Sepia Saturday: Whatcha got cookin'?

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt awakened my senses as I imagined the aroma and taste of a delicious soup simmering on the stove. That is exactly what happens whenever I see this picture too.

It is what our family and friends call “Mathias Chicken.” We did not invent it, but where we live it is unusual, and since we are apparently the only ones who do chicken this way, our name has been attached to it.

BBQ Chicken Pit in Broadway, Virginia

In Rockingham County - the chicken capital of Virginia if not the world - SOMEBODY is barbecuing chicken every Saturday. Church groups, volunteer firemen, Ruritans, Lions, Woodmen of the World and anyone else with access to a pit and a good recipe can make good money selling barbecued chicken. When my husband and I were dating and in our early years of marriage, we could buy a half chicken for $1.50, but I do not know what the going rate is now.

What makes this chicken different is that the sauce is vinegar-based with lots of salt, garlic powder or salt, onion powder OR salt, vegetable oil, and hot sauce, plus any other unique variations. The chicken marinates overnight and is put on the grill early the next morning to cook low and slow.

The king of chicken barbecue “back in the day” was Dave Shirkey. Any civic organization that advertised their chicken was prepared by Dave Shirkey was sure to sell out early. For a long time, his recipe was a well-kept secret. He was not the only one with a good recipe though. Our family has one.

 

Ads appeared every week in the Harrisonburg, VA  Daily News Record

For my in-laws’ 50^th Anniversary, what better way to celebrate than with “Mathias Chicken.” In 1988, Ervin and Helen’s seven children and their families gathered at the family homeplace in Timberville, Virginia to do what the Mathias clan does best - EAT!

Jeff douses the chicken with more sauce using a toilet brush -
a new one, of course!

Barry’s brother Jeff borrowed a neighbor’s pit and took charge of the chicken barbecue.

Helen and Ervin with their fancy cake!
I love Helen's pose.

Look at all that Tupperware!
Barry's sisters Delyn and Brenda, oldest brother Donald, and Helen

Back: Barry, Donald, Wayne, Jeff
Front: Ervin, Helen, Brenda, Linda, Delyn

At our home in Chesapeake, for a long time we had no real barbecue pit. Our Weber grill was great for burgers and hot dogs, but not barbecue chicken the way we like it. So Barry commissioned Crossroads Fuel to cut down a couple of barrels and then he fashioned the grates with materials sold at Home Depot. Now we are set whenever someone says, “I think it’s time for some Mathias Chicken!”

At our lake house 2012
Barry with neighbor John in the smoke
I made Barry use a vegetable brush rather than toilet brush!

John and Barry - barbecuing chicken is a fun social time
but also some sitting and beer-drinking is required
while waiting to turn the chicken

End of Summer Bash at the lake
Neighbors enjoyed a pot luck that included Mathias Chicken.

Mmmm - I think it’s time for some Mathias Chicken!

Hey Good Lookin’ - See what’s cookin’ at Sepia Saturday!

Wendy

© 2019, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt features a tractor. Generations of my family walked behind plows and drove wagons pulled by oxen and horses. But after the turn of the century, most of my ancestors left the farm for careers in carpentry or with the railroad. My husband’s family, on the other hand, continued to farm, some of them even today.   

As a young married couple just starting out in 1938, my in-laws Ervin and Helen worked for large farm owners.  

Ervin Mathias on some heavy-duty tractor

For a time they lived in an old farmhouse on the Gardner farm in Bridgewater, Virginia.

Farmhouse Bridgewater, Virginia
where Ervin and Helen lived

Later Ervin and Helen worked on the Wampler farm in Weyers Cave, Virginia. While Ervin managed the cattle, Helen assisted Mrs. Wampler with meals, care of the Wampler children, and household chores. 

What is the cart being pulled by the tractor?
It appears to be separating the grain.

Right: Helen (just 16)  with baby Donald
Left:  Mrs. Wampler, daughter, and son

Farmhouse in Weyers Cave, Virginia

From there they moved to Timberville and rented from the Ryans, a family that became life-long friends of the entire Mathias family.  The Ryans are orchard farmers, growing both peaches and apples.  

Left: Virginia Ryan and Nancy
Right:  Helen Mathias and Linda

Eventually Ervin and Helen saved enough money to buy some land from the Will family along Little North Mountain Road in Timberville. Ervin’s skills in carpentry were put to the test in 1946 as he built the house that 8 children called home until they each moved out and established their own families.   

Mathias homeplace
1940s craftsman style

Ervin became a carpenter full-time and a farmer part-time. A few dairy cows supplied the family while beef cattle were raised and sold for added income. Ervin also built a chicken house for Helen who became a reluctant chicken farmer. 

Free range chickens 1940s
(not sure which farm this was
but these are not Helen's chickens)

In her later years, Helen said she hated taking care of chickens. Ervin had wanted to give her a source of income, a little independence, as well as “something to do.” However, Helen never wanted chickens. They had 8 children; she already had plenty to do. 

