Do you have an Aunt Woody?

Clara Mae Riggs (1907-1988) and Gladys Naomi Riggs (1913-1990)

 

Do you have an Aunt Woody and Aunt Gladys who live next door to each other? I do and love and miss them as they have now passed on.  But I have a few memories of them from when I lived in Texas. They lived in Oklahoma and I was able to visit them a few times, back in the 70's. They are my grandmother's sisters and granny would tell fun stories of growing up with them. 

At one time during their teen-age years there was this dress they all love and would borrow from each other. One night all three girls wanted to wear the dress and I guess they fought over it, well you can image what happened. No more dress, it got shredded. They laughed and giggled over that story many times.

My grandmother moved to Califorina and Aunt Woody and Aunt Gladys married had families of there own and somehow moved next door to each other. This is when I new them, as neighbors.

Aunt Woody's real name is Clara Mae (Riggs) Woodring. As you can guess she got her nickname from her married  name.

         (Aunt Woody at her house.)

When I would visit I was married to my first husband and had my first daughter, so she and I would drive up to Oklahoma and stay with Aunt Woody.  Oh, I loved her house. She would tell my daughter she could have any food in the house as long as she stayed in the kitchen to eat. Aunt Woody made sure we had full tummys, she was a good cook, like my grandmother.  We would walk over to Aunt Gladys through the back door. No fences were there, but in the back of Aunt Gladys' yard, there was a storm shelter in case of tornados. So dusty down there, and luckily we never saw a tornado when we visited. 

Noble, Oklahoma is so small that we would walk over to Uncle JE's plumbing shop to give him his lunch.  Some days he would close down for lunch and come home.

At 10:00 a.m. sharp Aunt Woody and Aunt Gladys, each in their own homes would watch a soap opera and it was like the town closed down. No one was allow to call each other for that hour.

But by the time it was over, got lunches made and some phone calling done, all in time for the noon hour.  

One time we were there for Easter, we went to their church and afterwards, cousins came from Oklahoma City and we had an egg hunt. My daughter had a blast meeting her Oklahoma cousins, Jay, Jeff and Jan. They are Aunt Gladys' grandchildren.

Clara married Pete Woodring and had one son, Joe.

Gladys married JE Jordan and has one son, Sonny.

Interesting enough that each son, married and has 3 children.

           (Aunt Woody,Uncle Pete and Joe)    

I still keep in touch with my cousins from there and am glad that we can visit through facebook.

We also got to go to a football game, when the twins, (Jay and Jeff) were in high school.  Towards the end of the game, some men came over and told my cousin to get the women out as soon as the game was over, as they heard their might be a big fight. That never happen to me before, so we all left quickly and were so happy nothing happen.

Granny and her sisters were very crafty, they could make the newest craft and it would turn out great. I think they would of love how we scrapbook.

Their were 8 girls and 3 boys in that family. Could you imagine growing up in the early 1900's and 1920's with this fun group? Good times and hard times, as they lived through the dust bowl, the great depression, WWI andWWII, time periods.

Sometime I will have to write about the 2 uncles that I knew.

To Uncle Pete, Aunt Woody, Uncle JE and Aunt Gladys: love and miss you and can't wait to see you on the other side some day.

                                                                                                                                                                         

Aunt Gladys, Uncle JE and Sonny.

                                Uncle JE (on couch) and Uncle Pete (in chair)

Aunt Woody (sitting in the chair) and Aunt Gladys (on the arm of the chair). These were taken in Aunt Gladys' house.

(Lea, if you or anyone else reads this and knows of my Aunts, please comment and leave your story, so I know how you remember them.  If you have pictures, that would be nice too. Thanks.)

Coconut Pineapple Bread

Canceled the wordpress blog, too hard for me to do more than one. So here is what I wrote was from the word press blog.

For Bread Baking Day this month is ‘Quick Breads’ hosting by: http://funnfud.blogspot.com/2009/03/announcing-bbd18-quick-breads.html

Who doesn’t enjoy Quick Breads, there are so many that you can bake!  I wanted something a little different. Most of us make banana, date, orange or zucchini breads, which are all delicious!  But, I am entering something different that I haven’t made in a long time, my version of Coconut-Pineapple Bread.

