Sugar Candy Treats      History of Candy    Candy History Part Deux Crispy Treat's History. Celebrities Favorite's   Weird Candy Trivia.     Growing Candy.

Robin has written many stories for my site, but above all this is my favorite.  This story will touch your life, pull at your heart and look deep into your soul.  We are our memories. A Story of Courage and Inspiration for Memorial Day By      Robin L. Wallace    Memorial Day is coming rapidly as I write this.  Too often anymore, it's looked on by Americans as just another paid day off, or day out of school for those who have to wait until the second week in June until they are formally released for the summer vacation.  And even worse, it's been turned into a huge excuse for retailers to have huge sales to try and cash in on profits by exploiting another holiday (I've already started to see ads screaming, "Come in for this, that, or the other store's Giant!  Humongous!  Blow Out!  Price slashing!  Extravaganza!  Where we offer you big, big, big, huge savings on everyday values!"), or a chance for Hollywood to make big bucks by releasing the first of what they hope to be a slew of summer blockbusters.

Home Apple Vintage Recipes Angel or Devil Recipes Barbeques Beef Dinners Breads, Rolls, and Muffins. Cake Recipes. Candy. Casserole Dishes Carry In Dishes Chili Recipes Chicken, Poultry Dishes Chow Mein Cobbler & Crisp Recipes Cookies. Dips and Party Mix Recipes Fish, Shrimps, & other Swimmers Fudge Family Reunion Recipes Genealogy and Recipes Gravy - Gravies Helpful Hints Italian Ice Cream Recipes Jams, Jellies, Marmalades Lunch Box Sandwich Spreads Marshmallows Mexican Pancakes, Hotcakes, BuckWheats and Syrups Pickles and Picklers Pies. Pizza Pies Popcorn Recipes Porkchops, Piggies, and other Oinkers Potato, Potatoes Pudding Salad Recipes. Sandwich Recipes Sauces, Condiments Sauerkraut Scary Recipes Soups and Chowders Uncategorized Unusual Recipes Vegetable Bin Vintage Recipe Books Molasses Recipe Booklet Vintage Pillsbury 1957 Vintage Coconut - 1948 1913 Calumet Recipes Other Recipes

For me, Memorial Day was the day when we went out where relatives were buried in the tiny, local cemeteries and thoroughly cleaned up each gravesite, carrying away branches that may have fallen in the winter, pulling up weeds that had grown up around the headstones, placing the planters that had been lovingly rotated from year to year and replanted with new, fresh flowers that were usually watered on a bi-or tri-weekly basis throughout the summer and fall from the watering cans carefully loaded in the trunk of Gram’s old blue Dodge Monaco car (sometimes they were even visited up to four times a week, depending on the weather conditions).  And for Memorial Day and the Fourth of July, little American flags were usually placed on the graves of those who had served in the military throughout the conflicts that dated from Revolutionary War times right up to the present.  On those trips, Gram Irwin would tell me the story of each one's life, whether they were related or not and how, almost to ensure that their names and deeds lived on in the telling, passed safely into the memory of the next generation.  There were even one or two old friends of the family whose own descendents had either long since passed away, or moved away, or who no longer cared whose graves Gram  lovingly tended to for as long as she was able to while she lived.  From her loving and reverent ministrations, I came to up see the day as she had -- one to stop and meditate upon those who had gone before us.      I guess what got me thinking about it in the first place was that I was sadly wondering just who would go out and tend the graves this year.  I just recently celebrated an important anniversary in my own life -- the third year that I survived after having had a stroke, which left me incapable of doing so.  I was a comparatively young age when one generally thinks of stroke sufferers and survivors.  When I was placed in rehabilitation at a local nursing home following the stroke (one of the few places where this kind of treatment and therapy could be handled here in my area – private places are few and far between), I was the youngest one on my floor by at least some 40 years.  Despite the post-stroke limitations I have to deal with currently, I've managed to remain independent, with the help of a few very special people.

Folks that I talk to nowadays tell me that I'm a hero, and that my story of how I've managed to continue on despite all I've gone through in the last 16 years or so, makes me a strong, brave person.    We all know of the selfless heroes in both the military and services like the police and fire fighters, unselfish men and women who have laid everything on the line for others, despite the risk to themselves, and it is fit and proper to spend Memorial Day collectively remembering their sacrifices.  But there are plenty of other little, quiet heroes, who often go unlauded for surviving and carrying on despite what to most people would be an intolerable situation. Yes, I've persevered, and there has been a plenitude of hardships thrown in my way, but they are nothing compared to the stories I'm going to relate to you.

