How my mother managed all the household chores and more and still had time to play with us kids will always be a mystery to me. We have more modern conveniences now than Mom ever had and yet we have less time to pursue our interests outside of family.


As a teen, I can remember waking at a descent hour -that is, descent as early goes for us kids- in the morning to find my mother lifting jars of one vegetable or another from a canner after a three-hour hot-water bath process. Her canner wasn't small like the ones we have now. Dad had turned a boiler tub into a 15-jar canner. It was nothing for Mom to put up several hundred pint sealers of peas, alone; then continue on with other vegetables and fruits.


We would all help with the picking -- vegetables from the garden, berries from the wild, fruits from the supermarket as they came into season.


One particular winter we enjoyed hot-water bath preserved bear meat. The canning and all other cooking done on a wood cookstove.


Mom loves to work with her hands, and she could often be found sewing, or working with some craft or another. Many of our Christmases were filled with the joy that comes from working together. We made decorations for our tree; we made pulled taffy, while Mom made other candies. We all worked on a marshmallow castle that became a Christmas tradition, and which I carried on with my children.


more to come...

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Our Northern Adventure Table of Contents

Makarismos Page of Introduction

...And Then Some

Life: Past, Present

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BIBAUD/ERICKSON GENEALOGY

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