Ghost towns

House, SD

Many of the structures I document are part of ghost towns. For many reasons--loss of railroads and employers, agricultural disasters, economic downturns, greener pastures elsewhere--settlements and towns flourish, wither and are reduced to clusters of brittle structures. Their stories are not always well known.

Today in family history: Emma Nellie Keese Kelly, who had just turned 19, died in Kellyville, Marion County, Texas, in 1880. She was the daughter of my great-great grandfather George Washington Keese, who was born in Georgia and migrated to Caldwell, Texas, with his family by 1850. Somewhere along the way, in Tennessee, George married Harriet Adeline Perkins, who according to census records was born in Vermont, whose story is uncertain. Emma Nellie was their youngest child.

Emma Nellie married Lewis Dennis Kelly, whose father George Addison Kelly was a founder of the industrial settlement known as Kellyville or Kellysville (originally named Four-Mile Branch). The Kelly Foundry, Furnace and Plow Company manufactured and reapaired agricultural equipment, and during the Confederacy produced ammunition as well.

According to the Texas State Historical Association, "By 1880 the Kelly Iron Works was listed as the state's outstanding producer of agricultural implements, the Kelly Blue Plow being its most popular finished product. However, due to the loss of cheap water transport following removal of the Red River Raft, a fire that destroyed his furnace, and a joint-stock arrangement with the state Grange not suitable to him, Kelly closed his foundry and moved his plow production operation to Longview in 1882. Kellyville rapidly declined." Kellyville and its decline is discussed in T. Lindsey Baker's Ghost Towns of Texas.

Emma died before the foundry moved and Kellyville became a ghost town. Her infant son, George A. Kelly, born just before her own birthday in November 1879, died in February 1880, less than two months after her own death. Lewis died in June 1880. Kellyville was abandoned in 1883. It's not often that so much is so thoroughly lost in one small family. I do not know what happened to Emma Nellie; there is so much that could have happened, but we can only speculate.

So I slow down for ghost towns. Someone has to. They are memories captured in structures, not words, and the images are all we can keep. 

Theophilus and Ralph: II

Shelton sign

So I wanted to get at something of the history of my grandfather, who almost undoubtedly had untreated PTSD, who could not make himself whole again and had no one whom he trusted to talk to except a quiet grandson. I wanted to do this as part of working with my father to put his family history together for what is perhaps the first time.

My grandmother Shelton’s family tree, the Keese and Summers line, is huge. They married young and often, had lots of children, intermarried distant and not-so-distant cousins, and in general would keep a professional genealogist busy for a long time. (Six Hardeman boys married six Keese girls over the years. And some of their kids married some other of their kids. It looks less like a tree than like kudzu.)

My grandfather Shelton’s line hit a brick wall very early on. I could take it back two generations, no more. We went from Ralph Sr. to Robert Thomas Shelton to Thomas W. Shelton, then the rest was silence. Thomas W. was born in Virginia and died in Plano, Texas. There are lots and lots of Sheltons in Virginia, and the men have a limited set of first names: they tend to be Thomas, William, Ralph, Robert, and Richard. Lather, rinse, repeat. The ur-Sheltons are English and in some instances come from Shelton, Norfolk, UK. They connect to the Boleyns, to Patrick Henry, to Meriwether Lewis. Not all of them were nice, or even sane, but they have an interesting history.

Which Thomas W. could not be connected to in any of the information I was collecting.

I’ve told several people that, in my amateur experience with it, online genealogy ranges from pinpoint accuracy to speculative fiction. People write down the wrong information. Boys lie about their ages to get into the military. Parentage is misrepresented to descendants. Some people want desperately to be descended from Charlemagne rather than from Charlie Smith. Look at the consternation over the acceptance of the descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sallie Hemings.

Still, I wanted to know if my small Shelton line connected to the bigger one, so I collected data on all of them I could find, especially the ones in Virginia. Oddly enough, I was related to them through other lines (those Hintons are everywhere!), just not directly.

Until I checked the 1870 census for Thomas W.

And there, in addition to his wife and children, were two older people in his household, both in their late 60s: Elizabeth and Theophilus Shelton.

I had a Theophilus in the Shelton lines. There was only one. The dates matched. If, as I assume, this was Thomas W.’s father, the lines connected.

That ticking noise you hear was the sound of a row of hundreds of dominoes falling over and landing in place.

Theophilus Quincy Shelton, meet your descendants. Hopefully. If I did this right. 

Next: Ralph. 

Theophilus and Ralph: I

Ralph Moore Shelton Sr.'s military-issue New Testament

A note from a friend reminded me that this blog has not been updated in approximately forever.  It’s been one of those assignments subjected to a rigorous program of deferred maintenance. In 10 words: travel, life, work, nothing wrong, everything hectic, deadlines whooshing by. In a few more: drought, fires, good friends in town, good friends across the country. We put 4000 miles on the van during the first two weeks of June, an adventure that still needs to be documented once the statute of limitations elapses....

