Memories of my Mother

4/29/2022

Some of my fondest memories of my Mother also include her Mother. I am from the south and southern women, when I was small, lived for canning season.

Anything you could cut, peel, slice, or dice was targeted. Purple hull peas and huckleberries were high on my list of favorite things to eat.

We lived in a large old two story house with screened in porches and a wide hall through the middle. Perfect for the army it took to can tomatoes. Some had to be juiced, some peeled and canned, and others canned with onions and peppers.

Aunts and cousins would start arriving early for the workday. The tomatoes were picked and placed in large tubs by the well. My brother was always in charge of drawing water to fill the tubs. My grandmother had a rocking chair by the tubs and a set of knives in her pan. She tried to teach all of us the fine art of peeling tomatoes with knives as sharp as razors. I have scars.

The day was always filled with work, laughter, and singing. My mother, grandmother, and aunts had beautiful singing voices. I have a few cousins left, no mother, grandmother, or aunts but I still remember the canning days.

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1 Comment

Gayle Malone

5/24/2022 10:47:50 am

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My mother was a florist whose shop housed a giant walk in cooler (walk in is part of our family lexicon). I always remembered the scent - a cold combination of carnations, iris, gladiolas and greenery, the best scent in the world. To this day when I am at any grocery store with a florist, I always open their (much smaller) cooler doors to inhale the scent of childhood. She was an artist so the scent of oil paint, turpentine, hot glue and saw dust are reminiscent of my youth
Grandmother (her mother) always kept dried dill in her pantry. Again, to this day, dill takes me back to the family farm where each morning started out with the scent of coffee on the stove. My grandmother was a voracious canner - so much so that we found jars dated 1970 (this find occurred in 1991) in her root cellar. Guess I was just too citified to try the mystery meat contained in that mason jar.
It seems as if Southern Women and Midwestern Women have a lot in common when it comes to their Matriarchs.

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