Tag Archives: Grandma Josie

Thankful for Spring

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Wintered over plants 199x300 Thankful for Spring

The weekend’s warm weather gave us
The oomph to clean the sun porch
So the wintered over plants could be moved there
To start adjusting to outdoor air.

But when the plants, previously scattered around the
Dining room, living room, and two bedrooms,
Were gathered in one place,
I wondered if the yard would be big enough to hold them all.

I stood on the porch wondering if I’d overdone
The fall repotting,
The late winter pruning,
And the early spring rerooting.
I wondered if I had too many plants.

Then Grandma Josie whispered in my ear,
Silly girl, you can never have too many plants.
Now, take this piece of sugar bread outside to eat,
So you don’t spill on the floor and attract ants.

My thoughts filled with plants,
Grandma Josie, sugar bread, and an ant-free home,
I walked indoors,
Grateful for spring.

A Digital Native I’m Not

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Digital Native A Digital Native Im Not

Digital native. A reporter used the term in her article in the November issue of our local community magazine.The story was about raising a family in the digital age, and while reading two things grew increasingly clear: A digital native I’m not, and parenting has changed from the the olden days when our kids were little.

The article made me think about how my Grandma Josie, who lived from 1896-1996, felt during the technological revolution that radically changed her daily life. In her 99 years, she witnessed the advent and widespread use of

automobiles,
airplanes,
tractors and other engine-driven farm machinery,
telephones,
electricity,
indoor plumbing,
moving pictures,
phonographs,
radio,
black and white television,
color television,
automatic washers and dryers,
dishwashers,
air conditioning,
electric sewing machines, irons, and small kitchen appliances,
electric and gas cook stoves,
ice boxes,
and refrigerators.

She saw the first man go into space, watched several astronauts walk on the moon, and was still alive when personal computers and cell phones first entered the market. For decades, I had wondered how the constant changes made her feel. I marveled at how she adapted to change after change, how she welcomed and embraced many of them.

Reading the article about toddlers using iPads, teens programming their Direct TV connection to update them about Fantasy Football, and entire families dependent upon laptops and smart phones, I finally understood why Grandma eventually quit trying to change. At some point in last few decades of her life the gap between her life as an agrarian native and the lives of the technological natives around her grew too great. She couldn’t keep up anymore. She had to quit.

The gap between this 1950s technology native and the digital natives now entering the world is widening, too. It’s not yet a distance too wide to be traversed, but it is wide enough to increase my admiration and compassion for how beautifully and how long Grandma Josie adapted to change.

One day, I realized, the gap could grow so wide I’ll dig in my heels and refuse to change. Then again, maybe that won’t happen. I may not be a digital native, but I can apply for citizenship and study to become one.

A digital version of the test, of course.
Downloaded on my iPad.
Exported to my lap top.
Backed up on my external hard drive.
With an audio version on my iPod.
The gap is shrinking.
Watch out digi natives, here I come!

image courtesy of www.freedigitalphotos.net

Cranberry-Apple Sauce

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Cranberry Apple Sauce Cranberry Apple Sauce

Today’s recipe for cranberry-apple sauce is one my mom made for Thanksgiving for many years. Now that she’s done cooking, the responsibility falls upon who ever hosts the family meal. This year, the gathering was at our house, and I almost forgot about the traditional sidedish. Thankfully, I remembered two nights before the feast–in the middle of the night no less–and visited the grocery store in the morning to nab a package of Ocean Spray cranberries.

The recipe on the back of the bag was a big help since Mom never passed along her version. But she always added some chopped apples and then cut down the amount of sugar. Her directions were spot on, and the cranberries served in the cut glass bowl she loved were a big hit. Only a couple spoonfuls remained, and they added an extra bit of flavor to the baked oatmeal served for breakfast the next morning.

