F is for...Fennel

Finally, I get to share my favorite recipe that utilizes fennel seed!

But first, a story...or maybe a song...

"There was a farmer had a pig, and Thelma was her name-o...."

When I was a kid, we ate whatever was placed in front of us. Fortunately, aside from her penchant for canned green beans, my mother was (and still is) an excellent cook. We did occasionally have Hamburger Helper or frozen pizza, or other hurry up meals like mom's creamed salmon over mashed potatoes (so very ugly, but oh so good!), but she knew her way around a somewhat frugal kitchen and usually there were no complaints about what was on the table come dinnertime. Not like today, when a four year old usually knows that burgers come from cows or ham comes from pig or chicken comes from...well, chicken. I guess that one's pretty easy!

We were animal lovers, yet even though Uncle Frances owned a hobby farm with ducks, chickens, goats, rabbits and three pigs, we always knew which animals it was ok to make friends with and which ones to maintain a certain emotional distance from.

So, despite the fact that I adored Uncle Franny's giant pet pig, Thelma, it never crossed my mind to think of her as we dug into grilled Italian sausages or pork chops or ham. Until one day, several years later, when we had Uncle Franny and Aunt Betty over our house for dinner, serving the best lasagna I ever made - loaded with beef and Italian sausage - salad, homemade rolls and chocolate cream pie for dessert.

At least, not until my mother asked, "Do you still have those pigs of your's, Frances?"

"Oh, no....we slaughtered Willie, but no one could eat him. We sold the other one. And Thelma.....we had to give her up a few years back," my uncle responded with more than a hint of sadness.

Gulp. A mouthful of suddenly sausage-laden lasagna stalled at the back of my throat. Turns out, Thelma got so big (Aunt Betty said she was just under 1,300 pounds, although maybe that could have been a generous estimate....she DID weigh in at over 800 the last time I had seen her...) that she could not be restrained by any man-made pen. Day after day, Thelma broke loose and had to be tracked down and lured back home by a loaf of Wonderbread dangled in front of her snout. It wasn't until Thelma was long gone that I realized, I mean, REALLY realized, where pork came from. And it was at that moment that I developed a bit of an aversion to it. Soon, the subject turned to other matters and memories. But the next time my mom served pork chops for dinner, I couldn't bear it to think of Thelma, and all the other Thelma's out there. It's different when hogs are raised as food, but when you're standing at the meat counter, how do you know that at some point a family pet didn't just got too darn big?

Never say never, but I kind of shied away from pork.

Pork chops??? "Ewwwww...."

Roast pork? "Nuh-uh..."

Italian sausage? "Waaaaah!" (Double whammy - not only is it pork, I was eating it the moment I was told of Thelma being lured up that ramp into the waiting trailer with a loaf of Wonderbread)

Bacon? "Oh gross! Wait a minute....that smells goooooood."

Yeah, I did not suffer from a TOTAL aversion to pork....just a lot of heavy guilt, I suppose, to the point that sometimes it just wasn't worth it.

Flash forward several years...my sister was a new mom, married into a wonderful Italian family, and we were invited over for dinner. On the menu was this thing called....porketta.

I could tell I would be eating a lot of vegetables that day. "Porketta" sounded like some sort of cutesy nickname one would perhaps give to their pet pig. But when I arrived at Sue's house, this amazing aroma of roasted meat and garlic and some new spice greeted me in the kitchen. Soon a platter of sliced meat, roasted potatoes and carrots was placed upon the table and I was too tempted to resist. And that first taste was divine! Moist, succulent pork with a crisp, spicy, savory crust. I had never even heard of "fennel seed" before, but recognized the whole seeds as what I had seen before in Italian sausage.

These days our Christmas dinner tradition is not turkey or ham or roast beef. It's porketta. And I may go a whole year without eating a pork chop, roast pork or slice of ham, but when December rolls around I start imaging the scent of toasting fennel seed and garlic wafting through the air, and the yummy caramelized goodness of oven roasted vegetables. Sue usually orders her's prepared from a small family-owned Italian shop, but I always wanted to try to make my own.

And finally, I did....

First, you'll need to make the seasoning rub - grab some fennel seed, along with some onion powder, garlic powder, black pepper, Italian seasoning, crushed red pepper flakes, and dried rosemary. You might as well wrestle up some fresh garlic and rosemary, too!

Then, dust of that cool looking thing you bought for five bucks, hoping for the opportunity to some day say "Poppies....poppies will put them to sleeeeeep!"

They tell me it's called a mortar and pestle.

Or if you have better restraint than I do and don't own one, you can grind the rub ingredients in a coffee grinder or just stick 'em in a heavy duty plastic bag and smash them with a meat mallet.

But I got no movie quotes to go with that, so I dusted off the mortar and pestle.

There are no real measurements. I was making this for my parents, so I actually went a little light. If you like a little more heat and spice, doubling everything would work well, and would probably be a better representation of the porketta we enjoy every Christmas...it's pretty spicy around the edges!

So, start out with a heaping tablespoon of fennel seeds.

Add to that, 1 tsp. onion powder, 1 tsp. garlic powder, 2 tsp. freshly ground black pepper, 1 tsp. Italian seasoning (or mix of oregano, basil, thyme & marjoram), a couple shakes of crushed red pepper flakes, 1/2 tsp dried rosemary, 1 tsp. kosher salt and about 4 or 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and sliced.