I use to baked this coconut bread  for Easter time and decided it needed a new kick to it.  I loved the bread and it bakes up nice and white, but always remembered it being a little dry.  So, I decided to add pineapple and butter to the recipe to give it more moisture. As you can tell by the picture, that added the butter and pineaple and a farm fresh egg, the bread now has a bit of yellow coloring.  I think it turned out great! Just needs to bake a little longer than the orginal recipe. 

 

Coconut-Pineapple Bread (Glenda’s revised recipe)

 

1 can, 8 ounces – crushed pineapple, drain and reserved juice and add water to make 1 cup liquid, set aside.

 

Cream these two ingredients into a large mixing bowl:

¼ cup butter, cold, cut into cubes

1 cup sugar

 

Now add:

1 egg

 

Add in order and mix thoroughly:

3 cups flour

2 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon soda

Crushed pineapple from the 8-ounce can

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup reserved pineapple juice

1 cup shredded coconut

Pour mixture into a loaf pan and bake at 350˚ for 50-60 minutes. Test for doness with a toothpick inserted and comes out clean, not sticky. If the top starts getting too bread cover with foil and finish baking.

 

*Notes: I would think you could use 1 cup coconut milk, or  pineapple juice for the liquid.

 

 

Coconut Bread (original recipe from a Women’s Day cookbook, 1968)

 

3 cups all-purpose flour, sifted twice

1 tablespoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 cup sugar

1 cup shredded coconut

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

 

Sift dry ingredients and add coconut. Mix thoroughly. Combine liquid ingredients and stir into the dry ingredients. Blend carefully. Let stand for 20 minutes. Pour into well-greased loaf pan (9×5x3 inches). Bake in preheated moderate oven (350˚F). for 45 to 50 minutes.

The Wedding - Part 2

                                                                                                                   

Well, tonight we set down and went over more things for the wedding. The main part was the budget. 

Tomorrow Michelle, a friend and I will be looking at more patterns to see what type of dress Michelle wants. Looking at many different types of invitations, wow are there a lot online!!!

She and Alex have decided on a lighter shade of periwinkle blue, silver and a little yellow for their colors.  They have found someone to help with the reception decorations, a photographer along with many friends taking pictures.  So much to do!

One thing I did ask this evening was if they have talked about their own budget after this wedding. Are they ready for rent, utilities, food, etc? Who is going to pay the bills, one of them of both together? They looked at each other and said they would sit down and discuss it.  Along with this they also are filling out scholarships for the fall semester. Should a parent worry or ever so slightly  remind them that a budget is a good thing?????

The one thing we did accomplish – there will be bridesmaids and groomsmen!

They did get engagement pictures done. Here is one of the engagement pictures. 

 

A Wedding Cake

The last few days I have been busy making a wedding cake for a daughters friend.  I always make a small cake ahead for practice to make sure I have the decorations correct on how I want the cake to look, my family and neighbors love that part.

So, on Saturday the day of the wedding all was going well according to my time spent. Then about an hour before, my neighbor comes over and lets me know that my daughter has been in an accident. They (my daughter and her youngest son) were alright but wouldn't be able to help me transport the cake. Being the mom that I am, I had to stop and go see how bad this accident was. I find them not to far from home and thank goodness everything wasn't too bad. I took my grandson and went to pick up my granddaughter, as that is what my daughter was doing, and we went home and waited for my daughter. I had to call the groom and explain the wedding cake would be a  little late. I then called my younger daughter home from work. And when my oldest daughter arrived, the three of us departed with the cake. It was a good thing all 3 of us went as we had to do some stairs and I couldn't have done it that much by myself. There was also an elevator which we used, but still had a few stairs to go up and down.

Next as we were putting on the final flowers someone noticed I had misspelled the brides name wrong. Of course, I didn't bring that tube of coloring as I didn't think I would need it. 

Luckily my youngest daughter drove home and got there just before the ceremony started. You see with everything going on I didn't have time to change into my outfit I  was going to wear and didn't want to be seen by their guests.

So having all of that happen, here is a picture of the cake!