“Strange how our celebrations always revolve around food,” my sister-in-law emailed me about her anniversary celebration earlier this week.  How true!  My husband and I helped them celebrate by going out to dinner and saluting with a wine toast.  We live in Idaho and they live in Denver. 

I my case, I think the food thing is genetic.  I’m 5th generation Idahoan – both sides of my Mother’s family settled in southern and southeastern Idaho in the late 1890s.  In the pioneer days of horse and buggy when you went somewhere you took food, and when you got somewhere, you were fed.  Not out-of-the-freezer-into-the-microwave-food, either.  Everything was made from scratch.  The chicken clucking in the driveway when you rode in might be the same one served crispy-fried for dinner, along with made-from-scratch bread and vegetables from the garden – or root cellar, depending on the time of year.  This ingrained hospitality has carried over through the generations.

When I was growing up in the late 40s-early 50s, we lived near my grandparents and close to an assortment of aunts, uncles, great-aunts, great-uncles and cousins, and in summers more came to visit.  Nearly every weekend would see a family reunion or a gathering of family at one home or another and the centerpieces of each get together were always groaning tables of food, inside in the winter, outside in the summer.  I think almost every picture of our family reunions shows people getting ready to eat, eating, or having just eaten.  Of course, it was about the only time everyone was in the same place at the same time, since it was common custom for the men to gather in one spot, the women in another, and the kids anywhere except where the adults were.  Until the food was ready. 

All the women in my family were good cooks and bakers.  I remember my great-aunt’s breads, rolls and pies – made with fresh milk, eggs and cream. My cousins and I often had a vested interest in what came out of the oven because we’d be sent out to gather eggs or help churn butter.  Churning butter is not for the weak of wrist.  We all fought to be first at the task, before the milk started to thicken and lump into globs of butter and it took two of us to turnk the crank.  She also made marvelous fried chicken, and my cousin and I always hoped the main course was one of the cranky setting hens that pecked us when we had to gather eggs.  Didn’t matter – there was always another one who didn’t like us.

My grandmother made good everything, but my favorites were always her new peas and potatoes, gooseberry pie and chokecherry jam.  I always figured shelling peas and picking gooseberries was a small price to pay for her cooking.  I usually got out of helping pick peas because my cousin and I were notorious for eating more than we brought back.  In fact, one year my grandfather and great-uncle each planted one special row of peas just for us so the rest of the family could have some once in awhile.

Mother inherited the cooking skills and passed them on (mostly) to me.  To this day I still cannot master making gravy.  I must have watched my great-aunt, grandma, and mother make gravy a million times, but the right technique still eludes me and mine is either too thick, too thin, or mostly lumpy.  If I want gravy, it comes out of a jar.  I practiced a lot on my grandmother’s gooseberry pies and chokecherry jam and although I’ll admit mine wasn’t bad, I could never equal hers.

I also inherited the desire to make sure you had enough food for everyone, with plenty for seconds.  My husband and I are a five minute drive from Albertsons but left to my own devices when getting ready to entertain I’ll come home with enough for an army.  My husband has learned to come with me on these expeditions and  My “but I don’t want to run out” complaint is drowned out by his logical “we can always get more if we need more” voice of reason – born of experience from times of having to consume copious amounts of leftovers.  We’re both retired so I can’t take them to work, and we live alone, without even a dog now  to help finish off the remains.  No matter how much we like scalloped potatoes and ham, there’s only so much of it you can eat before you can’t stand the sight of it.  And no, freezing it isn’t always an option, because I’m not very good at remembering to label leftovers.

When I was little and we went visiting, our hostess seldom asked if we wanted something to eat or drink.  Good manners dictated you brought out food and drink automatically.  The offering might not be anything more complicated (or delicious) than home made bread and butter with home made jam, but you were presented with food.  My first thought when the doorbell rings is “What do I have in the house to serve them?” followed by “and do I have enough?” before I even know who’s at the door. 

But, so many happy memories are tied with food that I’ll probably never get over the urge to offer cookies and lemonade to door-to-door salesmen.