The moisture from the garlic and the texture of the salt crystals will help blend everything together into a somewhat dry paste as you mash and grind everything together (and cackle about poppies).

Set that aside and prepare your meat. You'll want a 3 1/2 to 4 lb. boneless pork butt...

heheheh...you said butt!

Yeah, well, it's actually part of the shoulder, dude. You might find it labeled "Boston butt" or something. If you can't find it, a pork loin roast will do nicely.

This is my butt...oh shut up!

You can trim some of the fat away, or not. I chose not.

Then make an incision along the side of the roast so you can kind of open it up like a book.

Drizzle on a good tablespoon or so of oil, and rub that all over the meat. You might notice below that I made a few small cuts into the meat and inserted whole cloves of garlic. I highly recommend it!

Then take about a third or so of the mashed up rub blend and spread it evenly on the two open "pages" of your pork book.

Close the flaps and repeat with another tablespoon of oil and the remaining rub on the outside. If you want, you can use some kitchen twine to tie up the roast, but it's really not necessary.

Plop that hunk of meat into a nice big roasting pan, one that leaves enough room for these...

...and these....

Scrub the potatoes and cut them into big chunks - not too little or else they'll cook to death before the porketta is even done. These were kind of large, so I cut most of them into eighth's, the smallish ones into quarters.

Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper and toss into the roasting pan.

Peel and slice up those carrots, again into kind of thick slices. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper and add them to the pan.

If you think you haven't seasoned enough, or heaven forbid haven't used ENOUGH OLIVE OIL, feel free to add a little more. I chose to just sprinkle a little dried thyme over the whole shebang.

I also added in a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Roast in a preheated oven at 325 degrees F for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until a meat thermometer inserted into a thick area of pork reads 160 to 165 degrees. You'll want to stir around those veggies a few times so they brown evenly and don't burn.

And here it is.....

Let the meat sit for 10 or 15 minutes before slicing and serving. I give you permission to pick on a few of those yummy vegetables while you wait!

Oh my...and it's not even Christmas!

I do think of Thelma when I dig into this meal. I imagine she's 37 years old, weighs 3,000 pounds and is lounging in the sun on that farm she went to live on all those years ago.

*************************************

Italian Porketta Roast

The Meat:

1 boneless 3 1/2 to 4 lb pork butt roast (or loin)

The Rub:

1 1/2 Tbsp. fennel seeds

1 tsp onion powder

1 tsp. garlic powder

2 tsp. black pepper

1 tsp. Italian seasoning

1/4 tsp crushed red pepper flakes

1/2 tsp. dried rosemary

1 tsp kosher salt

4 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced

The Rest:

4 or 6 additional cloves of garlic, peeled

About 3 tbsp olive oil

3 lbs. potatoes

5 or 6 big carrots

Salt & Pepper

1 tsp dried thyme

2 sprigs fresh rosemary.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

Mash together rub ingredients until paste-like.

Cut slit in meat so you can open it up like a book. Make a few incisions in the meat and insert whole cloves of garlic. Drizzle with about 1 Tbsp. olive oil and rub into meat. Slather with about 1/3 of the rub mixture. Close flap, and if desired, tie roast with kitchen twine. Drizzle another tbsp. of oil on the outside of the roast and rub in; coat the outside with the remaining rub mixture and place in a large roasting pan.

Scrub and cut potatoes into large chunks. Peel and cut carrots into thick sticks. Drizzle with olive oil and season to taste with salt and pepper. Place around the roast in the pan. Adjust seasonings if desired, and sprinkle with 1 tsp, dried thyme. Add a couple sprigs of fresh rosemary.

Bake, stirring vegetables occasionally, for 1 1/2 to 2 hours or until meat thermometer reads 160 to 165 degrees F. Let sit for 10 to 15 minutes before slicing and serving.

Blogging Therapy and A Revelation

I'm not sure exactly what my intention was when I started blogging... I think I just wanted to be a part of it, as at the time several of my Allrecipes buddies either had blogs or were delving into this unchartered territory along with me when I first took my plunge. Somewhere in the back of my mind I had visions of being the next Pioneer Woman, as if somehow writing about my day-to-day existence and sharing a few recipes would catapult me to international stardom. But in real life, I just wanted to write about random thoughts and experiences, just to get it out. I've always found writing to be very therapeutic for me, regardless of who may or may not read it. Once in a while you write something and it teaches you something about yourself that really changes some aspect of your life.

And that is what happened to me a couple posts ago.

After months of warily eyeing the intimidating machine on my desk called "the scanner", I finally decided to put it to use. And much like I do in my cooking, I winged it, because I was too impatient to wait for my husband to get home and explain the goings on and I hate reading manuals. And like many other things, the scanner turned out to be a all bark, no bite and a surprisingly user-friendly piece of equipment. It is my new best friend!

So, if you look back at recent posts you'll see a bit of my family history. Posting those photos of my Dad's family has inspired me to delve back into genealogy, a hobby I've really only tinkered with until now. I know that one of my ancestors, Samuel Woods, came to Massachusetts in 1620. That's the year the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock! Of course, you know me, day late and a dollar short....I am as much a Mayflower descendent as I am an extra in Motley Crue's "Kick Start My Heart" video. Samuel must have missed the first boat and showed up on the next one, and centuries later, I stood on my hotel balcony wondering what all those floodlights swirling around from the vicinity of the Whiskey-A-Go-Go were all about, opting to order a big platter of nachos and watch "The Bear" on HBO instead of mosying down the strip into MTV stardom.

