Fearless Females - Favorite Recipe

March 7 — Share a favorite recipe from your mother or grandmother’s kitchen. Why is this dish your favorite? If you don’t have one that’s been passed down, describe a favorite holiday or other meal you shared with your family.

This is my Mom's recipe, but I'm not sure where she got it from. We had lots of fun rolling out the dough and decorating these sugar cookies every year at Christmas time. These were a special treat that we only had once a year!


Cookie Jar Sugar Cookies

2/3 cup shortening (Crisco)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp grated orange peel
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 tsp milk

Thoroughly cream shortening and sugar. Add egg, beat in until light and fluffy. 
Add vanilla, grated peel, mix thoroughly. Sift dry ingredients together and stir into creamed mixture alternately with 1 tsp of milk at a time.
Divide dough in half. Chill at least one hour. (We usually left it overnight.) Keep 1/2 chilled while rolling other half.
Roll 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick. Cut with cookie cutters or glass.
Put on greased cookie sheet. Sprinkle lightly with sugar. Bake in moderate over (375) for about 10 minutes. 
Makes 2 1/2 dozen.

Frosting
Mix confectioners powdered sugar, 2 tsps vanilla, 1/2 stick margarine and hot water until desired thickness and frost.

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Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

Pearl Chilcutt Willis Henry - Sunday's Obituary

From the Chester (PA.) Times, Wednesday, Feb 24, 1954

Mrs. Pearl Henry
Ogden Resident 20 Years
  Services for Mrs. Pearl L. Henry, 68, of 2620 Clayton st., Ogden, will be held Friday at 2 p.m. at the Ward Funeral Home, 1459 Market st., Linwood, with burial in Hiram Memorial Park, Concordville. Friends may call tomorrow from 7 to 9 p.m.
  Mrs. Henry, wife of Raymond Henry, an employee of the Sinclair Refining Co. for 25 years, died Monday in Crozer Hospital after a short illness. Her health had been poor for several years, however.
   A resident of Ogden for 20 years, Mrs. Henry was born in Talbot County, Md. She was a member of the Ogden Presbyterian Church.
   Surviving besides her husband are four daughters; Mrs. Royce Councill, Ogden; Mrs. Frank Bass, Dover, Del.; Mrs. Jacob Rosenberger, Souderten, Pa. and Mrs. Paul Dutt, West Chester; three sons, Edward Willis, Chester; William Willis, Ogden, and James Willis at home; a brother, Covey R. Chilcutt, Easton, Md; two sisters, Mrs. Ola Thompson and Mrs. William Dukes, Church Hill, Md; 11 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Pearl was my great-grandmother and was married to Eugene Willis before Raymond Henry.

Fearless Females - Family Heirlooms

March 6 — Describe an heirloom you may have inherited from a female ancestor (wedding ring or other jewelry, china, clothing, etc.) If you don’t have any, then write about a specific object you remember from your mother or grandmother, or aunt (a scarf, a hat, cooking utensil, furniture, etc.).

My step-grandmother Hilda gave my sister and me her engagement ring and a necklace. She didn't have children, so wanted to pass them on and we were really touched by her gesture.

I have a couple of small ceramic pieces and a decorative handkerchief pictured here that were my maternal grandmother's. They are just of sentimental value, but are nice to have. Another thing that I feel so fortunate to have are the family photos that have been passed down.

I also have my mother's wedding dress. It's not in the best of shape, so she was going to get rid of it. My Dad rescued it from a pile of things to go out in the trash and secretly gave it to me. I'm not really sure what to do with it, but it would be a shame to throw it out! If my Mom reads this, she'll know that her dress is still around. :)

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Once again, in honor of National Women’s History Month, Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist blog presents Fearless Females: 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month.

Disasters - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Week #10

This is a weekly challenge from GeneaBloggers called 52 weeks of personal genealogy history.

Disasters. Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them. If not, then discuss these events that happened to parents, grandparents or others in your family.

Hurricane Charley over Orlando, FL in 2004

Squalls out on the Gulfstream,
Big storms coming soon...
Well, the wind is blowin' harder now
Fifty knots or there abouts,
There's white caps on the ocean.
And I'm watching for water spouts
It's time to close the shutters
It's time to go inside.
-- Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season by Jimmy Buffett

Jimmy's song captures the mood of hurricane season, but I think there really is no rhyme or reason to it. Living in Florida, we've had several brushes with hurricanes over the years. The usual pattern was that they would hug the east coast before making landfall and by the time they came to our area, they had weakened quite a bit. While we got a lot of wind and rain, we never got any major damage.

