We by Ruth Long

Editor's note: This little booklet was among Ruth Gillooly's keepsakes. I found it a long time ago, and I made copies of it for each of Ruth's children. Peg, Kay, John, Nancy, and Mike all have a copy together with copies of the pictures Ruth included (that I will also try to reproduce here). As far as I can tell, this was a project assigned to Ruth her senior year at Elkins High School. I think it is fascinating. Little Grandma Ruth graduated from high school in 1928, and this booklet is her autobiography up to that point. She dedicates it to her sister, Jane Long Kerr. I have typed it here exactly as she has written it -- before computers, electric typewriters with correct-tape, or even eraseable bond paper. There is not a typo in it. That alone is amazing.


Being only seventeen years old and having spent the most of my life going to school, naturally I haven't much of a history. About the most important thing that ever happened to me was being born a twin. Nearly everything that happened to me has happened to us both, and so I think the best title for my autobiography would be "We".

Our father, John Allen Long, was descended from Scotch-English people migrated from the north of England. They (Alexander Long and his only brother) settled in Virginia. The one brother left no male descendants, the other brother Alexander married Emily Richardson. They moved from Virginia to the Middle West in a covered wagon. They settled at Davenport, Iowa, where my father, John Allen, was born. He was the second of nine children. After a few years there the family moved on to Kansas. It was about the time that Jesse James and his brothers were terrorizing the neighborhood in which they settled. While there they owned a ranch and were interested in cattle raising. After John Allen Long was born, the family moved back to Virginia. Here he, at the age of twenty five, married Vonnie Zeiler who was twenty. Vonnie Zeiler was next to the youngest of eleven children. Her parents were both of Dutch descent. During the Civil War her father fought with the Union Army for four years. Her mother took care of five children and ran a large farm. They lived near Winchester, Virginia, where a lot of fighting took place. Her mother, Jane Boor, was the daughter of Elizabeth Jolly, who owned a farm where the city of Baltimore now stands.

Our father and mother were married at Cumberland, Maryland, September 5, 1893. They lived in Virginia about eight years. From there they moved into Maryland (Kitzmiller, Garret County) where they have lived ever since. My brother John was born in 1897 while the family were living near Winchester. Fourteen years later, November 16, 1910, my twin brother Frank and I were born at Kitzmiller.

Twins were quite a novelty there, and from what people say I think everyone in town must have called to see the Long twins. We spent the first few years of our life having all the ailments and illnesses that infants can have. When it was thought we had had all that we could get, I had typhoid fever at the age of two. When six years of age I had my tonsils and adenoids removed and got my first glasses which I have been wearing ever since and I suppose I always will. Our mother died when we were four years old. After that every one seemed even more interested in us. But Dad did the thing which most fathers wouldn't do, for instead of sending us to an orphan's home or shipping us off to some relatives who wanted us, he kept us and was father and mother both to us, which he did remarkably well, I think. Of course, it wasn't the same as having a real mother, but it was the next best thing to it. I suppose Dad missed Mother as much as we did or more for there was no one to take her place for him as he did to us. A neighbor, a friend of the family, did more for all of us than we can ever repay. She seems more like a member of the family than just a friend, yet she did more than any of those could have done. I think everyone who knows her thinks she is the most wonderful woman in the world. It was she who did most to guide the family craft through the storms.

One thing that Dad doted on, was that I should learn to cook, and do all the things it takes to run a house. We had a housekeeper all the time, but that didn't exempt me. I had to learn just the same.

Most people say their early schooldays were their happiest, but they weren't for me. I think that the teachers had a great deal to do with my dislike of school. We had a few good teachers, but we also had a few who were flops as school teachers. I see that more now than before because my lack of training in English and spelling certainly have caused me a lot of difficulties.

