Fearless Females: March 7 The Recipe

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen. Why is this dish your favorite? If you don’t have one that’s been passed down, describe a favorite holiday or other meal you shared with your family.

Earlier this week I mentioned Momma’s potato salad and its minor role in winning my father’s devotion.  Prophetically, Debi Austen of Who Knew? suggested I post the recipe.  And as luck would have it, today’s Fearless Female prompt is all about the recipe.

My sister and I laugh when we say we’re potato salad snobs.  But we’re serious.  You won’t see us picking up a tub of potato salad from Sam’s Club to take to a covered-dish dinner.  Homemade is the only way to go.  The recipe is my grandmother’s, but where she got it, I don’t know.  Maybe her mother made it this way too. 

Like many good recipes passed down from mother to daughter to granddaughter, the directions are fraught with ambiguities like “salt to taste,” “3 big serving spoons full,” “bunch of pickles.”  When my sister and I created a family cookbook for our kids, we tried to present those eyeballed measurements in a standard form.  So here you go:

Ingredients:

8 potatoes (or more if they’re small – I usually fill the dutch oven)

1 onion chopped

chopped sweet pickles (gherkins or sandwich chips) – as much as you like but please, NO RELISH

2 tsp celery seed

1-2 tsp salt

homemade potato salad dressing

1. Boil potatoes in their skins about 30 minutes.  Fork them to test for doneness.
2. Pour off the water and let potatoes cool awhile so that you can handle them.
3. Peel potatoes while they are still warm.
4. Chop into bite-size chunks.  Sprinkle with salt.
5. Add chopped pickles and onions.
6. Stir dressing into the potatoes. 

Dressing:  (basic recipe but sometimes I make 1.5 or 2 times this amount depending on the number of potatoes)

1 cup mayonnaise

2 tsp prepared mustard

1/3 cup sugar

¼ cup cider vinegar

1. Pour ingredients into a bowl ALPHABETICALLY.  Vinegar is always last to prevent curdling.
2. Whip quickly with a spoon or whisk.  Taste the dressing.  If it is not sour, add more vinegar.  The potatoes will neutralize the sour taste.
3. Mix dressing with the potatoes, onions, and pickles.  Stir gently to distribute all ingredients.
4. Last add the celery seed.

**The secret of the great flavor is adding the dressing while the potatoes are still hot enough to absorb the dressing.

And of course, our potato salad always tastes best when served in one of Grandma’s bowls.

Designated potato salad bowls

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 6 An Heirloom

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.).

Coming from a long line of sentimental relatives and ancestors, I’m lucky to have a houseful of heirlooms.  I have written often about my great-grandmother Mary Frances Jollett Davis, and I have featured many of her possessions that have been passed down through the family:  her hymnals, her Singer sewing machine, her canning jars, and even the lifter to her old Majestic stove.

One of Mary Frances’s finest possessions traveled from her home to that of her daughter Violetta, then to my mother, and now to me with strict instructions:  It must not pass with the sale of the house.  In other words, take it with you. 

It’s this beautiful Victorian hanging parlor lamp which has been retrofitted from kerosene to electric. 

The pastoral design in soft shades of brown, peach, pink, and green includes a young girl in a wooden boat as the larger scene and a river landscape with boaters seemingly continuing the story on the other side of the shade.  

The kerosene pot is decorated with houses and buildings dotted along the river.

The brass hanger, font holder, and shade crown plus the full complement of prisms make this lamp truly exquisite.  I’ve loved prisms ever since I watched Pollyanna charm that old geezer through the magic of prisms casting rainbows throughout the room.

This lamp is not everyone’s taste.  It doesn’t even particularly fit the style of my home, but I like what it stands for.  So it will remain right there suspended over the kitchen table until the day my daughters are instructed:  It must not pass ….

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 5 How They Met

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents?

Yesterday I wrote about my grandparents’ surprise elopement.  But the story of their courtship is the stuff of Chick Flicks.

My grandfather Orvin Davis was dating the very pretty and popular Rosalind, one of Shenandoah’s finest.

Rosalind Mae Rucker Basham
1903-1973

He must have waited many evenings in the parlor at Rosalind’s house on Fourth Street, possibly chatting politely with Rosalind’s father Joe, while Rosalind was upstairs fixing her hair and dabbing on just the slightest hint of perfume.  No doubt Orvin spied out of the corner of his eye Rosalind’s younger sister descending the stairs and turning left into the kitchen.

Lucille Rucker Davis
1904 - 1990

How many times did this scene play out before Orvin shifted gears and started calling on Rosalind’s younger sister Lucille?  


Those had to be some awkward evenings waiting in the parlor.

Rosalind did not take it well.  I wonder if there was any hair pulling.

Mary Eleanor Davis Slade
1929-2005

And just as my grandfather KNEW Lucille was the one, my dad was immediately taken with Orvin and Lucille’s daughter (my mother).  They met on a blind date.  Daddy always said when he saw Momma come out of the house carrying that big bowl of potato salad, he knew she was THE ONE.   

And he hadn’t even tasted the potato salad!

