She once baked a pie for Amelia Earhart.
Didn't make a big deal about it, though.
In fact, her own kids didn't know about it until after she died, at age 99. I know I didn't.
That's the way folks were back in what Tom Brokaw dubbed “the Greatest Generation.” They didn't beat their own drums. They'd been through the Depression, then World War II, and when the 1950s came along they just wanted to enjoy what was great about this country after living through very bad times.
But, she had mentioned that pie to one of her granddaughters.
When I heard about it, I had my doubts. But then we found an old newspaper clipping, pictured on-line, and there was Earhart, along with about 20 home-economics students, all female, lined up in front of Earhart's plane. It was at Purdue University, and Earhart apparently stopped there for several promotional appearances before her ill-fated flight.
And among the home-ec students greeting her was the coed who would become my mother.
Do students still major in home economics today? It's been a long time since I've heard of anyone with that major. I suspect those women are probably lawyers today. Or in health care.
It was a thing back in the 1930s though, when my mother fell for a civil engineering major, and that was the start of our family. He worked, and she stayed home, raising three boys.
She liked to bake. At Christmas every year, she baked loaves of bread for the neighbors. She had one of those heavy-duty mixers that popped out of a kitchen cabinet, and a dough hook to do most of the kneading. It took a long time for the dough to rise, get punched down, then rise again, then be placed in bread pans and given more time to rise. Then, into the oven.
She would make about a dozen loaves, and it was my job to run them around the neighborhood while they were still warm. A small, thoughtful gift from Mary, who wanted to say a simple Merry Christmas to our neighbors. A small gesture that nevertheless took some time and effort.
It made our house smell like heaven.
And it made great toast.
For years after they retired and moved from Chicago to Wisconsin, they would get a Christmas card from Mrs. Bobber, who lived two doors down from our old house, saying she sure missed that warm loaf of bread at the holidays.
Years later, out here in Wyoming, having to work over the holidays, I revived the bread tradition. My mother always said, “If you can read, you can cook,” and I got pretty good at baking bread with the basic recipe in the “Better Homes and Gardens” cookbook. (I still use it today.)
We moved around a lot, but most years I baked loaves and had the family deliver them to the neighbors. In one Illinois town where I ran the local paper for 12 years, the list of bread-worthy friends and neighbors swelled to over 30, and the baking took most of a weekend. (The mayor made us jam to go with the bread.)
And like my mother hearing from Mrs. Bobber, I still hear from friends who miss that warm loaf. One family would sit right down at their kitchen table as soon as the bread arrived, break out a knife and a stick of butter, and eat the whole loaf.
These days, I like to bake loaves for my summer neighbors up in the Snowy Range. It's a challenge baking in a small Coleman propane-fired camp oven. If the loaves rise too high, the top of the oven mashes them down. But that little log cabin smells like heaven when I'm baking bread.
The simple message – I'm glad we're neighbors. This took a little time and effort, but it's great knowing you folks. Make some toast.
We're retired now. I don't bake 30 loaves anymore. I made four the other day and gave them all away. Probably make a couple more tomorrow.
Best part?
It brings back precious memories of that young home-ec major who baked a pie for Amelia Earhart.