But I'm not bitter. Samuel actually did some pretty cool stuff himself, and his grandson was a Revolutionary War hero. Hey, we are who we are.

Then came Mom's family, and the sad story of her childhood, how the kids were split up and how they reunited. All that stuff I knew about before I told you about Ma & Pa, aka Zelica and Arthur, my grandparents on my mother's side. But now I wanted to share with you something I did not know until I finished writing that post.

You see, Pa was the only grandparent I ever met, but he was not the kind of grandfather you went to visit often, or who showered you with gifts and attention. By the time I came around, Pa had a tough time keeping his own ten kids straight, never mind his many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I have memories of him, memories I am proud of, because I would tell my friends at school on Monday that I had attended my grandfather's 80th birthday party the day before...just so I could brag about having a grandfather. But I never really knew him. Over the years, we sort of interpreted Pa based upon the stories our parents told about him, and my only personal impression of him was of the old man, sitting in the corner smiling, and occasionally mumbling something in French to one of the few people who understood the language. I can't say I knew him well, if I knew him at all.

When my grandmother, Zelica, died, leaving behind Pa and ten children, mom and my aunts always said "Pa couldn't take care of ten kids. He was an alcoholic, he was poor and they took us all away from him. He was not fit to raise us." One Christmas, my Aunt Loretta, who lived near Pa and his second wife, was all up in arms because Pa had knocked on her door and run away after leaving a Christmas gift on her doorstep - a carton of cigarettes and a bottle of Scotch. I remember her ranting, "What kind of father does that? And he signed the card 'Love, Arthur!'???"

His alcoholism was never a secret. In his retirement he would walk a mile or so through his neighborhood to the local bar, have a few drinks, and pick up a loaf of bread on the way home so he could feed the pigeons that congregated in his back yard. I would see him as we drove to my aunt's house, either walking along the road or feeding the pigeons in his yard. After his death, I discovered that after Ma died, Pa was actually committed to an asylum, because that's how they "treated" alcoholism in those days. My mother, aunts and uncles never spoke ill of him - they maintained a certain amount of familial respect towards him, but I always got the feeling that a part of them blamed him for the loss of their mother, and subsequently the childhoods they found themselves trying to forget.

I never harbored any animosity towards my grandfather for who he was. I was just happy I actually had a living, breathing grandparent. My mother had such a horrible upbringing in her foster home that I do believe part of her blamed him for the course her life took. Again, "He was an alcoholic, so of course the state wouldn't let him keep us". When he entered the nursing home at the age of 86, she rarely visited. When his second wife passed away eight years later, we attended her funeral - by all accounts she was a lovely, wonderful lady - then tagged along to visit him. At that point he was semi-catatonic. He was blind, deaf, and did not speak. They recommended you call before you visited, so they could dress him and prop him up in a chair for you. That's how he was on that day, and it saddened me to think his life had come to this. A tall, thin, frail old man, sitting in a chair, grasping the attached tray for dear life so hard that his arms trembled. You knew he felt as if he was going to fall, even though he did not communicate in any way, shape or form. The nurse told us he could not hear any more, but you could touch his hand and he may or may not realize you were there - she wasn't really sure.

Pa shared his room with a young man who was dying of brain cancer. He was about 40 years old, but had a stack of coloring books and 1st grade level story books that he gazed at in awe. He was very friendly, and seemed to enjoy the company although his speech slurred occasionally, and after the nurse exited, he excitedly told us that yes, Arthur does speak! But only when he's sleeping, and he only speaks French. He said "I think he can hear you, but you need to yell into his left ear as that one seems better."

My Uncle Paul and Aunt Rose visited him faithfully every single week. That day, Paul leaned over and said "Hi Daddy!" and received his usual no response. Aunt Rose spoke to him, too. She said, "Pa! Someone else is here to visit...it's Blanche and her daughter, Christine!" Of course Pa did not respond. He couldn't see, hear or speak. And at this point, no one was sure that he would be able to comprehend anything anyway.

My mother approached, and leaning over toward his left ear, said loudly, "Hi Pa! Its me, Blanche! Your daughter...BLANCHE!"

And the strangest thing happened. Pa took a deep breath. His arms and legs shook, as if he felt like he was going to fall. He clenched the edge of the tray for dear life. And he smiled.

Of the few memories I personally have of my grandfather, that is my favorite. Somewhere inside, my grandfather was still there, and at that precise moment a weight was lifted off my mother's shoulders when she realized she had a father, and the sound of her voice made him happy. It is because of that moment that I let go of any disappointment I might have felt towards my grandfather for not being there for his kids, for not fighting to keep them. Whatever decisions he had made in 1935, he had paid for his entire life. And now, here he was, three months away from taking his final breath, and there was simply no reason to hold any kind of grudge. I had a grandfather whose children were taken away from him because he was an alcoholic. I accept that. That's just how it was, and there's nothing to forgive.

Only now, after reading through my aunt's scrapbook, scanning in some photos and putting my thoughts into words, I've changed my mind. I realize I was wrong - we ALL were wrong - in our assessment of Pa. He did not lose his children because he was an alcoholic. He was an alcoholic because he had lost his children. He failed them. He let them go, releasing his paternal rights in the hopes they would all be adopted into better homes, and he regretted it the rest of his life. He drank to forget, he remarried to have someone to talk to because he was afraid of his children rejecting him. He did not pretend to be a father, because he felt he had been an unworthy one. That is why he kept his distance. That is why he chose to speak in French, even though he knew English. That is why he signed his Christmas cards "Love, Arthur".

