Favorite Recipe--Tea cakes, Pies and Bread, Oh My!

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 14 (April 1-April 7) is Favorite Recipe. 

     Not even a question here, West Hartlepool/Hartlepool, England baking.  In 2003 when my brothers and I crossed the pond we had no idea all of the Hughes family lore, pictures and home baked goodies we would bring home.  

     Wonderful tea cakes were served during an afternoon tea at Mary and John Marsh's home at 23 Borrowdale Street in Hartlepool.  John George Marsh is my paternal first cousin twice removed.  His wife, Mary Pounder Marsh treated us to several of her cakes.  Unfortunately, I did not take any photos of the delicious array sweet treats.  

     Mary and I corresponded by snail mail for at least a year following the trip and she shared a couple of the recipes she served that afternoon.  

Mary Ann Storey Hughes
standing in front of the Hughes Green Grocer shop
cover, Reflections beneath the Wagga Moon

     John Marsh grew up with his parents, Eli Marsh and Mary Alice Hughes Marsh, at 70 Florence Street, West Hartlepool, England in the home of his maternal grandparents, George Henry Hughes and Mary Ann Storey Hughes.  The Marshes are listed in the electoral rolls of 1930 as residents in the Hughes household.  

     John's maternal grandmother and my paternal great great grandmother, Mary Ann Storey Hughes, Annie Hughes, was quite a baker.  She is mentioned in the booklet, Reflections beneath the Wagga Moon.  I like to think that the recipes Mary Pounder Marsh shared had been passed down to her from Mary Ann Storey Hughes to her daughter, Mary Alice Hughes Marsh to her daughter-in-law, and are the recipes my paternal great great grandmother used to sell in the shop.

     In 2021, I decided to try baking a few of the recipes.  

Basic Cake Recipe

     One variation was adding 2 ounces of coconut to the batter 

and whipped cream and toasted coconut to the top.

Another variation was to add 1 tablespoon of cocoa

and 1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda to the batter.

      I only attempted the two variations of the basic cake recipe.  Mary also sent me recipes for gingerbread, Bakewell tart, almond cake and a split cake with cream and jam.   

P.S.  Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who has lived in England her entire life and she was able to help me with some of the ingredients and oven conversions. 💖

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Worship--Saint Aidan's Church, Hartlepool, England

    Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 14 (March 25-March 31) is Worship. 

The Hughes Kids
Hartlepool Wall
The Headland
August 3, 2003

     Back in 2003, when my two brothers and I crossed the pond we had Hartlepool, County Durham, England in our sights.  Our Hughes/Storey lineage traces back to West Hartlepool and Hartlepool in the 1800's and beyond.  The Hughes actually removed from the Wordsley, Birmingham, England area, and further back from Wales.  

     The municipal brough of West Hartlepool was created in 1887 and in 1967 the Brough of Hartlepool was created by combining West Hartlepool and Old Hartlepool.  

St. Aidan's Church
Hartlepool, England
August 3, 2003

     We had a laundry list of family and places to visit during our three day visit. One important building was Saint Aidan's Church, now known as Saint Aidan and Saint Columba Church.  The church opened in 1890

The Alter
St Aidan's Church 

My brother Jeff
St Aidan's Church
Hartlepool, England
August 3, 2003

     

     Our first day in Hartlepool was a Sunday and we had planned to attend church services at St Aidan's.  I was surprised at the small attendance.  As I walked into the sanctuary, I had goosebumps thinking how generations of our Hartlepool Hughes family had been baptized/baptised, married and buried from this very church.  

     

George Henry Hughes (Pop Pop)
Baptized at St Aidan's Church
West Hartlepool, England
Easter Sunday, April 10, 1898

Ken and I in front of the baptismal font

     The baptismal font in St Aidan's Church where my paternal grandfather, George Henry Hughes was baptized on Easter Sunday, April 10, 1898.  

George Henry Hughes
May 9, 1930
Obituary

Mary Ann Storey Hughes
March 16, 1935
Obituary

     My Paternal great grandparents obituaries, both services were held at St Aidan's Church.

     Even into the 2000's Hughes family members continue to have their services in St Aidan's Church.  One cousin we met in 2003, Alan Hughes, died in 2009 and his funeral service was held at St Aidan's.

     My morning attending a service at St Aidan's Church has become a cherished memory.  The thought that I was surrounded by sights and sounds of my Hughes ancestors gave me comfort and peace.

St Aidan's Church

Hartlepool Then and Now

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Technology--Linda's Awakening

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 12 (March 18-March 24) is Technology. 

     Linda grabs hold of computer technology and doesn't let go.  I decided to do this blog about myself. 😀

     I am hard pressed to pin an exact date on when the computer entered our home.  It was in the early days, internet hookup was through the telephone line (dial-up), everything was very slow, no Google yet, we used Prodigy.  

