Category Archives: Memories

Brown Sack Memories

09 Saturday Oct 2021

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Sometimes I have a flashback of an earlier time where I see a picture and maybe even catch a scent. I’m never prepared for that to happen, it just does. This morning it was of paper sack lunches during elementary school years. I grew up in a small town and life was simple. We were sent to school with our lunch in a paper sack; there wasn’t a cafeteria early on. Our name would be written on our lunch sack and placed on a high shelf in the classroom. When it was time for lunch, our teacher would hand us our sack.

My lunch was usually peanut butter on white bread — always the Colonial brand. Sometimes my lunch would be a luncheon meat called Treet. Treet was similar to Spam, and I don’t think they make it any more. I also remember Vienna sausage, sliced, and mustard spread on the bread. When I opened the top of the sack, I could get a whiff of what sandwich I had for lunch that day. Some kids brought ham or sausage and biscuit from breakfast. One classmate brought chocolate on biscuits and I was fascinated by that. I didn’t grow up with chocolate gravy as many did and I suppose that’s what it was, only thicker so it would work as a spread on the biscuits.

Eventually my brown paper sack was replaced with a tin lunchbox and it eventually held onto the scent of what had been packed in it. My lunchbox was was with the red haired, freckle-faced “Howdy Doody” design. There was more room in a lunchbox and no concern about mashing the contents, so Mother added homemade cookies and maybe a few potato chips and sweet pickles that she had canned. I really liked pickles.

There was something about a sack lunch that was special. They went with me to the cotton fields and to the packing shed where I packed tomato plants. When lunchtime came and we of similar age gathered to open our sacks, it was a relaxing and fun time. Sometimes there were silly jokes told and laughter would become loud and the laughter created even more laughter. We were tired and glad to be sharing 30 minutes or so.

I love the memories that bounce back unexpectedly. Days of long ago that bring a smile as I drift for a short time in childhood. It was a nice moment to remember sack lunches packed by my mother and shared with friends who also ate from brown paper sacks. Thank you, Lord, for the memories.

Decorated with Love

14 Tuesday Feb 2017

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One of my favorite pictures of my mother, Louise Spencer Luffman. In her late 20s.

My mother was a keeper of all things. Not like a hoarder; our house was always clean and orderly. Everything in drawers was neatly folded and things on closet shelves were boxed and labeled. When Mother died and we cleaned out the house, I found a little notebook where she had recorded the contents of every room—probably done in those last years at home when she looked for ways to fill her days.

I remember a conversation Mother and I had once about several bud vases she kept on a shelf in the living room. I told her she could buy those vases for $1 each and I didn’t think anyone meant for her to keep them on display, but her response was that someone had cared enough about her to give her flowers and she was going to keep the bud vases right where they were.

Growing up, when I would clean my room, I would sometimes go through things that I thought were entirely worn out and take them outside for “throw away.” Mother would go behind me and rummage through everything and bring much of it back inside. When I later married and had a little girl, Mother would bring her my old costume jewelry that she had salvaged and my daughter loved it.

As I aged and matured in my understanding, I came to see Mother’s collecting in a different way. I realized the memories that were attached to things of her past. I especially loved Mother’s albums of many photographs kept through the years. A day came when she would tell me that I should take any of them I might like—that she didn’t need them anymore.

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A very early picture of my parents. They married at 15 and 18. I’ve wondered if it was made the day they married.

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Me with my snowman when we lived on Church Street.

She would also say of her many keepsakes “If you see anything you want, just take it.” Sometimes she would mention a particular item and tell me something about it and then ask if I would like to have it. Her stories and her mementos became precious to me, more valuable than I could ever explain.

Much of what Mother gave me is in my kitchen. There are also some things of my grandmother’s there. I enjoy telling friends about the pieces that live in my kitchen and one friend said she loved my house because of all the stories belonging to each piece. Still another friend said something I will always cherish: “You decorate with love.” I had never thought of it like that, but she is right. I have adorned my kitchen with things that make me happy, things of fond memory. My highchair with its many coats of paint, a piece Mother loomed when she was 18 and I had framed, my grandmother’s buttermilk pitcher that Papa bought for 50 cents, my mother’s grease crock for keeping the bacon drippings, a framed copy of my grandmother’s recipe for chicken and dumplings—a dish she was known for far and wide.

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Mother’s loomed piece in center made when she was 18, two crocheted pieces above and below.

No place in my house feels as comfortable to me as my kitchen. Like my mother and grandmother, I love to cook and bake and that accounts for part of the comfort. However, I know it is also because I feel a special warmth standing in the midst of family memories. I’m grateful for a mother who kept things and then shared them with me.  Every cherished memento says “I love you.”

Sundays of My Childhood

29 Monday Aug 2016

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In the sweltering heat of southern summers, there was somewhat of a Sunday afternoon tradition at my grandparents’ house of putting small children down to nap on a pallet. A pallet was a homemade quilt folded over once or twice, depending on the number of grandchildren needing rest. Nearby, would be an oscillating fan, giving off a cool breeze as it turned your way. And while children napped, grownups would spend the afternoon in conversation until time for supper.