Cranberry-Apple Sauce

1 12 oz. package fresh or frozen cranberries
2 apples, peeled and chopped
2/3–3/4 cup sugar, depending on your taste
1 cup water

Put water and sugar in a medium saucepan and bring mixture to a boil. Stir until sugar is dissolved. Add cranberries and apples and return to a full boil. Lower heat to a low boil and cook for 10 minutes. Pour into a bowl. Chill for 2–3 hours before serving.

Grandma Josie’s Strawberry Shortcake

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IMG 0585 Grandma Josies Strawberry Shortcake

We celebrated Hiram’s birthday last month with grilled steak (thanks to our unusually warm weather) and strawberry shortcake (thanks to his determination to cut down on sugar due to advancing age). To prove I’m still young, I cut loose. Instead of using the recipe from the old Betty Crocker cookbook, I used my Grandma Josie’s recipe instead. Her recipe was a little sketchy, so below you’ll find her original recipe (submitted to our family cookbook by Cousin Danelle) and then my version of it.

Grandma Josie’s Original Strawberry Shortcake Recipe

1 small cup flour
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon baking power
1 egg
2 tablespoons butter

Stir in rich milk until semi-stiff. Bake at 350 degrees until golden and toothpick comes out clean. Top with fresh strawberries. Recipe can be doubled to fit in a 10 inch pan.

Grandma Josie’s Strawberry Shortcake

2 cups flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup softened butter
2 eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1 quart strawberries, washed, hulled, sliced and mixed with 2 tablespoons sugar

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Cut in butter. Add eggs and milk. Mix with a fork until all ingredients are moistened. Pour into a 9 inch square pan. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown. Top with fresh strawberries.

Holiday Tapioca Fruit Salad

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tapioca fruit salad 300x200 Holiday Tapioca Fruit Salad

Today’s recipe comes from my mother’s mother, Josephine Newell Hess. She made huge batches of this tapioca fruit salad when her 8 children, their spouses, and her 39 grandchildren gathered for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Once she was unable to host the gatherings, the recipe was lost for many years. Finally, my sister and I were so hungry for it, we recreated the dish with help from Mom. Now we serve it at Thanksgiving and Christmas and eat it as greedily as hobbits do mushrooms.

Though the recipe below doesn’t make as big a batch as Grandma whipped up in her prime, it’s still enough to fill a large Tupperware bowl. Why make so much? Because we love to eat what’s left over the next morning for breakfast!

Holiday Tapioca Fruit Salad

1 box (8 ounces) large pearl tapioca
4 cups water, divided into two equal parts
1/2 cup sugar
1 20 ounce can pineapple tidbits
1 cup heavy whipping cream
1/4 cup sugar
1-2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
1 cups chopped walnuts
2 apples, cored and diced
2 bananas, sliced
2 oranges, diced

The night before the meal, put tapioca in a medium bowl. Add 2 cups of water to the tapioca, cover, and let soak overnight.

Several hours before serving, place soaked tapioca in heavy saucepan. Add 2 cups water and the sugar. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until most of the tapioca is translucent and the mixture is very thick. Pour into a large bowl and immediately add pineapple (juice and all) into the thick tapioca. Stir thoroughly. Put in the refrigerator or on the porch to cool.

An hour before serving whip the cream. Add sugar and vanilla. In a large bowl mix the tapioca, fruit, (except the bananas), and whipped cream together. Immediately before the meal, slice the bananas and stir them in, along with the nuts.

Family Roots

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shapeimage 1 2331 300x171 Family Roots

Roots may be Alex Haley’s claim to fame, but this spring I’m claiming the title for me and my house.

Why?

Because the cuttings from the family heritage geraniums I put in water more than a month ago have sprouted roots aplenty. This goofy gardener has four jars full of sassy green magic just waiting for the weather to warm up so they can be planted. And that’s not all!

During rooting season, I showered the future green giants with tender, loving care – changing their water weekly, removing dead leaves, and cutting off rotting stems. More than that, I paid attention to details like which slips rooted most easily, the attributes of the spots that rooted, and other scientific observations. Insights gleaned include the following:

  • Tender, green stems root from joints where leaves have been stripped away.
  • Hardened brown stems won’t root. Ever. At all. Period.
  • If a long slip doesn’t sprout roots, cut a few inches off the bottom, strip a few more leaves away and give it another try. Following this method, my root rate was about 80%.
  • Some slips won’t root, no matter what you do.