Perspective is a funny thing. 

Helen's chicken house in 1983

The Twins Barry and Brenda
about 1952

If you think this tractor is sexy, wait ‘til you see the others at Sepia Saturday.

© 2015, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Helen and Bandit

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo prompt is an engaging photo of a hurdy gurdy man with his trained monkey.  The suggestion of “unusual pets” makes this challenge an easy one to meet.

My mother-in-law Helen was a fan of raccoons.  Loved ‘em.  She had pictures of raccoons hanging on the wall.  She had raccoon nick-nacks.  She even had a stuffed toy raccoon.  People sent her greeting cards with raccoons featured, such was her reputation as a lover of this masked creature.

Helen's mother Hattie; sister Hildred,
father Russ "Kohnie" Kohne
probably mid-late 1930s

Helen must have felt a kinship with raccoons because of her maiden name:  Kohne.  I say it like “cone,”  but she said it like “coon.”  Apparently all her people in West Virginia pronounced it that way too.  In fact, her dad was known to everyone as “Kohnie” (pronounced “coonie”).

It’s no wonder then that Helen adopted the raccoon as sort of a family mascot. 

It was sometime in the 1980s when Barry’s brother Jeff was helping some friends trim trees near Endless Caverns around New Market, Virginia.  They found a nest of four baby raccoons, but no mother.  Each of the guys took one.  When Jeff brought that baby raccoon home, Helen was thrilled to become its surrogate mother.   She named him Bandit. 

Helen fed Bandit with a little bottle.  After a few days, she noticed that Bandit had a swollen belly and that it had not – um, how to put this? – “answered the call of nature,” if you know what I mean.  My sister-in-law Linda reminded Helen that mother animals lick their young’s hind parts to spur nature along. 

Oh, the howling and joking that went on after that as all the brothers and sisters egged Helen on to do what mothers do!  But Helen was a resourceful woman.  She used a warm cotton ball and accomplished what she needed, or more precisely, what Bandit needed.

Helen and Bandit

For quite a while, Bandit was a cute little pet.  He would climb up the back of Helen’s favorite chair and sit on her shoulder. 

When Bandit got bigger, he became a bother.  Jeff built him a little house out by the tree in the front yard.  Bandit would go outside and roam around.  In the morning the yard would be a mess.  He got into my father-in-law’s garden and ate the corn.  Ervin lost all respect for Bandit after that, especially after that Sunday when people passing by on their way to the church next door stared at all the corn husks strewn around the yard. 

Eventually as those raccoon hormones began to rage, Bandit just wandered off and stayed away for a long time.  Then one day when a storm was brewing, Helen and Ervin heard scratching at the screen door.  It was Bandit coming home.  But he was no longer welcome. 

And that, Boys and Girls, is why you should never try to make a pet out of a wild animal.

For more stories of unusual pets and maybe even hurdy gurdy men, visit Sepia Saturday. 

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: Y is for Yonnie

This is Day 25 of the A to Z April Challenge.  My theme is women with unusual names although I must cheat now and then or I’ll have a name and no story.

is for Yonnie Virginia Mathias Cook, my aunt by marriage.  That is, she was my father-in-law’s sister.

Yonnie Mathias

Yonnie was the last child and only daughter born to John Roy and Essie See Mathias on June 5, 1923.  Throughout her youth she lived in Lost River, Hardy County, West Virginia. 

John and Essie Mathias

Essie and Yonnie
When Yonnie grew up, she looked
just like her mother!

However, when she married Ernest Franklin Cook, they became hard-working dairy farmers in Timberville, Rockingham County, Virginia.  In addition to raising cows, they raised four children:  two boys and two girls. 

Ervin, Yonnie, Wilmer, Marvin
Mathias

A family reunion was an important event to Yonnie and her brothers.  It was always held on Father’s Day at Lost River State Park in Mathias, West Virginia.  After Yonnie’s parents died, she assumed the role of matriarch over the Mathias brothers and cousins and saw to it that the family reunion continued.  On Father’s Day.  Yonnie loved the symbolism of honoring the Mathias ancestors on that date.

In recent years, the younger generation has grumbled over the timing of the reunion, mainly because those who married a Mathias are deprived of spending Father’s Day with their own fathers.  Even though Yonnie passed away in 2009, no one has been brave enough to propose a date change.  Soon my husband’s cousin will send out the reminder of date, time, and place for the Mathias Reunion. 

The love and admiration Yonnie and her three brothers had for their parents, and then their children had for their grandparents is a testament to John and Essie Mathias.  That the reunion continues to bring cousins together – on Fathers Day! – is a testament to Aunt Yonnie. 

Yippee!  There will be no Yawning over the Yarns Yielded by Yuppies, Youngsters, Yokels, and Yodelers over Yonder at the A to Z April Challenge.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: Gardens - Size Matters!

Sepia Saturday challenges bloggers to share family history through old photographs.

