Prairie Girls

No one said…

our good-byes would be so difficult and have to last forever.

our journey crossing the Atlantic would be so long.

trains rides lasting days would take us across vast America.

so many hardships and crisis could be experienced on the plains.

prairie grasses waved in the wind and beauty was found as far as the eyes could see.

the family would flourish and great bounty be realized.

the snows ran deep and a pioneer Christmas could be so perfect.

how important owning land would be for Papa.

nor how I would rejoice to be a prairie girl.

…But I did and I am.

 



Richelle

 

This is the last time I will be telling you about myself for a while. I am ten-year-old Richelle and want to end with my favorite time on the prairie: Christmas. Mama and I did all of the baking and the other preparations. Many of our gifts to friends and neighbors were from Mama’s kitchen. She brought recipes from Germany to her new country. Favorite recipes for each member of the family were a part of her baking.

Mama spent weeks before the big event hand-making gifts for Papa, my brothers, and me. Papa was good at making wooden gifts to please us all. Everything was homemade because that was all we could afford. We even made paper ornaments for our Christmas tree; the tree was very different from what we remembered in Germany. I will tell you about the special gift we had at Christmas later and why Mama and Papa said I was wise beyond my years.

Spring Break

Schools for better or worse have a spring break. Teachers, school administrators and board members know more about the reasons for a spring break than I do. If they deem it beneficial to the learning process of children--then I’m all for it. However, I wish the officials guaranteed nice weather for spring break. I found when my kids spent a week in the house watching rain fall they were bored, argued, and got on my very last nerve. At least Christmas break promised the chance of snow for sledding, and there were always new toys. By spring break week, though, the toys were long broken, and there was always one child who would not play outdoors in mud.

I have my own ideas about the purpose of a spring break. Spring break was a week for me to reminisce about the past summer--to remember what it was really like to have kids out of school. I forgot from one summer to the next how many times a child whined, "I'm bored. What can I do? There's nothing to do here." I forgot how many times children opened and slammed back doors, front doors and side doors. I forgot how many friends the children invited for sleepovers and how much food kids ate.

During spring break I remembered the reasons I didn’t like it. That week, unlike summer, was not filled with swimming, ball games, golf programs or 4-H fairs. However, spring break did have hour after hour of cartoons, soap operas and game shows on television. Before that long, long week, I was tempted to think I would enjoy a quiet, serene summer at home. No hot dogs at the ball park for supper. No early morning trips to the tennis courts. No hot afternoons at the pool watching a child practice the backstroke. No arguments about the benefits of daily piano practice. It does sound nice, doesn’t it?

But after a week of spring break, I willingly signed my kids up for summer gymnastics, summer soccer, summer band, swimming and art lessons. I was ready for ball games, visits to the library and daily trips to the park. I was ready for grass-stained, white Little League uniforms; I was ready for laundry. Oh yes, active, involved children were much more pleasant to live with than bored children.

 

 

Taffy

Prairie Recipes 

By Collette

Taffy was one of my dad’s favorite candies, or specifically salt water taffy. He often brought it back when my mother and he went on vacation. It wasn’t my favorite candy, but I do remember how pretty it was in pastel shades of color. I can think of only one time making it as a child and that was at my church. There was a candy maker in the congregation, and he brought his recipe and showed us how to pull it. It was fun to do, but I got blisters on my thumbs from pulling it until it turned white in color. In her story Richelle makes taffy one Christmas, and it could have been this old-time recipe.



Vinegar Taffy

2 cups of white sugar

½ cup vinegar

2 tablespoons butter

Melt butter in a kettle; when melted add sugar and vinegar. Stir until sugar is dissolved, and then stir occasionally. Boil until when tried in cold water, mixture becomes brittle. Turn onto a buttered platter to cool. As edges cool, turn toward the center. As soon as it can be handled, pull until white and glossy. Cut into sticks or small pieces and wrap in paper.

 

My younger son loved one of the cookie recipes a member of my catering group made. She baked them just for him and, if memory serves me well, he did not share them. They were always part of the Christmas cookies we made.

Beverly’s Wafer Rounds

1 cup butter or oleo                                         2 cups + 1 tablespoon flour

½ cup whipping cream                                    granulated sugar

 

Creamy Butter Filling
¼ cup soft butter                                             1 teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup sifted powdered sugar                         food coloring to tint pink or green

Sift flour and measure. Mix butter, flour and cream thoroughly. Chill one hour. Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough 1/8 inch thick on lightly floured board. Cut into 1½ inch rounds. Transfer to waxed paper heavily sprinkled with sugar, turning to coat both sides. Place on ungreased baking sheet. Prick in four places with a fork. Bake 7 to 9 minutes or until slightly puffy. Put 2 cooled cookies together with filling. Makes about 5 dozen cookies.