There has been a breakthrough (maybe) on the family history front. That’s as good a place as any to start for a catch-up post.

When I started this project, it was for my father as much as anything. I’ve gone through my whole life to date telling people that, no, I don’t know any Shelton relatives outside my immediate family of origin and my father’s parents.

My mother’s family and my paternal grandmother’s family were people I could understand. They talked to children, usually nicely. They were involved in the world. The relatives I knew and grew up with were a hugely varied lot, from the last gasps of the Deep South/East Texas would-be aristocracy to hard-scrabble homesteaders and half-dugout dwellers.  

My paternal grandfather, Ralph Sr., was the silent man, not silent in a strong way, but silent in a deeply withdrawn way. I doubt that I heard him say more than 20 words in my lifetime. My father is an only child, and left home for good when he left for college. My grandfather’s silence was deep and irrevocable.

I knew he had relatives whom he never saw. The story from my grandmother was that, when he left to fight in World War I, his family decided that he was not coming back, so they sold his things and cashed his checks as they came in. I have no way of checking the truth of this, but it is certain that he had almost no contact with his family once he returned. He went to Detroit to train as a mechanic, then returned to Dallas for the rest of his life. His orbit grew ever smaller. By the time I came along, he was apparently locked into the silence.

I’m a poster child for oldest sibling syndrome. I take responsibility for everything, and every time something goes wrong, I assume it’s my fault. My grandfather’s silence was puzzling and uncomfortable. I always thought that he didn't like me. Or children. Or my family. Or all of the above. Since I didn't know what I had done wrong or how to make things better, I tended to edge away from him. I wish now that I hadn't. 

We visited my Shelton grandparents a couple of times a year or so. My grandmother always had places for us to go and people for us to visit, so we didn't sit around the house very much. On one of these visits, when my brother was perhaps 4 years old, my father overheard something amazing. My grandfather was telling my brother about the battle in the Argonne, and how only two or three of them came back, and then had to go out again the next day. That’s all my father heard, and my grandfather stopped talking after that.

That’s all we knew. All we know. 

Next: Theophilus. 

Ancestors in the attic

Keese House, Jefferson, TX

Today marks the start of a year-long project to share stories from our increasingly strange family genealogy project. I'm using calendar software to turn up what the relatives were up to on this day in history. This helps me decide which part of the tree to work on next in a nicely random way, which seems apropos. With any luck, it'll be entertaining....

Today in the family history project (a continuing series):

05 Dec 1884: Oliver Hazard Perry Keese dies in Junction, Texas, at the age of 58. The Keeses went in for grand patriotic masculine names and Confederate sympathies in a big way. His grandson, who was born 6 years later, was named Oliver Napoleon Keese. His father, Thomas Jefferson Keese, was born in South Carolina and died in Menard, Texas. My great-great-grandfather, Oliver H. P.’s  first cousin, was George Washington Keese. Oliver H. P. Keese was born in Lawrence, Tennessee, northeast of Memphis, and was in Texas by the age of 24, following the trend moving at that time to the southwest of the Mississippi. He served as a private in the Confederacy, in the Company of the 2^nd Frontier. After that, he served as a Texas Ranger. These Keeses were cousins of the Keeses in my father’s line who went to Brazil as Confederados, but these Keeses stayed at the edge of West Texas, which was doubtless just as alien, just as removed from the aftermath of the Civil War. Interestingly, they don’t seem to have named any boy babies in ensuing generations for Confederate heroes—Oliver’s sons included yet another George Washington, yet another Thomas Jefferson, and Henry Clay Keese. The girls were not saddled with equally weighty names, fortunately. 

Rio Blanco

Sunrise light and ribbon wire

When I add up the score for 2011, the year is going to have a lot to answer for. Too many dear ones have been ill, injured, lost, or caught up in disasters, and it's not over yet. But it has also been a year of reconnecting, reunions, finding the dearest of old friends and reminding myself who I have always been. In October, a few of us gathered for a reunion at Camp Rio Blanco in Texas, where I went as a Girl Scout camper and worked as a unit leader. It was a bittersweet reunion to celebrate our lifelong friendships and grieve a deep loss. It is a pocket oasis in the Texas Panhandle, green even in a fierce drought. It is a source of quirky magic and spectacular landscapes.

If I can face a storm with awe and wonder, take a moment to appreciate brilliant light, keep a group happily together, sing when it would be easier to snap, make fun of myself (especially singing), step aside for the tiniest wildlife, tie a knot that holds, have a Plan B (C, D....X) in mind at all times, fix what is broken, override panic in a crisis, laugh often, use a folding knife with no trips to the ER, give from the heart, give everyone second chances, sleep peacefully under the stars, know what those stars are, be comfortable with being alone as much as with being in groups, listen deeply to what is important, teach what I know and learn in the process, hear both sides of the story, use a hatchet with no trips to the ER, pitch in to help without being asked, appreciate wildness and wilderness, know when to lead and when to follow, and light a decent campfire with no more than two matches (and no lighter fluid) with no trips to the ER, I owe it all to this place and the people who made it wonderful.

