Friday Morning Show and Tell . . .

This is a picture of my maternal Grandmother, Nina Odessa Best Woodworth, in the schoolyard of the little country school she attended during the early years of her life. She is the little girl in the white hat, in the second back row, right behind the child in the pram. Here's a closer look.



Blurry , I know. I just love this picture, for it gives me a special glimpse into a totally different era . . . a time when things were simple and most people had honor and integrity . . . and values as simple as they might have been. The taking of a photo would have been a special occasion and you can tell just how special it might have been by the way the people in this photo are dressed . . . all done up in their best finery, Sunday *go-to-meeting* clothes.



What I am going to show you this morning is one of the most precious things that I own. This is my Grandmother's schoolroom reader, from when she was a child. My grandmother gave it to me when I was 4 1/2 years old, not too long before she passed away. It is a real treasure to me.



It is very old and falling apart. The cover is missing and some of the pages have broken away and are very brittle. I keep it in a safe place and rarely open it up to look at it these days for fear of destroying it even more. I am very blessed to have this, and one day hope to be able to pass it on down to one of my own children . . . one that will treasure it and keep it safe as I have done.



Here and there amongst it's pages, there are notations and little reminders, ink blotches . . . words to learn for spelling underlined and the odd word penned in my Grandmother's unskilled hand. She was a farm girl and did not finish her schooling much beyond her early teens. There were no sons and she was big and strong and needed at home. Such was life in the very early 1900's in rural Canada. People were poor and did what they had to do to get along. Education was very low on the list of things that were important to people that lived by the land.



As a little girl, I loved to go through it's pages and read the words upon them. The pictures were very beautiful to me and I loved looking at them, and I found the stories inside very fascinating, most of them having some moral lesson to be told and learned. 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. They taught me great things, and things I have brought with me up through all the years of my life and carry in my heart and mind still.



I wonder . . . did my Grandmother ever think when she was a girl and learning the valuable lessons contained within it's pages that one day in the distant future, one of her own progeny would be fingering it's pages and reading it's words . . . thinking about her Grandmother and wondering at the life she would have lived? What were her childlike dreams and imaginations? What were her hopes for the future? Which story was her favourite one to read? Did she love school as I did? Does she know that I love her and think of her still?



What were the yearnings of her youth . . . her dreams? I know that she lived a very harsh life, full of hard work and difficulties. First as her father's work horse and then married to a man that was a heavy drinker and quite cruel when he was drinking. She worked very hard all of her life and never did have much of anything in the way of material things. I know her heart must have broken a million times . . . but I also know that she had a great deal of joy . . . joy to be found in simple things and simple pleasures.

I have many fond memories of sitting on her ample lap, my head pressed into her chest . . . her heartbeating next to my face . . . the softness of her calico dress and apron against my legs as she sang softly to me . . . "You are my sunshine . . . my only sunshine . . . " her loving arms wrapped around me as she held me close.

These memories, even more than the book, are the precious treasures of my heart, and I am so very thankful to have them. In her very last letter to my mother before she died, she talks of me and how much she misses seeing my dark little head walking down the roadway on an errand to the store. She talks of her love for me, and how special I was to her . . . not that she doesn't love the others, but that I am the only one who will sit on her lap and tell her that I love her.

Oh, how I did love her . . . and love her still . . . I can sometimes feel her around me and it is a great blessing to me to know of her love for me, and to still be able to feel it.

"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."

This is the type of meal my Todd loves. A real meat and potatoes kind of a man, he loves simple dishes and flavours. Although he is not overly fond of macaroni, he doesn't mind it in this and to be honest, he gobbles it up and goes back for more. I expect it would be good made with chopped cooked potato as well, instead of the macaroni.



*Corned Beef and Cabbage Casserole*
Serves 4 - 6
Printable Recipe

This old fashioned casserole is very easy and so delicious. You can make it in the morning and pop it into the fridge to take out later on in the day when you come home from work and are just famished. With a salad or a vegetable on the side, you can have a tasty and nourishing meal on the table in less than an hour, whilst you put your feet up and relax after the long day just spent.

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 (Campbells or Bachelors)
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 cubes

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

Pre=heat the oven to 180*C/375*F. Lightly butter a 2 litre casserole dish and set aside.

Bring a pot of slightly 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 the corned beef. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.

Stir the breadcrumbs together along with the butter. Sprinkle evenly over top of the casserole. Bake, uncovered for 45 to 60 minutes, until hot and bubbly and nicely browned on top. Allow to sit for several minutes before spooning out to serve.



If you'd like to check out what was dessert, why not pop on over to The English Kitchen. It was fabulous! I hope you enjoyed my show and tell day!