A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain. She does him good, and not harm, all the days of her life. She seeks wool and flax, and works with willing hands. She is like the ships of the merchant, she brings her food from far away. She rises while it is still night and provides food for her household and tasks for her servant-girls.
Proverbs 31:10-15
Mawmaw and Pawpaw were my great-grandparents. They married in 1913, and had a love that was more intense than you could possibly imagine. They absolutely adored each other well into sixty plus years of marriage. Until the day they each died, they longed to be by each other’s side and enjoy what life offered, together. After my grandfather died my grandmother still enjoyed life, but it just wasn’t the same experience without her lifelong friend, soul mate, and companion.
Both of them loved and lived life to its fullest extent and did their best to experience all that God provided for them. Pawpaw became an accomplished engineer, and, as such, was a tremendous influence in my life. Mawmaw was quite accomplished musically and in the culinary arts. They also did quite well financially, especially after Pawpaw opened his own heating and air conditioning consulting firm. But, they definitely did not start financially well off or accomplished in their respective interests.
Growing up, for the most part in the late 1800’s, Mawmaw did not really need to learn many of the more domestic characteristics normally associated with wives. Her mother provided for her everything that she needed, and, unfortunately for my grandmother, her mother did not include her so that she could learn some of the basics around the kitchen. However, after she and my grandfather were married she wanted desperately to care for him as was typical of that time.
Mawmaw knew fairly well how to boil water, and could even hard boil an egg – very hard boiled. She had seen coffee made before, and had once even seen a cake made; she had just never made one herself. She more or less knew how to use the basic components of the kitchen and how to build the fire for the stove (it is worth remembering at this point in our country’s history that electrical appliances were few and far between). With this “wealth” of knowledge, my grandmother felt sufficiently armed to attempt a coffee cake for her new husband. Although she had never had coffee cake herself, she knew that her new husband really enjoyed it, and was actually one of his favorites.
Although her mother had never really shown her how to follow a recipe, she had loaded Mawmaw up with an armload of them when she and my grandfather got married. Mawmaw searched through the stack of recipes to find one for coffee cake, and found just the right one. Promptly, she began to gather her ingredients, not really certain what each of them did, but she diligently went about the task of finding each item and carefully measuring them to the desired quantities. She was determined that her new husband was going to love this cake.
Mawmaw carefully read the recipe and found that she had just enough time to prepare the cake for Pawpaw before he returned home so that just as he walked in she would be able to present him with this wonderful cake. She set about combining the ingredients just as the recipe called out. She sifted the flour to get out undesired lumps and “bits”. She combined her liquid ingredients, and then spent another twenty minutes getting the eggshells back out of the mixture.
Each item in the ingredients list was called out in the recipe one by one and she combined them in just as the recipe called for them, until the last ingredient. She read through the recipe once again, but just couldn’t find where this one ingredient was mixed in. Finally giving in, and just letting common sense take over, she combined it in with the other ingredients just as each previous ingredient had been.
Cooking in a wood burning stove is somewhat of a trick. In modern times we simply adjust the controls to the desired temperature, set a digital timer for optimum accuracy, and go watch TV until it is time to remove the cake. In the early years of the 20th century this just was not the case. A wood burning stove did have a thermometer, but to “adjust” the temperature required much more work. If you want to raise the temperature you must add more wood or open the vents to allow in more air. Lowering the temperature you had to close the vents to the fire and/or wait for some of the wood to burn down. In either case, you had to make an adjustment then wait to see if you had the desired effect, which could take quite some time. Then the challenge was to keep it at that temperature. The other amusing aspect to these stoves was the fact that your thermometer may read the temperature perfectly, but only in one spot. To believe that your stove was uniformly heated was simply a dream. Having a temperature differential of 30° across your oven was common, and this is where knowing your oven became paramount
Mawmaw did her best to get the oven to 375°, and was able to get it there and hold it there much easier than she had suspected that it would be. She quickly placed the first masterpiece of her young marriage into the oven and sat back to enjoy the fruits of her labor. After about 20 minutes she noticed that the temperature had dropped to 350° and quickly piled more wood into the firebox. By the time the temperature finally leveled off it was about 410° and eventually returned to about 375° at about the time the cake was to come out of the oven.
Just as Mawmaw was pulling her “cake” from the oven, Pawpaw was coming in the front door looking for his new bride. When she pulled it out, only one side was really smoking, the other side looked just about right. Mawmaw began to cry, she was certain that her new husband would run off and find a wife that knew how to cook. She was distraught over her lack of knowledge and her failure to ensure that she was better prepared for this day before she was married. With tears streaming down her face, Mawmaw presented the half lump of smoldering coal to her husband, uttering something completely unintelligible about her failure.
Pawpaw was a gracious man. Actually, he was probably one of the most gracious, loving, and forgiving people who ever existed. He calmly accepted the chunk of coal, and thanked her while lovingly kissing her cheek and wiping some of the flour from her forehead. He set the cake on the counter and found a knife to cut it with, then carefully cut a piece from the less charred side of the cake. To his surprise, despite the unseemly looks of the opposite side, this side looked quite good. He was already thinking that he had found a diamond in this lump of coal. Mawmaw provided him with a cup of coffee since she had mastered the percolator last week.
