Naomi says, "This was during Depression years in Pennsylvania when I was around seven years old . . ."

     Canning time was exciting, even though I was still so young. I loved to see how the vegetables grew, to help pick off the potato bugs and send them to oblivion in a can with a little kerosene, to know which radishes were large enough to pull, which tomatoes were really ripe, when the pea pods were fat enough, how to choose the right size green beans, to harvest leaves of lettuce instead of pulling up the whole plant, and to watch for the tassels on the corn, knowing that the silks would tell us when it was time for "roastin' ears". But putting up the bounty was a necessity, against the winter. I liked to slip the skins off the beets after they were cooked and to help scald the tomatoes till their skins were ready to slide off for canning; to hull the peas, and snap the green beans, but I could only watch when Grandma or Mama cut the corn from the cob. I could wash the jars, rinse them and stand them in a row, and even get the lids ready, but they did the rest. Now when it came to making jam or apple butter, I was the official stirrer, standing on a chair by that hot wood-burning stove, with a special long-handled paddle going "round and round the kittle, and up and down the middle." My only misfortune at canning time happened one day when I came in from play to find they had started without me and, eager to see what was cooking, I placed my small hands against the chrome trim on the front of that great stove in order to peer into the preserving kettle. My sweaty little palms hissed as the hot metal seared them and I spent the next hour or so sobbing quietly in Grandma's lap as she rocked me and fanned my greased-up hands, praying over me all the while. To this day I can't remember what was cooking, but Grandma's loving tenderness and care prevented any scarring. It remains one of my most vivid memories of her.