Laura Ingalls Wilder and Me and The Long Winter

"Laura felt a warmth inside her. It was very small, but it was strong. It was steady, like a tiny light in the dark, and it burned very low but no winds would make it flicker because it would not give up." 

— Laura Ingalls Wilder (The Long Winter)

When I was growing up, I read a lot. No, I mean I actually read everything I could get my hands on. I was particularly fond of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie series. I felt an affinity with Laura and her older sister Mary. I was a little bit like both of them. Laura’s tomboyish ways and love of mischief fit me to a tee, but I also loved the bookish, quietness of Mary. 

My favorite book in the series was The Long Winter, but the hardships that Laura and her family and the whole town faced during the terrible blizzard of 1880 didn’t resonate with me from personal experience. I had never come up against anything remotely comparable to those tough times. The closest I came was living on the farm with no inside bathroom and only cold running water that had to be heated on top of the stove. The farmhouse had no insulation and was cold and drafty and we had no central heat, only a coal stove in the kitchen whose heat rose through an open grate to the bedroom above it. There was also a coal stove in the living room and one in my parents’ bedroom. It was lucky for us that my dad hauled coal for a living. I still love to catch a whiff of that acrid smell coming from a chimney, although it is becoming more rare these days.

Our farm lay snuggled between hills and we didn’t get the bitter, driving winds of the prairie. Winds that were so harsh, at times they drove the heavy snow into drifts as high as the top floors of the houses. I don’t remember ever running out of food, because the supply train couldn’t reach town through the ice and snow. We always had a cellar full of canned foods that my mother and sisters diligently put by all summer long. Mom even canned meat when we didn’t have a freezer. I’m sure Caroline Ingalls did those same things, but it was a long, long winter on the prairie, with many mouths to feed.

Where we live now, in west central Ohio, is on the far eastern edge of the prairie. It is flat. Our house sits across the road from large open soybean fields and we often get gale force winds that drift the snow in waves across the length of our driveway. Luckily our house is also surrounded by trees that break the force of the wind. Having trees was number one on the must-have list when we moved here almost eleven years ago. The majority of houses that were built here in the last twenty years sit in what once were soybean and corn fields, on five-acre grassed lots. I can just imagine how alone and desolate I would feel living in one of those exposed houses when we’re having a storm of this week’s magnitude, cutting off power and contact with the outside world, even for just a little while. 

I had planned to write a post last week on how I am always complaining about winter and how much I hate it. Then I read an article in our Columbus Dispatch by John Switzer, a regular columnist who writes about birds and nature and weather. In the previous week’s column he had written that, only six weeks into winter, he was tired of it, and was hoping for an early spring. He received an email from a disgruntled reader:

"Winter has just started officially, and you are already wishing it over.

"I think your blood is getting thinner with old age. Summer drags on for four or five months, with uncomfortable temperatures in the 80s and 90s, occurring May to October.

"At best, we get two or three months of consistent cold temperatures. For some reason, snow scares the hell out of most central Ohioans. The average snowfall of 30 inches is virtually nothing.

"In case you can’t tell, I love the cold and snow; grew up in the snow belt of Cleveland and miss having real winters."

So, that started me thinking. Without the freezing days of winter, there would be no killing off of pests such as fleas and ticks. We would have no purpose for all the downed trees made into firewood and carefully stacked inside the large barn. And, there would be no maple syrup, which brings me to one of my favorite parts of The Long Winter.

When Almanzo and his brother are nearly out of food, the only thing left for them to cook is flapjacks made with water and buckwheat. They didn’t have any molasses left, which was the most-used sweetener in those days, so they used something like today's brown sugar between the layers of flapjacks. Those pancakes sounded so delicious with the sugar melting a little with the heat, but still retaining a bit of the crunch. My mouth would water at the picture in my mind. There was even an illustration showing the steam rising from those stacks of golden flapjacks. 

When I was old enough to be trusted in the kitchen by myself (by this time, we had moved to town and had a more modern house), I decided to finally experience what Almanzo and his brother had so long ago. I didn’t have buckwheat, so I used self-rising flour, which is what Mom always used. I fried those pancakes in Crisco in an iron skillet until they were golden brown and crispy on the edges, slathered them with lots of butter (I know, not technically correct either), and sprinkled a good layer of brown sugar between each layer. What a disappointment! Oh, they were good. How could they not be with the half pound of butter? I suppose I wasn’t hungry enough, but the brown sugar just didn’t cut it for me. And in those days, I didn’t even know what maple syrup was. The only syrup we ever had was simple sugar syrup that Mom made in a saucepan. Two parts sugar to one part water; boiled. But I much preferred that simple syrup over brown sugar.

