Category Archives: Food

TV Dinners

In a New York Times Magazine article, food writer Mark Bittman claimed he never let his daughters eat in front of the TV.

Really? Never?? I agree that television is much more intrusive now than it was in 1955, but I can’t see that it’s so very bad to eat an occasional meal while being entertained by cowboys, or doctors, or little puppets.

One of my favorite childhood meals was our family’s weekly Sunday night supper. We ate grilled-cheese sandwiches and potato chips as we sat around a card table watching “Roy Rogers” or “Hop-Along Cassidy.” My parents were relaxed, the meal was easy for my mom to cook, and we got to have potato chips for dinner. How great was that! After a week of regimented and “good-for-us” meals like chipped beef on toast, liver and onions, dry meatloaf and canned peas, or Friday night fish sticks, this Sunday supper eaten in front of our tiny television set was a cheerful and welcome change.

On the farm the main meal was served at noon. Supper was casual. By 6:00 in the evening my grandmother must have been beat. She was up before 5:00 a.m. to put on the coffee and start breakfast for my grandfather and the hired men. In addition to her regular housework she helped with the cows, worked in the garden, drove the car to do errands, made coffee and pastry for mid-morning and mid-afternoon breaks for the farmers, and cooked a large meal in the middle of the day for whoever was there. And on top of this she was often the babysitter for her seven grandchildren. It’s no wonder she didn’t fix my brother and me gourmet dinners when our parents dropped us off at the farm for occasional weekend stays.

“TV Tray Table,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2014

As far as I remember, Grandma Hall always made us the same dinner on those weekend nights. My brother and I ate it as we sat in the two big armchairs in front of the living room television set. I can’t remember what we watched. It didn’t matter. We had the room to ourselves while our grandparents ate their own meal in the kitchen. No one told us how to eat our food or made us finish what was on our plate before we could have dessert.

This is what Grandma Hall set in front of us on the metal TV trays – a bowl of iceberg lettuce and a bottle of Kraft French dressing to pour over it and a green Melmac plate holding a pile of Franco-American spaghetti and a fried hamburger patty with ketchup.

“Weekend Supper on the Farm,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2014

For dessert we had strawberry ripple ice cream that our grandmother bought by the commercial-sized tub-full at a local dairy and kept in the back pantry’s horizontal freezer. So frozen was this confection, that my grandmother had to use her sharpest kitchen knife to cut pyramid-shaped pieces from the icy depths. I loved that ice cream. For a slow eater like me, those hard, triangular wedges kept their cold creaminess until the last bite.

When we were finished eating, we cleared our dishes, folded the TV trays, and vacated the big chairs so our grandparents could fall asleep and snore while watching their favorite shows – “Professional Wrestling,” (my grandfather’s first choice), “Lawrence Welk,” “What’s My Line?” or “Beat the Clock.”

“Strawberry Ripple Ice Cream,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil, 2014

On Friday: November Window

Walking Down the Lane

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Walking is my meditation. The rhythm of the steps, the slow passing by of scenery and people, the time alone to think, all bring me peace of mind. I needed some of this calming activity recently and was lucky to be where I could take one of my very favorite walks – down the lane on Whirlwind Hill.

“Lane,” Carol Crump Bryner, engraving, 1976

Starting at the barnyard across the street from the farmhouse, the rutted path we called “the lane” meandered past the cow pond and the stone walls and barbed wire fences that delineated the lane from the open fields, joined up with another lane called “Strawberry Hill,” and eventually ended at the property known as “Peterland.”

Unlike the romantic and sometimes dark and sinister country lanes of Miss Marple and Thomas Hardy, our lane was used mostly for business. It took cows and tractors and horses and farmers where they needed to go. It connected the pastures and the orchards to the barn. And it provided a pathway to the pond for children carrying their fishing poles or ice skates.

“The Lane to Peterland,” Carol Crump Bryner, colored pencil

But when fall comes each year I remember the walks we took with our great-grandfather, Joseph Biggs, who traveled from his home in Glastonbury, Connecticut to spend summer and fall weeks at the farm. He was a kind man with large hands and a bristly white mustache that tickled us when we kissed him hello. He smoked a pipe and wore suspenders. While he was at the farm he tended gardens, dried dishes, and entertained his great-grandchildren.