     My husband seems to think we had the first home computer sometime in the early 1990's.   It was a big bulky Gateway.  Ted was adamant that we get the computer.  My response, "Go ahead and buy it.  I will probably never even use it."  

     He was so excited when he got home with all the boxes.  We set it up in the extra bedroom, plugged it in and pushed the on button.  Nothing.  Second try.  Plugged it in, pushed the on switch and NOTHING! Following a line of expletives, Ted boxed it all up and headed back to the store.  Our first attempt was one colossal FAIL.       

     An hour later, Ted returned with more boxes.  Apparently, the first computer was missing its hard drive.  Third time was the charm, plugged it in, pushed the on switch and slowly a picture appeared on the screen.  Now what?  Ted sat down and got all the information necessary into the computer.  We still did not have any internet service.  We practiced keyboarding, writing gobbledygook and printing it.  

     There was new language with this invention coming into the house.  Typing was called keyboarding.  We had to purchase floppy disks to store information.  Software, applications, mother board, monitors, processing system, search engines, Microsoft, viruses, worms, phishing, Windows, Mac and on and on.

     When the monster was working and we added internet connectivity, I began to, slowly, play around with it.  I was actively engaged in genealogy research and decided to use the search engine called Yahoo, to see what I could find. 

      Through surfing, I found US GenWeb and I was off and running.  I was able to locate and email with other folks interested in genealogy who were able to help me in the states and counties where I was tracing ancestors.  I could add information and folks contacted me.  More genealogical avenues online and to download became available.  

    Progressing into the late 1990's, I was the one who was spending the most time on the home computer.  More sophisticated models were purchased, the home computer was moved into an area in the basement with all my genealogy hard copy nearby.  The home computer became MINE.  

     Remember MySpace?  Finding and joining Ancestry, Find-A-Grave, Facebook, Family Tree Maker, my own genealogy home pages, my own blog, Flipside, begun on January 3, 2009, hundreds of on line search engines and probably the most important find for me was was GenaBlogger.

     Like most of us, with the advent of laptops, I was able to take my files with me, not just genealogy, all of my files.  And my laptop does travel.  In fact I am the techie in the family.  Always packed is the laptop, iPad, cell phone, all of the connection cords, external hard drive and a power strip.  

 

     Although my first response to a home computer was negative, the technology, once I became acquainted, became a daily adventure.  Not just genealogy.  Building my recipe file, shopping and buying on line, dinner reservations, vacation searches and reservations, gardening information, health, Zoom and Face Time--pretty much everything I do is online.  I guess I have become a mouse potato over the past couple of decades. 😁

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



School Days--My memories from the 1950's

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 15 (April 8-April 14) is School Days. 

     I have touched on this subject in other blogs; however, I've never addressed it in total.  Again it features moi.  I am finding that some of the 52 Ancestors Weeks topics I have blogged about ad infinitum on other family members.  I guess the time about me has come. 😁

1952 All ready for Kindergarten

     

     I can remember that I was very excited to be going to Kindergarten when I turned five.  My Dad was not the photographer.  He serving with the Army in Korea as the head doctor at an aid station somewhere on the front lines.  I imagine my Mom and Dad's oldest friend and now our neighbor, Dr. Joseph N. Arthur, took the photograph.  

     As I carefully inspect the photo up close, the dress was definitely made by my maternal Grandmother aka Teek.  As I conveyed in her blog, she made almost all of my clothes while I was in elementary school.

West View Street Car # 10

     

     My Mom never drove a car until Dad was sent to Korea.  I wonder who taught her to drive?  The late summer of 1952 was the beginning of an annual trip into Pittsburgh to buy the new school necessities.  I know Mom did not drive the two of us in town.  I imagine she drove the car into the Borough of West View and we took the streetcar into Pittsburgh.  

     My brother, Ken, was born that year; however, he was never part of the trip.  Where was he?  Who was taking care of him for the day?  Maybe Grams and Pop Pop came to the house to watch him.  Maybe Pop Pop actually drove Mom and I to West View.  So many questions.  What's an almost seventy-seven year old to remember back seventy-two years.  😊  

This picture is from an earlier time;
however, this is where Teek was sitting

     We got off the street car somewhere near Joseph Horne's Department Store.  Teek was always there before us and would wave as we walked in the front entrance.  She choose a chair at the front of the balcony overlooking the first floor.   

Remember these?????

     After hugs we headed to the children's shoe department for those practical school shoes.  It was an era of shoe salesmanship when the salesman would pull out a metal foot measuring tool and actually fit the shoes to your foot.  Imagine that!

     And, when it came to practical shoes in the 1950's, it was Buster Brown.  

