Gardener Forever and Ever

As I was taking Mom to her eye appointment, we were both remarking on all the lush greenery this year. We had this exchange.

Mom: “When I get to Heaven, do you know what I’m going to do?”

Me: “No; what?”

Mom: “I’m going to take care of the Virgin Mary’s garden.”

son Clint Searl, June 26, 2012

Corn Wars

I grew up intimate with vegetables. It was no one season fling, no April to August affair, but a succession of seasons blending into seasons. My parents, Clint and Mary Searl, kept a large garden on their acre of land, in, what was in the 1950s, rural Northern Delaware. In spring we planted. In summer we harvested. In autumn and winter we lived off a cache of canned and frozen produce.

My mother's parents, German-speaking, Austro Hungarian immigrants, had a truck farm in South Jersey. My mother, along with eight brothers and one sister, had worked the Walter family truck farm. When the siblings married, most of them stayed in South Jersey. Of course, they all kept their own gardens, competing among themselves for the earliest, the biggest, and the tastiest.

On most Sunday afternoons, the Walter clan spontaneously gathered around the faded-oilcloth covered, oversized kitchen table. Whenever I grew tired of playing with my cousins, I drifted into the kitchen, where I perched on a cast iron radiator beneath the window. I listened to boisterous talk and glanced through copies of the Farm Journal that set on the windowsill. Thinking about the Walter clan now, I'm reminded of a flock grackles worrying a little plot of ground – bobbing about and fighting with each other over little tidbits, real or imagined.

My father enjoyed antagonizing my mother's brothers. Most of them worked in a Mobil Oil refinery on the Delaware River. He called them thickheaded Dutchmen, a corruption of Deutsche, meaning German. They were Democrats, union men, and fiercely loyal to Walter clan's prejudices.

To a brother and brother-in-law, except for my father, they were passionate growers of white corn. The Walter boys and my always animated aunt Eva spent hours extolling the virtues of their favorite variety – Stowell's Evergreen. Yield was important and so was resistance to disease, but sweetness and tenderness were the ultimate criteria. For them, it was literally dessert after the day's big meal. And my grandmother usually had a big pot of boiled ears set on the stove for snacking during corn season. Often, to accent a point, one of my ham-handed uncles would wave a half gnawed ear at whomever he was arguing with.

Maybe just to be contrary, my father grew yellow corn – Golden Cross and Iowa Chief. Not only did he live on the other side of the Delaware River, he was a Republican and nonunion worker, too. He certainly egged on the Walter clan, taking every opportunity to assert to one or all of my gathered uncles that yellow corn was infinitely superior to all varieties of white corn – but especially to Stowell's Evergreen. The ensuing discussion would grow noisier and noisier until everyone was shouting across the table. And my mother would enter the spirit of her clan by getting angry at my father for antagonizing her easily excitable brothers.

In my memory, I can hear her voice beginning to admonish, "Oh, Clint…” (She was in her heart of hearts a white corn person; but for my father's sake her garden grew only yellow corn.) The Walter boys would finally shout, in a chorus of frustration and derision, that yellow corn was really only fancy field corn, fit for horses and not for human beings, as though that settled the argument.

Because my father was a yellow corn man, I bent that way, too.

I rarely see white corn. A compromise version of yellow and white dominates the marketplace. When I do come across a white ear of corn, I remember those long-ago arguments around my grandparents’ oilcloth covered kitchen table.

I called home for the names of the white and yellow varieties they argued about years ago. On the phone, Dad said it took him 50 years to convince Mom that yellow corn was indeed superior to white corn – especially Stowells’s Evergreen. Remembering the Walter clan deep prejudices and unending loyalties, I asked incredulously, "Is that right, Mom?"

"That's right, son," she admitted with such an incredible sweetness in her voice that I was reminded of the taste of the yellow corn of my boyhood.

When You’re Ninety-three: A Conversation Between Mary and Her Son Ed

[11:00 a.m. Friday morning: What are you doing Mom?]

I’m straightening up after your father. He leaves his things all over the house. He drops his shoes and socks wherever he takes them off. I’m always picking up after him.

You know, he’s beginning not to care about a lot of things.

And he’s starting to get forgetful. He’s forgetting things more and more.

[Give me an example.]