Pawpaw sat down at the table, prepared to fully enjoy his cake and coffee, and besides that it was coffee cake, which was one of his favorites. He had a sip of coffee and was pleased that his new bride had finally mastered the percolator. He raised his fork to take a bite of the coffee cake and cut it with the edge of the fork finding it surprisingly moist for as burned as the other side was. He scooped the tender piece of cake onto his fork and hoisted it to his mouth with divided anticipation. At first, he found it to be moist and tasty, and then another flavor began to creep in. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but it was very unexpected. He finished chewing the piece and carefully swallowed it.
As mentioned previously, Pawpaw was nothing if he wasn’t gracious. He loved my grandmother with all his heart, and odd flavor or not, he was going to finish that piece of cake. As he deliberately cut each piece he complimented my grandmother on her new found culinary skill, although they both agreed that gently turning the cake may prevent future uneven cooking. Pawpaw asked her, “Bert, this is awful good, what did you put in it?” (Although her name was Winnie, he always called her Bert. I never quite understood this, but I found it to be a loving part of their unique love language with each other.).
Mawmaw responded by recounting the steps she went through, reading off the list of ingredients to him, “2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of milk, a teaspoon of baking powder, a half teaspoon of salt, a half cup of sugar, 4 tablespoons of butter, and a cup of coffee.”
“A cup of coffee?” my grandfather quizzed incredulously.
“Yep, that kind of got me too.” Mawmaw said. “Every other ingredient it told me what to do with it, but the cup of coffee it just left out there. I figured they had forgotten to describe how to put it in, so I just put in a cup of grounds at the end and mixed it up the way I had every other ingredient. I probably should have put it in with the rest of the dry ingredients, but it was too late at that point. Do you think that made a difference?”
“No,” Pawpaw replied, “I believe that you could have put it in at just about any time and it would have the same effect.” Then he sat there and finished his piece of coffee cake, smiling with each and every bite.
It was actually some time later that Pawpaw finally worked up the courage to discuss Mawmaw’s culinary skills with her, but it was with his usual grace and love. Eventually, they both laughed over it, and learned from it. The mistake that she feared would destroy their marriage actually acted to strengthen it, and years later when she shared this story with me it was to highlight to me how much they loved each other and how much she had to learn in the kitchen when they first got married.
Their marriage and their care for one another has been an inspiration to me and many others in our own relationships. I just pray that my wife and I will be able to find that kind of compassion for each other throughout our marriage as well, and still laugh about the things when we first got married like they did.
Proverbs 31:10-15
Mawmaw and Pawpaw were my great-grandparents. They married in 1913, and had a love that was more intense than you could possibly imagine. They absolutely adored each other well into sixty plus years of marriage. Until the day they each died, they longed to be by each other’s side and enjoy what life offered, together. After my grandfather died my grandmother still enjoyed life, but it just wasn’t the same experience without her lifelong friend, soul mate, and companion.
Both of them loved and lived life to its fullest extent and did their best to experience all that God provided for them. Pawpaw became an accomplished engineer, and, as such, was a tremendous influence in my life. Mawmaw was quite accomplished musically and in the culinary arts. They also did quite well financially, especially after Pawpaw opened his own heating and air conditioning consulting firm. But, they definitely did not start financially well off or accomplished in their respective interests.
Growing up, for the most part in the late 1800’s, Mawmaw did not really need to learn many of the more domestic characteristics normally associated with wives. Her mother provided for her everything that she needed, and, unfortunately for my grandmother, her mother did not include her so that she could learn some of the basics around the kitchen. However, after she and my grandfather were married she wanted desperately to care for him as was typical of that time.
Mawmaw knew fairly well how to boil water, and could even hard boil an egg – very hard boiled. She had seen coffee made before, and had once even seen a cake made; she had just never made one herself. She more or less knew how to use the basic components of the kitchen and how to build the fire for the stove (it is worth remembering at this point in our country’s history that electrical appliances were few and far between). With this “wealth” of knowledge, my grandmother felt sufficiently armed to attempt a coffee cake for her new husband. Although she had never had coffee cake herself, she knew that her new husband really enjoyed it, and was actually one of his favorites.
Although her mother had never really shown her how to follow a recipe, she had loaded Mawmaw up with an armload of them when she and my grandfather got married. Mawmaw searched through the stack of recipes to find one for coffee cake, and found just the right one. Promptly, she began to gather her ingredients, not really certain what each of them did, but she diligently went about the task of finding each item and carefully measuring them to the desired quantities. She was determined that her new husband was going to love this cake.
Mawmaw carefully read the recipe and found that she had just enough time to prepare the cake for Pawpaw before he returned home so that just as he walked in she would be able to present him with this wonderful cake. She set about combining the ingredients just as the recipe called out. She sifted the flour to get out undesired lumps and “bits”. She combined her liquid ingredients, and then spent another twenty minutes getting the eggshells back out of the mixture.
