My grandma’s 1963 Good Housekeeping Cookbook is my cooking bible … it has been since I received it as a wedding present. I have adapted my favorite banana bread recipe into a moist banana cake. Nearly every woman in my family has received a copy of this cookbook … not all got the 1963…
So … I jumped on the bacon jam bandwagon … finally … and at the request of one of my best friends. He loves bacon. I mean really loves bacon. He kept sending me text messages with recipes of bacon jam. Many text messages that said things like “I just ran across this again,” and…
Chili has been a staple in my life for as long as I can remember. Every September, as soon as the temperature hit the mid 60s, my dad would whip up a big batch. We’d eat chili all autumn and winter long. We’d feed it to the Pumpkin Patrol and our town’s police officers on…
This is a simple chili recipe that will feed a crowd, or family with some leftover!
My mom frequently talks about rum pots that the old German women made in the summer months when she was growing up. The traditional German Rumtopf (rum pot) is a concoction of fruit – berries work great – soaked in sugar and rum. The fruit is then used to top ice cream or cakes and…
One of my character flaws as a hobby genealogists is my desire to learn everything I can about certain eras in history and the people who lived during them. I’m fascinated by the Jacobite uprising in Scotland, 16th century English royalty, Colonial America, flappers of the 1920s, and anything from the 1950s and early 60s….
A simple combination of vegetables, sugar and cider vinegar, this colorful salad recipe is the perfect addition to potluck or picnics. The recipe was given to me by a close family friend about 10 years ago and it’s been a favorite ever since. It’s also healthy … baring the sugar, I suppose … but an…
Wikipedia used to be the one places teachers and professors would NEVER let student pull research from … for various reasons. I remember those days, not fondly. Now, however, Wikipedia is one of the best online resources we have. It has replaced the need from my 27+ volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica that I used to…
I’ve never found what I considered a “black sheep” ancestor among the branches of my family tree. There have been a few that I wondered about … you know, the ones who seem to disappear into thin air, or even appear from thin air. I’ve never actually proven that scoundrels existed in my family. I’m…
When I logged on to Ancestry.com this morning, I was met with a message about their updated website. Of course, I was given the choice of keeping with the familiar website or checking out the new one. I jumped at the new one … for one reason … lifestory. Out of curiosity, I clicked on…
When I was a junior in high school, my French teacher had us create a family tree. It was a fun assignment for someone like me … I was already a history nerd, but had never really thought about tracing my own family history to any great extent. My dad was ecstatic because he was…
I love old cookbooks, especially from the 1950s and 1960s … the decades just before I was born … the decades devoted to Leave it to Beaver, Bewitched, and I Dream of Jeannie … the decades of economic prosperity and back-yard BBQs … the decades of Tupperware parties and very awesome Pyrex designs. Party food…
I love when our orchard markets open up in late spring because it means I can make strawberry pie! Almost every weekend finds us on a trek to Flamm Orchards to retrieve strawberries, then peaches, then apples as the summer gives way to autumn. Strawberries are in season now, and we’ve been eating them by…
I wanted to share a few photos from the Memorial Day ceremony at Woodlawn Cemetery in Carbondale, Illinois. Woodlawn is our oldest cemetery and is where all of the founding fathers were laid to rest. Our ceremony includes laying wreathes on their graves, along with other veterans. Next year will mark the 150th anniversary of…
Week 20 of the 52 ancestors challenge is themed “black sheep”. I come from a family of doctors, politicians, preachers, and a lot of farmers. I’ve not found a black sheep among them. Okay, the politicians might be questionable. So, instead of writing about skeletons in closets or general bad behavior of black sheep ancestors,…
I love that Amy Johnson Crow has given us themes for the 2015 52 Ancestors challenge! This week (week 15) is “How do you spell that?”. Ha! I have a lot of short, easy surnames in my family tree – Moore, Davis, Douglas, Lindsey, Jones. I also have a few like Lemaitre that have a…
Just one photo. Is that really all I get to pick for week 14 of 52 Ancestors? Too bad. I’m picking two! Each photo is of my great-great grandparents, Jake and Anna Mueller. Jacob Mueller was born in 1870 in St. Clair County, Illinois to Jacob and Dorothea Mueller. Anna was born three years later in…
“Same” is the theme for week 12 of the 2015 52 Ancestors challenge. I’m always fascinated at how characteristics and features get passed to us from our parents and grandparents. Every now and then, I come across a photo of an ancestor that sends me into utter shock because of a family resemblance. The “sameness”…
The week 11 theme for the 2015 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Luck of the Irish”. I don’t really have an ancestor that fits the theme … we’re of Scottish and German heritage and, while the Celtic route would still sort of fit, I decided to focus in on family tradition this week in light of…
Stormy Weather is an apropos theme for the Week 10 52 Ancestors Challenge. It’s March and, in southern Illinois, we would normally be headed into spring and well on our way to “tornado season”. Not this year … our only two snow storms of the winter have happened in the last two weeks. They’ve been…
I initially had trouble deciding about whom to write given the week 9 52 ancestors theme, Close to Home. I live in the same area where my ancestors on all sides have lived for as many as 200 years … so everyone is close to home. Then it hit me. I was moving some books…
Follow my blog with Bloglovin Good deeds … the 52 ancestors week 8 theme … is an easy one for me. When my grandpa would tell stories about his family, his grandfather, Thomas James Rains, would always enter the tale. There are many characters that intertwine in stories of the Rains family, so I will…
Love is an apropos theme for week 7 of the 2015 installment of 51 ancestors … the week of Valentine’s Day. Of course, the theme draws me toward ancestors who fell madly in love with their spouse and lived happily ever after. Well … that would be too predictable. On Saturday, February 12, 1910, two…
Last week, I posted about Rev. Rowland Jones, my 9th great grandfather on my dad’s side. We descend from Rowland’s first son, Robert, who was born in 1676 in Williamsburg, Virginia. In a quest to clean up what was a very messy batch of “could be” children, I ran across an article in The William…