The other day I looked into the kitchen and the freezer door was ajar. He never closed it after he got ice. I told him. So he went to fridge and began to fuss with the stuff inside. He was trying to find what was blocking it from closing. He got frustrated. You know how he gets when he can’t solve a problem.

Well, I finally got up from my chair and took a look for myself. There was an ice cube stuck by a hinge. He’d looked and looked. He fussed with everything in the freezer that might be blocking the door, but he didn’t see the ice cube. His eyesight is going.

Oh, he can read the newspaper and see the print allright. But he’s just not as sharp as he once was and that frustrates him. I think that’s why he doesn’t seem to care about things like he once did. Well he is ninety-four and a half years old. What can you expect?

Do you know the year’s half over? And June is half over, too. Where does the time go?

You know, I’m a lot more feeble now than I was six months ago.

[I’m sorry for you.]

Don’t be sorry. That’s the way it goes. It’s nothing. Life goes on.

Yesterday when we went to the restaurant with Roger and Ruth, Roger had to help me in and out of the car. He walked beside me as we went in and came out. And I use my cane all the time. But I’m so slow. I’m an old lady, you know.

When we returned home I told Dad, You know I’m getting awfully feeble

I know you are, he said.

[I am sorry.]

Please, don’t be sorry for me. I’ve had a good life. I’ve seen my children grow up, then my grandchildren, and now my great grandchildren. Who could ask for any more than that? Dad and I have had a good life.

Just wait. When you get to be ninety-three, you’ll think differently than you do now.

Beautiful in Its Time

In late summer on an exquisite, sun-drenched day, I took my octogenarian parents, Mary and Clint on a country drive, from their Northern Delaware home toward the Amish country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Along the way, we stopped at a famous rose nursery. Among the displays were towering hedges of red roses. We walked among the hedges, savoring the aroma and ogling the bountiful blooms left au natural.

Mary, then in her early 80s, was examining a burst of blooms that were particularly alluring. “Which is the most beautiful rose?” I asked.

She didn’t hesitate but touched a succession of roses from the tiniest bud through one far beyond full bloom, with withered petals. “Each one is beautiful in its own way,” she said simply and without the least affectation.

Mary Celebrates 70th Wedding Anniversary

Mary and Clint were married in 1939, the year of the so-called "two" Thanksgivings, when November had five Thursdays and FDR wanted to stimulate Holiday shopping.  Their wedding day was on the traditional fourth Thursday of November, the 23rd.

Here's Mary on Thanksgiving 2009 as she leaves her house for the family celebration of the momentous 70th anniversary.  The destination was nearby Harry's Savoy Grill.  Joining the anniversary celebration were Clint and Natalie Searl, Ed and Ellie Searl, Kelly, K.P., and Mary Grace Lansing, and Ken and Mary Lansing.  A good time was had by all.

Peeling Peaches

Mary knows how to peel a peach. She was always able to maneuver a sharp paring knife and remove a fuzzy peach skin in a thin continuous slice. Her sister Eva,who didn't have either the patience or skill, always cut too much of the flesh. So Mary was the one that Mother Eva asked to help in canning peaches.

The last time Mary helped, it was during the Labor Day weekend. (As a young mother with a son, Mary often felt she had to spend weeknds on the Farm to help her mother with the heavy workload.) Mother Eva had three 5/8 baskets of peaches to put up. (Each basket held about 40 pound of fruit.) Mother and daughter sat at the great kitchen table working silently, because talking took energy--energy better used to work.

The fuzz on the late season Albertas was so thick that it abraided the skin on the hand that held the paring knife. (Mother Eva preferred for these canning peaches to be semi-hard. They were bought from nearby Dersch Orchards.) Once pared each peach was halved and pitted. Mother Eva, using a fork, carefully placed each peach half in the glass jar before syrup was added, a lid was screwed on, and placed in the hot water bath. Each jar was a work of art.

Mary had earlier climbed the two stairs to the attic where the quart jars were stored on the floor, upside. Since each basket produced 14 jars of peaches, that meant carrying down more than 5o jars--jars that had to be metcuously washed. Washing them was tedious, particularly the aluminum screw top lids with the ceramic liners.

The result of these efforts was money in the bank: row upon row of jars of golden peaches in syrup to be withdrawn as needed throughout the coming winter.