Each item in the ingredients list was called out in the recipe one by one and she combined them in just as the recipe called for them, until the last ingredient. She read through the recipe once again, but just couldn’t find where this one ingredient was mixed in. Finally giving in, and just letting common sense take over, she combined it in with the other ingredients just as each previous ingredient had been.
Cooking in a wood burning stove is somewhat of a trick. In modern times we simply adjust the controls to the desired temperature, set a digital timer for optimum accuracy, and go watch TV until it is time to remove the cake. In the early years of the 20th century this just was not the case. A wood burning stove did have a thermometer, but to “adjust” the temperature required much more work. If you want to raise the temperature you must add more wood or open the vents to allow in more air. Lowering the temperature you had to close the vents to the fire and/or wait for some of the wood to burn down. In either case, you had to make an adjustment then wait to see if you had the desired effect, which could take quite some time. Then the challenge was to keep it at that temperature. The other amusing aspect to these stoves was the fact that your thermometer may read the temperature perfectly, but only in one spot. To believe that your stove was uniformly heated was simply a dream. Having a temperature differential of 30° across your oven was common, and this is where knowing your oven became paramount
Mawmaw did her best to get the oven to 375°, and was able to get it there and hold it there much easier than she had suspected that it would be. She quickly placed the first masterpiece of her young marriage into the oven and sat back to enjoy the fruits of her labor. After about 20 minutes she noticed that the temperature had dropped to 350° and quickly piled more wood into the firebox. By the time the temperature finally leveled off it was about 410° and eventually returned to about 375° at about the time the cake was to come out of the oven.
Just as Mawmaw was pulling her “cake” from the oven, Pawpaw was coming in the front door looking for his new bride. When she pulled it out, only one side was really smoking, the other side looked just about right. Mawmaw began to cry, she was certain that her new husband would run off and find a wife that knew how to cook. She was distraught over her lack of knowledge and her failure to ensure that she was better prepared for this day before she was married. With tears streaming down her face, Mawmaw presented the half lump of smoldering coal to her husband, uttering something completely unintelligible about her failure.
Pawpaw was a gracious man. Actually, he was probably one of the most gracious, loving, and forgiving people who ever existed. He calmly accepted the chunk of coal, and thanked her while lovingly kissing her cheek and wiping some of the flour from her forehead. He set the cake on the counter and found a knife to cut it with, then carefully cut a piece from the less charred side of the cake. To his surprise, despite the unseemly looks of the opposite side, this side looked quite good. He was already thinking that he had found a diamond in this lump of coal. Mawmaw provided him with a cup of coffee since she had mastered the percolator last week.
Pawpaw sat down at the table, prepared to fully enjoy his cake and coffee, and besides that it was coffee cake, which was one of his favorites. He had a sip of coffee and was pleased that his new bride had finally mastered the percolator. He raised his fork to take a bite of the coffee cake and cut it with the edge of the fork finding it surprisingly moist for as burned as the other side was. He scooped the tender piece of cake onto his fork and hoisted it to his mouth with divided anticipation. At first, he found it to be moist and tasty, and then another flavor began to creep in. It wasn’t completely unpleasant, but it was very unexpected. He finished chewing the piece and carefully swallowed it.
As mentioned previously, Pawpaw was nothing if he wasn’t gracious. He loved my grandmother with all his heart, and odd flavor or not, he was going to finish that piece of cake. As he deliberately cut each piece he complimented my grandmother on her new found culinary skill, although they both agreed that gently turning the cake may prevent future uneven cooking. Pawpaw asked her, “Bert, this is awful good, what did you put in it?” (Although her name was Winnie, he always called her Bert. I never quite understood this, but I found it to be a loving part of their unique love language with each other.).
Mawmaw responded by recounting the steps she went through, reading off the list of ingredients to him, “2 cups of flour, 2 eggs, 1 cup of milk, a teaspoon of baking powder, a half teaspoon of salt, a half cup of sugar, 4 tablespoons of butter, and a cup of coffee.”
“A cup of coffee?” my grandfather quizzed incredulously.
“Yep, that kind of got me too.” Mawmaw said. “Every other ingredient it told me what to do with it, but the cup of coffee it just left out there. I figured they had forgotten to describe how to put it in, so I just put in a cup of grounds at the end and mixed it up the way I had every other ingredient. I probably should have put it in with the rest of the dry ingredients, but it was too late at that point. Do you think that made a difference?”
“No,” Pawpaw replied, “I believe that you could have put it in at just about any time and it would have the same effect.” Then he sat there and finished his piece of coffee cake, smiling with each and every bite.
It was actually some time later that Pawpaw finally worked up the courage to discuss Mawmaw’s culinary skills with her, but it was with his usual grace and love. Eventually, they both laughed over it, and learned from it. The mistake that she feared would destroy their marriage actually acted to strengthen it, and years later when she shared this story with me it was to highlight to me how much they loved each other and how much she had to learn in the kitchen when they first got married.
Their marriage and their care for one another has been an inspiration to me and many others in our own relationships. I just pray that my wife and I will be able to find that kind of compassion for each other throughout our marriage as well, and still laugh about the things when we first got married like they did.
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