The gate in autumn sunshine

It's West Texas. This decor is normal. 

View from the second floor of the Lodge

Scissortailed flycatcher seemingly perched in space.  I miss seeing these.

Wild turkeys on a stroll

The camp bell

It rings with as true a tone as ever

Sunset behind the Caprock

Junipers at sunset

Arrowhead Mesa, a popular hike 

Crescent moon over the flagpole

Velvet ant 

Ammonite in the fireplace of the Old Lodge. This probably started me on my warped path. 

Old wagon bed

Swinging bridge over Big Sandy. The first person across in the morning still gets the spiderwebs . 

Sign on road crossing Big Sandy. 

Framework for the covered wagon tents, in need of rescue. 

Many dreams under the canvas here. 

I would just like to point out for the record, though, that I still flunk braiding lanyards. I still think that my interest in natural history developed when the arts and crafts leaders looked at my work and asked me gently if I wouldn't rather go outside to look at bugs. Or anything that would get me out of there.

We are working on a history project for Rio Blanco now. Stay tuned for details.

Confederados

Women's History Month challenges to date:


March 13 — Moment of Strength: share a story where a female ancestor showed courage or strength in a difficult situation.
March 14 — Newsmakers? Did you have a female ancestor who made the news? Why? Was she famous or notorious? Did she appear in the social column?
March 15 — Write a six-word memoir tribute to one of your female ancestors


Watch me do all three.

Picture by Dan Ellis 1/20/2008

The Campo Cemetery in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, in the State of  São Paulo, Brasil.

The women in the Brooks line of my mother's family are notorious famous for having steel spines, great coping skills and the genteel tact and diplomacy of a wounded mother bear. Their history is nothing but courage and strength. I have yet to find a branch of the family that wasn't devastated by war. One of Nancy Honnoll's siblings died at Richmond. They were all too familiar with childhood and childbirth mortality, failed crops, killer storms, and epidemics that laid whole families low.

For the next few years, the United States will be in the midst of the 150th anniversary of its Civil War. I was not planning to focus on that until yesterday, when I stumbled into the saga of the Confederados and discovered that my father's side of the family had a story to tell that neither Ralph nor I had ever heard before.

The monument pictured above marks the American cemetery in Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, a city in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, where Confederate soldiers and their families moved en masse in the 1860s. They were broken and angry, facing a ruined land and a bitter Reconstruction, and so they left. One group left central Texas in 1867, a group full of Keeses and Hardemans and Seawrights and others, leaving South Carolina and Georgia and Tennessee behind for good. They had first moved to Texas because it was not blighted by battles, but the anger and grief were still too much, and so they set off for a new life with no reminders of the old one.

Nancy Caroline Keese was the daughter of George Washington Keese. She, her husband Thomas Lafayette Keese, her husband Peter Hardeman, and their familes were part of this exodus. They were children of George's first wife, Helen Clarissa, who died in 1848. George remarried Harriet Adeline Perkins (born in Vermont) two years later and started a new family, including my great-grandfather, George Washington Keese Jr.

Loss of a parent, a new Yankee-born stepmother and stepsiblings, the horrors of the Civil War...apparently Thomas Lafayette and Nancy Caroline had enough. Their trip to Brasil was one-way. Their descendants became part of Brazil and only rarely returned. Today there is an annual celebration of the Confederados, including replica Confederate uniforms (splendid dress uniforms at that), American Southern cooking and Civil War songs in Portuguese. The Confederate flag is displayed everywhere, with little or none of the negative significance it has here. There are still Keeses and Hardemans in Brazil. There is still a town called Americana.

The cemetery was set up to serve as the resting place of the overwhelmingly Protestant Confederado community, who could not be buried on Catholic grounds.Thomas, his son Thomas Alonzo Keese, and Lt. Hardeman's names are on the monument, along with dozens of family members.

Nancy's is not. I've identified a dozen of our relatives on this monument, and hers is the most striking absence. Is she there and just overlooked by the chronicler? Is she in an unmarked grave? It's certain that she did not return to the United States.

How did she find the strength to leave her country for an unknown place a hemisphere away? How did she cope with children fluent in a new language? Did she leave the little expatriate community at any time? No matter what one's feelings are on the American Civil War (and they are still deep feelings), emigration as an adult is bitterly difficult.

She was famous in a way--many families were torn apart by the emigration, and many of the emigres are today the only stories still told from that generation. In my father's family, though, it was as if they had never existed by the time Ralph was old enough to hear family stories. This was never mentioned in any way whatsoever. He has cousins in Brazil, which for us is about as exotic and unbelievable as can be imagined. His great-grandfather had older half-siblings who left the country forever.

Today Ralph and I are tracking our family's role in this story. It's a father-daughter effort, and it's addictive stuff. But we don't forget that every record was a living, complex person.

