The Old-Time Family

I found this poem (or part of a poem) in one of my favorite books: The Country Mother's Cookbook -A Celebration of Motherhood and Old-Fashioned Cooking by Jane Watson Hopping.

This very neat cookbook intersperses old-time recipes from the 30's and 40's with pictures and family anecdotes...tales of days gone by. The author raised her family just north of Coloma and so her writings are very interesting to me, as her stories take place practically in our backyard!

This book and another of hers, The Lazy Days of Summer Cookbook, are just about my favorites. I love reading about Jane, her family and their celebrations. I also love the recipes which are tailored to feed a large family on a small budget.

From The Old-Time Family

We were eight around the table in those happy days back then.

Eight who cleaned our plates of pot-pie and passed them up again;
Eight that needed shoes and stockings; eight to wash and put to bed,
And with mighty little in the purse as I have said,
But with all the care we brought them, and through all the days of stress,
I never heard my father or my mother wish for less.

-Edgar A. Guest