Thankfully, my disappointment didn’t ruin my love for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books and I would read them many times throughout my childhood and even as an adult to my own children.

This brings to mind one winter when our children were young and we lived in the country with rural electric co-op service. We had an ice storm such as we had this week, with one-half inch of ice coating the ancient power lines and the surrounding trees. On top of that, Mother Nature decided to dump twenty inches of heavy, wet snow. Many thousands of residents were without power for a week or more, with temperatures falling into the single digits.  We also didn’t have water, even though we had county water lines. The pumping station needed electricity to get the water to us. David had to take five-gallon buckets to the firehouse to fill with water to flush the toilets and also containers for drinking water. Our house survived freezing pipes because we had the foresight to install a cast iron wood-burning stove the first winter after we bought the house. It was a necessity. We couldn’t afford to heat with electricity.

I also used that wood-burning stove to cook our meals that week. To this day, my kids still talk about the sausage and “the best pancakes EVER” that I made in an iron skillet on top of that stove. They were the best pancakes ever. And we topped them with "Mom’s" syrup.

From Mr. Spitzer's column:  The name of the February moon is “snow moon” and it will be full on the 18th. The Potawatomi Indians called it the “baby bear moon”, because that is when the mother bears gave birth to their young. Other Indians called it the “hunger moon”.

My sister, my friend

(Before I came along)

She was nine years old when her baby sister was born. Until that day, she had been the baby of the family. So it wasn't unexpected that she would be a little jealous of the newcomer. She tells me that I was like a baby doll to her and our older sister. That when I came into her life she had to quit piano lessons (but that she was secretly glad). My earliest memory of us together was asking for a drink of water (I was too little to reach the hand pump in the farmhouse kitchen, much less make the water come out of it). Mom was too busy to get it for me and asked my sister to do it. She did...and then she poured it down the front of my dress. I cried of course, and I think she got yelled at....or smacked...depending on how loudly I caterwauled. My sister also liked to tickle me until I cried, gasping for mercy from her devilish hands. I think she enjoyed every minute. Paybacks in her mind?

I was the spoiled rotten baby. My mom was thirty-nine years old when I was born and worn out from a life of hard times and harder work. My dad was almost sixty-three. We were his second family. My second clearest memories are when I was about five or six. Being a brat, I'm sure I deserved many a spanking, but I always ran to Daddy and he would say, "Now don't you whip that baby." This had to be frustrating to my sisters and my mother, to say the least, because I got by with murder. But they had a plan. When Dad would leave and I misbehaved, my sisters would chase me as I ran away from them around the house. One would go one way, and the other the opposite direction and trap me between them. Then I would get a much-deserved spanking. I don't remember it hurting very much, but I must have screamed like a banshee. On the other hand, they also protected me from our mean old rooster, without regard for getting flogged themselves.

(Mom, me, my sister)

When I was almost seven, I remember there was a lot of crying going on in our house. My sister, our mother, even our dad. Daddy begged her not to marry her boyfriend...that he was no good. But she was "in trouble", and more than likely she wanted to get away from home and work. She got married on her sixteenth birthday, standing in our aunt's house while our uncle said the words over them. I would like to report that it all worked out, but Daddy was right. He was a very good judge of character. In those days, you stuck it out in a bad marriage, and she did for ten long years and with three little kids. Without enough education, it was hard to see a way out.


After our dad died, Mom and I were living in a small house in the small village where we had moved when Dad got sick and they sold the farm to my brother. My sister and her family moved next door to us. I hated it! I had to help with the kids and she was always bossing me around. My favorite sentence was "You're not my mother!"  Of course I deserved everything she tried to do to rein me in. I was ten and running all over town on my bicycle, staying at my friends' houses, hardly ever coming home except to eat. Poor Mom! What I did to her she never let on to me. She was worried to death about finances. She didn't drive, didn't have a job and we had very, very little to live on. She took in laundry and ironing to bring in a little extra money. And none of our family was in any position to help out, especially my sister. She was in almost the same boat herself.


Then there were big changes. Mom met a recent widower, married him shortly thereafter, and we moved to the country. In a few more years, my sister finally got enough courage to leave her husband. She eventually remarried; well, more than once.

Her second husband taught her the pizza business and she is still making and selling pizzas today. And they're darned good, too!