Cottage Cheese Pie

One of Mary's signature/classic desserts is Cottage Cheese Pie. The recipe is simple, and it's a good one. What makes Mary's version so good, of course, is her crust.

This dessert evokes sight, smell, and taste sensations of 1950s Sunday dinners.

Ingredients:

1. 1 pound of cottage cheese
2. 1/2 cup of sugar
3. 2 egg yolks
4. 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
5. 1/2 tsp of salt
6. 2 cups of milk
7. 2 egg whites beaten stiff
8. 1 #2 can of crushed pineapple
9. 1 teaspoon of tapioca or cornstarch

Directions:

1. cream sugar and cottage cheese until smooth
2. add rest of ingredients (except those below) to above mixture; then fold in egg whites
3. add tapioca or conrstarch to pineapple and cook until thickened
4. put thickened pineapple into an uncooked pie crust and laye the cottage mixture over the top
5. bake in a 350 degree oven for an hour

Starched Cotton Dresses

At the start of the school year Mary had 4 new dresses. With mother Eva , Mary picked out fabric—100% cotton at 39¢ a yard. Mrs. Ott, who worked in a local factory as a seamstress, sewed the fabric into dresses, using patterns from which Mary selected. 3 or 4 additional dresses were added to her wardrobe throughout the school year. Mary had 2 or 3 “good” dresses for church and special occasions. She wore her “old” dresses to work around the house and to do field work. She changed into these “old” dresses as soon as she came home from school. She had a pair of oxford shoes for school, a pair of “good” shoes to wear with her “good” dresses, and a pair of “old” work shoes.

Her sister dressed similarly. Her brothers wore shirts and ties to school. They would never think of wearing their work clothes, denim overalls or dungarees off the farm, that is, if they went into town.

The family had plenty of laundry that mother Eva washed every Monday—piles of underwear and socks, of course, along with work clothes. Dresses and shirts (which were worn until dirty) got special attention. Eva scrubbed collars and cuffs on a washboard. After coming out of the wringer washer, they were dipped in starch, and hung out to dry. After being dried they were “sprinkled” lightly with water and rolled up in preparation for Tuesday ironing. Damp, starched cotton was easier to iron.

For Eva, ironing was more than an all day affair done at the ironing board pulled down from a kitchen closet. Mary remembers her mother sometimes ironing until midnight.

When she was old enough, Mary ironed the smaller boys clothes.

Gradually, as she grew older and more siblings were born, Mary assumed more and more of the responsibilities of caring for Frankie, Georgie, Stevie, Paulie, and Tommie: washing them, getting them ready for bed, waking them up, and getting them ready and off for school, as well as ironing heir clothes.

September Moon

At 92 Mary remains inquisitive and full of wonder for the natural world. She recently woke up before dawn on an early September morning and saw the full moon in the western sky. She sat by the window in the family room and watched it set, growing larger as it arced to the horizon. It was a beautiful sight. "I never saw the moon set before," Mary declared with awe.

After the first morning, Mary rose early to watch the moon set for three more mornings. One morning she left her chair to wash her face and comb her hair. When she returned the moon had already set. She was astonished that it moved so quickly.

Fascinated by the moon cycles, Mary wondered how long the moon would "remain full."

2641 Foulk Road

In 1949, after borrowing $5,000 from Mary's father Joe, Clint and Mary purchased land from Hyland Gaynor, a nearly acre wedge ($1200) within the northern boundary of Delaware. Gaynor had once operated a small milk bottling business--buying local milk in bulk. On a hill, 165 feet into Pennsylvania, stood the Gaynor's modest field stone farmhouse and gray sloping barn.

The property to the south of 2641 Foulk Road was a farm field that sometimes grew wheat. South of that stood a substantial serpentine (green) stone Methodist church with sprawling graveyard dating from the 19th century. There were 2 houses across the street, the abodes of the Petit de Manges and the Burroughs. South of these houses was a farm field with a wooden windmill in its midst, boundaried by a low, masoned granite stone wall along Delaware 261, Foulk Road. (In the early 1950s it was spelled Faulk Road.)

Clint, with little training, determined that he would build the two story Cape Cod bungalow himself. He relied on U.S. government pamphlets for information.

