Hesston, Kansas

1928 Hesston Kansas Wheat Leaguc Champs: My grandfather Ira Hes is in the middle of the back row.  He was an avid baseball fan all his life.

Violence Comes to Hesston, Kansas

Hesston, Kansas Sign

Hess grave is the town cemetery

My mother, and both grandparents were born in Hesston.  I remember it as a sleepy, peaceful town with the Mennonite college and many relatives:  aunts, uncles, cousins, and my grandmother's many friends.  Did I say peaceful?  The many Mennonites were pacifists.  My grandfather was Ira Hess, one of nine children of A. L. Hess who gave the land for the town and for the Hesston Bible College.  

Even though Mennonites were a sect with their own type of clothing, beliefs, and strictness, they were good neighbors.  My mother remembered eating at her grandmother's house, a lively home with much laughter, music and good times.  She graduated from the Hesston Bible School. 

When I heard the news that Hesston was the sight of a shooting, it was devastating, because this town has never been about violence in any form.  The only violence I ever recall was when a tornado damaged the town in the mid-80's.  

Hesston is fly-over land.  Drive-by land.  In the middle of a state in the middle of the country.  

No more.  Now it can join the ever-growing list of places where mass shootings occurred.  The shooter should never have been hired and should have never owned a gun.  Absolutely no consolation now.  

Here are some photos from the town now, and from back it the day.  Back in the day is how I like to remember it.  

My grandmother's church, Hesston, Kansas

Downtown Hesston Kansas

When I was a kid, the downtown looked much different.  Now the street is divided.  The Santa Fe always came through town.  My grandpa always knew the trains and what time they blew through.  He and my grandma eloped on the train, as youngsters (late teens) with her father charging down the track after them (on foot) with his shotgun.  He didn't shoot, but he sure was mad.  The marriage lasted 55 years until my Grandpa died.  

An upper-middle class house (bankers?)

The lush trees were not everywhere, because although the wheat grew tall and golden, the summer were often dry except for thunderstorms.  Mature trees and a garden took looks of work and watering. 

My uncle, Bill Hess and his wife Lois, owned the Hesston Variety Store and Cafe.  I worked there one summer between junior high and hgh school.  Such fun, and I learned a lot, not necessary everything a 14 year old should know.  Bill and Lois served homemade pies, in fact homemade everything.  I came back five pounds heavier.  Loved Mitzi and Doris, my co-workers. Bill and Loise had an old pointer dog, Mike, who would point flies, the parakeet, anything else that moved.

The general store:  a trip back to the days of my grandparents.

 

 

 As a youngster, I always walked to the Bird Sanctuary with a great aunt.  I loved the old windmill that pumped water.  It's creaking blades penetrated the stillness.  In nearly every novel, I've had a windmill with creaky blades.  So evocative of the past, and a lonely sound.  Below is a photo of the formerly dank but beloved bird sanctuary brought into life today.  Windmill doubtlessly gone, but what a lovely garden.  Bet the birds like it, too! 

Dyck was a well-known Hesston name.  Others were Roupp, Razook, King and Nunemaker.  Hope I have the spellings right. 

 

Now we are going back in the days of yore in the town, to my parents youth.  Everyone is gone but the photos and memories are not. 

My mother, Earla V. Hess, taken in Southern California

 

 

 

My mom grew up on a farm outside of Hesston with her three younger brothers.  When she was 22, she spent a summer with girlhood friends in Pomona California.  I have written a novel inspired by this trip and very loosely based on her adventures, many of which I made up, as the summer was young people having a great time, which is nice in life but not in fiction.  

Hesston school children.  One of the boys is my grandfather, but I can't pick him out.  

Hattie Curby Hess and Judy Travis Copek, dressed for Sunday church

Four Generations: my great grandmother Ida Curby, grandfather Ira Hess, and my mother Earla V. Hess Travis.  Oh, and I'm the babe in arms held by great grandma.

Big farm family

 

 

My Favorite Food(s)

My beloved grandmother Hattie Hess and me

My Favorite Food  would have to be fried chicken. I  know I’ll never taste one like my Grandma fried up in a couple big scoops of Spry or lard in her black cast iron skillet. She’d dip the pieces in seasoned flour and lay them in the hot skillet to brown. What was special about these chickens was that they were plucked, cleaned and  cooked within hours of being killed. They had a good life for a spell—a big chicken yard with food, water, bugs, little rocks for their craws,  the companionship of a rooster—no coyotes or foxes. A good life until it was gone. 

