Advent Calendar: Foods fit for Presidents

Food. I'm a big fan. But I must admit that few of my Christmas memories involve food. Music, parties, trees, candles - absolutely. Not much food.

My mother certainly cooked. She simply didn't enjoy it much. Her best recipes came from friends or family (not sure we would have made it to adulthood without the recipes sent by her mother and sisters). She did have a couple go-to recipes she pulled out every Christmas that were outstanding. Both came straight from the White House (via my grandmother) - Mamie Eisenhower's Million Dollar Fudge and Jackie Kennedy's Baked Fruit.

We would make pans full of the fudge and set them in the garage (often sitting on top of the car) to cool. At the time it seemed reasonable. I can't imagine doing it today - but then my garage isn't even fit for a car. It was great fudge and I am forever grateful to Mrs. Eisenhower for that sweet memory.

Jackie's baked fruit is still one of my favorite recipes. I, too, trot it out over the holidays. I believe she served it as a dessert, but in our home it was and is a side dish. Easy, yummy and spiked. What more could one want?


Jackie's Baked Fruit Casserole
(serves 6-8)

Grate rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon.
Add to 1/2 c. light brown sugar, packed, and 1/4 t. nutmeg.
Slice orange and lemon into thin slices. Remove seeds.

Drain: 1 8 oz. can apricots
           1 8-3/4 oz. can pineapple slices
           1 8-3/4 oz. can sliced peaches
           1 17 oz. can pitted Bing cherries
           1 8 oz. can pears

Combine fruits. Butter a 1 qt. casserole and arrange fruit in layers sprinkling each layer with some brown sugar. Top with 1/4 c. kirsch.

Bake 30 minutes in medium oven. Serve warm.  

Photographs: 
Mamie Eisenhower by White House photographer, via Wikimedia Commons
Jacqueline Kennedy by Shaw, Mark (1922-1969), photographer [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.  
                                      

There's One in Every Family - Treasure of Treasures

Jasia's dedicated work with the Carnival of Genealogy and her fabulous 100th Edition celebration has inspired me. My first effort focused on a colorful ancestor, but I kept thinking of a newfound treasure. As a long-time family history researcher I've dreamed of THE find - a letter, Bible or family record hidden in a trunk or closet that unlocks the past.  I've had some successes, but none more exciting than when I learned recently that my husband's aunt has an 1832 family Bible.  Once I picked myself and my jaw off the floor I spent a few hours photographing and poring over Leonard Smith's Bible.

Leonard Smith is my husband's gg grandfather. He was born 29 March 1794 to John and Elizabeth Fenwick Smith and died 2 July 1849. Leonard married Eliza Jamison on 3 Oct 1815. Eliza was born 19 December 1795. While I've had these dates before, I have never been able to adequately document the information. I suspected the dates were from a family Bible, but had no idea which Bible or where it was. Now I know.

An aside - my husband is from a large extended family and our visits have often been group gatherings. This trip we had a chance to visit quietly with his aunt and it was then that she remembered the Bible and other documents she had stored. Moral of the story - find some quiet time to talk to the senior members of the family!

Leonard's Bible includes a family record of both his parents' children and his own children. But it also held a number of papers tucked in its pages that give a fuller picture of the family.  Included are a number of certificates of prayer intentions for the family, confirmation and first communion certificates, sheet music for a Confederate song, and a lace-trimmed prayer written in 1852 for Rev. Mother Delphina, who I quickly discovered was a Carmelite nun and Leonard's sister (born Elizabeth Smith).

An 1833 first communion certificate for Leonard's daughter at St. Joseph's may help locate the family in the 1830 census (though not as yet).  Inside the back cover are still to be analyzed pedigree charts for the family. It's a Smith family treasure trove of information that I will happily be working on for months to come. I could not be more grateful that this one is in the family!

Leonard Smith Bible (dated 1832), The Holy Bible, Translated from the Latin Vulgate... Clementine Edition of the Scriptures (Baltimore: Fielding Lucas, Jr.). Privately held. Digital Images.

Submitted to the 100th edition of the Carnival of Genealogy.

Amanuensis Monday: Iva's History of Johnson City (part 2)

Thanks to John at Transylvanian Dutch for providing a framework (and nudge) for transcribing family records, news clippings and other treasures.

This is part two of a transcription of school report on Johnson City, TN written by Iva Williams. I am estimating Iva was 10-12 years old when she wrote this, which would put the date at 1910-1912. The report has corrections made in pencil. I have not included them but have maintained the spelling, grammar and punctuation Iva used. 

In the early eighties a boom started in Johnson City. General John T Wieler started this boom. The C.C.C. railroad was wanted run through Johnson City. On April 9, 1887 the people voted bonds. 445 votes were cast in favor of the bonds and not one against it. The people where so happy they fired over 100  guns. The whistles all over the town blew and the tar barrels were lighted after dark. General Wieler the Vice President of the company gave Mayor W. A. Dickinson $125 to get up a supper for the voters.

Along about this time the Water Works were brought to Johnson City. A Reservoir was built and 5000 feet of pipe was laid over the town. Then electric lights were put in. Mr. C.K. McCallum was at the head of the light company. Just after the electric lights were put in the telephone was put in. About this time grounds for five large blast furnaces and a Bessemer Steel works. The people thought they would have 30,000 people in Johnson city in five to eight years. The bill for all there works went through both houses, The House of Senate and the house of Representatives.