Me and Grandpa Biggs, summer 1947

If he visited in October, Grandpa Biggs did “nut duty.” We went with him when he walked down the lane to gather hickory nuts. Into our baskets we put the light brown gems that lay tucked among the fall leaves. Our grandfather Ellsworth let the nuts dry out in their baskets behind the kitchen’s wood stove. On winter evenings he sat in his rocking chair by the stove and cracked the hard little shells one by one with a hammer, then slowly picked out the sweet nutmeats and ate them as he rocked. No one seems to have the time to pick out hickory nuts anymore, but for my grandfather it must have been, like walking is for me, a kind of meditation.

Hickory nuts and shells

Over the years the old laneway has changed its course, but when I took my calming walk a few weeks ago, the trees still stood in their places to show the old route. Nuts continue to fall from their branches and add their bounty to the old path’s autumn tapestry .

Hickory nuts in the laneway, fall 2014

On Wednesday: Autumn Leaves

Outbuildings #2 – The Pig Pen

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The real work on the farm happened in the barn, in the fields, and in the house. Some of the outbuildings were so specific in purpose that they were often hastily erected and as quickly abandoned when seasons or activities changed. Others had longer lives and a more major presence. They were spread out around the property in an almost haphazard way. A few of them I remember from childhood, but others I know only from photos. – Outbuildings #1

The Pig Pen

“Pig Pen,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and ink, 2013

My father took a movie of me when I was about three years old. Dressed in a red coat with a hood and red leggings, I fed the pigs bread crusts, carefully taking each piece out of a basket and sticking it through the slats of the pig pen.

Kept far from the house, this pen moved several times while I was young. The pigs smelled funky, and their dirt “floor” became a muddy mess after months of occupancy. The pigs were born, were fed until they were nice and fat, and then butchered in the open shed behind the house. My mother, when she was a little girl, hid in her room with a pillow over her head when the pigs were brought from the pen to the shed.

My grandparents gave up raising pigs when I was young, and took the pig pen down. But on that same property my uncle Aaron built a house for his new wife Barbara. His daughter Patti told me that after all those years of pig habitation, the soil was rich and dark and perfect for gardening.

On Monday: Walking Down the Lane

Apples – An Addendum

Baked Beans

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On Saturday afternoons in fall and winter, my mother and I got in the car and drove the mile or so from our little red house on East Center Street to the farm on Whirlwind Hill. We visited with my grandparents and uncles and aunts over afternoon coffee in the kitchen, and then we headed home with our treasures. Mine was the weekly Life Magazine. My grandmother had a subscription and let me have it after she was finished. When I got home I read it cover to cover while I waited for the supper that was my mother’s treasure – a big pot of my grandmother’s baked beans.

“Bean Pot,” Carol Crump Bryner, watercolor, 2014

Saturday on the farm was baking day, and when cooler weather started, my grandmother started making her beans. I didn’t care for the beans back then (although I’d like to taste them now), but my mother must have appreciated having dinner “to go.” She probably added ham or hot dogs and maybe scalloped potatoes. My brother has always loved baked beans. He still cooks them the old-fashioned way – soaking the beans, adding the molasses, salt pork, etc. and then cooking them in an old bean pot for hours and hours. He claims that real New England baked beans should be made with Yellow Eye beans, and that the very best way to cook them is in a bean hole.

“Yelloweye Beans,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2014

On Friday: Apples – An Addendum

Money and Apples

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I always liked the idea that earning money on the farm was a last resort – that a farm should be able to sustain itself without cash. But after reading my great-grandfather William E. Hall’s journals, I can see he thought often about making, having, and spending money.

He filled the back pages of his diaries with columns of figures and notes about what he spent and what he earned. The last page of his 1861 journal looks like a daydream about dollars.

Page from journal of William E. Hall, 1861

His notes record that he sold a load of wood for $10 and spent $10 on his new teeth. His 1864 diary cost 25 cents, a postage stamp 6 cents, and a telegraph 30 cents. The sale of a cow earned $12.50 and a load of hay $28.75. There was the purchase of the mysterious “dog candy” for 45 cents. Some cotton cloth cost $16.20, and a new buggy relieved him of a whopping $45.00.

The record of farm goods and produce he sold for cash includes cows, oxen, hogs, horses, hay, buckwheat, wood, milk, butter, eggs, hard cider (my great-grandfather also had a still), peaches, and apples. The list of purchased items is much, much longer.

“Modern Apple,” Carol Crump Bryner, ipad painting

For years apples were a major source of revenue because, unlike peaches, they could be stored in a root cellar and sold throughout the winter.