Our house faced the Potomac River. It really seemed like having the river in one's front yard. The river there is rather swift and the banks are covered with big rocks with just occasionally a tiny sandy beach. In some places the river is stiller and deeper tha in others. These places we used to learn to swim and played in all our lives. I don't know when we really learned to swim. We just grew up along the river. Just above the town the river is wider and much deeper. This was our bathing beach after we had learned to swim well. There was no sand there, but the river was bordered on both sides with large flat rocks. The rocks were every bit as good as sand because they were almost always warm even at night. After a swim we would come out of the water on to the rock and in a little while were dry. These rocks afforded a fine place for a picnic and campfire at night for a swimming party.

The river always played a great part in our childhood. Anyone who has never played along a river does not know how many amusements a river can offer. We had play houses in the rocks; we build domes; we caught frogs and crawfishes. Sometimes we built towns of rock and pebbles stuck in the sand. We made uncountable numbers of mud pies. We roasted potatoes in little ovens built of stone. One incident I shall always remember was this. One afternoon we were playing on the rocks and I had on a new dress of which I was very proud. We decided to make ink of pokeberries; and of course, by the time we had finished, my new dress was ruined. I got a spanking, but I felt worse about my dress than the spanking.

Our usual gang was my twin brother and I and two other boys and their sisters. They were all about our age and we played together until we got too big to play anymore. Now we are all still chums. When we were about ten years old, we began to build shacks of driftwood along the river. In them we cooked everything imaginable from fish to candy. One time we made fudge, and when it was about ready to be poured into the pan to cool one of the boys decided that some lemon flavoring would make it good. So in spite of our protests he poured nearly a bottle full of lemon flavoring into the candy. Of course, the candy couldn't be eaten eveny by us, although we ate some rather awful messes cooked in our shack. We made ice cream quite often in the winter time with ice from the river and two tin pails, one fitted inside the other. The ingredients were whatever we could find when no one was looking. We had the best skating and skiing places imaginable on the river and on the slopes back of our house.

One of the boys' fathers was superintendent of a mine near town and in the summer we went to the mine often, where we rode on the motors and the coal cars and investigated everything that went on until we would finally be sent home with our clothes as dirty as possible.

My twin and I do not look alike. We were always inseparable though we got along rather scrappily when together, yet nothing was ever any fun being without each other.

When we were twelve years old and in the sixth grade at school, Dad told us if we both passed at the end of the term he would take us wherever we wanted to go for a vacation-trip. When school was out, we both passed and then we had to decide where we wanted to go. Such a time! We finally compromised on a trip to Washington. Before we had usually gone to Cumberland for our vacation trips. To think of going to Washington seemed wonderful to us. While we were there, Dad nearly wore us out seeing everything possible during our stay. And then we did not see nearly all we intended to.

The next vacation we spent in Elkins with our married sister, and next after that, a group of twelve girls and as many grown-ups rented a cottage near Springfield, West Virginia, where we spent a glorious vacation on a two weeks' camping trip. Most of the time was spent on the river boating, swimming, and fishing. The work of the camp was divided so that no girl had the same thing to do more than one day. The grown-ups took turns being cook, and they had the hardest work of all. The most trouble we had was trying to keep our clothes dry. After the first day or two we nearly all of us had all our clothes wet all the time from falling or jumping into the river. Most of us couldn't row a boat well enough to make it go where we wanted and we would have to jump out to pull the boat to shore.

Another camping trip was in Virginia. My twin was along this time and we spent most of the time fishing.

When we were thirteen we started to high school. This is when I really began to enjoy school. We had five teachers in the high school. There were about eighty students.

The fall of my freshman year I spent a week in a hunting camp. It was great fun tracking bears, but I am thankful to say we didn't find any.

During my freshman year our housekeeper left us, and I started to keep house and go to school too. It wasn't easy but my Dad and brother were very patient and helpful. Beginning my sophomore year I came to Elkins to live with my sister. Since then I have attended high school here, and I must say it is a great change from our little high school at home to one of six hundred students.

