The Gingerbread House

Today is bittersweet for me. I turn seventy, but I’ve lost my birthday mate. My dear cousin Tom, who shared this solstice birthday with me, died a few months ago. I’ll miss hearing his voice on the phone saying, “Hey Baby Carol. This is Tom. Happy Birthday!!”

Tom Teter and Carol Crump in front of the farmhouse on Whirlwind Hill, 1949

I rarely saw Tom in the winter, but one year his family – my mother’s sister Lydia, her husband Bill, son Tom, and daughter Nancy – came east for Christmas. I remember two wonderful treats from that visit. The first was the Christmas gift to Nancy and me of matching “Ginny Walker” dolls. And the second was the gingerbread house the Teters carried with them all the way from Indiana. I’m sure there was birthday cake too, but what I remember most is the taste and texture of the minty wafer candies that adorned the frosted gingerbread roof. Like Hansel and Gretel I picked at that house for days, wanting it to last forever.

Carol with the gingerbread house and the new doll