An acquaintance with a tractor and a clam shell digger helped him gouge a foundation from a shallow slope. Clint laid the concrete block foundation: each block weighed 23 pounds. He hired a carpenter to be sure that the framing was done properly. Once the basics were in place, Clint did the rest of the construction and finishing with hand tools, a process that continued for more than a decade.

At first, there was a kitchen with knotty-pine cabinets and eating area, living room, and two bedrooms on the first floor. Clint laid oak flooring on the first floor, which Mary waxed and polished by hand every Friday.

The second floor was an attic. Later, room by room, Clint built 3 bedrooms upstairs. The basement was unfinished--housing a small workshop in the midst of a gas furnace and water pump. The pump drew water from a relatively shallow, hand dug well. (Conservation of water was a family virtue enforced by Mary--only an inch of water was allowed to take a bath.) There was a utility sink, washing machine, and chest freezer in the cellar entrance way. Since the basement was mostly below ground it was cool in summer and warm in winter. It held aromas of seasonal vegetables from the garden.

On the backside of the house, on either side of a corridor leading into the cellar, Mary cultivated a sloping "rock garden" that featured multi-colored portulacas and cascading mountain pink.

A vegetable garden dominated the long yard, along the PA border. Clint turned the soil and dug furrows with a one wheeled hand cultivator. In the garden's front was a cascading concord grape arbor. Rows of radishes, cabbage, carrots, beets, lettuce, potatoes, and such led to rows of yellow corn--Clint was a yellow corn man as opposed to my Mary's farm family championing of white corn.

Toward the narrowing point of the wedge-shaped property stood a chicken coop with a small and low cold sash in front of it, for growing seedlings in the spring. Near the garden were two apple trees (Macintosh and Delicious) and a Bing cherry tree. Alongside the chicken coop was a strawberry patch. On the other side of yard grew a bramble of raspberries canes. I have faint memories of a goose berry and a quince bush.

A dog house above the raspberry path had a circular dirt apron, worn of grass by Spot who was contained by a 12 foot chain. Spot was a hunting dog, configured like a Brittany Spaniel. His pedigreed mother had mated with an unknown male.

Popular shrubs of the era served as borders and boundaries: privet (with stinking flowers) and fire thorn (with thorns and red berries). Eventually these plantings grew rank and deeply rooted and with considerable effort were torn out.

Originally the house was sheathed in red brick patterned fiber-board panels. (It would much later be covered in white aluminum siding.)

In the beginning there was no garage. Alongside the gravel driveway, near the house was a mound of soil that had been dug from the foundation.

Finishing the rooms, maintaining the property, keeping a garden plus husbanding chickens consumed Mary and Clint's evenings and weekends.

The property and house, so hands on for Clint and Mary, was the center of their life together. It was a source of pride, as well as a symbol of their work ethic and private sense of responsibility.

First Home

Little Mary spent her first few 4 years in a modest two story frame house in Paulsboro, NJ at 25 East Washington Street. Her father Joe worked at a DuPont Plant in Gibbstown that made black powder. E va, Mary's mother, spoke scant English. So German was the primary language of the home for Mary and her two older brothers Joe and John. Sister Eva was 2 years younger than Mary. Tony was a baby.

The Paulsboro house had a front porch with a child's rocking chair. Circa 1920, little Mary loved to climb up on the seat, make herself comfortable, to sit and rock. She fell asleep in the rocking chair. A neghbor alerted Eva that her little girl was asleep. Her mother woke her up and took her inside. Mary cried. (Her mother always said she was a crybaby.) After a while, when no one was paying attention, Mary returned to the front porch and her rocking chair and rocked herself asleep again.

[Ed Searl]

70 years (x) 365 days = 25,550 main meals

Mary stretched a dollar with frugal shopping and a liberal garden. Yet her main meals were abundant and varied. She cycled through a two week schedule, putting dinner on the table when husband Clint came home from work at 5:15. Saturday evening was more casual but supper was still early. Sunday dinner was served at 1:00 p.m., after church.

Weekday meals Tuesday through Thursday: Spaghetti and meat balls, chicken pot pie, beef stew, meat loaf, hamburgers (no buns) with gravy, chile con carne, roast chicken, fried chicken, stuffed peppers, cabbage rolls, vegetable soup, chicken soup, broiled steak, breaded veal cutlet, fried calf liver, creamed chipped beef, macaroni and cheese, navy bean soup, green pea soup.