Monday, October 5, 1914 – “Men busy picking apples, selling them. The trees are many of them loaded. Not very large, but seem to be good and sound.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Wednesday, October 7, 1914 – “Ellsworth sold his apples for 35 cents a bushel, to be carried off by the seventh of December.” – Lydia Jane Hall

My great-grandfather William’s 1873 diary includes names of apples he may have grown or thought about growing. (There are about thirty varieties on his list, but I’ve had to leave out some and guess at others because his writing is hard to decipher.)

Pown Sweets
Peck’s Pleasants
Stripe Pippins
Gilliflower
Maiden Blush
Wine Apple
New Town Pippin
Bell Flower
Roxbury Russets
Fair Maine
English Sweets
Hall’s Seedlings
James Linds
Citron Apples
Lord Thorntons
Baxter Greenings
Rome Apple
Black Pearmain
Fall Pippins
Roderick Greening
Red Stripe
Balmunds
Ruck Apples

I have no idea what kind of apples my mother is eating in this photo, or whether they were grown on the farm. In 1943 when my dad took this portrait of my mom in the fields below the farmhouse, there were probably still apple trees around, but I have a feeling the apples in the photo came from Young’s Apple Orchard, which was at the top of Whirlwind Hill. The orchard was still in business when I started living in Alaska in 1969, and I remember going there to buy apples one fall when I was visiting my parents. Mr. Young packed them up for me and shipped them all the way to the 49^th State. What would my great-grandfather have thought of that!

Janet Hall Crump, 1943

On Monday: The Room with Nine Doors

Peaches

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Whirlwind Hill was once crowded with trees whose lavish spring blossoms ripened into round, bright fruit in late summer. The orchards that were already starting to diminish in the 1950’s are completely gone from the hill now, replaced by fields of hay, acres of new houses with long driveways and tidy lawns, and a winery and vineyard.

“Orchards in Spring,” Carol Crump Bryner, ipad painting, 2013

For many years peaches brought work and cash to my ancestors. There were apple orchards on the farm for decades when, sometime after 1875, my great-grandfather, William Ellsworth Hall, introduced peaches. But by around 1920 my grandparents were concentrating on dairy cows and apples, and the peach trees were few.

In 1912 my great-grandmother still writes about selling peaches.

Wednesday, August 21, 1912 – “Another close day. Picking peaches. Sold twenty-four baskets for seventy cents a basket. Pretty good for the first.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Thursday, August 29, 1912 – “We have been very busy canning peaches besides our usual work. Canned eleven quarts. They look very nice.” – Lydia Jane Hall

By 1921, other farms on the hill had taken over the commercial selling of the crop.

Monday, August 29, 1921 – “A nice day, warmer. September days are coming. Apples and peaches are ripening fast. Large truck loads of peaches going past to the depot toward evening.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Saturday, September 10, 1921 – “Nice day and a busy one for all. Agnes has canned peaches pears & tomatoes. We have had all our peaches off the few trees that were left on the hill lot, which were very nice to eat and can.” – Lydia Jane Hall

For the past two years I’ve been slowly transcribing journals kept by my great-grandfather William. His journal entries tell me very little about him, and I’ve hesitated to try to sum up his life from sentences like this.

January 10, 1861 – “Went to New Haven with apples. Mother spent the evening at Widow L. Hall’s. Put up some cider in the evening.” – William E. Hall

January 11, 1861 – “Finish putting up cider.” Went to the mountain after wood in the afternoon.” – William E. Hall

But I learned more about him through a speech and poem he wrote to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the Wallingford Grange. Paper-clipped to the speech was a letter of sympathy to my family from the Grange written after William’s death in 1920. In this letter, the writers call my great-grandfather “The Father of the Wallingford Grange.” This photo of him as a young man was taken before he and thirty-one other people founded the town Grange in 1885.

William Ellsworth Hall, around 1875

Granges were organized to bring farmers together. It was through the Grange that Wallingford became home to so many fruit orchards. When I buy peaches at the farmers’ markets here in the Pacific Northwest, or buy beets and carrots at the markets in Alaska, I feel the same spirit that must have driven the early farmers of Wallingford to respect the land and to work together as a community to bring their produce to market. In his speech to the Grange, William said:

“Our hills are covered with fruit trees. Wallingford has come to be recognized as a center for great peach orchards. There is no fairer sight than the hills covered with blossoms, no more earnest sight than the industry of gathering and sending to market the product of our labor. For years much of this land had gone to waste. It has been recognized as pasture or at least, barren hill. But now there are everywhere vineyards and orchards. Our Grange has done more than its share toward bringing this about. Because from the first the organization has aimed to support conservation of all natural resources…Every possible precaution for preserving the soil should be taken, and the fact that no one has a right to become robber of the soil should be taught in the home, the school, the church, and the Grange. For in this and all other things we say, ‘The greatest good to the greatest number.’ ” – William Ellsworth Hall

“Blueberries and Peaches,” Carol Crump Bryner, watercolor and colored pencil, 1994

On Monday: The Porch

Corn

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“An Ear of Corn,” Carol Crump Bryner, pen and colored pencil, 2014

My grandfather, a man of few words, looked up from the bags of corn he was husking as he sat on the porch swing, and muttered, “Corn, corn, corn.”

