The packages have been arriving thick and fast for the past week or two. Christmas presents ordered on the internet, a repair part for the upstairs shower, my camera lens back from the fix-it shop (yippee!), and a box all the way from cowboy country.
In the package were three Camp Crook 125th (1883-2008) Anniversary Cookbooks, one for each of our newlywed couples and one for us oldyweds. Gerald and Becky, friends from Harding County, South Dakota sent them. Becky, grandma of the two boys attached to the boots above, wrote a note in each one. In the elder Philo copy she wrote, “ May these names and recipes remind you of all the memories in Harding County.”
Eagerly, I turned the pages. Many of the recipes were new, but a good portion came from the 1983 Centennial cookbook, which was created during the years we lived in the tiny town. Turning the pages brought back memories of the townspeople who supported us through the tough years after Allen was born.
- Prairie Style Baked Beans from Walter Stuart, the crotchety old widower who kept chickens and his old cow, Snippy, in a makeshift barn behind the school.
- Several yeast bread recipes in memory of Effie Brewer, the gruff widow who always wore a work shirt, trousers and a squashed, pork-pie hat wherever she went.
- Contributions from fellow teachers during my first year in the classroom: Marie Knapp, Carol Odell, and Karen Douglas.
- Recipes from parents of my former students. Submissions from the former students – which I could handle – knowing that most of them were married now. And recipes from their children – which was hard to swallow – who can’t possibly be old enough to cook!
And there amidst the recipes submitted by strong women who have made the vast, tall-grass prairie their home, were my recipes. What an honor, what sweetness it was thirty years ago to be counted a cook with them. What a delight to be part of their history still.
Thank you, Becky, for a most delicious gift.