And so, Pa, Grandpa, Arthur....I do not forgive you because there is nothing to forgive. But I hope you can forgive us for the way we thought of you all those years. Some of your children are with you now, probably laughing with you over the big misunderstanding that life can sometimes be, and I just wanted to let you know that I can laugh with you now, too. I am sorry none of us had the insight to realize the loss, the humiliation and the pain you endured over the years, and that our perception of you was clouded by our own insecurities. But this crazy world of blogging, which you know absolutely nothing about, has shown its worth to me by letting me learn to know who you were and who you are.

Our Life In Pets - Sabrina & Seiko

My husband, Steve, and I have always loved animals.

When we met, he had a dog, Seiko

and I had a cat, Sabrina.

For our second date, Steve took me home to meet his dog. Upon receiving Seiko's approval, we then took a ride over to Steve's parents' house a few miles up the road where I met my future in-laws. Yes, after I met the dog! A year later, Seiko was just as much my dog as he was Steve's (don't tell Steve that!) and as we were about to merge our households together by introducing Sabrina to Seiko, Steve seemed a little apprehensive.

"I just don't see what people see in cats," he would say. He didn't hate them, but just didn't see the attraction.

"I'm just afraid I'm not going to like ....what's her name? Oh yeah, Sabrina. I mean, what do cats DO?"

I, on the other hand, was more nervous about Seiko's reaction. On walks, he would try to charge after anything "cat-sized" that would scamper away - squirrels, rabbits, and actual cats. Weighing in at 160 pounds, with a thick fur coat that visually added another 30 pounds to his appearance, Seiko looked like anything but the gentle giant he was...at least when he saw a squirrel. Or a cat. I was even beginning to wonder if Sabrina should stay at my parents' house. After all, she had never even seen an actual dog before, never mind a 160-pound one that was sure to chase her.

Sabrina's story was kind of interesting. This is how she came to be mine:

We had has a white cat living on our porch for several years. She had been a stray, and we soon found out she was deaf. We tried bringing her in the house, particularly during cold weather, but she didn't like it. I think her deafness made her other senses hyperactive, and she would constantly flinch or skulk away if she felt the vibration of someone walking around on the other side of the house. So, since she seemed to prefer the porch, and to make it more comfortable for her, my Dad built her a little house, insulated, and we bought her a cozy, fleece bed to put in it. She lived there for about six years.

One day she disappeared. She had been looking pretty old, so I kind of figured she had wandered off to die. But just to be sure, I placed an ad in the local paper for a missing cat, pure white with a purple flea collar. Old and deaf. Surprisingly, I got a call.

"I think I have your cat!"

I was kind of excited, to be honest, even though part of of me had already accepted that she was gone.

"She's all white, has a purple color and a little gray spot on her head. She's a very playful kitten"

I thanked the girl on the other end of the phone, but assured her that could not be my cat. Whitey was all white, old, and not in the least bit playful.

The next day, I received a second call.

"Have you found your cat yet?"

I had not.

"Well, I'm at the XtraMart (gas station next town over from where I lived) and we just found a white cat. Kind of old. With, um, looks like some dirt on her head or something. She's very hungry."

The thought of a stray cat tugged at my heartstrings, but at this point in my life I was actually seriously considering a move to New York City. I did not know if a pet would be part of that scenario. The ad in the newspaper was done more to honor Whitey. She had been a faithful friend, waiting up for me whenever I went out, accompanying my Dad on his daily walks around the "estate", inspecting the various flowerbeds we had planted.

"Thank you," I responded, "But I'm pretty sure my cat is gone." No way could she have made the 4-plus mile journey on her own. Too many cars, coyotes and Lord knows what else between here and there.

After I hung up, something nagged at me. I couldn't quite put my finger on it until the next night when the phone rang.

"I'm really sorry!" she said. "But...well...I know this is not your cat, and I don't expect you to be able to replace your missing cat but...."

It was the same girl that had called the day before...and the day before that.

She was moving, and could not bring their new kitten with them. At first the new landlord and mentioned that a cat would be ok, but he later changed his mind. Their three year-old daughter was devastated. To make matters worse, the kitten had a cold or something, and if she brought it back to the shelter it would surely be put to sleep. That's why she had been desperate enough to lie to me, hoping that if I laid eyes on this kitten I would not be able to turn her away.

Funny how when you think your life is going to head in a certain direction, something as simple as a sick kitten in need of a home can cause it to change course. As I said, I was about a week away from making a serious decision that would have changed my life...had I ever actually made that decision. I had a place to stay on Staten Island until I could find my own place, I had a love interest, although not serious - just in the flirtation phase, and I even had two people that swore they could get me a job. I told her I would think about it and call her back, and asked when was she moving.

"Tomorrow." she replied.

Well, okay then.

I never got to meet Sue. The following day was spent moving and by that evening she had to get their three year-old daughter settled in their new apartment, so her husband picked up the last thing at the old place, a kitten named Sabrina, and drove her to my house.