Friday: breaded fish, fried tomatoes and white gravy, breaded zucchini, potato soup swimming in butter and dusted with paprika served with fried doughnuts rolled in granulated sugar, New England clam chowder, fried breaded oysters, crab cakes.

Saturday: pancakes, waffles, scrapple, bacon, hot dogs, sausage links, rarely--creamed kidneys or shrimp, scrapple.

Sunday: roast beef, roast pork, baked chicken. (Son Clint called the roasts “boiled” when cooked in a pressure cooker.) Sunday evening--no cooking, a self-serve slice of pie or cake.

Monday: “leftovers” from Sunday.

Vegetables and fruit: nearly every meal had mashed potatoes with gravy for husband Clint. (He claimed repeatedly he could eat a mashed potato sandwich.) In season--from the garden—peas, carrots, beets, radishes, corn, green and yellow string bean, cabbage, zucchini, and leaf lettuce, apple sauce. Out of season, from the big chest freezer in the basement—yellow corn, green and yellow string beans, lima beans, succotash (lima beans and corn); or from the cupboard under the cellar stairs—canned tomatoes, bread and butter pickles, beets, and strawberry, cherry, and grape jams beneath crowns of white wax.

Constants at the dinner table included mashed potatoes (of course), iced tea with wedges of lemon, coleslaw, bread and butter (never margarine because of husband Clint’s aversion to it). Homemade butter rolls appeared on many Sundays.

Desserts peaked on Sunday. Cakes included lemon with lemon zest icing, white cake with boiled coconut icing, brown sugar with burnt sugar icing. Pie with flaky, tender crust ran a broad range of berries and fruit—strawberry, pumpkin, rhubarb, blueberry, cherry, peach, apple, lemon meringue. Coconut cream and pineapple cream were custard rich. Passing trends were shoo fly pie, pineapple upside down cake, Boston cream pie (from a box mix), jelly roll (thin sponge cake spread with home jam), lemon chiffon/buttermilk pie (a puffy concoction with a sweet-sour, melt in your mouth texture), cream puffs and éclairs, strawberry shortcake made from sweet biscuits and homegrown strawberries--in more frugal days topped with whipped evaporated milk.

Mary made butter cookies in various shapes extruded from an aluminum Wearever cookie press and garnished with multi-colored sprinkles, Toll House cookies, (Br’er Rabbit) molasses cookies, and at Christmas walnut balls dusted with confectioner’s sugar

Mary’s signature confection , of course, learned from Eva her German mother, was “torn britches:” an eggy dough rolled paper thin, cut in rectangles and slit two or three times, deep fried to a golden brown, and when cool sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar. Making torn britches took at least two hours.

Around 90, after planning, preparing, and cleaning up more than 20,000 meals, Mary decided she needed a few "cookless" days a week. Since then, on Tuesday and Thursdays she's allowed a frozen dinner for her and Clint.

Simple Days, Simple Pleasures

When young, Mary would sit on the front stoop of the farm house. She'd smooth the sandy soil and with a stick she'd write in dirt. At 92 she can still see herself doing that.

Mary also liked to sit on the steps and look for out-of-state license plates on passing cars.

"We didn't need fancy toys to make us happy. They were simpler times. And, oh, how much things have changed. You should see the farm now! You wouldn't recognize it." By this she means the old homestead isn't well taken care of.

[Ed Searl]

Typical Mary Meal

Green beans, corn, cole slaw, stewed tomatos, buttered noodles, and chicken tenders plus a glass of iced tea with lemon: a typical Mary meal.

The Rosemary Bush

Mary's mother Eva grew a rosemary bush in an oversized terra cotta pot. During the winter it was kept in the warm and dry cellar. Each spring, after the threat of frost passed, two sons carried the pot across the pea gravel driveway to the garden alongside the chicken house.

Each Sunday morning before church, Mary's father Joe broke off a big sprig of rosemary and placed it in the buttonhole of his suitcoat lapel.

"He thought he was a big deal!" Mary declared.

[Ed Searl]

One Line Drawing

Mary learned to draw this "one line" bird in elementary school.

Johnny Cut My Finger

Mary was a tomboy. She was always shadowing her older brothers Seppe (Joe) and John.