Home mashed potatoes (lots of butter) and creamy gravy usually accompanied the chicken. In summer, creamed new potatoes with peas was de rigueur. As a kid I refused to taste this dish. We also had string beans cooked with bacon, but I freaked out about the “strings.” A difficult child. I  got the wings which I loved, and I shared the liver with my Dad. My mom liked the ribby pieces and the dark meat. Dad also got the breast and everyone was happy. My grandma always fried two chickens if there were more than three people. She made the best Waldorf salad. And when the tomato crop came in, we had homegrown tomatoes, big red tasty ones—something I know I’ll never taste again in this lifetime. Something about the Kansas soil, or the care and love with which they were grown and tended. Huge luscious tomatoes with a zing that is impossible to find anymore, even if you grow you own. Oh, those tomatoes! 

Did I mention the home-grown strawberries?  Good luck finding a berry that tastes remotely like these berries, red all the way to the center.  Tart.  Sweet.  Juicy.  The very essence of what a strawberry should be.  By the end of the summer I began to get tired of them, dumb kid that I was. 

My grandma baked spectacular pies, with a tender flaky crust and cherries, or apples, or berries. She made those pies seem effortless with her nimble fingers and her rolling pin. Oh god, I would give almost anything to sit in the corner or her modest kitchen at that round oak table with my grandpa in  his overalls and my grandma in her house dress and eat a meal with them just like when I was a child. It was always so wonderful, and of course we never appreciate those days until they’re gone.  

Favorite foods convey love, family and caring for one another.  Without the emotion attached to them, it's just a meal. 

This weekend, other authors are also blogging about their favorite foods.  Take a look at the following blogs: 

Heidi M. http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/
Skye Taylor  http://www.skye-writer.com/
Anne Stenhouse  http://annestenhousenovelist.wordpress.com/
A.J. Maguire  http://ajmaguire.wordpress.com/
Rachael Kosnski http://the-doodling-booktease.tumblr.com/
Margaret Fieland http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Geeta Kakade http://geetakakade.blogspot.com/
Marci Baun  http://www.marcibaun.com/
Beverley Bateman http://beverleybateman.blogspot.ca/
Victoria Chatham http://victoriachatham.webs.com/
Diane Bator http://dbator.blogspot.ca/
Fiona McGier http://www.fionamcgier.com/

Ginger Simpson http://mizging.blogspot.com/
Rhobin Courtright http://www.rhobinleecourtright.com/

2-3-4 Frosting and Cinnamon Butter Icing

Ho! Ho!  Ho! 

Here is my grandma, Hattie Hess's frosting recipe she gave my mother.  The card is dog-eared and yellowed.  This looks so easy and easily remembered.  In the "olden" days when all women knew something about cooking, recipes were a kind of shortcut.  Notice the amount of powdered sugar isn't mentioned, instead the recipe says, "to right consistency."  Add vanilla.  No amount.  I would estimate between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon, depending on how "vanilla-y" you like your frosting.  My ex-school teacher mom had trouble spelling "consistency."  It is a hard one.  

The  Cinnamon butter icing is from her girlhood friend, Lucille Moss in Pomona California.  Lucille is in some of the 1920's photos in earlier cookie posts.   She was formerly Lucille Woodsum.  Best friends forever.  I am so touched by these old friends lifetime affection for each other.

2-3-4 Frosting:
2 Tablespoons butter
3 Tablespoons cream
4 Tablespoons sugar


Place ingredients in a double boiler and heat until near boiling over hot water.  Remove from heat and add vanilla and powdered sugar to desired consistency.  

How easy is that?

Lucille's cinnamon Butter Icing 


4 Tablespoons butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups powdered sguar
hot water
nuts (if desired)


Heat  butter in top of double boiler over hot water.  Add cinnamon and sugar; add hot water slowly until right consistency.  Spread and sprinkle with chopped nuts.  This would be yummy on banana, cranberry or blueberry breads.    