The first story is about a little Limoges porcelain candy dish which was given as a gift to my sister when she was an exchange student in France.  The family she stayed with originally gave it to her because they thought she would appreciate the history of the dish -- something which the daughter in the family clearly would not do.  My sister's French mother explained to her that they were afraid their daughter would smash the dish, a cherished family heirloom, by hurling it across the room during one of her frequent temper tantrums, as she'd done to other treasures in the past.

Read, "The Story of the Missing Cookie Jar" by PenVampyre.  A delightful little Christmas story with mouthwatering  recipes for the most wonderful time of the year! Read "Santa and the Magic Key", plus recipes for your holidays.  A story by Robin Wallace.Read "Santa and the Magic Key", plus recipes for your holidays.  A story by Robin Wallace. Read "Easter and Where NOT to Hide Eggs"  Memories of Easters past and a few vintage recipes. Logan's Halloween Story -The original story won first place in sixth-eighth grade division of Southeastern Middle School, 2005 by Logan Lyon Food and Genealogy.  A story By Robin L. Wallace.  Our lives, our families, our very history's are defined by the foods we eat. Family Reunion Recipes. "The Fourth of July and Other Disasters" (With Apologies to Jean Shepherd) By Robin L. Wallace A short story by Suellen Fry.  Memories of my father and his version of Kickapoojoyjuice.

The dish’s provenance, as told to me, is as follows:    My sister's host family, although now living in one of the French interior’s famous wine growing areas, originally came from a little town on the coast of Normandy.  During the days of World War II after the Germans occupied France, it was not uncommon for the residents of the area to have to board Nazi soldiers in their homes.  They had to make sure that the accommodations for the soldiers were equivalent to anything that one might expect to find in the finest hotels in Paris.  This meant that the best of everything the populace had to offer was expected to be given to the soldiers first, be it beds to sleep in, best dishes to eat off of, linen, etc.  In addition to having to do the laundry and housekeeping chores for the occupiers, the poor villagers throughout the little towns and hamlets of Normandy were expected to prepare fine meals, using only the best ingredients the region had to offer, often times better than what the family could afford for themselves.  This frequently resulted in forcing the locals to go without food, supplies, or whatever.  And just as often as not, the situation existed where anything the soldiers wanted, they often took for themselves.  As an extension of this logic, the women in the family were not immune nor safe from the advances of the soldiers lodged in their homes. Resistance to any of these arrangements often met with fatal outcomes

Throughout these dark times there were often little, secret acts of defiance which the soldiers never saw, but which helped the civilian population to endure.  For example, the lady who hosted my sister was, herself, barely just a teenager, being around only 12 years old or so during the Occupation.   Many times she would quietly spit in the soup tureen while standing out in the kitchen, out of sight of the Nazi troops who stayed in the house, just prior to serving the soup to them.    The little porcelain candy dish, a rarity among Limoges porcelain (its main color was white, rather than the vivid blue and gold of the pieces we are so familiar with today. It also had four little feet rather than having a flat bottom, and the cover that fit it was decorated with pink and yellow roses in a ring around the center handle) had originally belonged to the maternal grandmother of my sister's host.  They weren't sure exactly when their grandmother first acquired the dish, but they guessed it was sometime in the 1880s, since she was already in her 70s or 80s during the time of the Occupation, and the dish more than likely had been a gift received at her own wedding.  I don't know for sure how long the Occupation lasted, but it must've been intolerable for those forced to endure it.

When the Allies finally arrived to liberate France and invaded Normandy, bombs fell like rain from the sky.  This caused the German forces to fall back and quickly retreat, fleeing for their lives while all the local residents were out madly shouting, dancing and singing in the streets because they had at long last been saved.  This went on up and down the coast of Normandy, despite the dangers of the bombs falling around them, while houses containing friend and foe, alike were wiped out.  The Allies figured the only way to achieve their objective was to ensure that the houses in Norman hamlets and towns were being systematically flattened to rout the German enemy so firmly entrenched there.  The local civilians being liberated held no animosity for the casualties being inflicted upon them.  They had hated their German oppressors so much, they were willing to stand the destruction in order to regain their freedom from the invaders (when visiting in the region in 1990, a traveling companion and I essentially weren't allowed to pay for meals or lodgings while we stayed there after it had been discovered by the locals that both of our fathers had served in the US military -- his in the Navy, mine in the Air Force.  I can't tell you the number of elderly people, complete strangers, who came up to me, crying, and thanking me in broken English for America's role in liberating Normandy.).

