Berries ripen in July – whortleberries, huckleberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries – and beg to be picked and made into pies.
“Berries,” Carol Crump Bryner, gouache, 2014
Tuesday, July 16, 1912 – “Very warm – showery nearly all day. Pauline [hired girl] went whortleburing in afternoon. Got nearly two quarts. Very nice ones.” – Lydia Jane Hall
You may, like me, wonder, “what in the world is a whortleberry?” Well, whortleberries are blueberries, but not quite. They are more like a wild bog blueberry, and I have no idea where they would have grown on the farm. Maybe someone can tell me.
My mother and her older sister Lydia were champion berry gatherers.
Wednesday, July 20, 1921 – “Fairly good day – still manage to get in some hay. Agnes went in town – brought Hattie out to go after berries with Lydia. She brought Lydia a small pail for her own, which she thought was fine. She picked it full up. A good little girl for work.” – Lydia Jane Hall
A few years later, my mother, Janet Hall, wearing plaid stockings and a necktie, went berrying with her own bucket.
Janet Hall (on right) with friend and berry pails
My mother knew the whereabouts of all the best berry patches, and in 1986 she took my daughter and her friend Winifred into the back lots to gather blackberries.
Janet Hall Crump, Mara Bryner, Winifred Guidone with berries, 1986
That afternoon my mom made one of her perfect berry pies. We ate it with vanilla ice cream just as the fireflies began to flicker and glow in the warm dark Connecticut evening.
“Blackberry/Blueberry Pie,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 1986
On Friday: August Window
Just this past weekend a friend brought us a wonderful blueberry pie. I thought of my dad who loved blueberry pie and wished he was here to share it. Then I thought of your sweet mom who made one for her “baby brother” every year for his birthday!
Oh. That is so like my mom, to make a special pie or cake for someone’s birthday. The two of them, my mom and your dad, were very alike in lots of ways, and always loving towards each other.
Just a (as Janet would have said) yummy post! And your pretty berries remind me if a tiny dish Janet gave me! Lovely post on a summer morn.
Thanks, Katy. My mom had good taste not only in berries, but in little gifts for other people.
Wonderful memories. I love and miss dark summer nights and fireflies the makins of great long evenings playing ghosty games in the dark and at the end capturing the fire flies in our mason jars with holes punched in the lid and taking them to bed with us. … releasing them in the morning .. to fly again… at least we thought so.
That’s a big drawback to living in Alaska. No warm dark evenings, and no fireflies. We also did that with the jars. Poor little insects.
Haha! Love this. Esp. how you worked hard to pick yours at the “Bishop Orchard Market Store”!
I miss your Mom.
And mine.
Our moms were special. They never hesitated to welcome company or to make something yummy to serve them.
Makes me want a berry a berry pie. I don’t remember berry picking except at summer camp in NH where we had many bushes. When I was pregnant with Vicki, Hank picked berries from the Simpson and Gerhke properties on North Farms near the brook that ran across the back of the property where we lived, but it was so dense with underbrush he had to dress with heavy clothes to protect himself.
And these days you would have to protect yourself from ticks. Can’t imagine going now where my and daughter went to pick berries without full body protection. And in 1986 that thought never occurred to us.