The Sunday noontime meal usually included both fried chicken and country ham. Mama and Papa had chickens and a smoke house where Papa cured hams. The table was heavy with bowls of vegetables from their garden. Desserts came in threes and you didn’t have to choose. Mama brought you a plate with some of each one; maybe two kinds of pie and a slice of cake. Once when Mama proudly brought a plate of desserts to a guest eating with us, he shook his head and said he couldn’t possibly eat all that and to please just give him one of the desserts. I can still see Mama’s face as she looked from him to the dessert plate in puzzlement. Foolish man to turn away the wares of a champion baker!

Before nap time and conversation, the table was cleared and the food carried from the dining room back to the stove. There it would be covered and put in the oven or left on top of the stove with the pot’s lids covering the “vittles,” as my grandfather called them.That wonderful repast would wait there for us to enjoy again for supper. And we didn’t always warm it up; rather, it might be spooned onto plates and eaten at room temperature. There was Sunday night church to attend, you see, so tasks were kept to a minimum. Mama’s cooking had gone on the day before or very early Sunday morning.

The memory of my grandparents’ table groaning with food and a fan cooling children on pallets are treasured memories. If I close my eyes and listen intently, I can almost hear the hum of that fan as it traveled from left to right and feel the cool breezes it provided on a hot Sunday afternoon.

As children of the 40s and 50s, we enjoyed simple pleasures and much security. We felt with our parents and grandparents in charge, no harm could come to us. We were protected from things we did and did not know. We played uncomplicated games of jack rocks and marbles, hop scotch and jump rope. We might search for four-leaf clovers or make necklaces and bracelets by typing clovetogether the long stems of the white clovers. My grandparents had an elephant ear plant that was profuse with huge leaves and long stems. Mama would break one off for each of us and we would pretend the leaves were umbrellas to fend off the sun or rain. Imagination in that day was a part of every game we played.

I think we need these memories as we age and that accounts for why we reminisce so much in our senior years. Rituals like Sunday family dinners and naps on pallets gave us uncomplicated days. Their recall brings smiles and appreciation for what we then took for granted.

Whoever thought things would change like they have? Ours was a world that made sense and gave hope for our futures. Maybe it is sheer foolishness, but somehow I believe that if we could take our children and grandchildren back to the way things were when we grew up, they would actually enjoy and want it. What do you think?

Live so that when your children think of fairness, caring, and integrity, they think of you.

                                                       — H. Jackson Brown, Jr. 

 

My Comfort Zone–the Kitchen

17 Monday Aug 2015

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Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.                                                Proverbs 22:6 (ESV)

The kitchen is my comfort zone—my favorite place to be. I had 6 years of Home Economics—grades 7 through 12. Then, I had the day-to-day experience of my mother’s cooking. The kitchen was her comfort zone, too. I can’t imagine better meals than she put on our table. And then there was Mother’s mother, my Mama Dulcie. She was duly recognized as one of the best cooks around.

I don’t remember the first thing I ever cooked on my own. Maybe biscuits—a place many young cooks begin. My mother made her first pan of biscuits out of necessity when she was just 8 years old. Mama Dulcie cut her hand slicing meat for breakfast and it fell to Mother, the oldest child, to complete the meal. Mama Dulcie stood Mother on a stool to make her tall enough to reach the counter and then guided her through Biscuit Making 101.

I’m pretty sure my first credible baking was at about age 16 when I made the chocolate layer cake from the back of the Hershey’s Cocoa tin. Fudge Cake, they called it. Two layers of moist, delicate flavor covered with chocolate icing, also from the back of the box. It is still my preferred recipe for chocolate layer cake, though no longer found on today’s Hershey’s Cocoa containers. You will find one, but not this old and best one.

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My first cookbook –November 1960

From the beginning, I made my own pie pastry. That recipe came from my first Better Homes and Garden Cook Book, bought during those years of high school Home Economics.  I cherished that treasure trove of recipes from the moment it was placed in my hands. Through the years—late 50s until now—I still make the pastry for my pies, believing the pastry to be as important as the filling.

I reminisce over the kitchens of early years because it brings me such wonderful memories. I followed two masters of the kitchen and I like to think I get close to their expertise. There are many things I cannot do, but in the kitchen my creativity and confidence are unleashed.

squash chow chow

Squash Chow Chow

Yesterday I spent hours putting up Squash Chow Chow.   As with my mother, appearance is important so I hand dice and grate the vegetables. That alone takes 2 hours. When the pickled vegetables are at last sealed in jars, I have a great sense of satisfaction and I know my mother and grandmother would be proud.

I have some things from their kitchens: my grandmother’s flat, round sifter and her buttermilk pitcher. I have my mother’s potato masher, the small crock pitcher she used just for whipping cream for strawberry shortcake, and the crock she used to store bacon drippings. They are my treasures along with the memories that flood my mind and heart.

Mother's potato masher

Mother’s potato masher

It’s probably right on to say I enjoy being in my kitchen because of the closeness it brings me to my heritage. I feel Mama over one shoulder and Mother over the other, nodding their heads and smiling with approval. Turning out kitchen goodies is a way of keeping them nearby and remembering the heavenly aromas of their culinary art. I can drift for a moment back through time and join them at the stove and the dinner table. My heart thanks them for their love of cooking and for passing it on to me.

French Coconut Pie

French Coconut Pie, my mother’s recipe