About my Grandma

While I am anxious to start cooking and sharing pictures and recipes with you, I think you need to know a little about my Grandma.  There wasn't anything she loved more in the world than her grandchildren.  I know what you're thinking, "what grandma doesn't?"  Precisely the point!  But she had a few other loves in her life as well, she loved my Grandpa (although she sometimes had a funny way of showing it), her first grade students (I'll tell you more about that in a minute), playing bridge (and cooking for the bridge club), driving, oh did she love to drive. In fact, she would've driven anybody just about anywhere they needed to go. Born in Woolworth, Nebraska in 1906, Goldie Fyrne spent most of her life in the town I grew up in.  She was married to my Grandpa (Edgar) in 1926,  he worked for the railroad as a depot agent and they lived atop the train station (I guess keeping the trains running was a 24/7 job). She taught 1st grade in our small rural town for nearly 35 years, retiring after my sister moved on to the 2nd grade.  To this day, I remember being a small girl and people passing through town stopping by the house to see her (that's what we do in small towns, we just "drop by" and visit), and she remembered EVERY student she ever had, which over the span of her career I believe had to be hundreds. She was my 1st grade teacher too! Do you know how hard it is not to call your Grandma "Grandma" at school?  It wasn't easy!! And of course, I didn't have to take one note home to my parents the entire 1st grade, on those days when I wasn't the perfect student, she could drive me home and deliver the news of my daily indiscretions directly to my mom! Despite being busy with school, her church and her community, she loved playing cards and cooking for anyone who would eat.  Now she wasn't a gourmet cook and as I look at her recipes, most "foodies" will probably cringe at the simplicity, but no one ever left her house hungry and she always had a dish or two to contribute to the church or school pot luck.  Her table was always "set", no matter how many of us there were, and I don't think she ever, ever used a paper plate.  It's apparent by the contents of her recipe boxes that she loved cooking and would "capture" a recipe any way she could.  There are recipes in the box that are "contents" of letters from my Great Grandmother, newspaper clippings, written on bridge score pads and of course, the ever popular "back of the envelope" recipes (literally). In this age of computer recipes and cook books, I have to stop and wonder if the beauty and the essence of the "recipe box" will be lost forever, there's something about that recipe being written in your Grandmother's or mother's handwriting that changes everything.  All I know is I am looking forward to the journey....It's going to be fun!