Pretty impressive, hmmm? I’m thinking a new career in agronomy is just around the corner. As soon my dislike of dirty hands, muddy shoes, weeding, hard work, and earthworms abate. In the meantime, I’m basking in the ancient approval of my ancestors.

My mother is proud of me.
My Grandma Josie would be proud of me.
So would her mother, Cora Rose Newell – the giver of the original geranium.

Partly for keeping family history alive. But mostly because I rooted 30 geranium slips which will save a good chunk of change when purchasing bedding plants in the next few weeks. Because the women in our family are a stingy clan. We are firmly rooted in the belief that the best things in life are free. Which means it’s time for a new project. How to make potting soil this spring instead of buying it from the store.

Just thinking of the potential savings makes me happy, happy, happy!

Family Saints

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shapeimage 1 1241 300x171 Family Saints

My husband is a wise man. He has yet to say a word about the four, count ‘em, four mason jars sitting in front of the east windows, hogging daylight.

He hasn’t commented about how the jars are crammed with geranium slips or how the wintered over geraniums, from whence the slips came, now look like skinned rats in their flower pots.

He never complained about the dozens of gallon milk jugs in the basement full of last summer’s rain water, some used to water the potted geraniums through the winter and much it now slowly evaporating from the mason jars chuck full of geranium slips.

Yes, Hiram is a wise man. He knows better than to editorialize when I go on one of my heritage horticultural tears. This month’s tear is all about Grandma Josie Hess’s heritage geranium, the sainted family flower given to Grandma Josie by her mother, Cora Newell. Grandma Josie gave slips to her children (including my mother), who gave them to her three children, one of whom (that would be me) has become slightly obsessed with propagating the sainted plant.

To tell you the truth, I’m pretty pleased with myself for remembering to cut down the wintered-over geraniums this early and setting the slips in water. Usually I think of it in late April when it’s too late for either the old plants to recover from pruning or for the new slips to root before it’s time to plant them outdoors. But this year I thought of it in March. A minor miracle considering how forgetful I’ve been this winter.

Come to think of it, Hiram hasn’t said a word about my minor memory miracle or my more normal forgetfulness. At least I can’t remember if he’s made any comments about either one.

In any case, my husband is a wise man. Almost a saint. Right up there with the sainted family flower.

Quiet.
Lovely.
Hardy.
Enduring.
Patient.
Faithful.

No wonder I love them both so much.

Apple Crisp

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shapeimage 1 363 300x171 Apple Crisp

Apple season is in full swing, and I’m loving it. Honey Crisps for eating, cider for drinking, Jonathans and Haroldsons for baking, discounted bags of seconds for applesauce. Life is good!

Apple crisp is one of the oldest and most popular apple desserts around. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s easy, quick, and not as loaded with sugar and fat as other desserts. Plus, it perfumes the house while it bakes and tastes heavenly. This recipe comes from my Betty Crocker Cookbook, a wedding shower from Grandma Josie in 1977.  It still holds up, though I use less sugar and more oatmeal and apples than the original recipe required.

Apple Crisp

6 cups sliced pared tart* apples (about six medium)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 cup oatmeal
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/3 cup softened butter

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Grease a square, nine inch pan. Place apple slices in pan. Mix remaining ingredients thoroughly. Sprinkle over apples. Bake 30 – 45 minutes, until apples are tender and bubbly. Topping should be golden brown. Serve warm with milk, light cream or ice cream.

*Jonathans, JonaGolds, Haroldsons or Granny Smiths are tart baking apples.

Grandma Shoes

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shapeimage 1 433 300x215 Grandma Shoes

Have you checked out the fall shoe styles lately? If your 1950s and 60s grandma shopped where my grandma shopped, then your as stymied by the style pictured above as I am. Me and my cousins had only one name for them.