It does start to get a little old. After the excitement of the first ears of summer and the exclamations about the sweetness of this batch compared to that batch, the abundance of late summer corn can be overwhelming, especially on a farm.

One of the ways my family varied the corn diet was to make succotash. I’ve never really understood succotash. Why ruin a perfectly good bowl of corn by adding beans to it? But my mother and her family loved succotash, and my grandmother made it frequently. Her succotash was very plain – lima beans, corn, salt, pepper, and butter. The secret, my mother told me, was to scrape the “milk” from the cob after cutting off the kernels.

Saturday, August 6, 1921 – “Nice day. Men working at hay at Peterland. Corn is coming & potatoes are looking nice on the hill lot. Busy times for everyone now, gathering in the products of the farms. Lilla our good neighbor sent us some sweet corn of which Agnes made us some nice succotash. Ellsworth’s corn is nearly ready to pick for eating.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Tuesday, August 16, 1921 – “Agnes and Lydia went over to Durham, took over some succotash and a nice apple pie, some potatoes & corn – two loaves of bread & a cake for which they were very thankful.” – Lydia Jane Hall

“A Bowl of Succotash,” Carol Crump Bryner, 1992

Everyone has theories about corn – how long to cook it (my brother says to boil it until the steam smells like corn, my husband claims 12 minutes to be ideal) – how to store it – how to butter it – and how to eat it (I employ the typewriter carriage method starting at one end and eating three rows at time, then pushing the carriage back to the beginning and starting over – my husband eats it round and round like the gears of a clock) – and how to make it last through the winter.

My parents had strong opinions about the handling of fresh sweet corn. Dinner conversation in summer was punctuated by pronouncements about the freshness, sweetness, and toughness/tenderness of the corn. My dad subscribed to the theory that husking should be done immediately. He claimed that sweetness seeped from the corn into the husks if you left them on too long. One summer, when I was visiting my parents, my cousin Sue and I went to Lyman Orchards where she bought a bagful of corn to take home to grill (in the husks) for dinner. After storing it in our refrigerator to stay cool until she drove home, Sue and I sat outside with my mother drinking tea and having an afternoon chat. Meanwhile, my father, horrified to find un-husked corn in the fridge, pulled it out and stripped it naked thinking he was doing my cousin an enormous favor.

My mother spent September days carefully blanching, cutting, scraping, and freezing corn. She was very particular about the process, and I have to admit that I’ve never tasted frozen corn as good as hers. In the winter she rationed these bags of gold – one per week – and heated the contents over a double boiler. She put a chunk of butter on top, and stirred the kernels gently as they thawed. To eat that corn at a Sunday dinner in December was to taste summer all over again. Only better.

Our grandson, who is sweeter than all the sweet corn in the world, came to spend the afternoon with us after a recent Sunday visit to the local farmers’ market. We husked the corn we had bought, and it was so lovely that I wanted to preserve it on paper. Henry helped me choose the colors, and I showed him how to squeeze just the right amount of paint onto the palette and how to wet the brush before picking up the color. We painted the kernels together, and he painted the “green parts” a very bright green. When I asked him to sign his name he insisted that we needed to add more facts. And so we did. Opinions about corn and about art start early, and I’m happy to encourage them.

“Henry and Carol Made a Picture of Corn,” Henry Thomas Kennedy and Carol Crump Bryner, 2014

On Wednesday: Peaches

The Little House on the Hill

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“The Little House,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2013

When the little house moved from the glen to the hill, it left its bottom behind. The 1912 foundation was made from the large and abundant stones that both plagued and blessed most Connecticut farmers. The unending supply of rocks made difficult the plowing and planting of the fields, but easy the building of the walls. My great-grandfather William recorded “picking stones” as a frequent activity in the fields. The little house’s rocky footprint is still visible and accessible.

Kirt Crump at the glen house foundation, 2013

Yards away from the foundation sit two boulder-like stones. They cover an old well and keep animals and people from plunging into its depths.