This week’s Sepia Saturday prompt shows students tending a school garden.  What a timely theme for me as I’m just getting a new garden going.  When I was a new bride, my husband and I started gardening with some friends who owned plenty of land and had room for a sizeable garden.  We shared in the planting and weeding.  We also shared in the shelling of limas and peas, stringing of beans, and both canning and freezing our bounty.  It was a wonderful spring and summer producing our own food and being with our friends. 

We enjoyed comparing notes and tomato size with my father-in-law who was THE gardener of the family.  His garden was so large that were it not a garden, it easily could have held a house with room for a backyard garden.  Of course, he started that garden when he had 8 children at home to feed.  Even after most were grown and married, he kept plowing the same number of rows and sewing the same number of seeds.  The only changes he made were to the variety of corn or beans he might try that year.  His garden was always beautifully manicured as well.  Barry said growing up, all the kids were expected to help with the weeding, but few were allowed to plant as his dad was meticulous about spacing. 

Ervin Mathias tilling between rows
Timberville, VA  1985

When we moved from the Shenandoah Valley to Chesapeake, I tried square foot gardening.  It’s much smaller scale and more efficient than what we had done with our friends.  

Nice walkways between the squares make it easy
to weed and harvest.  A "cute" garden was fun for the kids too.

However, I’ve not gardened in a number of years – too many distractions – too much research to do - too many rabbits – let’s see, what other excuse can I think of?  Anyway, now I miss it.  I miss eating a REAL tomato.  So I’ve gotten my square-foot gardening book back out, added a garden fence when we installed a new fence, built some 4x4 boxes, and I’m ready to prepare the soil for the tomatoes, peppers, beans, cucumbers, corn, and herbs.   

Barry said to caption this:  Wendy in her play pen.

I'm really not planting in concrete -- this dirt looks BAD. 
I'm working on it but the THEME is ahead of me.

Square-foot gardening – it’s not your great-great-grandfather’s garden!

My great-great grandfather's garden
James Franklin Jollett
Harriston, Virginia
around 1920

Wouldn’t you like to plow through some lovely blogs at Sepia Saturday?

UPDATE:  Here are a couple new pictures of how my square-foot garden is coming along (April 30, 2012).

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

A to Z April Challenge: Q is for Quilters

This is day 17 of the A to Z April Challenge.

is for Quilters.  The creativity and artistry among members of my family are evident in the quilts they sewed.

My great aunt Velma Davis Woodring made several quilts, which are now mine.  The Dresden Plate pattern was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s.  The elaborate center suggests this is a variation on the typical Dresden Plate which had just a simple circle.  Judging by all the floral prints in this lovingly worn quilt, this one was probably made in the 1930s. I like to look at all the prints and imagine they were once dresses Velma and her sister Violetta might have worn as children. 

The edge of the quilt echoes the "petals" of the main design.
In this photo you can see just how worn out the quilt is.

I like how the design dictates the overall shape of the quilt.

The hexagon pattern is thought by quilt historians to be one of the oldest pieced patterns. This hexagon quilt in violet and yellow with coordinating floral print is Velma’s masterpiece, if you ask me.  She was the quintessential purple girl long before it was fashionable.  The pattern is very precise forming diamond-shaped groupings.  I KNOW this pattern has a name, but I can’t find it.  It is probably some variation on Grandmother’s Flower Garden. 

You can see how worn the violet fabric is.

Ervin and Helen Mathias
Wayne and Donald
about 1941 or 1942

My mother-in-law Helen Virginia Kohne Mathias made a quilt for each of her 7 children.  Upon her death, we each took one.  Apparently she made many more because somehow we ended up with 2.   This is my favorite.  I love the bright green and orange fabric arranged in the Greek Square pattern.  She machine stitched the top but tied instead of quilted. 

This gold patchwork of squares and triangles amuses me because the fabric is so unlike Helen.  It looks like an animal print in a way, but certainly a smaller scale and more subtle than something obvious like leopard or giraffe.  I’m not sure what it is.  Like the previous one, the top is machine stitched and the quilt is knotted. 

Mary Eleanor Davis Slade

My mother appliquéd and quilted this sampler quilt around 1977.  It was her first one.  She set two challenges for herself:  make no 2 squares alike and use only 2 shades of pink.  She used a pattern from a magazine but then had to design more center motifs herself. The beauty of this quilt is the balance of the two colors. 

This quilt is partly my own creation.  I was in my black and brown phase of decorating in 1977.  The maple leaves are hand appliquéd.  I machine stitched the squares and strips, but I gave up on quilting.  I ended up paying a Mennonite church quilting group to finish it for me.  They charged by the number of spools of thread used.  What a bargain!  Sadly, the quilt is badly faded on one side. 

Don’t be in a Quandry.  Don’t Quit now.  If you’re Quick, you’ll enjoy some Quirky and Quotable Quips at the A to Z April Challenge.

©2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.