     We had a TV in our home by 1953, when Dad came back from Korea and Buster Brown and Tide commercials were shown in the morning with the children's programs.  Of course every child, who was fortunate to have a television in the home, desired a Buster Brown shoe.

     That first year, the routine was purchasing school shoes, gratefully paid for by Teek, and then to the Horne's Tea Room for lunch.

1953 First Grade

     The August ritual continued to be in place in 1953.  New Buster Brown shoes and a metal lunch box added.

     I'm not certain how many more years this very special August event took place; however, I do know it was at a minimum until August of 1956 when I was entering fourth grade.  

     Added to the shoe purchase was a pencil box.  In the 50's the boxes were heavy duty cardboard, like a cigar box.  They were sold in a special table on Horne's first floor.  It was fun to choose one with a favorite picture on top.  

     The last pencil box I selected was a larger one that had a pull out drawer in it.  More room for all those school supplies, pencils, crayons, scissors, ruler, etc.  

     I know by 1958 and my last year in elementary school, the school shoes and supplies were purchased at the local shopping mall.  Looks like I moved from Mary Jane's to penny loafers.  Ruthie and I turned in our lunch box and pencil box for matching brief cases.  

     

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Achievement--Mildred Claudine Tate Smith

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 11 (March 11-March 17) is Achievement. 

     Weeks ago I mentioned to Ted that I was stumped as to what to write concerning achievement.  I have covered this topic with numerous of my family and just couldn't think where to go with it.  

     Ted said his maternal grandmother, Mildred Claudine Tate Smith, widowed at age thirty-seven, with seven children in 1931 showed achievement through her courage in raising her children alone.  I never met  Grandma Smith, I have no personal insight and the stories I have heard may be somewhat acrophyll; however, .....here I go.

Mildred Claudine Tate
circa 1898
Courtesy of Jay Howard Smith

     Mildred was born on February 19, 1895 to Charles Henry Christian Tate and Ida Mae Hess, in Spencerville, Spencer Township, Allen County, Ohio.  There is a 1900 and 1910 Ohio census for the Tate Family in Spencerville.  

Circa 1905

1913 Tiffin City Directory

  

  

Sanborn Fire Insurance Map
Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio
1914

     By 1913, the Tate family removed to the city of Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio. The family lived at 24 Forest and Mildred is listed in the directory. Forest Street was renamed Oak Street. On the 1914 Sanford Fire Insurance map Oak and Forest run into each other. 

     At some time the city decided to just continue Oak Street up to West Davis and erase the name of Forest Street.  The house pictured above was built in 1913 and is located on the street in the same spot where the Tate house is located on the 1914 Sanborn Fire Insurance map.

     I would like to note that the Webster Manufacturing Company was located to the west of the red circled area where the Tate Family lived.  It is likely that Charles Tate and his and older sons where employed at the plant.

     This lovely candy box was given to Mildred by Grover Cleveland Smith when they were dating and the bittersweet he picked in the fall for her as a gift.  It was in the possession of her daughter, my mother-in-law, Helena Mae Smith Hiser.

 

Mildred Claudine Tate
Circa 1918

Grover Cleveland Smith

     On June 5, 1919, at age twenty-four, Mildred married thirty-four year old Grover Cleveland Smith, son of John Andrew Smith and Helena Frederika Oster, in Seneca County, Ohio.  The marriage was performed by Reverend Charles Allen Pearce of The Church of Christ.  

     The 1920 Ohio census, taken on January 7 lists Grover and Mildred living on a farm with Grover's father, John Andrew Smith and one brother, Otto Lafayette Smith.  The Smith's were farmers growing and selling fruit and vegetables.

     On March 17, 1920 the Smith's welcomed their first child, a son, Howard Lewis Smith.  Six more children followed, Helena Mae Smith born on March 12, 1922, Mary Irene Smith born on July 7, 1923, Betty Lou Smith born on February 1, 1925, Arthur William Smith born on September 17, 1926, Gilbert Tate Smith born on October 3, 1928 and Martha Ann Smith born on February 24, 1931.  

Rerick Brothers Atlas and Art Portfolio
Seneca County, Clinton Township, Ohio
1896

     The 1896 atlas shows the Smith properties side by side on South Greenfield Road/County Road 50.  Christina Smith is John Andrew Smith's mother and Grover Cleveland Smith' paternal grand mother.  There is a small square marking the school that my mother-in-law and her siblings attended before their move into the city in 1932.

     The 1930 Ohio census gives insight as to the location of the Smith home and farm on South Greenfield Road, Clinton Township, Seneca County, Ohio.  That area is just outside the city limits of Tiffin, Ohio.  Grover is the head of the family and his aged father is living in the house and is retired.  Grover is a truck farmer and is working the sizable family fruit farm.  