In the spring of 1921, when Mary was five, brother John had the task of chopping turnips that had become shriveled and hard over winter. (The turnips were cow food.) John wielded the hatchet and told his younger sister that she could hold the turnip while he chopped. Mary complied.

John swung and in one stroke cut through the turnip and the middle finger of Mary’s right hand.The finger dangled by a flap of skin. Blood spurted. Mary wailed, alarming her mother Eva, who’d been washing windows on the first floor of the farmhouse. Mary held bloody finger in hand and ran to the ladder where her mother was perched. “Johnny cut my finger,” holding it up to show. Eva exclaimed in German, “Great God in Heaven!” She immediately knew there was nothing she could do.

Good fortune followed disaster. Across the street the Blomers were having a grocery delivery. Eva raced across the crushed oyster shell road for help. In quick order Mrs. Blomer, with Mary in her lap, and the delivery driver were speeding in the grocery’s panel truck to Dr. Sinexon ‘s office in Paulsboro. Mary squeezed her hand as hard as she could to quell the blood.

Mary, who always called herself a crybaby, without any painkiller, stood bravely while the doctor sewed the two parts of the finger back together. She did her best not to cry, but sobs spilled. The doctor paused to ask, “Does that hurt you?”

Mary said, “No.”

“Shut up then,” the doctor admonished.

Mary returned home with her stitched finger in a splint and arm in a sling.

In a day before anesthesia, antibiotics, and micro-surgery, that her finger knit back together is astonishing. There was always a visible scar. It didn’t bend much. But it healed without infection.

Mary remembers a subsequent trip to the doctor’s so the finger could be examined and stitches removed. She rode on the handle bar of a bike while her father Joe pedaled to Paulsboro and back.

[Ed Searl]

Joy: Mary's World

Mary, among her many domestic chores, takes pride in her Monday laundry. Into her 80s she hung all her laundry outdoors to dry. (At 92 a dryer still doesn't stop her from hanging items beneath the covered back porch.)

For many years the clothesline in the backyard was framed by four iron poles embedded in concrete, the four corners describing a great rectangle. The clothesline reached around the perimeter and also ran in two diagonals to make a central X. Mary hung the sheets in an outer row and propped up the sagging lines with long wooded poles. On inner lines she pinned white shirts with outstretched sleeves, khaki pants that billowed to the wind, along with underwear ordered by respective wearer: Mary's, Clint's, son Clint's, and Ed's--all in a row, upward of 28 pairs, immaculately white from hand rubbing on a ribbed-glass washboard and a Clorox dipping. No hash mark survived her scrupulous scrubbing.

Mary declared time and again, that when the wash was done and the laundry hung on the line by wooden clothespins spaced in tidy order, it was beyond words to express what she felt. She was utterly joyful.

Eventually, when only Mary and Clint were left at home, she continued to experience a Monday morning ecstasy at the sight of Clint's laundry drying on the clothesline.

One February day, when fresh snow glistened and laundry was a-drying, Mary was compelled by an even richer joy. The beauty of the moment swept through her. With a long clothesline pole she drew a huge heart in the snow and inscribed it, "I love you, Clint." For Mary this was a rare display of emotion.

Later that day, she and a friend shopped for meat at a country butcher near Chadds Ford, PA. While waiting for their order, Betsy Wyeth, wife of famed artist Andrew Wyeth, breezed in, protesting the cold and snow, though she wore a luxurious fur coat. Betsy declared her intention to make beef vegetable soup for Andy. "Tell me girls," she said to Mary and her friend, "tell me how you make your beef vegetable soup."

Mary used the occasion to relate to Betsy Wyeth, how earlier that day the beauty of the snow and the joy of Clint's underwear on the clothesline had stirred her to declare her love with a snowy valentine. "That's so sweet. I'll have to tell Andy," Betsy Wyeth responded. She took away Mary's recipe for hearty vegetable beef soup, too.

Whenever I see a reproduction of Andrew Wyeth's iconic and melancholic "Christina's World,"--in the foreground a paraplegic woman sprawled on an overgrown hillside with a decrepit house on the crest,--I envision "Mary's World."

In "Mary's World" a midlife woman in babushka and car coat inscribes a heart into a winter's cover of snow with a long wooden clothes pole. In the background white boxer shorts billow in the wind.

[Ed Searl]