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 4 Marriage Record

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  Do you have marriage records for your grandparents or great-grandparents? Write a post about where they were married and when. Any family stories about the wedding day? Post a photo too if you have one.

I envy my fellow bloggers who have photos of their grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ weddings to share.   I have no wedding pictures, but I do have a record for one set of grandparents, and a pretty cute little story, but you get only half of the story today.  

My maternal grandmother Lucille Rucker had been accepted into nursing school in Washington D. C.  My grandfather Orvin Davis was supposed to be driving her to the school.  Instead, one fine day in September 1923, they went to Hagerstown, Maryland and got married. 

I have to wonder what kind of sweet talk transpired between them to make them decide against a career. 

My grandparents
Orvin and Lucille Rucker Davis
1925 - expecting their first baby

Tomorrow I'll tell about how they met.  It's a good one.

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 3 Unique Names

 In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt:  Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

Probably the most common name among my female ancestors is Mary:  241 of them.  My own name is unique in my database.  While not very common in any time period, “Wendy” is not unusual.  Probably the most unusual female name among my ancestors is that of my great-grandfather’s sister:  Zibiah Saloma Davis Marshall (1864-1936).

Biblical associations with these names make them an odd pairing.  "Zibiah" means Doe, Gazelle, Beautiful Lady.  Zibiah was briefly mentioned in 2 Kings 12:1.  This mother of King Jehoash is listed among the women who showed courage, but I’m not exactly sure what she did.  Maybe she helped hide and protect her son who was one of the targets of his power-hungry and murderous grandmother.  

Saloma, on the other hand, is a familiar biblical name.  While her name means “Peace” (related to the word “Shalom”), she will forever be remembered as the dancing woman who demanded John the Baptist’s head on a platter and got it.

Courage.  Beautiful.  Peace.  Murder.  I wonder if Zibiah Saloma’s mother had been experiencing strange food cravings.  

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Fearless Females: March 2 Photograph

In celebration of Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist has presented 31 prompts to honor the “fearless females” in our family trees.

Today’s prompt is:  Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This photograph of my mother Mary Eleanor Davis Slade (1929-2005) always amuses me.  She’s wearing fringed “pedal pushers” and a tee-shirt in the snow, with no boots, no coat -- must have had a warm snap.  Since she is wearing a Davidson shirt, I would date this photo about 1947 or 48, probably taken somewhere in Dayton, Virginia.  Her high school sweetheart Dickie Blanks was away at Davidson in North Carolina while she was at Dayton College.

For some reason, Momma and snow didn’t mix.  Two quick stories will prove my point:

1. In January 1959, it snowed in Portsmouth.  My dad decided it would be fun to put my 9-months pregnant mother on a sled and pull her up and down the street.  It was indeed fun – until she tried to get up.  It took Daddy and a couple neighbors to pull her up off the sled. 
2. Sometime in the late 1970s we had a really good snow here in Chesapeake.  Everyone was pretty much housebound.  I was married and living a good two miles away from my parents and my sister.  What does anyone do when they get cabin fever?  Put on their mittens and boots and go for a walk.  Destination?  My house.  However, Momma had no boots.  So Daddy suggested she cover her shoes with plastic bags.  Tip:  don’t do that.  She slipped and slid all the way.  It was torture.   But this incident has provided our family with a line we always use whenever someone is facing a challenge:  “Just put on your plastic bags and do it.”

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.

Sepia Saturday: The Gazette

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

This week’s Sepia Saturday photo of the woman factory worker dressed in white brought to mind a beautiful graduation picture of my maternal grandfather’s cousin, Elta G. Sullivan Farrar.

I’m assuming this was a high school graduation picture, taken before 1920.

My grandparents maintained a lifelong friendship with their cousins, and they visited often.  So as a kid, I met a lot of old people.  My memories of most of them are rather dim.  But my memories of Elta are clear because she was just so darn nice.  And friendly.  And cheerful.

In the Cradock neighborhood of Portsmouth, Virginia where I grew up, if you wanted to know what was going on in the community, you didn’t need to read the newspaper or wait for the news broadcast.  You just had to check with cousin Elta.  “Elta the Gazette” – that’s what my grandparents called her. 

Four of the Sullivan sisters
Back:  Minnie Sullivan Breeden
Left to right: Pearl S. Strole,
Elta S. Farrar, Floral S. Merica
about 1901

Who died? Who is getting married?  When is the baby due? The preacher said what?  Elta the Gazette was our source for any and all details that mattered.   My grandmother could be telling about how many flowers were at so-n-so’s funeral and about some store going out of business.  If we asked where she heard that, her answer was usually, “The Gazette.”  Oh well, then, it had to be true.

How Elta managed to gather all the latest news (and gossip) from the local community as well as from “back home” in Shenandoah where she and my grandparents grew up was always the mystery.  Did she have a Deep Throat source we didn’t know about? 

Left: My grandmother Lucille Rucker Davis
Right:  Elta Sullivan Farrar

Maybe Elta’s knack for getting the scoop was just her sweet and engaging personality that made people want to tell her things.   

Be sweet and stop by Sepia Saturday. 

© 2014, Wendy Mathias.  All rights reserved.