We moved to Akron when Nephew William was 10 and Niece Sarah was 4. Shortly after we arrived there, the two of them came out from Virginia with Granddaddy Williams for a visit. Sarah had never been away from her parents before, and William had never been so far away from them. Needless to say, I was a bit nervous about the whole thing. Suppose they got homesick and we had to take them home before the week was over? To make things even more complicated, we had a new dog, rescued from a shelter, who was the dog from the place we don’t want to spend eternity. Let’s just say that his first five minutes in the house he peed on the living room sofa, turned over a tv and something else so obnoxious I blocked it out. Mr. Williams was by this time frail, and I was pretty sure we would have to board Mort to keep Mr. Williams safe from the wild animal. That turned out to be unnecessary because strange as it sounds, Mort seemed to sense that Granddaddy Williams was not all that steady on his feet and was quite calm around him. We frequently saw the two of them sleeping in the glider on the patio.
Mort was also protective of Sarah when she was on the stairs. He would lean on her so that she was against the wall and would not move so she could not go up or down. Considering herself quite capable of managing the stairs, she did not appreciate this, so we heard quite a bit of squawking each time it happened.
He was not so protective when she tried to walk him. I looked out the window and saw Del running to catch Mort who was dragging Sarah across the yard. She later reported to her folks that Mort had taken her for a drag.
Both William and Sarah were fascinated by what Sarah called the laundry lute. They spent lots of time with one of them at the top and one of them in the basement giving Barbie and other toys rides.
Having been a much younger sister and having had only one child, I was somewhat unfamiliar with the inter workings of the two child family. I heard Sarah yelling at William to stop right now or she would tell, etc., etc. and peeked into the family room to see Sarah sitting on the sofa watching tv and fussing while William was sitting on the floor with his back to both her and the tv, ignoring her while he read his book.
I got into a bit of trouble with the parents when Sarah reported on the phone that I would not allow them to say the /F/ word. I could hear Daryl Lyn screeching all the way across the kitchen, “Put your Aunt Betty on the phone!” She was somewhat appeased when I explained that the /F/ word was Frisbee, a word we could not say in Mort’s presence without setting off a storm of barking and jumping, but thought we could have chosen a better nickname. I got into more trouble the first Sunday she was home and reported to her Sunday School teacher that her Aunt Betty had taught her to rhyme. I swear that I never used the duck or truck family to teach her or any other child to rhyme, but I was quite proud that she had been able to generalize her new knowledge so well.
William’s main concern that week was the fact that I usually drank a glass of wine in the evening. He was a Baptist child who rarely saw his parents drink, and confided to his mother on the phone that he was worried that I might be an alchoholic. We were quite amused years later when the grown up William picked out a wine rack for us for Christmas.
It rained so much while they were there that most of the outdoor activities I had planned were pretty much a bust. What to do, what to do? We cooked. That was a learning experience for me as well. Seems that when you bake with more than one child you have to let each put in half of each of the ingredients or it gets testy. We made all sorts of things, but the oatmeal cookies have taken on a life of of their own in family lore. William and Sarah declare that I make the best oatmeal cookies they ever tasted, but David and Del say they don’t remember because I quit making cookies about 1980.
Oatmeal Cookie Recipe:
½ cup butter, softened
½ cup light brown sugarsugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1/2 cup all purpose flour
¼ tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 cup old fashioned oatmeal
Cream butter and sugars. Add egg and vanilla, mixing well. Mix in flour, salt, baking powder and oats. Drop by rounded measuring teaspoons onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone pan liner. They should be about 2 inches apart. Chilling dough for 30 minutes or so is not mandatory, but helps control spreading if you prefer that. Bake 10 – 12 minutes at 350 degrees. Edges will be golden brown and the center of the cookies will be slightly soft. Let cool a couple of minutes and remove from pan to rack to cool. These will be crisp.
Note: You could add spices, but Mother never did, so I don’t either.
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