It's been years since that night, but I think of this family fondly very often. You just know when you cross paths with "good people". The car lumbered up my winding street, leaking transmission fluid and sputtering to a stop. It looked as though bubblegum and duct tape was holding it together. A very young man, no more than 22, knocked on the door. Before he brought the kitten to my house, he said his wife was so grateful I decided to take Sabrina that she wanted me to have these things - a brand new litter box, bag of kitty litter, dishes, box of kitten chow, toys, and last but not least, $20. The thought never crossed my mind to take the money, but he held his hands up, refusing to take it back, even though I knew they needed it.

And then came Sabrina. Actually, I went to get her. She refused to come out from underneath the front seat of the car, but I finally pried her loose, trembling and mewing away. In the light of my kitchen, I noticed her eyes were goopy and runny, and I could hear a slight wheezing as she breathed. What was even more painful was the uncomfortable guilt I felt radiating from this young man, trying to do the right thing. In one of my proudest moments, I tried to insist he take the $20 back. I even lied, saying I had a credit balance at the animal hospital (What? You should have just said your uncle was a vet or something...) But no, he was under strict orders. He said, sheepishly, "We know you're probably going to have a higher vet bill than you were expecting".

And so it came to be that I owned a cat named Sabrina. We got her respiratory infection cleared up in a jiffy, but for the majority of her thirteen years she had a chronic runny-eye problem. The consensus was, after trying ointments and antibiotics and examining her eyes for injury, that, well, she was a white cat. All cats' tears are brownish-tinged anyway, so they just show up better on white cats. Plus, she had no pigment in her skin (the rims of her eyes were pink, not black or brown) so she would be more sensitive to dust and things. Whatever it was, it didn't hold her back. She was playful and cuddly, around me, although terrified whenever anyone came over.

Which is why I was nervous about her introduction to Seiko, but we figured it was inevitable. I felt really bad at first, because she was TERRIFIED of him. She literally hid underneath a nightstand for two days, creeping out only when Seiko was outside, dashing back undercover if she so much as heard him bark.

Seiko, on the other hand, was curious. Thankfully he showed no aggression towards her, but to Sabrina his relentless curiousity was the same as if he was chasing her. Finally, one night I decided it was time to intervene. I grabbed Sabrina and brought her into the living room, holding her protectively yet firmly while Seiko approached. The massive dog poked and jabbed at her with his muzzle, tail wagging, ears perked up. Sabrina just shrunk away.

"Oh, Sabrina! Come on! Stand up to him!" I said, and I grabbed her paw and tapped Seiko's nose with it. Amazingly, she got the hint! And repeated the motion. Of course it did not hurt Seiko at all, but he backed off with the poking and prodding. And little by little, Sabrina came out of her shell.

She never ran from Seiko again, and in fact would commandeer his water dish when she was thirsty. He would step back and wait his turn.

She eventually lost her fear of people, too. We found that out one day when a contractor was in our kitchen, writing up a proposal for us. As he leaned over the kitchen counter, filling out his form, Sabrina hopped up, strolled across the counter onto his pad of paper, and head-butted him. I never saw fear in her again.

Guess she figured since she had defeated a giant drooling colossus of a dog, she must be invincible.

Old Family Photographs - Mom's Family

One of my pie-in-the-sky dreams is to write a book, preferably some sort of historical fiction type of work.


That fantasy usually seems so out of reach for me - what would I write about? What would I say? How do I get it to be interesting, without stealing some other author's ideas? And the big one...when would I have the time to do this, to research it properly? Well, I know in my heart of hearts, there is always time to do something you want to do. Frankly, if I had started this book twenty odd years ago when the idea first struck, I probably would have it done by now. And the idea came in a Creative Writing class I was taking, when my instructor, Bill Meeks, said this: "Write about what you know."

And the most interesting thing I know about is definitely my mom's family.

Unlike my father's side, which was always a little bit of an enigma to me since I had never met my grandparents and didn't really know my aunts, uncles and cousins too well, I virtually grew up surrounded by my mother's family - her nine siblings, in-laws and their children. Even as some of them moved away, or in some cases moved frequently, letters and phone calls always kept the family posted on the goings on in places like Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Washington and even Australia. Nearly every Sunday we gathered at Uncle Paul's house, where seven of my cousins (six boys and one girl) lived, and my second home was at Aunt Rose and Uncle Jim's house where my cousin Maureen and I grew up more like sisters than cousins.


(Note: My second idea for a novel is one tentatively titled "Between Sisters and Cousins", by the way...)


Anyway! The point is, on my mother's side of the family, I knew who I was and where we came from, long before I knew anything about my Dad's ancestry. I didn't even know what ethnic background I was, paternally, but I knew my mother was 100% French-Canadian, and that my grandfather's family had immigrated to Canada from France through Louisborg in New Brunswick. We even visited Fort Louisborg once on a family vacation. At one point, my Aunt Peg (not her real name, although we all call her that...there's a lot of that in my family! Read my comment on Tattoo's and Teething Rings post about names!) really researched the family tree and I was hooked on genealogy. Not only did I have those facts, but I had interaction regularly with people who knew my grandparents, and I even met my maternal grandfather on several occasions. We had a handful of pictures, and lots of first and second-hand memories from the ten children born to my grandparents, Arthur and Zelica.


Oh, and I had a grandmother with a very unique, exotic name, too!

Like many French-Canadian families, everyone refers to my grandparents as "Ma and Pa". This is Ma and Pa's wedding photo, which was one of the few photos we had of them.




They were married on October 30, 1922. This photo always fascinated me because it was one of maybe four photos I had of my grandmother, Zelica. Later, when Aunt Peg put together her scrapbooks for us, she was able to locate more photos of our relatives, including some from their wedding day...



