by Eleanor Simons
Grace Church history comes to me in different ways. Someone shows me an old photo or shares a memory and we talk about the past. This small recipe book with soup for Lent arrived in the mail from Buff Moring. It was an ECW project in 1993, almost 30 years ago. Once again I am holding history in my hands.
The reason for the booklet is stated on the inside cover, “Forty Soup Recipes for the Forty Days of Lent.” The booklet is dedicated to Fr. Al Durrance. Good soup and good bread served for Lenten lunches and donations for the lunches would go to a hunger program. I don’t know if these booklets were sold or handed out.
The names below the recipes, with the exception of Ann Anderson and Sue Grubbs, bring back familiar faces of women no longer with us. Ann Anderson is still in church every Sunday.
You can tell from the splashes and food spots this recipe book was really used by Rosemary
Green and Louise Carpenter. A note on the cabbage and beef soup recipe written across the page in ink says, “We add allspice.” The pages look worn and used and they added their own touch to this soup.
This booklet gives us a small look into the ECW and these women 30 years ago. They cooked and shared recipes. They cared about the less fortunate and worked to do something to help. Did the Lenten Lunches begin with them? I don’t know. I do know that times were different. Women cooked more and worked outside the home less. Grace Church was known for pot luck dinners with lots of good food.
We study history so that we remember and learn from those who came before us. In order to look forward we should know where we came from. If you would like to enjoy some of theses soup recipes our Lenten Study on Wednesday's will serve soup!