Friday Show and Tell

This is a picture of my maternal Grandmother, Nina Odessa Best Woodworth. It was taken in the schoolyard of the little country school that she attended in the early years of her life. She is the little girl wearing the white hat, second from the left in the second row back. I love this picture for it gives me a glimpse into another era, a different time, an age when life was filled with simple pleasures and the taking of a photograph was a special occasion indeed. You can tell this from the way everyone is dressed in this picture. They are all in their best big and tucker. My goodness, but that teacher looks very ferocious in her black hat and with her scowling face!



What I am going to show you this morning is one of the most precious things I have. It is my Grandmother Woodworth’s reader, and I know that a few of the other grandchildren would love to have it, so . . . I am really lucky that is it mine. My grandmother gave it to me when I was a very small girl, just prior to my starting school. I have always treasured it.



As you can see it is getting very old now. The cover is completely gone, which is the way that I received it. The pages are old and brittle, crumbling away in some places and held together with only a few fragile threads. I try not to handle it very much and keep it in a safe place where it won't be harmed, and is out of the light.



Here and there are notations . . . Words to learn for spelling underlined, and the odd word in my grandmother’s unskilled hand. She was a farm girl and did not ever finish her education much beyond her early years, as she was needed on the farm to work, for her parents did not have any sons of their own, and she was the eldest child. Back in those days it was not so important that a girl be schooled much beyond basic reading and arithmetic anyways . . .



As a little girl I loved to go through it’s pages. The pictures were beautiful to me as were the words. I practically had it memorized, voracious reader that I was. I had my favourite pages and stories, most conveying a lesson of some sort to the child that would be reading it and learning it’s words. Here is one of my favourites.



"Ann had a pet goat. It had a long beard and long horns. Ann liked to feed the goat.
Nan, Nan, she would call; and at once the goat would come to her.
It would look up in her face, as if to thank her for the good food she had brought to it.
When Nan had no work to do in the house, she would go out and play with the goat.
The goat liked to play with Ann. It would go to her when it would go to no one else.
The goat knew who was kind to it.
Keep this in mind, boys and girls. Be kind to your pets and you will find that they will soon learn to love you. Love wins love.”



What a wonderful message those words conveyed to me. As a young child, I took them to heart and valued the meaning of them. I wonder, do the schoolroom readers of today contain stories like that in them? Or are they full of cartoon like characters and nonsense, much like the programming that is presented to children on their televisions today. Actually, I was reading in the newspaper just yesterday, that most parents today do not have the time to read to their children at all, and that they use a television as a substitute. What a sad statement about modern times . . .



I wonder, did my grandmother ever think when she was a young girl, and fingering it’s delicate pages, learning the spelling words it contained and reading it's stories, that . . . one day her own grand-daughter would be holding the very same pages and enjoying it’s words and thinking of her . . . and the life that she led?



I ponder these things myself as I hold these pages in my hands. What were her childlike dreams and imaginations? What were her hopes? Which story was her favourite one to read? Would she have liked to stay in school longer than she did? Is she looking down on me now and loving me still?



There is a story told amongst my mother and her sisters, that my grandmother had not really loved my grandfather when they first married, at least not with the romantic love of the young and besotted . . . but that he was merely the one that her parents had approved of and allowed her to marry. There had been another love, a man called Lem Weasel, and she had loved him very much, but when her parents would not let them marry . . . he had gone away. She had never seen him again. My Aunt remembers when this man had passed on in later years, and the grief that my nan had felt over it. It was then that she had told her that this was the man she had loved for those many years and the story of what had happened . . .

My grandmother worked hard all of her life, and never did have much in the way of material things. My grandfather was a drinker, and not very kind when he had been drinking, oft-times being quite cruel, which . . . is often the way of a drinking man. She shed many a tear through the years beneath the lash of his harsh words. Back in those days though . . . you lived with the cards you had been dealt. That’s just the way it was.

I have many loving and fond memories of sitting on her more than ample lap, the softness of her calico dress and apron beneath my legs, my arms wrapped around her as she sang softly to me and held me close. Indeed, in one of the last letters my mother has that her mother wrote to her, a few months before she passed away, my grandmother talks about how much she misses the sight of my dark little head walking down the roadway to the store, and how much she loves me and favours me . . . not that she does not love the others, but that I am the only one who would sit on her lap and tell her that I love her . . . and I did love her and always will.

I am so blessed to have these lovely memories of her and to have this very special book. One day I will pass it on to one of my children or grandchildren, and when I do, I hope that they treasure it as much as I have.

"Sing, bird, sing a song to me;
One there is who cares for thee.
Day by day, His strong right arm
Keeps both thee and me from harm.”



Those of you who guessed yesterday that the lie was Number 2, are very smart indeed! I tried very hard to make it difficult for you to guess, but most of you made the correct guess! I did try out for a part in our high school production of My Fair Lady, but then had to drop out because I had no transport to get me back and forth after school, and most of the rehearsals were held then. Our school was out in the middle of nowhere, it being a regional high school, and I would have needed a car. Also, because my mother worked outside the home, I had responsibilities to fulfill at home after school, so really, being in a play was only a dream I had and not a reality. Thanks so much though, for playing along. It was fun!

I made this delicious casserole for Todd last night for his tea. He is a real meat and potatoes kind of a man. He’s not overly fond of pasta, but this casserole is one of his favourites. I try to use a shape of pasta that he can abide. He is not fond of spaghetti, but doesn’t mind the small shapes too awfully much. He gobbles this up at any rate! This is the type of homey casserole my grandmother would have approved of. It's both economical and delicious, and in the times we are living in now, this is not a bad thing!




*Corned Beef and Cabbage Casserole*

Serves 4 to 6

This is so easy to put together and very delicious. The mustard gives it a delightful little twang. You can put this together in the morning, pop it into the fridge and then just take it out when you get home from work and bang it into the oven. With a salad or a vegetable on the side you can have a hot and tasty meal on the table in about an hour. All you have to do it go put your feet up!

8 ounces of macaroni
1 small head of green cabbage, cut into pieces
1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped
1 ( 12 ounce) tin of corned beef, chopped
1 tin of condensed cream of mushroom soup (Campbell’s)
1 cup milk
1 heaped tsp of English mustard
1 heaped tsp of Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
4 ounces of cheddar cheese, cut into small cubes

TOPPING:
1 cup dry bread or cracker crumbs
1 TBS butter melted

Pre-heat the oven to 180*C/375*F. Butter a 2 qt casserole dish and set aside.

Bring a pot of lightly salted water to the boil. Add the macaroni and the cabbage and cook as per the package directions. Drain well.

Stir together the soup, milk, onion, mustards and black pepper in a bowl. Stir in the well drained macaroni and cabbage. Carefully fold in the cheese and corned beef. Pour the mixture into the prepared casserole dish.

Stir the bread crumbs together with the melted butter and sprinkle evenly over the top of the casserole. Bake, uncovered for 45 to 60 minutes until hot and bubbly and the crumbs are nicely browned on top. Let sit a few minutes before spooning out to serve.