(Taken in 1975)

Her third husband taught her to never "look for love in all the wrong places."


Her fourth and last husband is the "finally" one. Finally, she found someone who treats her with the respect and love and caring that she deserves. And yes, she more than deserves it.


She's a smart business owner and a talented artist. She loves dogs, especially Yorkies. She loves Elvis and saw him twice in concert and still has all his albums. She likes to drive fast (all of us Jenkins siblings do!). She has a green thumb and grows the most beautiful roses. She hates winter and loves living in Florida. She's been rich and she's been poor, but she always treats people the same. She's a straight shooter...you never have to wonder what she's thinking or if she's being honest with you. She's a hard worker and doesn't cut any slack for anyone who isn't. Her loyalty is fierce, but if you lie to her, watch out.  She shares our mother's birthday...thirty years apart...mom 22 years gone. She can be tough; but she's also very sentimental and cries at the drop of a hat. She gives the best hugs.


From being my nemesis when I was a little girl (only a few times) and the scourge of my life (my perception) when I was a teenager, she became my best friend, one of my staunchest allies, a shelter when the tragedies of life seemed too big to overcome. I hope she knows that I love her with all my heart.

(Judy in 2008)

Happy Birthday, dearest Judy....my sister, my friend.

Love, Me

(This song in no way represents our relationship other than the fact that I'm her little sister and she loves Elvis.)

Farm Girl in the Thirties

 

I went to visit my Aunt Marie and my brother Everett (whom we've always called Buddy) this past weekend. This picture is my aunt holding my brother in front of our family home about 1935. There's a little snow next to the sidewalk and Buddy is wearing a knit cap, so it must have been late winter or early spring. Aunt Marie seems to be wearing either her dad's or one of her brothers' hat and overalls. She probably had been working outside. She looks quite dapper in that fedora.

My mom and her sisters and brothers had to work very hard on the farm. They raised crops to sell in town and had cattle and hogs and chickens to take care of in the winter. Aunt Marie was the youngest of eight and I think she got off lightly compared to the rest. My grandfather was a tough taskmaster and they weren't allowed to shirk their duty. They had to work in the fields and barns before and after school, beginning before dawn and until sunset.

Mom only went to school until ninth grade. She stayed after school one day to watch a ballgame and when she got home, Grandpa whipped her and made her quit and stay at home to work full time. Those were the days.

As I said in a previous post, my brother still owns the farm. It has never been out of our family's possession since it was built in 1887. It has gone through a few changes. Buddy added indoor plumbing and a bathroom when he bought it from my mother and dad in 1961. He also added new windows and siding as he could afford it, and he enclosed the back porch for a laundry room. Some of the outbuildings such as the corn crib, the chicken coop, the smokehouse and the old outhouse are all gone now, but basically the house still looks the same as it did in this picture.

Aunt Marie is the only one of her siblings still living and she is ninety years and counting. My mother passed away in 1987 and Aunt Marie has been a surrogate mother to me since then. I always tease her and say I'm her favorite niece and she teases me back and says she's my favorite aunt. She's right.

Gypsies, tramps and thieves........

My grandmother, Maggie Hart, was terrified of gypsies. My sister Judy remembers when she was little that Grandma would worry herself sick if one of us was playing outside unsupervised, because the "gypsies" might steal us.

We lived out in the country in a time when gypsies really did travel from house to house peddling their homemade pots and pans. I've always thought of gypsies as being Romanian, but, in fact, there were several nationalies represented. Each of them specialized in different things. The Rom arrived in the United States from Serbia, Austria and Austria-Hungary in the late 1880s in the huge wave of immigration from Eastern Europe. They were coppersmiths, and in addition to home cookware, they also made equipment for bakeries, laundries, confectionries and other businesses. The Rom have also been credited with introducing the art of fortune-telling. I assume that this group was the one that my grandmother knew about.

The many different groups of gypsies, or travelers, included Black Dutch, Hungarian, Romnichels, Scottish and Irish travelers, and Ludar. You can read about them at The Gypsy Lore Society

In honor of the gypsies that my grandmother feared, I'm posting the recipe for this wonderful soup. I have no idea if it has roots in Hungary, but I do know it is delicious and we love it, especially with a good crusty bread.