Well stones, 2013

Sometime between 1925 and 1943 my grandfather and his helpers lifted the little house off its stone base, transported it through the orchard, and positioned it on a new cellar at the top of the farm’s hill lot. Red painted, white trimmed, and dormered, the little house seemed a cousin to my own house – the one my father built in 1946 on Center Street in Wallingford, Connecticut. I couldn’t find a photo of the little house on the farm, but you can get an idea of how it looked from this picture of my own childhood home.

The Crumps’ house on East Center Street, 1947

The little house on the hill was a dollhouse compared to the big farmhouse. In winter we climbed the pathway from the farmhouse driveway to the top of the hill. We borrowed big pots from my grandmother, saved pieces of cardboard from Christmas presents, gloated over new “flying saucers,” and fought over the prime sledding transport – the “Radio Flyer.” We took turns going up and down all afternoon with the promise of popcorn and hot chocolate in the farmhouse kitchen afterwards. The hill was short, but mighty. We often poured water on it to freeze a faster ride. Now, in my dotage, I feel sorry for my aunt, uncle, and cousins who had to walk up and down that hill after a Sunday afternoon of sledding. Ice is better for sitting down than for standing up.

Sledding on the hill, 1950’s

In 1943 my mother’s older brother Francis married Glenna and brought her to live in the little red house on his parents’ farm. My cousin and his family live there still.

Francis and Glenna Hall, 1943

In summer we walked up the hill to the red house in sweaty pursuit of popsicles. Our Auntie Glenna led us down the cellar steps into the cool dirt-floored basement and opened the lid of the deep freeze to find the fruity popsicles nestled in their metal beds. Our mothers made their own popsicles – grape, strawberry, orange, and lime. But Auntie Glenna’s tasted best. Care was taken not to stick a tongue onto the frozen metal mold. It was so tempting. Maybe that hint of danger, and the descent into the dimly lit cellar made the treat more special – or maybe it was the warm and cheerful welcome we always got from our sweet Auntie Glenna.

“Grape Popsicle,” Carol Crump Bryner, 2013

On Monday: Corn

Janet

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“Birthday Cake for Janet,” Carol Crump Bryner, watercolor and colored pencil, 2014

My mom, Janet Hall Crump, appears often in my blog posts. She was my most direct connection to the farm. The stories she told became part of my stories – as though I’d been right there with her when things happened. Her sentiments became my sentiments, and sometimes it seems she lives on in my head, speaking to me moment to moment – thinking out loud the way she always did.

The other day, while making lunch, I heard her say, “Never put tomato on a chicken salad sandwich.” The lovely heirloom tomato I was about to slice stayed whole – my chicken salad unadorned. She’s been gone for six years, but there are times I feel she’s not only always with me, but that I’m becoming her. When I look at my hands, I see her hands. My sideways glance in the mirror shows her face. Her words come out of my mouth when I speak to my children and my husband and my grandchildren. Her adages and advice (“break your ear before you eat it” – “he who hesitates is lost” – “you’ll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar”) and mispronunciations (“clorestoral” – “bronical pneumonia” – “Manatuska Valley”) have become part of my family’s vocabulary. She was so full of life, always, and memories of her – both loveable and annoying – keep me company as I cut tomatoes, boil corn, do my shopping, and work on this blog.

Carol and Janet, near Palmer, Alaska, 1971

Yesterday would have been her ninety-sixth birthday. On the farm they celebrated birthdays with cake and ice cream and presents. They donned their best clothes and took time away from chores to mark special occasions – birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. On her last birthday, her eighty-ninth, when she was in a nursing home after a stroke, we gave her a party. She was paralyzed on one side and could barely speak. But she still had her cheerful smile and her sense of humor. My brother gave her a toy hippo dressed in a pink tutu. When the hippo danced across the table to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips,” my mother laughed so hard tears ran down her face. She watched the hippo do its act several times, then turned to me and said, “Where’s my cake?”

In my very favorite photo of Janet, her face is hidden. She’s at a party, and she’s falling out of a little chair. It was typical for her to be in motion. Her personality was outgoing. She thrived on the chaos of farm and family life, and avoided quiet solitude. She didn’t hold anything back, and gave generously of her love, opinions, and judgments.

Janet Falling off a Chair, 1919

Another photo taken that same day shows her sitting in her white outfit – still just a baby, but already with her grown up face. She always looked like herself. She had powerful features and dynamic hair, and she took great pride in looking just right.

