grace grits and gardening

ramblings from an arkansas farm girl

from a pew away…

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At Brinkley Chapel we all wore roses pinned to our dresses on Mother’s Day Sunday – white if our mother had already passed away and pink or red if our mother was still alive. I really don’t know if this is a tradition everywhere or just at our little church in Arkansas. We had lots of unique traditions there.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother’s Day!

 

Momma ordered a corsage for Nana from the flower shop in Osceola. It was always a white Gardenia, her favorite, the most fragrant of all flowers. I could smell it from a pew away.

Momma wore a red or pink rose corsage with a bit of baby’s breath, but Staci and I were too little to wear big, fancy, store-bought corsages. We ran outside on Sunday morning, getting our shoes wet in the grass, and clipped a tiny pink rose from the bush beside the driveway. Luckily the rosebush was always in full bloom on Mother’s Day, as if it understood the importance of its job.

Momma always told us to pick one of the buds not fully open. If we wore one of the pretty big roses already in full bloom, the petals fell apart before the invitational hymn leaving only a pin and a thorny stem on your dress. No telling what the significance of that might have been.

Frances Creecy

Nana – Frances Johnson Creecy

 

Twenty-four years ago, Momma had to start wearing a white Gardenia corsage on Mother’s Day. I still get to wear pink:)

Happy Mother’s Day to all!

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.
Musical Pairing:
Paul Simon – Loves Me Like a Rock

“Most children threaten at times to run away from home. This is the only thing that keeps some parents going.”
~ Phyllis Diller

Love Shack baby!

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Nana was born on Valentine’s Day. How perfect! The day of love and happiness. Growing up, the Valentine’s Day parties in elementary school with the cute little cards and yummy cupcakes were all secondary to Nana’s Valentine’s Day Birthday. We eagerly showered her with homemade cards, candy, a cake and presents – along with an off key rendition of Happy Birthday.


When Nana and Papa Creecy moved to Keiser from the home place, they bought the brick house next door to the Grahams. I thought it was the prettiest house in Keiser. It had a very cool finished-out attic which became our hideout. Staci and I played with our barbies there and listened to music during bunkin’ parties. There was no furniture in the attic, other than an oversized bright yellow wooden rocker. The house must have been built around that rocker – it was there when they bought it. And it was part of the deal when my mother sold it, after they died. The attic stairs were super steep and small – a secret little stairwell – that chair wasn’t going anywhere. The Mystery of the Attic Chair… I’m sure had Nancy Drew known, she would have solved the puzzle. I bet it’s still there.

In junior high, the attic became the site of many, many games of 7 Minutes in Heaven…Keiser,Arkansas-Style. Our version was really more a combination of Spin the Bottle and Thirty Seconds in the Closet. We all sat in a big circle surrounding a coke bottle in the center. We turned the overhead light off – probably because we were too embarrassed to see ourselves. Understandably, this drove Nana crazy. She would flip the switch at the bottom of the stairs and yell up to the attic space, “Taaaaaaaalya!!!” We would all giggle, “Oh sorry!” like we had no idea how that light turned itself off, wait a couple of minutes, and flip the switch again from upstairs. She couldn’t (or wouldn’t) climb those steep stairs, and we knew it.  We took turns spinning the bottle, and the person the bottle landed on was the lucky recipient of a few seconds in the attic closet, in the shadows.


We spent lots of weekend nights up there – our little group of friends – Becky, Anita, Trina, Craig, Graham, Judy, Charles M, Timmy and others I’m sure. It was far from heavenly, but it was the closest we had been. It was fun and different and exciting at a time when we were innocent and full of teenage curiosity.  No one spoke of what went on after a turn in that closet, but I doubt there are any big secrets. Timmy was always cute and nervous in that dark closet. He was funny, but shy. A turn with Craig was like 7 minutes of Botox. He nearly ate our lips off. Ruth was likely starving him – he was always in trouble with his mom… He definitely would have been punished had she known about Nana’s attic. We each kissed everyone eventually – we didn’t care which boy it landed on. They were all like our brothers… That game of thirty seconds in the closet was our important entre into dating and eventually true love. 


I’m sure young teens today have outgrown Spin the Bottle. They are too busy texting and living in an online world.

Norfork Lake

Nana was much like Lucy Ricardo – funny, always laughing and typically into some type of mischief. I think Annabelle the Schnauzer must take after her…She was strong and faithful – at church every time the doors were open. She was loved by all – including all the kids up in the attic. Even though she was sick for much of her life – brain surgery in her 20s, leukemia in her 60s and a terrible headache nearly every day in between, Nana always had a beautiful smile on her face.  And something funny to say. She never tried to be funny. She just was. Everyone who came into contact with her was better for it, and I miss her every day. Of course my mother has turned into her, so she isn’t really ever very far away. 


I love this quote from Oscar Wilde…”All women become like their mothers.  That is their tragedy.  No man does.  That is his.”



Happy Valentine’s Day & Happy Birthday Nana!


xoxo


talya




Musical Pairings:


The B52s, “Love Shack”

Rick Springfield, “Jessie’s Girl”
Jamey Johnson, “In Color”


Sinful Pies & Magical Jello

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Nana’s Recipe Box!
While scrambling eggs this morning, my mother started cleaning a cabinet in her kitchen. It contained expired cough syrup and gummy vitamins, along with a shelf of old cookbooks. Basically, my mother hung up her apron in 1994 after my dad died, so I doubted these cookbooks had seen the light of the kitchen in years.

As we ate breakfast and drank coffee, she handed me Nana’s recipe box to peruse. I had no idea she had this bit of heritage hidden behind the spice rack like a secret diary. It was a small wooden box exploding with bits and scraps of papers, jammed inside at all angles so that the lid would not close. I loved to cook and try out new recipes so this was a treasure trove! Plus I remembered some of Nana’s delicious pies.

I carefully unfolded the bits and pieces of fragile paper which were yellowed and coated in an oily film- probably Crisco. I loved that I was touching papers that she had touched. Each was written in pencil, in her easily recognizable cursive handwriting. She wrote the way we were all originally taught in elementary school – slanted to the right with loops and curves and each letter gracefully flowing into the next.  Most recipes had no title, and they all began with a simple listing of basic ingredients.  As I read the ingredients aloud, my mother identified most,  “Oh that was her fruitcake recipe”. And, “That was her chocolate pie”. Oddly enough, almost every single recipe included jello. Who knew jello was such a magic ingredient?
 
Studying the castoff papers on which these recipes were written was as much fun as reading the actual recipes. She was the quintessential recycler! Chocolate Pecan Delight was written on the back of the Keiser Baptist Church program from 1976. Nana was a faithful member of that church until she died.  I still remember the preacher there (I’m Facebook friends with his daughter), and I knew the organist and Sunday school director, who were also identified in the program. The sermon on that particular Sunday morning was “Sin is Sin”.  I think baking and eating pie every day was probably the only sinful thing she ever did.

Chocolate pie was written on a Bank of Wilson deposit slip, along with her grocery list for tuna, milk and sugar. An unnamed recipe was written on Keiser Supply Company note paper. We always bought our Christmas tree at Keiser Supply, and they sent us a giant smoked ham every year – the best ham ever.

I plan to try out these recipes.  It will likely take years, but as this is part of our family history passed down in Nana’s handwriting, it seems like an important use of time. Maybe somewhere in this treasure box is the perfect pie crust recipe I’m determined to master.


talya

Musical Pairings:
Hymn, “Blessed Assurance”

Food. Farm. Garden. Life.

THANKS FOR READING!