HUNGARIAN MUSHROOM SOUP

3/4 cup chopped onion
2 tablespoons butter
12 oz. sliced fresh mushrooms
2 teaspoons dried dillweed
2 teaspoons Hungarian paprika
2 teaspoons minced garlic (4 cloves)
1/8 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
3-14-ounce cans beef broth (5 /14 cups)
1 1/3 cups half-and-half (or whipping cream, if you dare)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 teaspoons soy sauce

1. In a 4-quart Dutch oven, cook onion in hot butter over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add mushrooms, dillweed, paprika, garlic and pepper. Cook for 4 to 5 minutes or until mushrooms are just tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in beef broth. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Simmer, covered, 10 minutes.

2. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, whisk together the half-and-half or whipping cream, flour, sour cream, lemon juice and soy sauce until smooth. Gradually whisk in about 1/2 cup of the hot mushroom mixture. Add all of the cream mixture to the remaining mushroom mixture in Dutch oven. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly. Cook 1 minute more.

Note: This came from Midwest Living Magazine which got it from Sibley Station, a restaurant in Pequot Lakes, Minnesota.

Random thoughts from my childhood

We were pretty poor when I was a child. My dad was 63 when I was born in 1953 and had a sixth-grade education. He wasn't able to find much work at his age and hauled coal to supplement what my mother could make by cleaning houses and taking in laundry. We didn't have an indoor bathroom, although we did have running cold water in the house. Water had to be heated on the stove. The house was the one that my great-grandfather built in 1887 and has always been and still remains in our family. My brother has owned it since 1961.

Mom had a wringer washer and a big rinse tub. And, of course, all the clothes were hung outside to dry, summer or winter. I can remember her starching all those white shirts and nurses uniforms and caps in that blue liquid starch. It was my job to stir it up. I had the easy part. Oh, and she would let me iron the handkerchiefs. The men's were boring white, but I loved the ladies' hankies. No two were the same, and I thought we must be rich, because Mom had hankies just like those rich ladies. They weren't really rich, just a little better off than we were, but it seemed as if they were to me. I still iron shirts in the same order that Mom taught me.
1. Right sleeve, cuff first and spread out.
2. Left sleeve.
3. Yoke.
4. Back.
5. Collar.
6. Left front.
7. Right front.

We had beans every day for supper, except for Sunday when we would have fried or baked chicken. Mom put up vegetables in the summer. She made lots of sauerkraut, pickles, pickled beans and corn. We were of German ancestry, after all. There were also jellies. My favorite was the wild plum. I've always liked jelly and jam that is a little tart.

We had our own milk when the cow was fresh and Mom made her own butter, cottage cheese and buttermilk. I always begged to churn the butter, but she would say, No, you're too little. I couldn't get the rhythm just right. You sang a little rhyme...Come, butter, come. I can't remember the rest. Then she would gather the butter out of the liquid and form it into a ball, making sure to get as much of the whey out as possible. The best part of butter-making day was slathering a fresh slice of bread with the freshly made butter and eating it very slowly to savor each mouthful.

Every Spring, my dad would go to the post office and come home with a box full of baby chicks. Usually a couple hundred. They had to stay in the kitchen by the coal stove to keep warm. So exciting for a little girl!

The brooder house wasn't heated, but when they got too big, Dad would move them all out there and sleep with them on cold nights so they wouldn't freeze to death. All he had to keep the brooder warm was a dim light bulb and his body heat. Can you imagine doing that now? Of course, most of the chicks were destined at eight weeks of age to become meat for the deep freeze. On butchering day, my Aunt Ruth would come over and help with the scalding and plucking after Daddy chopped off their heads. Then she and Mom would dress them. I have no idea what they put them in after that, because there sure were no Ziploc bags back then. She always gave Aunt Ruth some dressed chickens to take home as pay for helping out. The rest became our Sunday dinners for the rest of the year.

Of course, they always kept hens for eggs and we had them every morning for breakfast along with biscuits. They were always fried soft and I would beg Mom to mash them up for me. Sometimes she liked to soft-boil her eggs and I still eat them that way occasionally. Mom made biscuits every day of her life with Dad. When he passed away at 73, she hardly ever made biscuits again. I wonder if she was just tired of making them or they reminded her too much of Dad.

An addendum: I found this churning song from Eastern Kentucky. It isn't the one my mother sang, but I like it.

Churning Song
(as collected in Eastern Kentucky)

Sing to the tune of “Farmer in the Dell”

Churn churn churn, this is churning day,
Til the golden butter comes the dasher must not stay.
Pat pat pat, make it smooth and round,
Now the golden butter’s done won’t you buy a pound.

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This hand-painted Delft ornament was brought to me by my dear husband from Amsterdam when he was there on business.