Six words for Nancy Caroline Keese Hardeman: Determined. Griefstricken. Hopeful. Lost. Found. Enigmatic.

The 130-year-old quilt

Women's History Month challenge for March 8 — Did one of your female ancestors leave a diary, journal, or collection of letters? Share an entry or excerpt.

Quilt made by Nancy Ellinor Honnoll Walker and Mary Marcella Walker Brooks in Mississippi, 1881.

Do I ever wish that they had. I have so many questions now. But maybe this will serve in the place of a journal. Sometimes we get messages from the older girls in forms other than writing. Sometimes. This is one of those times. This story is about an heirloom that is also a record.

I posted about this quilt last year. Here's the rest of the story.

After my grandmother died in 1994, Shirley called me to say that there was something special for each of the grandchildren, something Grandmother particularly wanted us to have. With a slight catch in her voice, Shirley said that Grandmother wanted me to have THE quilt.

"What THE quilt?" I wanted to know. "There are lots of quilts she gave us."

"No," Shirley said, "THE quilt. I didn't even know about it until she told me."

Grandmother had rescued the quilt after a devastating tornado struck her family farm in 1957, destroyed the farmhouse and fatally injured Mossie. She also rescued pages from the family Bible that were scattered in the mud. The quilt was cleaned and put up away from everyone for the rest of Grandmother's life.

It is a slightly tattered beauty with the name "Mossie" and the date 1881 embroidered in one of its panels, and the name alone embroidered in another. We assumed that this was made for Mossie by her mother.

In 2003, I started researching it so that we could get it on the Quilt Index. There aren't that many quilts with such a clear and provable date and place of origin, after all. At that time I knew nothing about my great-grandmother's family except that her mother was a shadowy figure named Gramma Walker. And that didn't get me very far in the genealogy.

With a little digging, I uncovered the Honnoll family, and Gramma Walker turned out to be Nancy Ellinor Honnoll Walker, whose name was spelled exactly that way in the pages of the family Bible that Grandmother rescued after the storm.

I also realized that Mossie was born in 1874. By 1881 she would have been old enough to start learning sewing and cooking. I can't prove it, but I am betting anything that this was her first project, with her mother's help where needed. I believe that her mother drew the name and date and that Mossie embroidered them, carefully. It's what my mother did for my first embroidery project. Needlework does run in the family.

Name and date block

Name block. Look at that handwriting.

Tornado damage on the back.

Certainly this quilt was of supreme importance to Mossie. In a life filled with some serious hard times and many cross-country moves, it was one thing she never lost.

She didn't write down much, ever, not even recipes, but this quilt is a record and a message in itself.

P.S. When Shirley came up to Delaware for our wedding, she asked me quietly if I still had the Mossie quilt, since she didn't see it anywhere. As casually as I could, I told her that it was put up somewhere. It was. It was put up hanging in the chapel for our wedding the next day. The look on her fact when she saw it there, brilliant and perfect for an October day, is one of the best memories I have in my whole life. It was the day before Mossie's birthday, which I did not realize. Sometimes everything comes together.

Family recipe Monday: a Simple Gifts Thanksgiving

This is the dream-team Thanksgiving dinner from the Simple Gifts project. Collectively, these recipes span over a hundred years and a goodly part of the country. I wish I could bring all these cooks together--some of them never even met each other. Family cooking keeps us together across the generations--be sure to give your loved ones an extra hug from us.

Start out with these perfect nibbles.

The Shelton-Sommers family. Ralph is on the left.

I may now be disowned for publishing this, but I think it is a great picture.

Ralph’s East Texas parched pecans

Pecans

Worcestershire sauce

Butter

Melt butter in skillet. Add Worcestershire sauce and pecans. Cook on medium heat, stirring constantly, until golden. Best paired with a single-malt Scotch.

--Ralph Shelton

Use the next two recipes to put together a world-class version of Texas Cornbread Dressing.

Corn kernel cornbread

1 cup flour

1 cup cornmeal

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

¼ cup sugar

2 eggs, well beaten

1 cup milk

3 T melted margarine

1 cup yellow cream-style corn

Preheat oven to 450* F. Brush 9” square baking pan or skillet with melted shortening. Combine dry ingredients in mixing bowl, stirring to blend well. In a separate bowl, combine eggs, milk, margarine and corn. Add all at once to dry ingredients, mixing quickly and thoroughly. Pour batter into pan and bake about 30 minutes, or until bread tests done. Can also be baked as sticks or muffins. Serve hot.