From Left to right, Ma's sister, Mary; Pa's brother, Fleuriand; Pa and Ma, Ma's father, Patrique, and Ma's sister, Exilda. (Again with the names!)


Here's one of the boys...the third from the left, top row is my great-great-great grandfather.



Pretty cool to have a photo of your great-great-great grandfather, even if you don't know his name. I do know, from Aunt Peg's notes, that it is either Fabien or Dominic.


Here's the whole extended family.



It looked like such a happy day, and there definitely were happy times ahead. But it would be relatively short-lived.

Married in 1922, her first child was born in February of 1924, her tenth in February 1934. Then, early one morning, around 2:00 AM on November 26, 1935, my grandmother Zelica woke up, got out of bed, not feeling well (she had pneumonia at the time) and went to the kitchen to get a drink of water. My grandfather heard a crash and rushed in to see what had happened, and found his wife dead on the floor. I've heard it said that she was six months pregnant with her eleventh child. Even though only twelve years had passed, if you put her wedding photo next to the other one we had with her shortly before her death, you wouldn't have thought they were the same person. The resemblance was certainly there, but you'd think it was a woman and her grandmother.



My grandfather could not physically, mentally or financially care for the ten children, so they became wards of the state and while some went to live with relatives, others went into the foster care system.

My Aunt Peg wrote the following in the scrapbook she put together for each of her brothers and sisters:

"With the depression things were very hard and Pa just couldn't cope with both it and raising a family. All of us became wards of the state of Massachusetts. We were separated and, some in pairs, some singly, were placed with other families. Each of us has our own memories of these times. Prior to this, a neighbor came and took a family picture.



We all then went our separate ways. In order to give a chance at a good life, Pa authorized us to be adopted but only Loretta was in fact adopted. As time went on, our relatives started to take us out of foster homes.

In 1946 the family was reunited and a second family picture was taken. The order is the same as the earlier one.


From left to right, starting with the top row: Paul, Francis, Rose, Loretta, Cecile, Florence, Germaine, Simone (aka Peg), Blanche (my mom) and Ferdinand.


One of the first things we did when we reassembled was to have a monument made for Ma's grave. It was such a shock to find that she only had a number.

Coming from such a large loving family, it was hard to understand why no one had thought of this before."


I think it was a good idea for her to say "each of us has our own memories of those times" and leave it at that. It's true, those ten children all grew up in very different circumstances. My mother, for instance, was raised by an Irish foster family in Dorchester, a section of Boston that at the time was predominately Irish. Irish and French people didn't get along that well, so basically she was there as a servant and a source of a little extra income from the State. My mother is not one to exaggerate - in fact, she usually downplays events that touch her life - and I remember that she said "the family dog was fed better than I was". If they had pork chops for dinner, the family's biological daughter, Mary, would eat the meat, the give the bone and the gristle to my mother. They gave Mary the cream, and gave the rest to my mother (which years later would make mom laugh, saying "I was getting the healthier milk! Mary got all that fat! I bet she has cholesterol problems!")

But my mother was lucky, for a foster kid growing up during the depression. After the death of her mother, she had very few good memories of her childhood but at least there was no physical abuse. Her foster mother (and her daughter) treated her like the second-class citizen they perceived her to be. But between the near starvation, the long nights sleeping on the cot in the basement next to the furnace (at least it was warm, for when she was about eight years old, it was her job to stoke more coal in the furnace when necessary) and the constant reminder that her ethnic background was anything but desirable, she remembers with fondness the nuns at the hospital she passed on her way home from school - they would be waiting for her as she passed, telling her she was too skinny and giving her some oranges or apples to eat. She remembers the occasional visits with her sister, Germaine, who was with another foster family. And she remembers when, at the age of fifteen, she found she was going to live with her Aunt Rose and be reunited with the rest of her family.


I'm sure they all had similar stories. I've heard bits and pieces, but like Bill Meeks told me, "Write about what you know". So I'll leave it at that.


Perhaps it is because of their history, and because of the tragedy that touched them when they were children, that they grew up into the people they became. I can tell you that on my mother's side I have about 30 cousins, and every single one of them is kind, funny, loving, honest, hard-working, compassionate and in various ways, successful, whether measured by material things or their own wonderful families. The next generation will prove to be even happier, I think, because we all put our families first. I've heard my mother and my Aunt Rose both say "How on earth did we ever learn to be parents?" The younger ones have only scattered memories of their mother, Zelica, and all were raised in less than ideal conditions, to put it mildly. Yet each and every one grew up to be wonderful parents. It's as if someone decided that since they were denied worthy childhoods themselves, that they deserved to be better-than-average parents, knowing their children will never know the sadness that they knew as children.

I think it was in 1989, we had a family reunion. Nine of them came (Freddie was later Photoshopped into the picture!) At one point, I drove a few of them up to the city they were from and saw the house that they had all been born in. They knocked on the door to ask permission to have a photograph taken in front of their old home, and to our surprise and excitement, we were all invited in to take a look around. I remember my mother commenting on the kitchen - with the exception of updated appliances and new linoleum and paint, it looked the same as it did in 1935. That sent chills up my spine, as I looked at the floor wondering where exactly Zelica had fallen. As we walked out, I felt as if some sort of closure had descended on the group. There were no tears, just calm and peace as we left to meet other family members for dinner.

