vii
My Mother made fudge, shrimp salad, potato chips, wonderful Chop suey, spaghetti, Chili and Vegetable soup and Beef stew & on Sundays we always had Pot Roast, Roast Beef or Roast Pork. She made a cake every weekend, different kinds like devils-food, Poppy-seed (these were my favorites), marble, white with chocolate icing. Chocolate with Butter cream icing.
We always had dessert and dinner was always a surprise & different & good. I didn’t care for mashed potatoes & gravy, peas & green beans but my Brother did!
Sometimes we had meatloaf, pork chops, porcupines, macaroni & cheese, macaroni & butter (another favorite) fried chicken. We always had fish on Fridays which I hated, sometimes she made salmon croquettes & potato pancakes.
On Saturdays when we were old enough to go to a show we (Barney & me) we had a supper like hamburgers with onion mixed in the meat on Rye Bread
viii
or a hot dog with sauerkraut or beans! We always had a coffee cake for Sunday breakfast.
On special occasions like our first communion we had fresh pineapple and sweet rolls. I loved long johns. She made waffles (I loved those) & pancakes (I didn’t) I hated eggs & the only way I would eat them is scrambled with bits of bacon in them or hard boiled without the yolk. She made potato patties from left over mashed potatoes dipped in flour and fried in bacon fat that were crispy and delicious. We always had a salad & fresh fruit & vegetables. We lived near 1/2 block away from the Farmers Market. — Another story here is she made Black cows in the summer & lemonade, Ice Tea, cookies & we would buy a Milky Way & slice it in thin slices for a treat. Good Humor man came around on Sundays Uncle George or Gramma Brew treated us to these.
ix
Every Friday Aunt Frances would make Campbell’s tomato soup and macaroni & cheese.
My mother always varied her meals from week to week. I didn’t like fish or oysters. We always had to taste it and eat whatever was on our plates — or no dessert. I didn’t mind that but my brother did, he used to cough-up what he didn’t like in his handkerchief when no one was watching and put it down the toilet when he excused himself to go to the bathroom. We always had to be excused before we could leave the table and we didn’t talk; only the adults because “children were seen and not heard” in those days. We said yes sir no sir Yes ma’am & no ma’am. We couldn’t put our elbows on the table. We used old dish towels for napkins everyday. We used flour sacks for dish towels. MANNERS WERE IMPORTANT, PLEASE & THANK YOU.
x
We had Ham, lamb, spare ribs and a casserole once in a while or Hash from the Roast on Sunday & I liked that too.
Thanksgiving dinner was much like I made it. Turkey, Bacon celery dressing, cranberries, celery with Roquefort cheese, Baked sweet potatoes, olives (ripe) & stuffed green, gravy with giblets (Gramma Brew & I split the neck), jello with pineapple or fruit cocktail or cottage cheese. Fruitcake, pumpkin pie, cookies, Brazil nuts and walnuts, almonds, Hazelnuts, pecans that we would crack and then salt.
Easter was Ham, asparagus, sweet potatoes and maybe a coconut cake – sometimes.
Christmas we usually went to Gramma Phillips. She used to make a Rib Roast.
On Sundays she used to make Chicken & Dumplings. I like the dumplings but not the chicken. Sometimes she made a Ham or Roast Pork that was delicious. I didn’t like her dressing because it was very wet. She always made turnips & creamed cauliflower, peas, string beans, mashed potatoes, steak & pork chops. She also made a cake once a week.
xi
Gramma Brew
Fruitcake
Cookies
Sewed everything – made Quilts, sewed all of our clothes
Crocheted
Baking power biscuits
Fried chicken
made cheese cake, Rhubarb
Kitchen cabinets – stretched curtain on stretchers
Saved Everything
Worked as a seamstress in a dress factory, was a custom shirt maker
Lazy Daisy cake – fantastic
Canned every fall – chili sauce, pickles – dill, sweet & sour, made jelly & jams, Tomatoes, chow chow, apple butter and stored in the basement for winter use.
covers on covers
(she loved to dance)
Petunias, Zinnias, Hally Hocks, Peony’s, Pansy, Aster, Lilacs, gladiolas, Tulips, Rhubarb
xii
Gramma Phillips’ Garden
Moss Roses, Phlox, white & Pink Peonies, Purple Lavender, Daisies, spearmint – her garden was all mixed up & she was very proud of it – to me it was a jungle, except THE MOSS ROSES on the side of the house.
xiii
My mother made fun lunches. We did our homework after school & then we could go out and play, weather permitting. We did dishes after dinner I’d wash & Barney would dry or sometimes my mother would wash & I would dry. We had Saturday chores, I cleaned the hall stairs and polish the woodwork. Cleaned the toilet & sink and Barney took out ashes & raked leaves. He sold magazines & papers. I ran errands and polished woodwork. My mother cleaned every Friday and usually changed the furniture around when she did, or it seemed so because she changed the furniture around a lot. As we got older I would wash the kitchen & bathroom floors & wash windows. Barney & I both took out the garbage. She always made Holidays fun. Birthdays were made to order dinner that is & I usually ordered spaghetti & meatballs or chop suey.
We both shoveled snow.
xiv
Dolores Julia Phillips – given name. My mother debated between Corine & Dolores (Movie star Dolores Del Rio). My father’s mother, “Gramma Phillips” wanted Julia after her mother – they compromised and Julia was my second given name which I dropped when I was confirmed and took the name Ann after my beloved “Auntie Ann.” I spelled my name Dolores until I was in my high school days when I changed to Doloris. All the girls changed the spelling of their names or took nicknames in place or the original. Shirley became Shirlee, Dorothy became “Dotty” – I also signed my name “Dee” —
My father’s family called me “Dolly” & cousins Bud & Mick called me “Dods” at an early age.
Dolores – means Mary of Sorrows.