The Grammy way

My little electric kettle is pretty handy heating water for dish washing. Standing at the sink doing this humble task for two, I thought about how Grammy (Dad's mother) tackled stacks of dishes after her big Sunday dinners.

I complain about my small kitchen, but it's a palace of convenience compared to her farmhouse with a wood stove, where she cooked and canned and cleaned up thousands of meals for the extended family.

 Grammy Bleam

After a big Sunday dinner, the uncles went off to the parlor or sat outside on the porch and smoked a cigar.  The women helped with the dishes, but Grammy always washed.

The Bleam family farm

 Grammy had a battered oval dish pan, and she poured boiling hot water from the kettle over the dirty dishes. She could dip her hands right into that scalding, soapy water with the dish rag. Then the dishes went into a separate rinse pan, also topped with boiling water. The helping aunts, cousins and nieces gingerly plucked them out with two fingers and dried them. I remember my mom talking about this painful experience! Of course, no one had rubber kitchen gloves in those days.

When the lunch dishes were done, she started Sunday supper.  A big skillet of raw potatoes fried slowly in lard on the wood stove, cold cuts, sometimes scrapple, leftover pie and cake, pickles, cheese and always plenty of white bread.

I loved that second meal the best. Everything was put out the table at once and passed around: the sweets, sours, starches and meat. The Pennsylvania Dutch way.  A Lebanon baloney sandwich with mustard next to a piece of shoo fly pie on a kid's plate? What a special memory.

We didn't do buffet style meals back then. Even picnics outside in the yard were served on trestle tables made with sawhorses and boards.  And tablecloths.

Speaking of washing tablecloths. Here's something hardworking Grammy couldn't have imagined:  an electronic washer/dryer that plays a melody (John says stolen) from Schubert's Trout Quintet. I'm not kidding. 

The Home Deport delivery service got them here OK, but then it took John some fiddling to level them on the rough laundry room floor.   

A busy day. After that, we had to heat water for baths. It's surprising how much work it is without a simple thing like running hot water.

We were tired last night. But today, a release from months of home routine. We're excited about our road trip to central Washington, for a short social distancing visit with the family.  More later.