It was a blessing to get them all together, from the somewhat reclusive sibling to the one who had spent the past 25 years in Australia. They talked, they laughed, they sang, and they bragged about their children and grandchildren, many of whom were also in attendance at some point during the multi-week event. I just sat back and soaked it all in, watching my mother in her glory, absorbing stories from all directions and all points of view.

And reminding myself every moment how lucky I am to have been born into such an amazing family. And how much I love them all.

Old Family Photographs...Dad's Family

I have always loved the look of old, black and white photos. They bring to life one's history, one's ancestry, and make you think of days gone by. They make you want to learn more about he people in them.

See this picture?

Well, until several years ago, I never knew it existed, but it is a family portrait of my Dad, his parents and three sisters. It was taken in 1929.

Dad is the little boy in the lower right (I had to say that, because some people mistake this shot of my Aunt Dottie as a little boy! Oddly enough, she was quite a beautiful girl her whole life.) Anyway, the girl in the upper right is my dear Aunt Lorraine. She was well-loved by everyone, including me, and was sort of the family historian, keeping all the old family photos, letters, papers and trinkets safely tucked away.

Sadly, Lorraine was diagnosed with lung cancer in the late 1970's, and passed away in the summer of 1981. I "met" my cousin, Shirley, at her funeral. I'm sure I had met her before, but this was the first time I remember meeting her, and I was quite taken with her. She was very sweet, kind and pretty, and she also provided me with something I had not had before and that was a new perspective into my ancestry. You see, Shirley and I shared the same grandparents, but she had been blessed to have actually known them, while I only had a faded photo or two of my grandfather, George. There were none of my grandmother. I'm sure Lorraine had some, but for some reason, when she was alive, we never sat around and went through those old boxes. I think she was more interested in talking about what we kids were doing now, as opposed to what things were like back in the day.

A year after Lorraine's funeral, we went to a family gathering at another cousin's house. While I very often got to see my mom's side of the family, we only saw Dad's family once in a while because they all lived just a little too far away, and were kind of scattered about. There, by the pool, as everyone told stories and got caught up on the goings on in each other's lives, a bit of family drama erupted. Someone brought up Lorraine's husband's name and Aunt Dottie reacted as if she had been bitten by a snake.

"I hope he rots in hell!!!"

Wow. This shocked me, because Dottie was sweet and fun, "young" for an aunt. I had never heard her speak this way about anyone! But come to find out, the problem was this: After several months, Lorraine's husband met someone. They eventually married, but that was years later. No one really minded about that, for he had been loyal and faithful to Lorraine until the very end, and devastated by her loss. The kicker was, when this new lady came into his life, he decided he no longer wanted the boxes that Lorraine had accumulated over the years, and instead of calling one of her sisters, he simply hauled them to the dump.

"All those photographs, gone!" Dottie cried. "Either burned or rotting in the bottom of the town dump! I'll never see my mother's face again"

With that, I kind of shared her anger towards the uncle I had once loved. I realized that now I would probably never see what my grandmother looked like. Lorraine was the only one who ever thought to collect those old photos.

But thanks to my great aunt Myrtle, I was wrong!

Meet my Grandma, Ruth....

There's not much I know about her personally. Through dabbling in genealogy, I know a lot of names of her relatives and ancestors and where they lived and where they are buried. I know she made hot cross buns at Easter, named my father after her favorite actor (who shared the same name as a brother of hers who died as a child), that she loved to have her family around her, loved to cook (well, duh!) loved baseball and the Red Sox, suffered the loss of one baby, but raised four others, and she collected things. LOTS of thing! When my mother met my father, the family still lived at the old homestead, a giant saltbox on acres of land where they had apple orchards and raised chickens. And every spare inch of shelving and windowsill was adorned with knick knacks.

One day, out of the blue, a letter arrived from my Dad's Aunt Myrtle. Again, I know I have met her, but I really don't remember her. Anyway, she was probably in her late 80's at the time, but spry as a spring chicken nonetheless. The letter had me rolling on the floor - she asked how we were, wondered if we could get together for a visit as she was cooped up and bored, then went on to say "I don't know why people are so afraid of people with AIDS, but if I was still young enough to fool around with strangers, you better believe I'd get myself some condoms!"

Love, Myrtle

I was so disappointed that I could not go (and believe me, I was SOOOOO curious about this out-of-the-blue, eccentric relative!), but my parents surely did pay her a visit. Oh, the stories they told. This woman was QUITE a character!!! But the best part of all was what she sent them home with - a cigar box, filled with old photographs, including the family portrait, the above photo of my grandmother as well as another of Grandmother Ruth...

Best of all, on the back of this photo was, in Myrtle's handwriting, "this is the one I want to have done. You know just the head. It's not very recent but its the best one I can find. She hated to have her picture taken."

Ah! I learned something else about my grandmother! Every little bit is precious.

Here's another portrait done a few years later of the two older girls, Bev and Lorraine...

"To Gram, with Love"

And here's "Gram", my grandfather's mother, Delia on the left...

...my Dad in the middle, and his other grandfather (Ruth's father, Grant) on the right.

This one is Dad and his parents, taken the same day as the one above...

"She was so mad at me for goofing around! She could be so serious."

Grandma Ruth had reason to be somber. These photos were taken, I believe, the day before Dad shipped off to boot camp in 1943. He had enlisted on his 19th birthday and within a couple months would be in North Africa, and later India, China and Burma. I can only imagine what was going through this woman's mind, wondering if this would be the last time she saw her only son alive.