Today is my Mother’s birthday. She would have been 93, but she didn’t quite make it this far. Until 3 years ago, we all thought she’d keep going at least as long as her mother, who lived to 102. But then, suddenly, something happened to make her decide differently. Whatever it was, none of us have ever quite figured out – a combination, I suspect, of the physical ailments that come with growing older, even though her health was basically good, and some quietly reached decision she didn’t want to be on the planet any more. She kept those thoughts privte most of the time, but I was aware that she wanted and was ready to go. Finally, on Easter Sunday, she was granted her wish. I’m not sure where she went, but where ever it was, she’s happy, I know. When my father and grandmother and several other close relatives died, I was aware of them “being there” for a month or so, and it was comforting. Then came a time when they said their goodbyes and went on. Mother didn’t stop. Oddly, I’m as comforted by that as I was by their presences, and I don’t mind.

Besides, I think she said her goodbye at her graveside service. Just as the service was about to begin, on a bright, sunny afternoon, one of my cousins looked up and exclaimed, “look, she’s saying goodbye.” Around the sun was a perfect sun halo. It went away as the last notes of the bagpiper’s “Amazing Grace” faded away at the end of the service.

Her mind was still sharp until the end.  She’d forget words or names once in awhile ( don’t we all?) and sometimes it took a few mental leaps to keep up when her train of thought changed tracks, but we discussed anything and everything from history, to writing, to genealogy, to movies, and she was always interested in what family and friends were doing.  She had a hard time carrying on long conversations, because her mind was not nimble enough to keep up with the flow and bring up the words and phrases she wanted.  It was exceedingly frustrating to someone who had always been very articulate.

She could be right feisty.  For several months after she moved to assisted living, she refused to let the physical therapist into her room.  I think it was mostly because it was a male.  The nurses would tell me, we’d have one of those “Mother, you have to let the therapist come in and work with you” discussions, followed by the inevitable explanation of “why.”  Then I’d go explain to the therapist that if he charged into the room when she was asleep and expected Little Miss Sunshine, he was going keep getting thrown out.  I’d have thrown him out, too!

At one point, she refused to take her medication – any of it.  The nurses were baffled, because she usually took it without any argument – didn’t even stash it in a drawer or under her pillow like so many residents would do.  It took me awhile to track back the source of that one.  After talking to several of the aides, I tracked it back to a discussion Mother and I had had the week before regarding her will and living will, when we talked about no extraordinary measures or medicines to prolong life if she should become ill.  Somehow, she determined the medication she was taking was being given to prolong life and she didn’t want it.  That was an interesting slippery slope to navigate, but I did finally convince her the medicine she took on a daily basis wasn’t in that category.  I’m not sure she completely believed me or simply decided it was easier to start taking the pills than having everyone fussing at her.

Although she married and raised me and worked in a variety of jobs, she considered herself first and foremost an author – not a writer, an author.  When anyone would ask her what she did, it was always “I’m an author”  perhaps followed by whatever “other” job she happened to have at the time.  She wrote jingles for contests and filled the living room with furniture and the closet with Samsonite luggage when she won, wrote articles for magazines and newspapers, wrote a weekly column for the local weekly paper – and through it all kept persisting in research and writing on the American fur trade and one of its leading, but very elusive, members, Andrew Henry.  In 1990 she published the book “Andrew Henry:  Mine and Mountain Major,” from the results of her research.

This past Christmas Eve, we got together with my cousin and her family. Since her grandmother and my grandfather were brother and sister and we all lived close together, most of our holiday and family celebrations were held together, varying from house to house. We got to talking about one of my father’s birthday parties, which has become legend in our family because my cousin managed to upend the newly lighted birthday cake enroute to delivering it to my dad. I don’t remember how old she was, but she was so proud of carrying her grandma’s cake, tripped, and didn’t just drop it but upended it completely, making a perfect candle upside-down-cake. Naturally, she was mortified. We all remembered the incident, but that’s where the similarity ended – none of us could agree on where the disaster took place. My cousin said at her grandma’s, her Mother said at her house, and I said at our house. A good reason never to totally trust family tales!