So far I have managed to fail only one subject, French Two, which I hated more because I had not been taught English Grammar in the grades.

During my sophomore and junior years I did not take an active part in any school affairs either athletic, dramatic or social, except to attend all of the athletic meets possible. This year I have been doing a little better, though I have no talent for acting, speaking or even singing. Very few people seem not to be able to sing at all but I seem to be one of them. I think I miss it most of all for I love music, though of course, I cannot appreciate it as I should. This year I have made more friends and had a better time than ever before.

As to what I shall do in the future, I am still trying to decide. I haven't any talents that I have yet discovered. I must decide what I shall do very soon because family finances will not permit me to go to high school another year or college.

I am hoping to have a good time during senior activities this spring and can only hope it will all end well.

My ambition in life is not to have a lot of money but enough to dress moderately well, to travel occasionally, and to be able to buy all the books I want and have time to read them.


So there you have it, our mother's memories of her life written when she was just seventeen. I have always thought this little booklet provided a lot of insight into our mother's character:

Mother said she did not remember her mother at all, although Uncle Frank used to claim that he remembered their mother a bit. Losing her mother at such a young age would have had profound effects on her. It is interesting that both Dad and Mom lost their mothers at a young age, Mom at age four, and Dad when he was thirteen.

Mom always prided herself on her swimming. I remember watching her swim when I was a kid. Her stroke was slow, but strong and graceful. No wonder -- after all those years on the Potomac River. It's a wonder that none of them drowned, but it was a different age, and children had much more freedom then.

I had forgotten the part about Mom's liking music so much and wanting so much to be able to sing. I guess that's why she took so much pleasure that Skip and I liked to sing and had some success with it.

Mom always seemed a bit shy socially, but with close friends she was much more forthcoming. It appears that, from the time she was small, she formed close relationships outside her family. The lady she refers to as the family friend who was so helpful was named Mrs. Pugh, and she lived close by. Mom told me she called her Mama Pugh. Her best friend in Elkins was named Hazel. She and Mom got jobs as telephone operators in Elkins, and Mom told me once that she and Hazel used to listen and knew all the gossip in town! Mom always had close female friends -- Nell McCarthy, Emma McDowel, Ann Schlueter, Betty Knight and Rosie Wilson are just some that I can think of right off hand.

Mom was a good one for keeping secrets. For example, none of us children knew her middle name until I was an early teenager. Mom and Aunt Lena (Uncle Frank's wife) took me and cousin Linda back to Kitzmiller for a visit. Aunt Lena let Mom's name slip when we were in the car. Her middle name was Cornize (a Dutch name -- I don't know its significance) and she hated it! It was also Uncle Frank and Aunt Lena who spilled the beans about "ole lady Abernathy," and the fact that Granddad Long married her then divorced her because she deserted him. Mom refers to her even in her biography as "our housekeeper."

All Mom wanted out of life was enough money to dress reasonably well, travel occasionally, and buy lots of books. She passed these aspirations on to most of the women in our family. She had limited success in these areas herself because she and Dad married during the height of the depression, they had six children, and work was often hard to come by when we were growing up; but I think she made a success of her life. She was a gracious hostess, a wonderful cook, a voracious reader, and a cherished friend. When we were children, she was not our friend but our mother, and Dad insisted on the utmost respect for her. But when we grew to be adults, she became a friend. She was warm and thoughtful and sensitive, and she loved a good story -- especially one with a laugh in it. After Dad died, she came out of her shyness a bit and began to speak her mind more often. As she moved toward her eighties, I like to think that she became more like the girl she was back by the river -- the one who swam, and skiied, and skated; the one who stole things from the house to cook up concoctions in the shack; the one who had pokeberry stains all over her dress. "Somebody check me for spots," she would say. I miss you, Mom.