Creamy Butter Filing:  Blend softened butter, sifted powdered sugar and vanilla. Tint pick or green.

My older son loved rum cake at Christmas. The recipe was from the home economics teacher

at the junior high. She never quite forgave me for not taking her class, but when I taught with
her, she did share this recipe. It also was my gift for many years to my hairdresser, Carol. Her
family enjoyed it, and when we quit catering I promised to give her the recipe. I gave it to her,
and now it is part of their family’s tradition.

 Louisa Coldwell’s Rum Cake

1 cup chopped pecans                                     ½ cup water

1 yellow cake mix                                           ½ cup vegetable oil
1 small instant pudding mix                            ½ cup light or dark rum

4 eggs

Glaze:

½ cup butter melted                                         ¼ cup water
1 cup sugar                                                      ½ cup light or dark rum

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Generously spray Bundt pan with cooking spray or grease and
flour. Press nuts into the bottom of the pan. Combine all cake ingredients in large mixing bowl.
Beat on high speed for two minutes. Pour into prepared pan and bake one hour. Prepare glaze
and pour over cake immediately after removing from oven. Allow to cool in pan, and then invert
onto plate. Serves 12.

Glaze:  Melt butter in small saucepan. Stir in water and sugar. Heat to boiling and boil for five

minutes stirring constantly. Remove from heat and add rum.

Christmas

 

Storytellers’ Corner

Christmas was always a special time growing up. My mother was a great seamstress, and one year my sister and I got Revlon dolls. Just like Richelle, Mother made doll clothes while we were at school. I just couldn’t believe she had done that without our knowing. The reason I felt that way was because I was a snooper. I usually found my presents well ahead of time until one year, my parents got me the most awful green wool dress as one of my gifts. The closest description I can say is it was “cow pile” green. It was really hard to act surprised that year when I opened it.

We always had to wait until my dad got done milking cows or later doing chores before we could open presents. He would usually suggest we wait until after breakfast, but we raised such a howl he would give in. Going to each Grandma’s house was special too. My dad’s mom was a great cook. I never saw her measure anything when she cooked. She was from a family of eighteen and at the age of sixteen started cooking for cowboys on a ranch in Oklahoma. Her Christmas Eve suppers were great, and I got my love of cooking from her. We did have to wait to open presents at her house until the dishes were done. My dad must have gotten the wait idea from her. At my mother’s side there were fun, cousins and lots of memories of cards and games.

I am not sure what my boys will remember about our Christmas here at home, but my memories growing up were wonderful.

German Tradition

 

History of Christmas Trees

 Many traditions have entered American society from Germany and none more important than Christmas traditions. Perhaps the most familiar one came with the introduction of the Christmas tree. This tradition was difficult to follow on the prairies since there were no evergreens. Families made do with what they had. Trees were constructed from wood or any other materials available including tumbleweeds. Everything that went on that tree was homemade, and they were usually set up Christmas Eve and taken down soon thereafter because candles were used.

One of the most interesting kind of German trees was developed after Richelle had come to America. It was a feather tree and one of web sites listed below gives further information.

www.history.com/topics/history-of-christmas-trees

http://history1800s.about.com/od/popularentertainment/a/History-of-Christmas-Trees.htm

www.victoriana.com/christmas/featherchristmastree.htm

 

 

 

Christmas Memories

Christmases Remembered

 

 

When I was a young girl, my family spent Christmas Eve at my grandma’s and grandpa’s house, just across the lane from our home. On that special night we ate dinner (or supper as we called it) at the table in the end of the living room that served as the dining room. I looked forward to Grandma’s meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, gravy, biscuits and chocolate cake. I knew I might receive two new pencils and a Big Chief tablet as a present too.

 

One of my favorite Christmas memories, though, is of Grandma’s Christmas decorations. To decorate for Christmas, she placed a patch of white cotton quilt batting on the table to represent snow. She then set two small artificial pine trees in the cotton snow and added a plastic red sleigh and eight reindeer. She completed her decorating by standing a Santa figure in the sleigh. The display probably cost less than $1.00 at the dime store. I was mesmerized by the simple scene and imagined Santa sailing through the sky in his sleigh and stopping at each of the houses of our country neighbors. His last stop was always my house.

 

I now spend several days each year decorating my house for Christmas. Over the years Santa, the sleigh and the reindeer were lost. The trees survived though. They are not as fresh-looking as they were many years ago, but they are still found in my house each Christmas. I look at them and long for the time of simpler decorations…and enjoy my memories of Christmas Eve at Grandma’s.