"The Story Behind Grandmother's Cookbook"

This is about the writing of a cookbook, but more than that its about the love between a Grandmother and her Grandaughter. The cookbook is from my wife's side of the family. Carrie is my Sister-in-Law and the story touched me deeply. I think its worth a read. Family still matters in the United States as you can see by the prose. I hope you like it.

The Heart of the Matter

Sometimes I think back to the late eighties - to those first days spent with my grandmother sipping tea in the elegantly beautiful sun room of my uncle's home. She had just moved there from her home of many years. She was so sad about her new situation, feeling like she didn't belong and missing “her” home. My soul purpose of spending time with her was to try to cheer her up. We would sip tea and eat cookies or a piece of cake or pie freshly baked by her. The conversations were mainly reminiscing about old times and good time we had as a “traditional” American family.

She was “grandmom” to me and quite a remarkable woman. It didn't take long for the focus of our conversations to turn to her favorite passions – cooking and baking. It was amazing that in an instant we both seemed to turn the purpose of our afternoons together into what became one of the most meaningful and important thing in both of our lives. During one of our chats we got on the subject of recipes. We talked about the ones which are tried and true, having been made hundreds of times over the years. Like the Hungarian Goulash or Mother's Pot Roast and who could forget her Pull Apart Cake or Jelly Buns, both made with grandmom's Basic Sweet Dough recipe?

What I learned from those conversations was a surprising fact – many of the recipes had never been written down. So – from that I got the idea to focus on making our afternoons together productive by coming up with a list of recipes we wished to preserve. Suddenly the focus was take off of her sadness and placed onto something we really enjoyed working on together. Within a period of about two weeks grandmom and I came to a conclusion pretty much at the same time - “Let's make a cookbook!”

As soon as the idea for the cookbook came so did many other original ideas such as designing the front cover of the cookbook around the family farmhouse. It seemed the perfect image for the cover of our cookbook. Almost immediately the idea of including wildflowers, grandmom's second love, was born. “Wildflowers in a cookbook?” we asked ourselves. “Yes, wildflowers in a cookbook!” It seemed perfect to us as wildflowers and garden flowers were such a big part of her life from childhood on.

Now when we'd get together in the afternoons to sip tea there was a true and shared excitement and anticipation. “Now what should we work on today?!” We decided to do the book in her handwriting so I made up a template for her to write within the margins of our chosen page size. During the course of each week she would write whatever she was inspired to write. Sometimes it would be ten, sometimes two. This entire process took about two years!

As a watercolor artist I began right away to create the images we wanted to include of wildflowers and the family crest on the divider pages of the cookbook. I was so inspired by my grandmother's spirit that doing these simple wildflower watercolors became such a joyful task and I loved every minute of it! During the process I came up with the ideas of asking my grandmother to write a story or reminiscence for each wildflower as well as the family crest and the homestead as depicted on the front cover.

When grandmom would write a story she would hand it to me and say, “It this ok?” Each and every story she wrote made me cry. I'm not sure if it was because of how much her sweet and optimistic character came through or because of the sentimentality of it all. One thing was for sure – I discovered that grandmom had a true flair for writing as in the story about Hepaticas . . . “In the spring on Sundays we always went for a walk in the woods to look for the first wildflowers. And one day there they would be, all of the little lavender-blue hepaticas peeping out from under the fallen leaves. Then we would know spring has come again. God's in his heaven, all is right with the world.”

And so it was – the creation of Grandmother's Cookbook by Elizabeth Rose von Hohen and me, Carrie J. Gamble. The original publication was in the spring of 1990. I worked hard to learn about publishing and researched how to market a book once published. My researched paid off. Our first printing sold out in a matter of months due to an article published by the Associated Press. There were dozens of other wonderful reviews and article and the word got out about our cookbook. It was an exciting time and thousands of copies were sold over about a five year period.

Much to our surprise and amazement most folks seemed to get more from our cookbook than just recipes. The warmth of the book including: the hand written style (using MY handwriting instead of grandmom's because it was easier to read), personal stories intertwined throughout and watercolors which appear to be originals, seemed to bring back vivid memories of the reader's own grandmother and childhood. The nostalgia wrapped around this cookbook struck a chord and recalled sentimental thoughts and experiences which had long passed. One cookbook collector wrote "I read your cookbook with a tear in my eye as it recalled such vivid memories of my own grandmother." Another wrote, "thanking you in advance for the many enjoyed meals that call up memories of yesterdays."

The grandest compliment of all was when Country Home magazine decided to do an eight page feature article about Grandmother's Cookbook. Grandmom and I were filled with pride when we first read this beautifully written article. The writer understood the core of the creation of the book and put it so eloquently by saying, “The family cookbook is like a long love letter to one's family - a paean in praise of hearth, heritage and home. Grandmother's Cookbook springs from two people, but it speaks volumes with a singular voice about a family's life. There are Elizabeth's words and recipes, but Carrie has infused them with her soul.”

Fast forward to the spring of 2006. At the age of 97 Elizabeth's health was failing. Through the weeks of her illness my mother and I were able to bring her some of the spring flowers she loved so much: lilacs, violets, lillies of the valley – all picked from our gardens. I can still see the smile on her face as she held them close to smell their fragrance. It was at this time when I decided to proceed with the website for Grandmother's Cookbook. Previously I had showed grandmom every page of the website and read every word of it to her. She thought it was beautiful and was very pleased. I wanted her to know the cookbook would live on and through that her memory and spirit would live on forever. When I gave her the news she just smiled and looked into my eyes and raised her hand with her fingers crossed.

Within the next few weeks Elizabeth's condition worsened. She was ready to go and the "fight" in her was gone. On a beautiful, sunny Sunday morning I went to visit her what was to be for the last time. For years and especially in the past weeks of her illness we have been holding onto her so tight! How could we let her go? The one who was always there and always strong for us with a kind word or a piece of good advice. On this morning I happened to arrive at a time when the nurse was tending to her so I went down the hall to the church service which I had heard so much about from her. She loved church, especially all of the old fashioned hymns. As soon as the hymns started I began to sob and sob and sob and could not stop."Amazing Grace," "How Great Thou Art" are but just a few I remember. This is the first time I allowed my feelings to come out and this is also the first time I realized it was time to let her go.

When I went back to her room she was struggling so to breath. I sat beside her still sobbing and showed her pictures of her husband, her parents. I named every one of her siblings, her daughter Joan, son in laws Stanley and Gerard. I told her how much we loved her and how we will all miss her but it is time for her to go. As I named family members I said, "they are waiting for you and it is time for you to go be with them." Her husband, Erwin - "Grandpop is waiting for you. Please go to him now. He needs you and loves you." I don't know if she was aware of me being there or not. Finally I looked up and begged God to take her. I must have said it at least 30 times, "God, please take her. Pleae take her now." Suddenly she coughed once and stopped breathing. I felt immediately that she was gone. I felt all of those waiting for her were there in that room with us, ready to greet her. Now, not only were we bonded in life through our joint endeavor of Grandmother's Cookbook, but I strongly feel we are bonded beyond life on earth as I feel that I helped her to get into heaven. I truly believe she wanted me to be there with her at that moment.

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