Dipping biscuits

Whisk in bowl to blend:

2 ½ cups whole wheat flour
½ cup unbleached flour
2 ½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
¾ tsp onion powder
½ tsp ground thyme
½ tsp ground sage (or substitute ¾ tsp Bell’s seasoning)

Add ½ stick butter cut in ½” cubes; blend in with pastry blender until coarse meal consistency. Blend in 1 cup buttermilk, 1 large egg, mix until moist. Turn onto floured surface, knead briefly until dough comes together. Gather into ball, roll out to ¾“, cut into rounds or squares. Bake in 400o preheated oven 20-22 minutes, or until biscuit tester* comes out clean! Dip in gravy and enjoy.
--Pat Monaco

*This is an in-joke. Our friend Pat actually found a snooty gourmet magazine recipe for biscuits that required the use of a biscuit tester to determine doneness. If you can’t tell when biscuits are done, a tester will not help you much. These are great crumbled into a cornbread-sage dressing.

For a soup course, try this Pennsylvania classic.

Shaffner-Hess wedding reception, 1954.

Potato soup

Sauté gently in 2 T butter:

1 T grated carrot
1 T scraped onions

Stir in:

1 tsp salt
¼ tsp celery salt
1/8 tsp pepper
2 cups hot milk
1 cup mashed or boiled potatoes, put through a coarse sieve

Cook 20 minutes
--Dolly Shaffner Hess

For a variation on the standard cranberry jelly, try this.

Cranberry salad

1 lb. cranberries
1 whole apple

Grind in food chopper. Cover with 1 cup sugar. Add:

1 small can crushed pineapple
Pinch salt
1/2 cup nuts

Mix into 2 pkg. Jell-O (cherry or raspberry) in 3 cups water. Chill.
--Vada Brooks Johnson, Shirley Johnson Shelton

And here is a quartet of great side dishes:

Vada’s marinated carrots

2 lb. carrots, cut in 1” pieces

Cook until tender; drain and set aside. Bring to boil:

1 cup sugar
1 8-oz. can tomato sauce
1/3 cup oil
½ cup vinegar

When boiling, add 1 onion (sliced) and 1 green pepper (sliced). Bring back to good hard boil and pour over carrots.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

Rice-broccoli casserole

1 package chopped broccoli

½ cup chopped onion

½ cup chopped celery

1 can cream of mushroom soup

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 small jar Cheddar cheese spread

1 cup cooked rice

Cook broccoli according to package directions. Sauté onion and celery in small amount of oil. Mix with broccoli. Add soups and cheese spread. Line a casserole dish with rice. Pour broccoli mixture over rice and bake at 375* F for 10 minutes.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Pennsylvania red cabbage

2 tbsp bacon drippings heated in skillet (oil may be substituted)

Stir into drippings or oil:

¼ cup brown sugar

¼ cup cider vinegar

½ tsp caraway seed

¼ cup water

1 ¼ tsp salt

¼ tsp pepper

Stir in to coat:

4 cups shredded red cabbage

2 cups cubed unpeeled red apple

Cover and cook on low heat about 15 min until cooked but still crisp. Stir occasionally.

--Dolly Shaffner Hess

Perfect baked sweet potatoes

4 medium to large sweet potatoes

Safflower oil

Preheat oven to 400* F. Wash and scrub potatoes. Dry thoroughly. Coat potatoes lightly with oil. Prick surface with fork. Bake until tender (40-60 minutes, depending on size).

The best rolls of all time for the dinner are Bran Rolls and Potato Rolls. I'd serve these with Honey Jelly.

Honey jelly

3 cups honey

1 cup water

½ bottle liquid fruit pectin (Certo)

Measure honey and water into large saucepan and mix well. Place over high heat and bring to a boil, stirring constantly. At once stir in pectin. Then bring to a full rolling boil and boil hard 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, skim off foam with metal spoon, and pour quickly into glasses. Cover jelly at once with 1/8” hot paraffin wax. This will make five glasses.

Here are a couple of options for the main course, in addition to the Shrimp Creole we love for holidays. Because we just do, that's why.

Basic roast turkey

18 to 22-lb. turkey

2 oranges or 4 lemons, halved

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

Salt, pepper, paprika

Cheesecloth

4 T corn oil

Clean turkey with damp paper towels. Dry well inside and out. Squeeze orange or lemon juice over the inside and outside of cavity. Fill neck cavity with one stuffing and body cavity with another, if desired. Don’t pack too tightly. Close cavities by sewing or skewering. Rub 1½ sticks of butter over outside of turkey. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and paprika. Drape cheesecloth over top of turkey. Place breast side up on rack in roasting pan. Bake 4½ to 5 ½ hours at 325* F or until turkey tests done. Baste every 30 minutes with corn oil which has been mixed with remaining butter (melted). Baste without lifting cheesecloth, but check periodically to make sure it is not stuck to skin. If it is, gently lift and baste under cheesecloth. If breast gets too dark, tent with a piece of foil.

The Brooks family. Vada is the taller of the two little girls.

For the poultry-averse:

Brisket

6 lb. brisket

3 T garlic salt

3 T onion salt

3 T celery salt

½ bottle dark smoke (liquid smoke), 3-oz bottle

Wrap in foil and marinate overnight. Cook 6 hours at 275* F.

