Member-only story
GRANDMA WORDLE
Preserving a Heritage
If you grow it, keep it.
I’m a day late with this story. I spent all day thinking about MASON jars and how I could talk about my experiences with preserving food. My thoughts inevitably went to remembering my maternal grandmother, and I spent too much time trying to find just the right words to describe a woman who I loved dearly. She had lived through some very tough times, but was always one of the sweetest, nicest people I ever knew.
She only had a minimal education, but she knew how to do important things like keep a family safe, fed, and cared for. She raised five children in an economically depressed area of the country, but they all loved and respected her all the way. She loved and cared for over 25 grandchildren and great grandchildren and could be seen crocheting something for one of them almost any time you dropped in for a visit.
I remember “canning time” when we would all gather at Grandma’s house. There were vegetables to prep, jars to sterilize, and the big pressure cooker to lift out of it’s storage space in the basement. I was too young to do much but help “look” the beans. Basically, I was looking for anything that was bad and passing them off to someone with a knife to cut out the offending spot.