Janet in a white bonnet, sitting on the ground, 1919

One of her most frequent complaints about her childhood, which seemed otherwise idyllic, was that because she was the third child, no one had time to cut her hair properly or dress her in new clothes. But in entries from my great-grandmother’s journals it’s obvious Janet was loved and celebrated.

Friday, May 13, 1921 – “Nice day. Janet Hall went to the barbers with her mother and sister & brother – came home with her hair all nicely cut. Looking so sweet and peachy. Everyone admires her.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Her family threw a festive party for her on her third birthday.

Tuesday, August 9, 1921 – “Agnes & Hattie, Lydia, Francis & Janet went to Meriden to do some shopping. Janet has a birthday tomorrow. She is three years old. They are getting up a little party of cousins for her all near her age, the oldest seven, youngest three. Agnes is making birthday cake & cookies. She has returned from Meriden with her arms full of packages. Emily is making caps of red, pink & blue paper for each one.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Wednesday, August 10, 1921 – “A very nice time for everyone. All busy with getting apples outside and getting ready for the party indoors. Emily & Agnes setting the house in order, etc., which looks very homelike. The party came about half after three & stayed until after five. Such a happy crowd came marching in with their gifts for little Janet. She was so sweet in receiving them. Ellen with her two, Alice with two, Gertrude with her two, Agnes with her three. Mrs. J. D. McGuaghey with little David, & Hattie. It was a treat to see them around the table eating ice cream & cake. Nine cousins, ten in all. The party a success. Very pleasing to me.” – Lydia Jane Hall

Janet’s third birthday party – Janet in front on right, 1921

In the photo from the party, the cousins are dressed in white outfits, the standard in those days for party wear, maybe because ice cream stains could be bleached out. She does look, however, in need of a haircut. For the rest of her life she took great care with her appearance –she loved nice clothes and red lipstick and a proper hairdo. She posed over and over for my dad’s camera when they were courting, wearing stylish suits, dresses, coats, and shoes.

Janet near Muddy River, 1942

My brother, father, grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and I were the happy recipients of her party-loving nature. We each had a special cake or pie for our own birthdays – my brother an orange cake for his June birthday, my grandfather a coconut cake for his December birthday, my uncle Aaron a blueberry pie. On my ninth birthday she gave me a party at the farm, and invited twenty-one girls, our entire Girl Scout troop. She wouldn’t let me pick and choose my favorite friends – I wasn’t allowed to leave anyone out. She organized games and party favors and food, as she did for all my birthdays. She always made me feel special.

Carol’s Farm Birthday Party

In 1938 she went to college in Boston to study art. She stayed only one year, but she was a good student and became an accomplished painter. As much as she loved school, however, her heart was at the farm. My grandmother wrote her weekly letters relating the news of Whirlwind Hill. In this note Agnes talks about her own birthday.

“Dear Janet, Just a line or two this morning to thank you for the dearest birthday card I have ever had. Did you get your piece of my birthday cake? I forgot and left it in the oven all night and it was a little dry in spots, but I took your piece out of the middle, or center, should I say.” Agnes Biggs Hall

The happiest occasion of her life may have been marrying my father. She always knew what she liked, and she liked my dad. My grandmother warned her that he was a “playboy,” and not to be trusted. But as my mother told me often, she was madly in love with her Charlie. They married during the war and wrote letters to each other daily. On Wednesday I’ll talk about my dad – the other half of the equation that made me.

Janet’s Wedding, February 6, 1943

I never knew until I had my own children about the fears that plagued my mother. She suffered panic attacks, and it was sometimes torture for her to drive long distances. But if she loved someone, she made a beeline through her anxiety, and got to where she needed to be. She drove me to New York, to Massachusetts, to New Hampshire. She flew to Alaska by herself to visit me seventeen times, and I never realized how hard those trips might have been for her.

Janet told me once that she wanted to be remembered the way she looked in this 1966 photo, taken on a bridge on the Wheaton College campus in Norton, Massachusetts during a visit to me. She looks so happy – so well dressed in her suit, gloves, and matching shoes and pocketbook. She had arranged her legs just the way she always told me to pose for the camera. “Bend one knee, Carol, so you cover up your other leg, because you have a ‘funny’ leg.”

If you’re listening Mom, I still try to hide that funny leg. And I still think of you every day. Happy, Happy Birthday. I miss you!

Janet, 1966

On Wednesday: Charlie

On Whirlwind Hill

An artist's memories of a family farm – Carol Crump Bryner