She probably didn't like the fact that my Dad was a born comedian, always smiling, always a twinkle in his eye.

I bet he got in trouble for wearing his hat tilted off to one side like that!

Well, we can't forget Grandpa George! He had also enlisted in the Army years earlier, but never made it out of Fort Devens in Massachusetts - World War I came to an end just as he finished basic training. I know he was proud of his son to choose to serve his country. But from what I hear about my grandfather, he was rough and gruff and prone to curse...a lot. For a while I was kind of glad I didn't get the chance to know him (or his temper), for fear he would *gulp* yell at me.

But then came this photo...

"Shirley and Gramp. Isn't she a darling? She is never much farther away from Grampa when he is home"

Yeah, he seems like a nice enough guy!

I don't know why, but I love this one...Grandfather George standing at the edge of a lake in New Hampshire near the family "camp"...

I always wonder what he was thinking at that moment. Let's read the inscription for some clues, shall we?

So either he was looking for deer and bear tracks, OR he was wondering where the heck Al was with the beer!

Here he is again.

And finally, the kids - Dottie, Dad, Bev and Lorraine, this one from the late 40's.

I love this one, too. They just seem so happy, like they're smiling not because someone is taking a picture, but because they want to smile. It captures the spirit of family, the era of post-war America, when life was getting back to normal and good times were ahead, and the Great Depression was just a shadow of a memory. I'm proud to own this picture and to have known these four people, even if I did miss out on meeting their parents.

And I wonder if my daughter, years down the road, will browse through boxes of photos from my childhood, and be just as proud of her mom as I am of my Dad.

Yeah.....maybe not!

I Had A Dream

They say your first memories - the ones you will remember all your life - are of events that occur when you are two or three years old.

I think for me, that was just about right - my very, very first memory is of being carried through the kitchen in our old house in Pepperell, a small town on the Massachusetts/New Hampshire border, where my father's family had lived for generations. Any time anyone mentioned "Pepperell", a vision of being carried through the kitchen by my mother, apparently on my way upstairs for a nap, entered my head. I remember her Revereware tea kettle steaming, as the coil on our electric range slowly began to fade from red to black again, then the memory ends. There was no drama, no burns from the stove or steaming kettle to cement that memory into my consciousness. In fact, that little snippet of memory was always comforting to me for some reason - a cold winter's day, my mother making her ubiquitous cup of tea, and me headed to my warm and cozy bed. Just a random vision that to this day I can see as clearly as if it happened yesterday.

If I think really hard, I can recall a few other visions from my life in Pepperell - a burning barn that we drove by on our way to Nashua for a shopping excursion - I was so worried about the horses, but my Mom assured me that they all got out safely. The brook in our back yard, or the picnic area where we would meet my Dad for lunch on those days when his truck route brought him to the outskirts of town. I even remember the big white horse that calmly grazed in the field next to the picnic area. And walking with my sister and her friends to the center of town, where the water from the river gushed past the old paper mill and under the bridge we stood on.

Funny how in later years, memories seemed to grow fuzzy, almost dreamlike, to the point where I seemed to remember the dreams I had more vividly than real events. I can't remember what I got for Christmas in 1972, but I do remember that vivid dream I had around that time about driving up to Uncle Paul's house in our old blue station wagon, and seeing a giant white dinosaur made of snow, in his driveway, my cousins, Paul, David, Donna, Peter, Michael, Bobby and Christopher all gathered around him as if he was a new pet they had gotten for Christmas.

So yesterday, when we awoke to a dusting of snow on the few inches we got last week, and a bit of fog in the air, that memory came back. It warms my heart to think of that vision I never let go of for some reason. My daughter an I were outside, waiting for my husband to come out so we could go get the newspapers and grab a coffee, when I realized this snow was perfectly sticky....

She threw a few snowballs then I suggested we build a snowman!

"Like Frosty???"

And that's what we kind of did....three balls of snow, a couple twigs from our cherry tree for arms, and as I headed into the house for a carrot and some rocks (from said daughter's *ahem* collection), Steve was on his way out the door.

Now I may have mentioned, my husband attended Massachusetts College of Art, and aside from designing buildings and 3-D models of spacecraft, is a very talented doodler and sketcher, and even a sculptor of sorts. No twig-armed, lumpy snowman was going to plop itself in our front yard! So he set about putting some finishing touches on our new friend...

Such as real arms.

Grace helped a bit, too!

Finally, we placed the carrot and rocks on his head, adorned him with a spare cap...

And voila'!

I must admit, he came out pretty good!

But ... just like the real Frosty, a night of warmer temperatures and some rain can take it's toll. This is what we woke up to this morning....

Oh well, like the song says, he'll be back again some day!

And hopefully some day that white dinosaur will make another appearance. You see, years later I was at a family reunion, and my Aunt Theresa and I were reminiscing about all those Sunday's at her house, when she said something that shocked me. In the midst of telling tales of our snow forts, and the skating rink in the back yard and snowmobile rides in the field next to their house, Aunt Theresa said:

"Oh, and the time those boys built a dinosaur made of snow! They had to stand on the van to build his head!"

How I wish I had a photograph of that beast! For years I had thought I dreamt him up, but in fact he was real! And with every snowfall that results in wet, sticky snow, I remember him again as if he was here just yesterday. Maybe some day he'll make an appearance in our yard...

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas, with wonderful memories to hold on to for years to come!