Sunday, September 19, 2010

Petrified Homemade Treats

Yesterday an old cereal box liner bag filled with what looked to be Frosted Mini-Wheats was discovered in the antique bread box up in my recently deceased mother-in-law's kitchen. It turned out that it was a secret stash of Gold Rush Brownies baked and brought by one of my Minnesota sisters - last Thanksgiving! One of us hid them up there (maybe me) to save them for future scarf sessions, then forgot about them, which is pretty incredible, knowing the family addiction to these goodies.

So my husband tried one and pronounced them "crunchy" but still good. I ate three.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Mary McGowan, 1900-2010

My mother-in-law, Mary McGowan, died on Sept. 2 at age 110. I only knew her for her last 40 years and missed some important parts of her life. When we sat down to look through her albums to show photos at her wake, we found some marvelous ones. The picture below shows Mary on her North Dakota homestead farm with her next younger sister, Anna - sometime around 1918?

This is Mary in 1921 before she bobbed her very long hair.


Mary as a flapper.

Our young North Dakota cousin, Greta, tells us that people have been taking pictures at the Bismarck State Capitol building like the one below for decades - she says she did it, too.


It was wonderful to see these pictures of a fun-loving young woman, full of life. Mary, rest in love and peace.