--Vada Brooks Johnson

Finally, if you are still able to move, we recommend a nice selection of pies for dessert. You can never have too many of these. Some already-printed classics include Pumpkin-Chiffon Pie, Buttermilk Pie, Pecan Pie and Caramel Pie. Here are a few other dessert options:

Sour cream dried cherry pie

2 cups sour cream
3 egg yolks
½ cup brown sugar
3 T flour
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
1 ½--2 cups dried sour cherries
½ cup water

Put the cherries in a small saucepan with the water and plump them over low heat about 5 minutes. Cool and drain. Combine the flour and sugar. Add the beaten egg yolks, sour cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Cook the custard in a double boiler until it just starts to thicken, stirring continuously. Mix in the cherries and divide between two pre-baked piecrusts. Bake at 350* until just golden, 10-12 minutes.
--Pat Monaco and Sally Shelton

Chocolate chip cheesecake

1 ½ cup finely crushed Oreo cookies
¼ cup oleo or butter, melted
3 8-oz packages cream cheese, softened
1 14-oz can Eagle Brand condensed milk (not evaporated)
3 eggs
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup mini-chocolate chips
1 tsp flour

Preheat oven to 300* F (important). Combine crumbs and oleo; pat firmly on bottom of 9” springform pan. In a large bowl, beat cream cheese until fluffy. Add Eagle Brand milk and beat well. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. In a small bowl, toss together ½ cup chocolate chips, 1 tsp flour to coat. Stir into cheese mixture. Pour into pan. Sprinkle ½ cup chocolate chips on top. Bake 1 hour or until cake springs back when lightly touched. Cool to room temperature. Chill and remove side of pan. Serves 10-12.
--Marcie Nelson

I'll post another pie recipe on Thanksgiving Day. Happy Monday.

Family recipe Monday: fall poultry casseroles

Chicken casserole

We are digging like maniacs through the Simple Gifts family recipe files in preparation for Thanksgiving. I'm not sure yet what we'll be cooking, or where. When you work on a college campus, you start gathering in the Thanksgiving orphans about now and planning a family-style celebration for everyone who doesn't have time to get home and back. The kitchen and dinner house may not be decided until the last minute and may not even be the same house. I'll post the menu as it develops with everyone's contributions. The best dinners are always the ones that reflect everyone's culture and heritage from all points of the map.

In the meantime, here are some casserole recipes from the older West Texas girls. These are also spectacular with leftover turkey, which is why I am posting them now.

Chicken casserole

7 chicken breasts
Salt to taste
Poultry seasoning to taste
Onion pieces
Celery pieces
1 medium onion, chopped
1 stick butter
1 10-oz can mushroom soup
1 10-oz can chicken soup
1 5-oz can evaporated milk
½ lb. sharp cheese, grated
½ tsp. Tabasco sauce
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 tsp. salt
½ tsp. pepper
1 tsp. MSG
2 T chopped pimientos
2 cans asparagus tips
1 8-oz can sliced mushrooms, drained
½ cup slivered almonds

Boil chicken in water seasoned with salt, poultry seasoning, onion and celery pieces. Sauté chopped onion in butter, and add remaining ingredients (except asparagus, mushrooms, chicken and almonds). Meanwhile, cool chicken. Bone and cut in bite-sized pieces. In a casserole, layer chicken, asparagus, and sauce. Repeat layers, ending with sauce. Top with almonds. Bake at 350* F for 45-60 minutes. Serves 8-10.
--Audrey Smith

Note:  As I have mentioned before, I am presenting the recipes as written, without edits. I don't want to rewrite history, and the ingredients and methods of these recipes (condensed soups, pimientos, etc.) lock them firmly into their time and place. That being said, I think you can safely skip the MSG if you suspect that anyone is sensitive or allergic to it. You can (and I would) also substitute fresh mushrooms and asparagus for canned ones. This is a big recipe, so you can observe the two-casserole rule. In fact, you should. There are casserole sharing laws, you know.

There are dozens of versions of this Texas favorite; I went with the one from Aunt Melba. I'm with her on the corn tortilla question--it makes a better casserole base to have several layers. Dipping the tortillas in warm sauce or stock is essential: don't skip this step, especially if the tortillas have been refrigerated.

King Ranch casserole

1 large fryer
Corn tortillas
1 onion, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped
1 can mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 can Ro-Tel tomatoes
1 T chili powder
¾ lb. grated cheese

Boil chicken. Bone and cut in bite-sized pieces. Dip tortillas in chicken stock for a second and line bottom and sides of oiled casserole dish. Simmer onions and pepper in stock until tender. Mix with soups, tomatoes and chili powder. Put layer of chicken on tortillas and add layer of soup mixture. Put another layer of tortillas, chicken and rest of soup mixture. Top with cheese. Bake about 45 minutes at 350* F.

Melba’s note: I use several layers instead of 2 because we like the tortillas.
--Melba Campbell Johnson

Here is another one from Melba: simple but elegant.