Grandma shoes.

Nobody under the age of sixty wore shoes like that. We wouldn’t have been caught dead in them, not if we wanted to show our faces without being laughed out of school. Not even my mother, who was a school teacher and thus queen of sensible shoes, wore them because she didn’t want to be laughed out of the teachers’ lounge.

Grandma shoes.

The shoes my grandma wore. In those days she was a big woman. A beefy woman. Stout and matronly, her feet always clad in sensible, totally non-sexy shoes. They were the perfect match for her dowdy print house dresses and her grey hair permed into tight little curls. She was a grandma, not a cool dresser.

And these are not cool shoes.

They are the kind of shoes girls wear when they dress up as little old ladies for Halloween. Or when they’re cast as the grandma in the high school play. I ought to know. I wore a pair – in fact borrowed them from my grandma – when cast as a hard-of-hearing, scotch-tippling nursing home resident in our high school production of The Silver Whistle. The shoes were the finishing touch of a stellar costume, which included a pillow padded bosom and corresponding derrière. The footwear garnered more snickers than the bosom, even amongst high school boys.

Now that’s saying something.

I learned something else during my run as a drunk old lady. Grandma shoes aren’t comfortable. At all. Sure, they stay on your feet and the arch support is top notch, but they have no cushion, no give, no bounce. They suck the spring right out of your step and make you walk funny. Like an old grandma, to be exact.

Think about it.

Who wants to walk old lady sooner than necessary? Maybe women under the age of 50 will give it a whirl since they still think they’re immortal. But for those of us over 50, old ladydom is approaching at lightning speed, and we don’t want to dress the part any sooner than necessary. So I’m not jumping on this fall’s fashion bandwagon, no matter how popular the shoes become. I’m sticking to my footwear guns and hoping something better comes along next year. Ask as often as you like, but my answer will be the same.

No Grandma Shoes for me.

How Hard Can It Be?

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shapeimage 1 427 300x171 How Hard Can It Be?

Yesterday I mentioned that I’m slowly distributing Mom’s remaining keepsakes and family heirlooms. One of those heirlooms is Grandma Josie’s 1916 wedding dress. For years, it was hanging in Mom’s closet, and in my opinion the time has come for it to see the light of day.

But, being one Grandpa and Grandma Hess’s 39 grandchildren, I don’t think it’s right to keep the dress to myself. So Mom and I came up with the bright idea of donating the dress to the museum in the town where they lived most of their adult lives and raised their eight children. Though it’s not the town where Grandpa and Grandpa met and married, may of their descendants still live there and would be able to see the dress whenever they want.

In our ignorance, we thought, “How hard could it be?”

The answer? Plenty hard.

The museum wanted a recent picture of the dress to see if it was in good condition. So I emailed one.

The museum lady wrote back, “It’s in good condition. Now do you have any pictures of your grandmother wearing the dress? Any wedding announcements? And newspaper articles about the ceremony? Any information about the family?”

So I called Mom and asked her. “There’s a picture somewhere,” she said. “I think you have it. But I can’t think of anything else.”

“I thought you had a copy of their marriage license,” I prompted.

“I don’t remember,” she replied.

“Alzheimer’s,” I thought. “Drat that short term memory loss.”

I found the picture in a box of pictures I still need to sort through and called the Grundy County Courthouse to find out how to get a marriage license. The friendly clerk told me how to download the form, which I did.

One look at it, and I was on the phone to Mom again. “What were your grandparents’ first, and middle names? How about maiden names? And do I have the wedding date right?”

Mom supplied the needed information, and I mailed the form. The license arrived Saturday and today when I visit Mom, we’ll finish the project by writing up a short history of Vernon and Josephine Hess’s life.

Then I can mail the picture, the license and the history to the museum. On September 11, the museum committee will meet to either approve or deny our request to donate the dress. If they approve it, I have to mail the thing. If they deny, I’ll contact the museum in the county where they got married and start all over again.

How hard can it be?

Don’t ask.