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.