Melba’s chicken and rice

Brown chicken in ½ to ¾ stick oleo. Add 1 cup rice, 2 ½ cups water, 1 package onion soup mix, salt and pepper. Mushroom soup may be added. Place chicken on top of rice and cook in oven 350* F for one hour.
--Melba Campbell Johnson

Happy Monday. What are you thankful for this year?

Family recipe Monday: jellies and preserves

Mary Marcella Walker Brooks and children

All the signs point to another productive year up here for both cultivated and wild fruit and other produce. This is the third year of good rains after a seven-year drought. Look for the ongoing summer canning saga on these pages as the wild apples and plums ripen and the farmers' market expands. Right now the late spring harvest is just starting, and we're not seeing local fruit yet.

The cooks in our families were all farm girls or just one short drive away from the family farm, and they all saved every possible scrap of food for the winter months. Pickling and canning began in early summer and ramped up throught the first hard frost. That meant many days of boiling away in the hot months, but many more days of fruit in the cold months.

I have a little cookbook from 1934, The Art of Modern Cooking and Better Meals: Recipes for Every Occasion, by Meta Given, which I read every time I need to be reminded that I am a slacker. According to Meta, I should have 970 quarts of canned food put up to feed a family of 5 for a year, including canned meats. I'll get right on that, once I recover from testing her suggestion on how to find out how much pectin is in fruit juice, using equal amounts of the fruit juice in question and grain alcohol. You rock, Meta. We've been running this experiment every evening and will have scientifically significant results as soon as we can remember what it is that we are looking for.

Here are a few suggestions from the Simple Gifts files.

Gran Brooks’s directions for making jelly

For grape, raspberry, blackberry, or plum jelly:

Cook fruit until done in very little water; remove from fire and squeeze through a flour sack. Put juice on fire and boil hard 10 minutes, add as much sugar as juice and when beginning to boil, boil hard 2 minutes and pour in glasses. The time is counted from the time it boils real hard.
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks

Bear in mind that sugar is a preservative as much as it is a sweetener in these pre-refrigeration and wood-fire recipes. The high heat and sugar release and set as much natural pectin from these particular fruits as possible. Wild plums may need a little help in the pectin department if you want a firm-set jelly, something I don't think my great-grandmother's generation worried about too much as long as there was a good-enough set. They did, however, place a high premium on the clarity (translucency, if you will) of the jelly;  hence the straining directions.

Here's a more recent recipe that produces a lovely preserve.

Marmalade gold

1 orange
1 lemon
1 cup water
2 T lemon juice
~1 lb. fully ripe fresh apricots
~1 lb. fully ripe fresh nectarines
7 cups (3 lb.) sugar
½ bottle Certo

Cut the orange and lemon in half and remove seeds. Do not peel. Chop fine. Simmer the chopped fruit with the water and lemon juice, covered, for 20 minutes. Meanwhile peel apricots and nectarines by dipping into boiling water to loosen the skins; pit and slice; chop very fine. Add enough of the apricots and nectarines to the simmered mixture to make 4 1/2 cups. Put in large pan. Stir in the sugar. Over high heat bring to a full rolling boil; boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Stir in Certo. With a large metal spoon, skim off foam. Stir and skim for 5 minutes to cool slightly and avoid floating fruit. Ladle at once into sterilized jelly glasses. Cover with hot paraffin wax. Makes about 8 cups (9 half-pints).
--Shirley Johnson Shelton

If you are canning these in a hot-water bath, the paraffin is not necessary, and vice versa. Certo is concentrated fruit pectin, either liquid or powder.

Here's one for later in the summer. Note that this preserves the entire peach, and you will have to deal with the pits when you are serving them later. Trust me, you won't mind doing that. These are awesome. I'd let them stand for at least a week or two before opening them, to let the flavors deepen.

Sweet pickled peaches

6 lb. peaches
3 lb. sugar
1 pint water
1 pint vinegar
4 oz stick cinnamon
2 oz whole cloves
1 oz ginger

Select firm clingstone peaches. It is better to have them too green than too ripe. Peel and drop at once into a syrup which is made by boiling together the sugar and water and boil for 15 minutes. Cool quickly and allow to stand for from two to three hours. Drain off syrup, put vinegar and spices into it, boil for fifteen minutes, then add the peaches and cook together for half an hour. Let stand overnight. Next morning, drain off the syrup, boil for twenty minutes, add the peaches, and continue cooking for fifteen minutes longer. Cool again and let stand for two hours or overnight, then boil all together until the peaches are clear and tender. Pack peaches into cold jars, garnish with snips of stick cinnamon, cover with strained syrup, seal, and process quart jars for 20 minutes at 180* F (simmering).

Happy Monday.

Family recipe Monday: chicken and pasta

Left to right: Vada Brooks Johnson, unknown child, Coy McLean Brooks, Mary Marcella Walker Brooks, Lubbock, 1940s. Daughter, daughter-in-law and mother.