The

Steak and leek pie with salad of white asparagus and artichoke hearts

Nothing to do with cookies, but we had a delicious meat pie  that made 8 servings for $8 worth of steak and a couple dollars worth of leeks.  Store bought crust.  I added some mushrooms.  I had no lettuce in the house and it's been so cold I didn't want to bundle up to go to the store, but our basement "pantry" had several cans of white asparagus and a jar of artichoke hearts.  I drizzled a little sweet Italian dressing over the veggies.  Very yummy.  A well-stocked pantry can dig you out of all sorts of culinary troubles.  

The tablecloth is a relic of the 70's and is so soft (but not faded) that it no longer needs ironing.  I don't know what I'll do if it wears out. 

  Time for shopping, cards and decorating. Hie yourself to the mall or the kitchen or all over the house.

Grapeshot

12 Days of Christmas Cookies: Date Walnut Double Decker Bars

These are really date bars, and by the way this recipe will lend itself to nearly any dried fruit, for example a few changes and voila, you have apricot bars.  I made some yesterday.  You are basically making and baking a shortbread crust  and then pouring on a topping which bakes a second time, producing delectable bars in whatever flavor.  See an earlier post for my pecan pie bars.  The same exact techniques are used.

Date Walnut Bars:


Pastry Layer:
1 1/3 c. sifted flour1/3 c. granulated sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter

Combine flour sugar and butter and blend into fine crumbs.  Pack into the bottom of a greased, nine-[inch square pan.  Bake at 35 degrees F. for about 20 minutes, until edges are lightly browned.


Top Layer:
1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
 1/3 cup granulated sugar
2 eggs
1 t. vanilla
2 tablespoons flour
1 teaspoon baking  powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
1 cup chopped walnuts
1 8-oz. package pitted dates, chopped


Combine sugars, eggs and vanilla and beat together well.  Sift flour with baking powder, salt and nutmeg and add to mixture.  Stir in walnuts and chopped dates. Pour batter over hot pastry layer and bake at 350 degrees F. about 20 minutes.  cool in pan and sprinkle with powdered sugar, then cut into bars.  makes about 18 bars, 2 3/4 by 1 3/8 inches.

Grapeshot and Grandma in Hesston, Kansas in days of yore

The Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies - Old Time Sugar Cookies

This recipe is an original cookie recipe that my mom claimed.  I remember her making these cookies throughout my entire childhood. Eventually letting me help frost them, and finally help with the cut outs.  She had reindeer, star, Santa, wreath, and all manner of cookie cutters which I stupidly sold during a "get rid of everything" move.  Bad mistake.  Bad move.

For the "shortening" in the recipe, she calls for Spry.  (Do they still make it?  Who knows?) Crisco will work just fine, and it's not full of trans fats anymore.  The cookies are so crisp you won't believe it, with a flavor that brings Christmas back to me like Proust's Madeline.
My recipe is yellowed and spotted with "ingredients."  Looks like vanilla.  As far as I know, this recipe has never been published before.

Earla Hess Travis in the twenties.  Maybe taken in Hesston (!) KS

Old Time Sugar Cookies


Ingredients: 

1//2 cup Crisco shortening or Spry if you can find it
1/2  t. salt
1/2 t. grated lemon rind
1/2 t. cinnamon or nutmeg (Mom always used cinnamon)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 T. orange and lemon juices, mixed
1 cups sifted flour 
1 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda


Instructions:

Blend shortening, salt, lemon rind and cinnamon.  Add sugar gradually and cream well.  Add eggs and orange and lemon juices and mix. 
Sift flour with baking powder and soda.  Add to the creamed mixture, blending well.  
Chill dough in refrigerator.  Chill cookie sheets to keep cookies from spreading.
Roll dough thin (don't roll too much dough at one time) and cut with cookie cutters. 
Bake in a moderate oven from 350 to 375 degrees F. for ten minutes. 
Watch carefully and don't let the cookies get too brown,


Make about 8 dozen


Frost with an icing made from powdered sugar and water (a few drops of lemon juice are not amiss), divide, and add food colorings of your choice is baking for holidays.  

Note:  a small "t" always denotes a teaspoon, a large "T" denotes a tablespoon.  

Arranged on a plate, this are beautiful and so tasty.  Kids love them.  With a glass of milk, they make a wonderful treat for Santa on his Christmas eve rounds. 

My gift to you.

Grapeshot