As it turned out, the family’s home was leveled during the Allied bombing.  Afterward, when the family was gathering to check for survivors, the grandmother was nowhere to be found.  The family could only assume that she had perished when the house was destroyed.  During the day after the bombing, when some neighbors went back into the remains of the house next door to see what, if anything could be salvaged, they reported to the host's grieving family that apparently their home was being haunted by some kind of ghosts.  The neighbors reported to the family that while exploring the ruins of their own home, they could hear cackling and other eerie noises coming from where the family's house had once stood.  When the host's family returned later in the day to conduct a search for the grandmother's body, and anything else that might be recovered, they, and the party of neighbors would come to help, could hear cackling coming from the general direction of the old cast-iron stove which could be seen still standing amidst ruined timbers where the kitchen once was.

Hearing the noise for themselves, it took the family and other rescuers a little time to work up the courage to go investigate the area, as one or two of them had been thoroughly frightened by the unearthly sounds emanating from the ruins.  When they finally had cleared enough and reached the old stove, one family member recognized the grandmother's voice and realized that rather than a ghost making an unearthly fuss, it was, wonder of wonders, the grandmother, who had been trapped inside the old stove by the debris covering it.  It seems that, clutching the candy dish, her most cherished possession, the grandmother, laughing gleefully at the Germans' flight, had climbed inside the oven of the old cast-iron stove as the bombs started destroying the house around her.  The stove had been just sturdy enough to ensure that the grandmother and the candy dish both survived, unscathed by the destruction.  Though unable to get out by herself when the bombs stopped falling, unsure of how long would take before help arrived, or even if her own family were still alive after all that, the feisty old lady was so amused by this forceful ejection of the hated Nazi tormentors from her beloved Normandy that she couldn't help breaking out into peals of laughter every time she thought of the situation – the Germans were gone, and she had managed to save her prized candy dish.  As it turned out, the piping which connected the stove to the chimney, was still intact, providing enough fresh air to keep the old lady going beneath the wreckage, and provided a perfect acoustical set up to echo the sounds of her laughter weirdly throughout the debris all around her hiding place.

That little candy dish, which now has a place of honor on the mantel here in America, serves as a symbol of inspiration to any lucky enough to learn its history.  It's a portent of what could be accomplished in the face of adversity, and a reminder that there is always hope, no matter how dark the circumstances seem which face us every day.

Hi Starla here, boy, Robin's story really touched my heart. I didn't realise how much my parents lives were shaped by their experiences during World War 2 and the Great Depression.  My parents spending and saving habits were a direct result of living in those times.  Their habits with food, planting gardens every year and mom canning food, which I never understood since the grocery store had the same thing already finished and ready to go.  Their ability to weather any storm, no matter how tough the situation, my parents could handle it or they would figure out a way.  My Mom's, Helen Stone's Homemade Potato Salad This was my mom's potato salad recipe, I suppose she was taught this recipe from her mother.  I was born in 1953, this gives you some idea how old the recipe is. There were no measurements made for this potato salad, my mother taught me how to make it by eyeballing the ingredients.  I will try to give you what I think are about the right measurements, but I can't guarantee they are correct. Boil 6 to 8 potatoes - then peel Boil about 3 eggs, peel, then chop. Use organic eggs, they do make a difference.  My uncle's chickens laid eggs fresh daily. A couple of Vidalia onions, if you can't find these - use a sweet onion, chop very fine. A couple stalks of celery - chopped very fine. Two big heaping spoonfuls of Miracle Whip - If this is not enough add more later. Two big heaping spoonfuls of sweet pickle relish - use a relish made with sugar and not corn syrup. Mom said corn syrup was the ruination of good food. We used my uncles relish back in the day, but I have found Sechler's Diced Sweet Salad Pickles work just fine. Add Celery Salt and White Pepper.  Can't say how much, but at least 1/4 teaspoon each. About 1/2 cup French's Mustard. Mix all the ingredients together and let the salad rest in the fridge overnight.  Mom said the ingredients need to, "Get to know each other."

Robin L. Wallace     First North American Serial Rights Copyright © 11/26/07    Email: sheltiemom2shelties @  yahoo.com (put the email together before you request price quotes from her)

Favorite Candy Places      Site Map     Policies Section

Bakery recipes with home made, fresh baked, muffins, yeast breads, and biscuits recipes from the 50's, 60's, and 70''s. Email - starlina@bright.net Shop Phone - 1-740-779-9425 Located - 6731 Straight Creek Road  Waverly, Ohio 45690