Mom's Story Part 5

Louise, Bessie, and Mayola Rogers abt 1920

Let me describe a Saturday at home when I was growing up: Saturday’s at our home was a beehive of activity. Each girl in the family was assigned a task. There was bread to make, beans which had been soaked the night before, to cook; butter to churn, and little fruit to cook to make a cobbler or pie. One girl’s job was to keep the stove full of wood so the food to be prepared could be kept cooking. The wood box had to be filled, and the sticks of wood and chips as they were poked into the little door on the front of the stove, crackled noisily as they caught fire. Thick cream, which Mother had collected during the week, was put on the warming oven an hour or so before churning time, so it could sour. The old wooden churn had been soaked and thoroughly cleaned before the sour cream was put into it. Then pound, pound, pound, as the dasher went up and down until the little chunks of butter appeared on the dasher handle and on to the lid. Occasionally, Grandma Rogers used to come and churn for Mother, and I remember seeing her use her forefinger to scrape the dasher handle. Often the finger was wiped off in her mouth.

Homemade bread was usually made on Saturday for the week. Yeast was made from potato water and sugar and a yeast “start”. The yeast “start” and the potato water were guarded carefully. Usually we would get the “start” from a neighbor. But it was good, oh, so good, and we savored the one taste of the tangy, fizzy liquid that we each received before it was put into the dread dough. The bread was mixed in our old Bread Mixer with the crank on the top of the lid; but of course, before we afforded that luxury we mixed our bread in a big dishpan and kneaded it on the table. Slap! Hit! Punch! Back and forth until the gluten was well established. Then it was molded into a neat ball to rise. It was all worth the effort as the smell of the hot bread permeated the house and the big loaves of bread were turned out onto a clean dishtowel on the table. When the beans were done they were big, plump and juicy with lots of good bean soup. I still remember how good those Saturday night suppers were with hot bean soup and homemade bread and butter; some good honey from Aunt Em’s bees was used as a spread for the bread. Good simple foods were our diet, with nothing extravagant, and I attribute the strong bodies we have all had during our lifetime to this good diet.