John Andrew Smith
Ohio Death Certificate

     One year later a double tragedy struck the family.  On March 2, 1931, John Andrew Smith, the family patriarch, died at the family farm from valvular heart disease at eighty years of age.  His burial was on March 5, 1931 in Greenlawn Cemetery, Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio.  The Find A Grave date of death is incorrect.

Grover Cleveland Smith
Ohio Death certificate

     On the day his father was to be buried, March 5, 1931, Grover Cleveland Smith died in his bed on the family farm, just fourteen days shy of his forty-sixth birthday. Cause of death was toxic goiter and myocarditis.  

     Mildred was in bed following the birth of a daughter, Martha Ann Smith, on February 24.  According to a family account of the day written by my mother-in-law, she was asked to carry the new born baby into her father's bedroom so he could see his new daughter.  She was told not to let her father know that his father had died.  Grover saw Helena come in with the baby and said, "Grandpa died, didn't he?" He died within a short time after.

     Grover Cleveland Smith was buried on March 7, 1931 in Greenlawn Cemetery, Tiffin, Seneca County, Ohio.

*********************

     And now my stumbling block.  What came next?  Up until now I used research and family documents.  The nugget of my blog comes after Grover's death and how Mildred courageously picked up the pieces and moved on.  

     Distinguishing fact and acrophyll stories when doing family genealogy on my husband's side of the tree has been difficult.  The genealogist on the Smith side was Aunt Betty Smith Bowman.  She amassed a huge amount of documents, photos and knowledge over her ninety-seven years.  I married into the family fifty-five years ago and over the decades listened to the hardships of the Smith's early life, primarily from the my mother-in-law Helena Smith Hiser and Aunt Betty. 

      I had many "I think" ideas and memories of  the Smith stories rolling around in my head wanting to add some personality to this blog.  Then the light bulb went off --email Cousin Jay Howard Smith.  Jay's genealogical written pieces on the family are well researched.  He also has access to his father's, Howard Lewis Smith, family files.  Cousin Jay did not disappoint.  I now have the necessary information to complete the blog.  Surprisingly, two typed letters written by my mother-in-law that I had never seen, helped to provide a first person account.   

Life After the Death of Grover Cleveland Smith

     Mildred was still in bed following the birth of the baby and when her husband died.  There was a practical nurse coming to the farm to care for Grover, Mildred and the baby.  

     The time had come for Mildred to pick herself up by the proverbial bootstraps and forge ahead with a new life for herself and her seven children.  According to family stories the Smith farm was to pass to Grover and Mildred.  With the death of both John and Grover and no wills, the estate became intestate.  Over the years I had heard talk that family members swooped in, sold the land, took the money and left Mildred with nothing.

 

Mildred's hand written page of bills paid
following Grover's death

    

      According to the two newly found letters of my mother-in-law, the farm and land was sold and divided equally among the children of John Andrew and Helena Oster Smith.  Mildred did receive her deceased husband's share.  Also, Grover had some life insurance.  She was able to pay any debts and rent on the farm until she purchased a house in Tiffin.

     Mildred was paying the Estate of her father-in-law $10.00 monthly for rent to remain in the farm house.  The final one was dated January 1932; however, I have additional information that she continued to pay rent through March 1932.

131 Prospect Street
Tiffin, Ohio

     Mildred's financial dedication following Grover's death resulted in her ability to purchase a house at 131 Prospect Street in Tiffin.  Once again, my mother-in-law wrote a letter describing the move to the new house.  All of the children were excited to move into the city; however, once Helena saw the house she was extremely disappointed in the small size and shabbiness.  

     

     The car "stopped in front of a small grey house, old and in need of paint."

    "My heart sank.  No! No!  This could not be our new home. How can we be moving from the spacious, fairly new house in the country to this house so small and shabby in comparison."

     Mildred and the children had a large garden plot behind the house.  Vegetables were canned and Mildred baked bread weekly.  She was an excellent seamstress and was able to earn a living making clothes and doing alterations well into the 1950's.

1934 Tiffin City Directory

Mildred Claudine Tate Smith
Sitting beside her house
1935

     Through courage and determination Mildred was able to raise her children, see them through high school and marriages.  131 Prospect was painted, enlarged and housed Mildred until her death in 1964.  Family still owns and lives in the house.  Her life following her husband's death is the embodiment of personal achievement.

Personal Note        

     I attended and graduated from Heidelberg College, now Heidelberg University.  The campus buildings are  located on Greenfield Road Street within the Tiffin City limits.  Once crossing the city line the street becomes County Road 50.    I married into the Hiser/Smith family.  I knew all of the "Smith kids" listed above and heard the family stories from the women.  Smith Family farms and remaining houses were pointed out and there were numerous visits to Greenlawn Cemetery to pay respect to those ancestors past.  All of Grover and Mildred's children are buried in Greenlawn Cemetery except, Arthur William Smith.     

              

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser