Contents
Acknowledgments
Times Have Changed
Looking Back
My First Column, November 24, 1949
A Tune from a Music Box
Grandma Dragoo’s Attic
Aunt Lena and Uncle Lute
The Old Buffet
My Father’s Background
Always Put in a Recipe
How It Began
Potlucks
Mother Couldn’t Teach Me to Cook
Aprons
Recipe Goofs
Judging at the Iowa State Fair
My Signature Recipe
Farm Life
The Good Old Days
Porches
Back Doors
Cottonwood Farm’s Ghost
Canning
Moving Day
Children
Dulcie Jean’s Kindergarten
Children in Church
Craig’s First Smile
Supper Talk
Jeff Runs Away from Home
A Houseful of Men
Clean Socks at Summer Camp
Winters Past
Be Prepared
Cub Scout Catastrophes
Cub Scout Den Mother
Bob Becomes a Scout
Freeze Outs
Visiting Scouts
Pity Mrs. Noah
Spiders, Skunks, and Salamanders
A Company Keeper Called Silver
The Snake Trap
Sammy the Salamander
Friends in Our Yard
The World of Ants
Our Own Husky
The Bees of Honey Hill
Travel
The House Car
Westward Ho
Yellowstone Bears
The Turtle
Gooseberry Falls State Park
Presque Isle, Porcupine Mountains Wilderness State Park
The Black Inner Tube
The Loess Hills Beckoned
Holidays
The Easter Egg Tree
Craig’s Halloween
Thanksgiving
Shopping on the Day before Christmas
The Sugar Cube House
Dulcie Jean’s Four Pennies
Robert’s Four-Year-Old Class
The Family at Christmastime, 1969
New Year’s, 2000
Leaning on Everlasting Arms
Dulcie Jean’s Death
Dulcie Jean’s Final Column
The Story of Two Mothers
The Return to Farragut of One of Its Boys
Grandma Mae Corrie
Grandpa “Shorty” Birkby
Grandma Lucretia “Dulcy” Birkby
My Sister Ruth
A Country Church in Winter
In Sickness andin Health
The Wedding of Robert and Evelyn
The Night the Bed Fellon Our Honeymoon
Marriage: The First Ten Years
Thirty-Five Years Remembered
Sixty-Four Years and Counting
Spreading My Wings
Leanna and Me
Michael and Jane Stern
My Friendship with Fannie Flagg
Iowa Public Television Comes Calling
Shenandoah’s Walk of Fame
A Gaggle of Radio Homemakers
Simpson College, My Alma Mater
Aging Is an Opportunity
It Is What It Is
Too Old to Be Elderly
Facebook — The Modern Hollow Tree
My Ninth Decade