We hit the Farmers' Market in Founders Park on Saturday, the first one of the summer. It's still a bit early in the produce year up here, but not too much so. Results: rhubarb, asparagus, radishes, a nice Hutterite chicken, and two triple-berry cinnamon rolls for breakfast. The rolls were on sale at a place that primarily sells fresh produce, therefore they were automatically health food by association. Honest. The tamales on sale will also be pure health food, for the same reason. Now we're trying to figure out if we make the resultant rhubarb pie with peaches and/or blackberries included, or if we leave the rhubarb in splendid isolation. That'll be health food, too, as it contains fresh fruit. We are practically exploding with health around here.

This particular chicken will be roasted to save all that free-range goodness, but the Simple Gifts files are full of other suggestions. Pairing chicken and pastry or pasta is especially frequent. Here is the classic family recipe that no one ever wrote down until Shirley and I sat down and pieced it together.

Chicken and dumplings

Boil 1 chicken (pieces) in 3 gallons water. Remove chicken and shred meat from bone. Reserve meat and discard bone and skin.

Make the dumplings by cutting Crisco into flour with pastry cutter until it looks like coarse meal. Add just enough ice water to make dough stick together and roll into ball. Roll out thin and cut into strips with knife. Cut strips into squares (about 2”) and add to boiling broth. When done, add 1/2 gal. milk to broth. Serve hot.
--Mary Marcella Walker Brooks, Vada Brooks Johnson

Another classic of country cooking and a comfort food without equal. This recipe was never really written down; it was one of those things that was just passed down. You're supposed to know this stuff genetically, I think.

Note: we usually leave the chicken meat on the side so that people can add as much as they like (or don’t). It can just as easily be added back to the broth before serving. The only other spices added to the broth might be salt and pepper to taste, and that is often left out of the cooking and placed on the side instead. I don't add milk to the broth, personally. You may, if you are not a strict traditionalist, prefer fresh or dried herbs in the dumplings; I can recommend lemon thyme highly.

This recipe makes Gene and me nostalgic for the Delaware diner we frequented. Sunday mornings featured all-you-can-eat chicken and dumplings starting at 10, a special not listed on the menu.You just had to know about it. Gene makes careful note of whether dumplings are floaters or sinkers, as good Pennsylvania Dutch cooks prefer the former. I can't say I ever noticed that there was a difference, possibly because this recipe makes sinkers and that's all we knew. There are slippery dumplings, too. Who knew? Shirley notes that, in her latter years, Vada substituted strips of flour tortillas for rolled-out dough dumplings as a work- and time-saver.

Here is a great crypto-classic. This makes a casserole, in case you're curious what the outcome is.

Chicken tettrazini

1 large chicken, cook and remove from bone
1 large package spaghetti or macaroni
1 lb. cheese
1 can pimiento
1 can mushrooms
1 can mushroom soup
½ can ripe olives
1 large onion, celery and 1 bell pepper, cooked in bacon drippings

Cook spaghetti in chicken broth.
--Vada Brooks Johnson

That's it. Those are the directions. What are you waiting for? This one practically needs a full concordance, doesn't it? You are going to cook the chicken in water until it is done and leaves you with a lovely stock/broth. After removing the chicken to cool and debone, you are going to use the stock to cook the pasta. Strain the pasta from the stock and save the stock for another day. Its job is done for now. Layer the ingredients with pasta first, then everything else in order, repeating as needed, with a layer of cheese on top. Bake the casserole at 350* for 30 minutes or so, until the top is nicely golden. This is enough for two casseroles, in accordance with the casserole rules.

The cheese is your call; I'd use a nice white cheese like a Gruyere or buffalo Mozzarella, but I'm sure that this recipe originally used a Cheddar more on the mild side than the sharp side, affectionately known as rat trap cheese. Obviously, you can use something other than bacon drippings to saute those vegetables. The can of mushroom soup puts this recipe firmly in the 1950s, as does the "pimmento," as does the pasta itself, which arrived relatively late in West Texas. This is a good solid Sunday night supper. Remember, dinner is at noon; supper is at night.

The third and final recipe today is another winner from our wonderful Aunt Coy. You can tell by the various cards' condition just how popular it has been. It has those 1950s ingredients, too.

Aunt Coy’s chicken spaghetti

1 fat hen
1 green pepper, chopped
3 stems celery, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 boxes spaghetti
1 can pimientos
1 can mushrooms
½ lb. cheese, grated
1 can mushroom soup

Cook chicken until tender in chicken broth salt and pepper to taste. Cool chicken, then remove from bone and cut into small pieces. Remove 1/4 cup fat from chicken broth and fry pepper, celery and onion in it until it is tender. Cook spaghetti until tender in chicken broth (add more water if needed) add chopped chicken and pre-cooked pepper, celery and onion. Place in casserole, cover with grated cheese, heat in slow oven until cheese is melted. (Good made day before and warmed on serving day.)
--Coy McLean Brooks

Happy Monday. Remember to keep one and share one.