by jphilo | Mar 18, 2011 | Family
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.
by jphilo | Oct 6, 2010 | Recipes
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.
by jphilo | Sep 27, 2010 | Family
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.
by jphilo | Aug 25, 2009 | Family
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.
by jphilo | Jun 2, 2009 | Family
A few years ago my older sister, who hit fifty long before I did, said she was getting more like our Grandma Hess (our mother’s mother) every year. “Maybe it’s happening to you,” I thought, “but it won’t happen to me.” I was so wrong! Since turning fifty almost three years ago, I have developed some strange quirks that can be traced directly to Grandma. The most notable of these traits are:
- A growing belief that oatmeal deserves its own food group, should be eaten for every breakfast and added to all baked goods.
- A penchant for big, flower-patterned, cover-up aprons.
- Snoring.
- The habit of spitting on a tissue (though Grandma used a hankie) and using it to wash the dirty face of any child related to me.
- Wintering over my geraniums, rooting geraniums, planting geraniums in my garden, etc.
- Ditto for asparagus ferns, vinca vines, and philodendrons.
- Not wanting to spend money unless it’s really necessary, and nothing is really all that necessary.
- A need to check my flower gardens every day, pick flowers for bouquets whenever possible, and put the flowers in the vase (see photograph above) that belonged to Grandma’s mother.
- Thinking the best way to celebrate any winter event is to cram everyone into my house and serve a heavy meal.
- Thinking the best way to celebrate any winter event is to have a family picnic.
Some of Grandma’s traits I haven’t picked up yet and hope Hiram or my kids chain me to a wall before I do are:
- Taking all the sugar, creamer, catsup, mustard, and any other condiment packets, along with as many straws and napkins that will fit in a purse, from restaurant booths.
- Buying cheap clothes, worthy of wearing at my own funeral, at Crazy Daze and putting them in the back of the closet until the big day arrives.
- Belching.
- Watching Lawrence Welk every Saturday night.
- Knowing the life story of every entertainer on Lawrence Welk and relating them to my grandchildren.
- Asking my kids to cut my toenails when I can afford a podiatrist.
- Requiring kids to wait thirty minutes after a meal before they go swimming.
Unfortunately, a few years ago I would have told my family to chain me to a wall if I snored, spit on a tissue or wore a flower-patterned apron. So I’m probably doomed to pick up a few more Grandma quirks every few years. But if the Lawrence Welk oddities come last, I’ll be eternally grateful.
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