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By Ona Fellows - July, 1999 I remember my mother as being intelligent, dramatic and fun-loving. She was frequently called upon to entertain people at the Grange, at church, or at family gatherings. We lived off the land, and she cooked whatever was available on the farm in Marlboro, Vermont, such as chicken, pigs, frog's legs, deer or woodchuck. This was during World War 1, and meats were expensive. I don't remember rebelling at eating these things. To me they were delectable. My mother would say to us kids, “Go down to the brook and catch some frogs,” and when we brought them to her, she would cook the legs for supper. Sometimes the neighboring farm families would gather in each other's home for a meal. One of our neighbors, Mrs. B, turned up her nose at some of the things we ate. “I'd NEVER eat woodchucks,” she'd say. One evening my mother was cooking some meat for supper on the old black kitchen range, when the B's happened to stop by for a visit. “Minnie, what smells so good?" Mrs. B. asked, as they came in the back way through the kitchen. My mother, being the fun-loving person that she was, just smiled, and went on with her cooking. But my father answered quickly. "Something we've never had before," he said, not letting on that we’d had something like it, of course. “Why don't you stay and have some with us?” he asked, with a twinkle in his eye. The B's agreed, and we all sat down together at the big, long table to eat. These were fun gatherings because the B's had the same number of children as we did. We were all enjoying the meal my mother had prepared, when Mrs. B. commented, “Minnie, this is so GOOD! What IS it?" Somehow my father let the cat out of the bag. When Mrs. B. found out that she had eaten woodchuck, she ran out the back door, through the shed, into the outhouse, and upchucked the woodchuck. We all laughed, and I still laugh when I think about it today. Oh, the memories of my fun-loving mother! From the Blackberry Dispatch, the Fellows Family Newsletter, July 1999 |
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