best place." Micayla May Cronk said, "Mana's kitchen has lots of roosters." Aunt May's quote is "Our family kitchens are filled with love, family, laughter and talk."

Micayla May is wearing her great great grandmother's apron, who was Leta Duncan and they called her MeMom. Micayla May never did know her but mother would have enjoyed seeing all of her great great grandchildren cooking, baking and loving it.

The kids also had rides with Papa Greg Brown, their grandfather, in the wagon. What a day!

Newspaper

When I was young, September was the month we sold subscriptions to our school newspaper. I sold more subscriptions than anyone for 4 years. I would go door to door and sell to our neighbors and all the way home from school. I also had to deliver the papers each month when it come out. I enjoyed talking to everybody and telling them about the school and different events each month. It was a fun time. My brother hated trying to sell the paper. He always said, I will leave it to Leta May. She doesn't mind asking people to buy the paper.

The local newspaper did an article on my selling of the school paper and I thought that was really an honor. I guess that was the only selling I did until I sold some of my Depression Glass at glass shows in the 80's.

Back to School

The day after Labor Day was our first day of school. I was always excited for school to start. I remember walking to school and we lived about a mile from school and we loved walking. We couldn't ride the bus because we lived to close. When I say we, it was my brother and me.

We would have had a good Labor Day because we always barbecued for the last of Summer and had home made ice cream and we would not have these items until the next Memorial Day. Now we looked forward to fall and the leaves. We loved playing in the leaves but not raking them. I can also remember coming home in late September and walking in the house and the aroma of gingerbread baking was so good. Mother would have it ready for a snack with whipped cream. I can see her standing in the kitchen. waiting for us.