During the Boom Carnegie was bought and laid off. A little town was started. Two or three stores were built and the large Carnegie hotel. The street car was run down to Carnegie. The cars also run two miles out of town to Lake Watausee. Out here was a nice park where they had many picnics.

The Crash was in 1893 and lasted for about four years. The railroad failed, workers stopped working, the bank failed, the street car company failed and their line was torn up. Everything was dull for about four years. Then things began to revive a little. Railroads wer started and built 35 miles. It started at Unaka Springs and went about 5 miles north east of town to the Union Church.

A Thanksgiving Blessing and Recipe

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays, but it became my absolute favorite when our son was born one Thanksgiving morning. I delivered the relish tray and our daughter to a friend at dawn and our son several hours later. He arrived as the doctor rushed in from filing a police report after his car was stolen overnight and just after the television broadcast of the Macy's parade ended (along with my colorful commentary). It was quite the entrance - and one of the great blessings of my life.

Birthday and Thanksgiving have melded together - both joyous. We've put candles in pumpkin pie, had birthday cake the day after with turkey leftovers - all possible variations on the themes. But what says Thanksgiving and birthday to him more than anything else are the turkey cookies we made in lieu of cupcakes for his school classmates when he was young. Actually, we assembled them from various forms of corn syrup sweetened treats. Health food they are not. I've never managed to eat one, but my children swear they are delicious. So in his honor here they are. I won't vouch for their taste, but they are festive!

Gobbler Cookies

Ingredients:   Oreos
                     Hershey Kisses
                     Red Hots
                     chocolate frosting
                     candy corn

Spread frosting over each cookie and place Hershey Kiss on top slightly off center. This is the body. Arrange 5 or more candy corn pieces in a fan around the Kiss to make the tail. Stick a Red Hot onto top of the Kiss (on the opposite side from the tail) with more chocolate frosting to make the Gobbler's neck.

And if it's for a birthday - you can put a candle on one with even more frosting!

Happy Birthday, my love!

Thanksgiving: Our American Story

Cynthia Shenette at Heritage Zen wrote the loveliest post last week linking her family's history with our nation's history and issued a gentle challenge that we write about our American experience. Now I should be chopping veggies, straining turkey stock, finishing the cranberry sauce or even working on the Christmas craft project that for some insane reason I started this week. But not wanting to disappoint Cynthia (and apparently completely willing to disappoint my family), here goes...

For my children...

Our family's history is America's history. Not every moment of it's history, to be sure. But we have brushed against history makers, fought and died in the wars, built the roads and expanded the boundaries of this nation. A few of us made history. All of us lived it.

We came from England, France, Ireland, Scotland, Switzerland, Germany, Haiti and the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Photo by Desiree N. Williams

Our earliest immigrants landed in Virginia in 1621. We were settling Virginia and Massachusetts when, in 1634, our ancestors arrived on the Ark and the Dove and established Maryland. Over the next century and a half we pushed forward into the new world. It was not a peaceful expansion. Much blood was spilled as we took over native American lands and established our homes. Our ancestors and their children were killed in raids in Massachusetts and Virginia. We fought and killed native Americans in King Philip's and King William's Wars and fought and died in the French and Indian War.

Photo by Diorama Sky

We established homes in New England towns, plantations in Maryland, Virginia and the Carolinas, built cabins in the Appalachian Mountains. We were swept up in the Great Awakening and left our homes to preach the gospel along the frontiers. We moved with Daniel Boone and the Long Hunters into the wilderness of today's Tennessee and Kentucky.

By 1776 our ancestors were living in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and in the territories beyond. Ancestors from each fought for independence. Cousins argued in the House of Burgesses in Williamsburg and Pennsylvania State House in Philadelphia. We were Minutemen from New England. We died at Trenton. We wintered at Valley Forge.  Some cousins sided with the King and left, moving south into the Spanish territories.

As our country grew we worked in mills in New England, were merchants in Baltimore and Virginia, physicians in Maryland, plantation owners in Virginia and built farms in the hills of Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Kentucky. We traveled west by wagon and flatboat to Illinois, Missouri, Iowa, and Kansas searching for land to farm. We were missionaries and preachers in Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri and Louisiana. We owned slaves and were abolitionists. We fought and died in the Mexican-American War. We were in Kentucky with Lincoln as a boy and in Springfield, Illinois when he was a young lawyer. And when he grew up, your ancestors, uncles and cousins came from Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Virginia and Tennessee to fight for and against him during the Civil War.

Photo by video4net

In the new century we left our homes in the mountains of eastern Europe and boarded ships for America. We sailed past the Statue of Liberty, sailed into Baltimore and Philadelphia and made our way to the coal mines of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, to the factories of New Jersey, Illinois and upstate New York. We had deeply established roots in East Tennessee and western Maryland where generations of our family lived and worked. The wanderers among us continued west and were ranchers and merchants in Kansas and Wyoming. We struggled during the Depression, but were more fortunate than many. We had homes and jobs, though some of us were forced to live with cousins and other relatives during those hard times. When World War II came we served in the Pacific as soldiers, sailors and nurses and shared our rations on the homefront.

We were witnesses to some of the great events during the last sixty years of America's history. We served in Europe as it rebuilt, were government agents during the Cold War, and helped push computers into all corners of our society. We were in Dallas in 1962, in Chicago in 1968, and in Philadelphia on July 4, 1976 when our nation celebrated its two hundredth anniversary.

For all of our family, all of that history I am enormously thankful this Thanksgiving Day.