Little Grandma's Orange Bread Pudding

When I was very young, I wasn't fond of this recipe. Later, as an adult, I tried it again, and I was delighted with its flavor. Moreover, there are not many bread pudding recipes out there with the orange flavor. It's really a very lovely dessert, an elegant dessert for a dinner party, and it's not hard to make.

3 cups of bread cubes (Grandma said with the crust cut off. I didn't bother, and I think it's just as good or better. The bread should not be a moist bread with a dense crumb like a challah, more the texture of a good sandwich bread. My best cookbooks say if you are going commercial, Peppridge Farm Hearty White Sandwich Bread is a good choice. The bread can be stale or fresh. Stale may absorb the liquids better, but I doubt Little Grandma had stale bread very often with all those mouths to feed!)
2 cups of scalded milk (I'm sure she meant whole milk. Grandma's recipes were written before the advent of such things as skim milk. You can try a variety with less milk fat, but it may change the dish somewhat.)
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup sugar
3 slightly beaten eggs
1/2 lemon, grated rind and juice
1/2 orange, grated rind and juice
1 orange, juice and pulp

Cut bread into cubes and place in a large bowl. Pour hot milk over cubes. Then add melted butter and sugar; cool slightly while you beat the eggs and prepare the juices and rind. Then add fruits and eggs to the bread/milk mixture. (Don't add eggs out of order or you'll cook the eggs before you get it in the oven). Bake in a greased casserole at 350 degrees for about an hour and fifteen minutes - until the top is golden. The middle of the casserole will be not quite firm.

Serve with this Sauce:

1/4 cup butter
1/2 light cream
1/2 sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla

Combine butter, cream, and sugar and heat thoroughly in a double boiler. Add vanilla and serve.

This dish is divine served warm, but it's also yummy cold. Store leftovers in fridge. Obviously this dish is not low fat -- something you'd serve often, but it's certainly a taste of the good old days.

From the In-Laws and the Out-Laws

Editor's note: My apologies to these contributors, Eileen, Kay, and Nancy. I should have gotten these things posted sooner than this. I can only plead old age. Happy St. Patrick's Day to you all.

The first email to arrive was from Eileen:

Although he died just a few years after I came into the family, I have such nice memories of Grandpa Pat. I wish my girls could have known him. He seemed pretty quiet but when he did have something to say it was memorable. Here are a couple of examples:

My first meeting with the family came a month after Mike and I got married. I'd already met Grandma and Grandpa, of course, and also John and Ruth Ann; but not the rest of the clan. Right after our wedding, Mike had to go back to Iceland to finish his deployment, but he came home on leave for a few days so that he could move me from Pittsburgh to Florida.

It just so happened that everyone was in East Palestine visiting - I am not sure what the occasion was- you know how it is with newlyweds - we had other things on our mind, and although we were both anxious to see everyone, we certainly wanted some time alone, and time was short! Someone got the idea that they would come out to the airport to pick up Mike and make us sleep in the back yard in the tent with the kids. Mary, bless her heart, lied through her teeth and said she didn't know when Mike's plane was coming in. Thankfully, I was the only one at the airport, and that night we had some "time alone." The next day we drove down to East Palestine and I was very graciously welcomed. Then the teasing began. By the time Grandpa Pat arrived home from work, things had died down a bit; but picked right up again when Grandpa quietly sat down next to me, took my wrist between his thumb and fingers and, looking at me with a twinkle in his eye said, "the girl's pulse is still racing."

A year or so later, he and Grandma Ruthie flew down to Jacksonville for a visit. We took them down to see all the tourist traps in St. Augustine. The first place was the Fountain of Youth where you get to have a sip. As we walked out of the place Pat said "Michael! Your mother is holding my hand. Go back in there and get a whole bottle of that stuff."

Editor's note: And that's just about as racy as Dad got. He and Mom were from a different era, and any direct mention of sex embarrassed them both. Romance, however, was a different matter, and Dad's gentle jokes were easy to miss if you weren't paying attention.

