Memories!

Writing about my Mom yesterday, stirred up a lot of memories, so I guess you can call this
"Lelia Lee, Part 2".
Even when our lives improved enough that using a dozen eggs in a cake wasn't that much of
a problem, Mom had to think long and hard about doing so. I have always told people, Mom
could get more meals out of one chicken than anyone I ever saw. She used up leftovers until
they worked down to a tablespoon full, and then would toss all of those tablespoons full into
a pot and make vegetable soup.
I have always wondered what Mom did with the dozen egg yolks on the rare occasion when
she made an angel food cake. Knowing Mom. she probably had that figured out BEFORE she
started preparing the cake. A few years ago I ran across a recipe for an angel food cake, made
from scratch, of course, and right beside it was a recipe for using up the 12 egg yolks. It seems
it was a recipe for a pound cake.
Mom made the best homemade bread I ever tasted, but when things got good enough that
we could actually buy bread--she never made homemade bread again (except for biscuits
and cornbread) and who could blame her.
In yesterday's post, I mentioned Colclasure's Store in downtown Xenia. One time when
we went there to do our trading (as Mom and Dad called it), the folks gave me a nickel
to spend in the store. I was probably 5 or 6 years old and I was so proud of my purchase,
which I had made all by myself. The rest of the family had the biggest laugh over my
purchase of Ex-Lax. I thought it was chocolate candy. To this day, I can only eat milk chocolate--because dark chocolate reminds me of Ex-Lax and my wasted nickel.
I also talked about Mom selling or trading eggs for supplies at Colclasure's store. A
few years ago, one of my least favorite aunts who lived up north, sent me a letter Mom
had written her when she had just discovered she was pregnant with me. Mom wasn't
very happy about the pending bundle of joy because she figured she had her hands full
with three kids already and very few material goods--and no money.
She told my aunt in that letter that she sold her eggs to raise money to pay the interest
on a loan. It seems to me that the interest was $20, which in those depression times, would
have been a lot of money.
When I wrote columns for the Hometown Journal, the one I wrote, called "The Button
Jar" brought more comments than nearly every other column (well, except maybe the one
about Victoria's Secret). In Lelia Lee's household nothing was wasted. Old clothing was
cut up and the fabric used in making quilts, after the buttons were cut off, of course, and
placed in the button jar. I believe I'll hunt up that old column and post it tomorrow.