My great-great-grandmother’s reputation as a seamstress was well-known. She owned both a spinning wheel and a small loom. During the four years she waited in Iowa to join her fiancé on his Oregon homestead, she made blankets, comforters and patchwork quilts she’d need for life in the wilderness. Though imported textiles were available to buy […]
Proverbs 31 woman
Do You Yaki-Soba?
I am a copycat cook. My family will tell you that when they order something new at a restaurant and enjoy it, I will examine the plate—discreetly, of course—and decide if I can re-create the dish at home. I’ve been successful on a number of occasions, and when I wasn’t sure of myself, I surfed […]
Proverbs 31 Woman–Making the Grade
This week I canned green beans. For the younger set who may be reading this, I filled glass jars with snapped beans, placed a tin lid on the top, added water, and processed the containers in a pressure canner. When they were finished, I set them out to cool and listened for their ping as […]
Happy Birthday, Mom–You’re Missed
Today would have been my mother’s ninety-first birthday. She suffered from a number of ailments at the end of her life—no one worse than another—until the collection of maladies claimed her in 2000. The daughter of a carpenter, Mom grew up like a tomboy working beside her father, becoming as skilled at swinging a […]
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Celebrating 100 Years of Life
After a lifetime of service and devotion to those around her, Mary Simon Douglass is 100 years old today—August 17, 2013. One can only imagine all she has witnessed in her lifetime—World Wars I and II, The Great Depression, washing machines, cell phones, television, air and space travel, computers—the list is endless. Growing up in […]