Dad had a quiet wit about him -- an Irish wit -- full of subtle irony about life's little occasions. For example, he was very proud of the cuckoo clock that Skip sent them from Germany while Skip was deployed over there in the 1950s. One night I remember sitting with him watching the cuckoo as he performed one of his longer, upon-the-hour recitations. After the little yellow wooden bird was finished, Dad looked over at me with a small smile in his eyes and said, "you notice how he always slams the door when he's done?" It's not a big, knee-slapping joke, but that's the kind of humor Dad had.

This next contribution is from our Kay:

Mike's Sarah asked about Grandma and Grandpa Gillooly. As a member of this family for 50 years, I feel qualified to tell a little bit.

Grandpa liked to tease, and he used to smoke cigars in my presence just because they made me nauseous when I was pregnant, (which seemed like all the time the first few years). He enjoyed being with family and around the grandchildren. One time when we were visiting, Skip and John finished his bottle of bourbon, and poured vinegar in the bottle. He never said anything about it, and finally Skip couldn't stand it any longer and asked about it. Grandpa said he knew if he waited long enough, he'd find out who it was.

Grandma was always helpful, but not interferring. When Chris was a baby, she hardly ever slept, and finally Grandma came and stayed overnight so Skip and I could get some sleep.

She was well known in East Palestine for her pie baking ability. Her peach pie was especially good. She made some really good cinnamon rolls too, as I'm sure most of you know. When my Dad died, she was visiting us in Arizona, and she stayed with Rick and Colleen so Skip and I could go to the funeral.

She liked her beer and cigarettes, and whe she used to kiss Colleen goodnight, she worried about her breath. When Colleen would come in her pajamas to say goodnight, Grandma would rub her hand across her mouth, take Colleen's face in her hands, get right up close to her face, and say "I Don't want you to smell the beer and cigarettes." We still laugh about that because both the beer and the cigarettes were very strong that late in the day and that close to her face.

She always loved to go out to lunch or dinner, and sometimes fought you for the check. One waitress found Grandma and my Aunt Rosie scrambling under the table fighting for the check. When Grandma went to dinner with us, she used to want dessert first, and Skip always told her she had to eat something else first. She didn't like that because then she was too full for dessert! Now that I am older, I know what she meant, and I wish we had been more sympathetic.

I hope this gives a little more insight as to what Grandma and Grandpa were like from the eyes of a daughter-in-law.

Editor's note: I hope Aunt Kay will write back and tell the story of how she and Grandma fooled us all when they came back from the hairdressers!

This next note is from Aunt Nancy, who responded to my request for the raisin-filled cookie recipe. She also added a two more of her favorites, one from Grandma Ruth and one from Nancy's mother-in-law, Swanee Olsen. She and Little Grandma used to love to sit and smoke together and settle the problems of the world.

Katie Did, (That's what Nancy calls me.)
Here are the recipes. I hope they go through.

Mom' s filled cookies

Filling:

1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon of flour
1/2 cup of water
1 cup of chopped raisins

Mix sugar and flour; then add other ingredients. Cook stirring constantly until thickened. You may substitute nuts, marmalade, figs or dates for the raisins. (I usually make a little extra filling as we like nicely filled cookies, not thin.) Set this mixture aside to cool while you mix the dough.

Dough:

1 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1 egg
1/2 cup sour milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp salt
3 and 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar


Mix sugar, shortening, egg, milk and vanilla together; mix flour, salt, baking soda, and cream of tartar together. Then combine both mixtures and add only enough flouf to roll out dough as you would a pie crust. (Handle dough as little as possible, jsut as you would a pie crust.) Using a two-inch circle such as a cookie cutter or a glass, cut out as many circles as you can. You can put the circles right next to each other, and you can re-use an extra dough that is left to roll out and cut more circles. Add filling to center of circle and cover with second circle. Lightly press around edges.