Erin in the Today Newspaper

In 1994, I bought my first house and in 1995 we were hit by Hurricane Erin. I stayed at my sister's house further inland during the storm and when I returned home a couple of days later, there was still major street flooding in my neighborhood. Some houses got water inside, but luckily I was on slightly higher ground. I lost my favorite tree and had damage to my porch, but the house was OK.

Then came 2004. Florida is hard to see on this map showing the paths of the 2004 storms. First came Charley on August 13. Yes, it was Friday the 13th! I had listened to the news at lunchtime and it was predicted to come in south of us and cause wind and rain, but not too much was expected. We were talking about it at work and decided to look at the current path. I won't repeat the exclamations several of the guys made! It had strengthened and was heading straight for us! I had never experienced a hurricane coming from the west which brings the worst side of the storm. Soon after, they dismissed us from work to make what preparations we could. I had already gassed up the car and had food and water on hand, so I didn't get in the frenzied crowds at the grocery stores or long lines at the gas stations. My parents had plywood boards prepared for their windows, so my sister and her family and I decided to ride the storm out at their house. We all helped board up the windows and brought over whatever food and water we had. It's an eerie feeling being in a boarded up house since you can't see what's going on outside, but we could hear the wind picking up. The Summer Olympics had their opening ceremony that night and as we were watching the parade of nations the power went out. After a sleepless night listening to the howling wind and things going bump in the night, we ventured outside to see how we fared.

Downtown Orlando after Charley - This is a road!

The house looked fine, so we decided to go check out my house and my sister's. There were downed trees everywhere on the roads and we could see a lot of trees had fallen and taken down the power lines. This was going to take some time to recover from. The lack of power everywhere made it unusually quiet with no air conditioners running. I had some water in my garage, but no other signs of damage other than my oak trees were now leaning over. We couldn't even make it to my sister's house due to the number of trees on the road and no stop lights. It was really uncomfortably hot and muggy, but much to our surprise the power sprang to life at my house! Some of my co-workers were without power for up to two weeks, so I was very lucky. My sister wasn't as lucky and lost her fence, porch/pool enclosure, and had major roof damage. In the weeks and even months after the storm, it was a common sight to see blue tarps on the roofs of houses.

Frances over Florida

Two weeks later, everyone was still reeling from the after effects of Charley when we heard the forecast for Frances. The path had shifted and was heading for us. So, back to my parents house to board up the windows again. This storm was much larger and slower than Charley, but by the time it got to us, it had weakened a bit. It sat on top of us for the entire Labor Day weekend and just rained and rained. This time I had more a lot more water in the garage and my sister was worried about the tarps on her roof holding up. Downed trees weren't as much of a problem since Charley had taken so many out, but now we had a lot more water to deal with.

Jeanne loops back to Florida

One direct strike is enough for a season and two is really rare, so you'd think we were done. No such luck! Ivan formed, but managed to miss us and hit the Florida panhandle instead. Then Jeanne formed. It originally looked like it was heading out to sea, but then looped back and took the same path as Frances. So, back to my parent's house to board up the windows once again. This was really getting old! On the way to my parent's house, I noticed that someone had painted this on their boarded up windows:

1. Charley
2. Frances
3. Jeanne
4. For Sale

The local newspaper columnist's article that day started out with "Jeanne is coming and I don't care anymore!"  I think that about summed it up for everyone as we were all just weary at that point. This had all happened from August 13 - Sept. 25, so there was no time to recover between storms. People were caught off guard by Charley and prepared like crazy for Frances, but didn't do as much for Jeanne. Jeanne brought more wind and rain, but we came through OK. I'm hoping 2004 is the worst hurricane season that I'll ever see!

Full size views of the hurricane track images are at wikipedia's article on the 2004 hurricane season: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Atlantic_hurricane_season

More Orlando pictures of the 2004 hurricanes are available on the Orlando Sentinel website.

Fearless Females - How They Met

March 5 — How did they meet? You’ve documented marriages, now, go back a bit. Do you know the story of how your parents met? Your grandparents? 

My parents met in 1955 in Florida. My Dad, aunt, and uncle worked for RCA and my Mom was working for Pan American at Patrick Air Force Base. RCA had a boat ride event and my aunt and uncle introduced my parents to each other. Their first date was to see a movie and play golf. I asked my Mom if he asked her out at the boat ride and she laughed and said, "No! I asked him!".

I don't know how any of my grandparents met, but my Dad's parents were listed on the same page in the census, so I would guess they went to school together.

My parents on their wedding day in 1956. My aunt and uncle are behind them.