They Liked the Pie by Ken Carls

Some of my best memories of my mother and of my childhood on the farm near the Illinois River at Beardstown were of her cooking skills. My dad grew various "truck crops," which required bringing in a fair number of extra hired hands during the harvest. One such period was when the sweet corn was ripe each July, during the hottest and most humid part of the Illinois summer. For three weeks at a stretch upwards of 30 neighbors - an odd assortment of men whose field corn and soybean crops had already been "laid by," their wives whose kitchens could wait, the occasional local spinster or bachelor, high schoolers, etc. — would come to my Dad's farm to do the picking. The work began at the crack of dawn so that the workers could be spared the brunt of the midday heat, and by noon, with six hours or so of hard labor in the fields behind them, the crew was in need of a good feed to see them through the remainder of the day, for they still had to bag and ice down the fresh picked corn to be trucked that night to one of the regional wholesale markets in St. Louis or Chicago. Custom had it that "dinner" (the noon meal on the farm) was provided for the workers. The task of preparing it fell to my mother. As a tyke during those pre-microwave, pre-packaged, pre-convenience foods years of the early 1950s, I recall witnessing the spectacle of my mother and older sisters preparing the lavish daily feasts. Mountains of fried chicken, whole hams or beef roasts, cauldrons of steaming water for cooking sweet corn, gunny sacks of potatoes to be peeled, boiled, and mashed or made into potato salad, crocks of fresh green beans seasoned with bacon, platters of sliced tomatoes, vats of iced tea and fresh lemonade. But as delicious as all these were, nothing could top her fresh pies in popularity: tables full of them. Rhubarb, black raspberry, peach, apple, cherry. All from scratch, all fresh daily, all ready by the time the noon bell rang. The colors, the smells, the tastes all laid out on long cloth covered tables set up in the shade of the big maple trees in the backyard. The work crew came in from the fields, filled their plates, and sat around, some on chairs, some on the grass, talking and eating and resting. It was not until years later in a college art history course that I saw the paintings of Brueghel and realized that as a child I had been privileged to live that splendid folk tradition. As you may have read in the previous issue of this newsletter, my mother passed away on August 15 at the age of 90. Unfortunately, she had baked her last pie some years ago, but her notoriety for that skill continued until the time of her death, and the memory of it will live on with me and many others forever. On the evening of August 28 the Saugatuck-Douglas Historical Society participated in the Douglas Thursday Night Social. For that occasion, as a memorial tribute to my mother, I baked 16 fresh peach pies and sold them by the slice at the social with the proceeds going to the Museum. What better way, I thought, to honor my mother than to share with the community the pleasure and goodness that she had lavished on so many throughout her life. Those who came to the social received the table full of pies with great enthusiasm. Man, did they respond! All 96 slices of pie were scooped up within an hour. Many people headed for the pie table first thing, following dessert with the rest of the meal. And the final pie was raffled off. There's nothing much humbler nor more American than pie — it's the vernacular dessert. Yes, the Society's presence at the social was very positive all around. I remain struck by the pervasive sense of good feeling that has been the mark of the Douglas socials all summer. This was a brilliant exercise in community ...