Since there were no baking instructions on mom's recipe, I
bake at 350 until very slightly brown. As for time, your quess is as good as mine, watch closely.

Any questions, contact Ruthie where ever she maybe, probably over at Mother Cabrini's showing her how to make cinnamon rolls. It's all in the kneading, you know.

Even though you say you don't like dates or is date candy here is mom's receipe to pass on to any who might like to try it. (Editor's note: Aunt Nancy loves this candy; I'm not fond of it. It is unique, and it keeps well. I think Grandma used to send it to Skip when he was overseas. You might want to give it a try.)

Ruthie's date candy

3 cups sugar
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb dates (chopped)
1 cup nuts (chopped)

Cook and stir sugar and milk until boiling, add chopped dates and cook until a small amount of the mixture forms a soft ball in cold water. Add butter and vanilla. Beat until stiff; then add nuts beat again. Roll in a damp cloth and leave until ready to serve. Roll in powdered sugar, slice, and serve. (By roll, I think she means roll into round strips about the size of a very thick cigar or very thick pretzel. All that beating takes a strong arm. No wonder mom only made this at Christmas.

Last but not least, one of my family's favorite desserts is from Grandma Olsen. So here it is for your collection:

Swanee's apple crisp

Peel and slice 8 to 10 cooking apples as for an apple pie. Place in 9 by 13 baking dish springle the top with the following mixture:

1-1/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1-1/2 cup sugar
1 unbeaten egg
cinnamon to taste
1/3 to 1/2 cup butter

Mix flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder with fork. Add unbeaten egg and mix with flour mixture until crumbly. Sprinkle over apples; then sprinkle desired amount of cinnamon over that. Drizzle on 1/3 to 1/2 cup melted butter (whichever amount you prefer). Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes until top is a nice golden brown, and of course this may be served with ice cream.

Any questions, ask Grandma Olsen. You won't find her at Mother Cabrini's but you may find her out on the patio with Grandma G having a smoke and talking about the good times.

I sure hope this goes through because I'm not sure I want to do this again.

Much love to all from Aunt Nancy

A Letter from the Youngest Grandchild

Greetings from Sarah G, Uncle Mike and Aunt Eileen's youngest.

I'm living in Kansas City with my partner Sarah (it was a popular name in the early 1980s) in our newly purchased 100-year-old home. I work as a Community Organizer for a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender rights organization- it's my total dream job!

I have always considered being "the baby" a privilege and a blessing. I'm the youngest of the five Uncle Mike & Aunt Eileen kids and the youngest of the twenty-two Gillooly cousins. I imagine my feet never touched the ground as a baby or toddler, as there were always aunties and sisters and cousins to hold me at those fabled Gillooly weddings! I grew up watching the adventures and misadventures of everyone who came before me, which gave me the time and passed-down-wisdom to plot my own course in life (though I claim no lack of my own misadventures). As mothers, fathers, aunties, and uncles get a little older and pass a child or two (or four) up through life, they get a little less strict, and the hijinxs of "the baby" are sometimes treated with a bit more permissiveness. I have an entire giant tribe who have known me my entire life; how fortunate this makes me feel!

Perhaps the only down-side to being the baby is that, by the time my memories begin, the older among us are, in fact, older; and since my memories begin in the mid-1980s, I have missed out on the many of the joys and sorrows we Gilloolys have seen as a family. In particular, Grandpa Gillooly died many years before I was born. My memories of Grandma Gillooly are only of an old woman. Don't get me wrong; I cherish the memories I do have of her: her refusal to eat anything but pumpkin pie and coffee for breakfast when she came to stay with us, the time my father was called into the office of the nursing home when Grandma slapped another resident for trying to steal her dessert (she was a feisty old woman, wasn't she?), listening to Aunt Mary sing "How Great Thou Art" to her in her final days, and watching my own father rock his frail mother in his lap. In our household still, when someone asks, "Now what am I supposed to be doing?" it is met with deep belly laughs as we all remember Grandma's constant refrain when she got bored or forgetful. But again, these memories are of an old woman. I have few memories of The Old Homestead. I have no memories of Grandpa or memories of Grandma as a younger and healthier woman.

So, what I would like from this blog, dearest Gilloolys, are your memories of our Grandparents -- things that stick out in your mind about who they were and what they were like. Similarly, my memories of all of you (Aunties, Uncles and Cousins) are limited to when most everyone else was "all grown up." I'd like to hear the stories of the Grand Adventures of Gilloolys young and old.

Much love, Sarah G. (aka Baby Bones)

Aunt Jane and the Chocolate Fudge Icing

For as long as I can remember, Aunt Jane has been an almost mythical character. I can still hear my Dad's voice when he talked about Mom's older sister. "Your Aunt Jane was a wonderful woman," he'd say whenever her name came up. Mom would never say much, but she'd get this look in her eyes when Dad would talk about Aunt Jane, and she'd add little bits of information -- not much, but enough to make me wish I had known this woman who died long before I was born. Understanding the special place that Aunt Jane occupied in Patrick and Ruth's hearts requires a little background.

Aunt Jane was Little Grandma Ruthie's only sister, and she was quite a few years older than mother. I don't know the precise timetable, but I think she was already married and living in Elkins, West Virginia, when Vonnie Jerusha Zeiler Long, our mother's mother, died when her twins Frank and Ruth were four years old. The time after that was a very lonely time for Granddad Long. I got a sense of just how lonely from something that happened one day when I was in high school. I had learned the old song "My Buddy" when I was a kid. I was singing it one day at home. Mom stopped me and told me that that was the song Granddad Long used to sing. She said he'd stand in the kitchen looking out the window and sing that song. ("Nights are long since you went away; I think about you all through the day, my buddy.")

Granddad was still fairly young when Grandma Long died, but he tried to keep things together. Since he still had the four-year-old twins at home, he employed a series of housekeepers to cook, clean, and take care of the kids. Either Uncle Frank and little Ruthie were real hellions, or the housekeepers were pretty unreliable, because Mom told me that Granddad never knew when he came home if the housekeeper would still be there. I learned much later from Uncle Frank and Aunt Lena that he actually married one of them, a Mrs. Abernathy, probably to ensure that she stuck around. Apparently "ole lady Abernathy," as mother called her, was a piece of work who was downright mean to the twins. Uncle Frank said she was particularly hard on Ruth. She used to lock her in her room, and she was nicer to her cat than she was to the kids. This possibly explains a couple of Little Grandma's quirks. She never liked to have doors locked or even shut all the way, and she never liked to have animals, particularly cats, anywhere around her, especially in the house.

"But," to quote Sophia Petrillo, "I digress." Eventually, despite Granddad's marrying her, ole lady Abernathy ran off, and this led to the deep dark secret that I didn't learn until I was a grown woman: Granddad divorced her. He was a divorced man. This would have been quite a scandal back in the 1920's. From that time on, Ruth took on a lot of the household duties. At some point, Granddad apparently thought that Ruth needed a woman's influence because Ruth was shipped off to Elkins, West Virginia, to live with her married sister Jane. She attended high school there and graduated in 1928. She stayed in Elkins and worked as a telephone operator. It was during that time that she met "her Patrick."

The match between Patrick Gillooly (an Irish Catholic and a bit of a wild boy since his mother also died at a young age and Aunt Marie used to say he sort of "raised himself") and Ruth Long (a young woman from a somewhat prominent Protestant family whose brother-in-law, Jane's husband Harmon Kerr, would eventually be mayor of Elkins) was probably not very well received at first by either family. Please remember all you young things out there that this was the time when there were signs posted in places of employment that said "Irish need not apply."

This brings us back to Aunt Jane. She apparently treated Patrick well because he never had anything but kind words for her. He said she was a wonderful cook and a great hostess. She loved parties, and she would jump at the chance to have one. The one negative thing Dad had to say was always said affectionately: She wasn't much of a housekeeper; she was too busy reading anything she could get her hands on. Now that's my kind of relative!

I believe Aunt Jane died when she was in her early 40's. She had gall bladder surgery and died of peritonitis. She was the closest thing to a mother that our mother ever had. Her untimely death led to another of our mother's idiosyncracies. Grandma Ruthie had terrible gall bladder attacks when we were kids, but she resisted having gall bladder surgery for years. No wonder.

I have some of Little Grandma's recipes that I copied over the years, and I think several of them are Aunt Jane's, but I know this one is definitely Aunt Jane's because it said so on the card I copied. It's a recipe for chocolate fudge icing, and our mother used it quite often when we were kids. She also made it with brown sugar and without the chocolate for a caramel icing.

Aunt Jane's Chocolate Fudge Icing

3 squares of chocolate (softened)
(or 9 Tbsp. of cocoa and 4 Tbsp. of butter)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 to 1/2 cup milk
dash of salt
1 tsp. vanilla
2 beaten egg yolks
powdered sugar

Put chocolate (or the cocoa and butter), sugar, milk, and salt in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir and cook for 2 minutes (be careful with the time or the icing will get too hard). Remove from heat and stir in vanilla. Add beaten egg yolks. (Stir a little of the hot mixture into the egg yolks first so the egg yolks don't curdle when you add them.) Beat in powdered sugar to an icing consistency. Be careful not to add too much powdered sugar as this icing thickens as it cools.

For Caramel icing, eliminate the chocolate (be sure to add the butter) and substitute brown sugar for the white granulated sugar.

As to the inexact measurement of the milk, a lot of the old recipes are written that way. At least it says "1/4 to 1/2" and not just "add milk." Well, that's all for today. Love to all.

Why a Family Blog?

When I was in Albuquerque this summer for Skip and Kay's anniversary party, I promised myself that I would do my part to help keep everyone in touch. At first, I thought I would just do a little booklet with pictures that I would mail to each family. I'm sure my sisters and brothers are already snickering at that, since I am notorious for not even mailing Christmas cards. I have a couple of boxes in a drawer right here that I bought at least five years ago. (Peggy, you'd better not snicker too much, because I know about all those cards you addressed and then found in a drawer a couple of years later!)

Then, when we lost Skip, doing something to draw us all closer together seemed more important than ever because, as Skip said once in one of his emails, "life is short; drink the good wine." Furthermore, Skip was always one to take plenty of pictures, thoroughly enjoy whatever good things were on the dinner table, keep up with what everyone was doing, and best of all, tell a good family story.

My purpose here is to post news, pictures, memories, recipes, and family stories about our family, the Gilloolys, and their various tribes-in-law. I hope all of you will enjoy this, and send me things to post. So, if you have any news, favorite family recipes, pictures, stories or memories you want to pass on, please email me and I will gladly post it for you for the whole family to see. I plan to let the family know if there is a new blog via email, so when I send you notice that there is a new blog, please send me any emails that you notice that I don't have and I'll add them to my group.

Oh, yes, and the name of the blog, Sláinte, is a traditional Irish toast meaning health or cheers. It is pronounced slan-shuh, I think. It's not a very original title, but since Irish is such an obscure language, I don't really have a feel for it yet. If I were to be plunked down in the middle of Italy, France, Spain, or Germany to read signs with no English translations, I could probably figure it out, but Irish is quite another matter.

I also wanted to let you know that I do not intend to publish any last names, addresses, email addresses, or telephone numbers on this blog. Since it is on the web, I don't want any weirdos out there finding any of our children.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy what you find here; and if you don't, send me something to post that will liven it up. I hope all of you are well. It's almost five o'clock here. Sláinte!

Auntie M.