Newspaper Article from Cape Girardeau Missourian Newspaper

Can you guess the year this was published? I think you will get a kick out of this. According to this article, we must have been the world's wonder family. I sure come off as "Miracle Mom" in the article! On the other hand, it was great PR for the church.

Mary Blue

Missouian Food Editor

Wholesome food is one of the keys to healthy, happy children in close family ties, is the belief of Mrs. Richard Lewis, North Hills Estate who grows, preserves and prepares food for her family of 10. In this Mormon family there are five girls and three boys, ranging in age from 1 to 19 years, and a ninth child is expected this summer.

With strong religious faith, they have in reserve a year's supply of food to meet with an emergency, and eat mostly natural food, grind their own wheat for flour, can, freeze and dehydrate food for their year around use.

When Mr. Lewis, a manager at the Procter and Gamble Paper Products Co. here, was transferred from Southern California, where both he and Mrs. Lewis had grown up and spent most of their lived, it was the first time they had lived away from California, except during his military duties in the Navy when they were in the east and in Europe. It is their first experience in living away from a city and first in the Midwest. They love their new environment and their home in a lively wooded area several miles out of town.

Not many convenience foods can be found in the kitchen of Barbara Lewis. She prepares most of their foods, the making of lasagna spaghetti, crackers (all from whole wheat) with a pasta maker, grows alfalfa sprouts to be used in salads, and cans, freezes and dehydrates food from their bountiful garden, and preserves other available food for the future.

Imagine the delight of the children when they come home from school (Jackson) to the aroma of freshly baked bread. Bread is made from whole wheat flour, honey, powdered milk and other bread basics several times during the week. Because of the quantity it is made with the kneading arm of an electric mixer.

In cooking and preparing food for her family Barbara cuts corners where possible. She believes whole wheat flour is more healthful.

A food dehydrator has been a good investment, she has found, as it not only dries fruits and vegetables, but she uses it for drying bread to be used for dressing and stuffing to be served with meat and poultry.

A noodle extruder (or pasta maker) was a welcomed Christmas present this year. Even though the making of noodles and spaghetti is time consuming, it is a family project they enjoy, especially he finished products.

Major shopping is done only once each month with a tremendous amount of staples being purchased at that time. A weekly trip to the grocery will take care of most of the other needs as meat is purchased in quantity, milk obtained from a local farmer, and fruits and vegetables obtained locally when in season. They have an abundant garden.

One of the happy times with the children is the preservation of food. Last summer the 12-year-old son was delighted when he could wash and prepare cucumbers to make pickles. Every project is a family affair with the smaller children also participating.

When there was a n excess of fruit last summer, they were allowed to pick apples from a local orchard. With this fruit they made applesauce and dehydrated apples for winter's use. Pears to be canned were obtained in the same manner. Then, all summer they had fresh produce from their own garden.

Besides her own family, Barbara Lewis has 14 active girls in Brownie Troop 179 meeting at her home each Thursday afternoon. In the Youth Division of the Jackson Christmas Parade, this troop won on their float. With this money the troop is looking forward to a great day at Six Flags.

Mr. Lewis, a lay leader in the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, is president of the young men of the church , and is district financial clerk, taking care of the bookkeeping of this area with some of the churches being in Kentucky, Tennessee and Arkansas.

Monday night is Family Night. This is a special time set aside for family fun, counsel and fellowship in the home. Always it is opened with prayer and then may be followed with a variety of activities with all of the family participating. There are songs, plays, games, such as "Name That Tune," and other forms of challenging events. Because genealogy is important in their religion, some portion of the evening may be devoted to it's study. Sometimes others are invited to share this happy event of "super entertainment with all participating," they commented.

Another family observance is that each child has a "special night". On about four nights each week, one child is allowed to stay up later with the parents and the child chooses the activity. Because of the age span, it can be reading, playing the piano, or playing with play dough. This special child also gets to plan the breakfast menu and sometimes the menu for the next day.

Robert Lewis, the oldest of the children , who is 19, left home only two weeks ago for a two-year period when he will do missionary work for the church. It is his life-long dream come true. During the summers and after school work he has saved money for this experience. For Christmas, he received the discussions (about a half dozen) which he is to follow, so he was familiar with them when he left for his five day stay at the mission home in Salt Lake City, Utah. Then he was assigned to Southern California. It is ironic that he would be sent right back to the area from which the family moved, when he could have been assigned to anyplace in the world.

These young men must follow stringent rules. They do not smoke or drink coffee, tea or alcohol and must be morally clean. Although they are representatives of their church, they are sustained by their families while they are on this mission. Prior to leaving, Robert visited the two nicely dressed young men who are about town on bicycles, and learned from them on a few days call what to anticipate in his work.

School children take their lunch, which often consists of every child's favorite - Peanut butter, jam or honey on whole wheat bread. then there is a crunchy snack (envied by other children) - popcorn. Fruit leather is made from summer ripe fruit prepared in the blender and then the dehydrator.

The Children take turns with household duties, including washing dishes, setting the table, vacuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms, with little ones assisting in picking up toys.

Hot cereal is a favorite wintertime breakfast foo, but whole wheat pancakes are a year around favorite. this is also a favorite winter dinner meal too. A simple syrup is made to be served on the pancakes.

The children like Mexican food, Oriental food, with stir-fry vegetables always popular. Apples and carrots are always available for nibbles and they have fruits and vegetables the whole year. It is possible to have good snack foo, Mrs. Lewis believes, without buying "junk foods." They are especially fond of a cottage cheese dip on baked potatoes and to dip raw vegetables and freshly sliced apples.

To maintain a healthy happy family, she says one must know what is in the food that is served to them. for this reason, she prepares her own foods and submits the following recipes.

THANKSGIVING AT OUR HOUSE

We had Thanksgiving at our house, Grandma Corbridges and at Aunt Avis and Uncle Bruce's house. I thought I would share this picture with you. It's Thanksgiving at our house on Lomina, in Los Altos, California.
That is my sister, Kathy, in the front of the picture. She is the youngest of us three girls. The next row is L. to R. - Grandma Corbridge, Aunt Billie and Uncle Ross, Aunt Loretta and Uncle John (my Father's Uncle), and Grandpa Charlie and Grandma Gladys. Back shows Father waveing over Uncle John's shoulder and Mother peeking out over Grandpa Charlie's shoulder.
The Thanksgiving picture was developed in December 1958. I had Rob 8 Dec of 1958 and I was living with Mother and Father at the time. Here are a couple of pictures that were taken closer to Christmas. 1st Grandchild for Mother and Father and my first baby! Yes, I had blond hair at the time!


Below is a 4 generation shot with Me, Father, Grandma Mike, Father's mother. It was taken on the same day.

The Girl Who Hated Eggs!

As I was growing up, I developed a hatred for eggs. Maybe it was not so much a hatred as complete disgust but I definitely didn’t like eggs in any way shape or form. Now my sister, Roberta was another story. I have to insert here that she not only liked eggs but she had a unique way of making a profit from eating eggs. Or should I say…sucking eggs? My Grandpa Charlie was a character and he would (pardon the pun in advance) egg Roberta and our cousin, Clayton Richardson, on to get them to suck eggs. He offered 50¢ to whoever could suck the most raw eggs! The way you suck an egg is to make a small hole at each end of the egg and then suck the raw egg into your mouth and swallow it. Roberta is pretty daring and she usually won. So she ate raw eggs…FOR A PRICE!



This is me with Uncle Bruce and my cousin Bruce "Brucie".

One time I was spending the night with Aunt Avis and Uncle Bruce and their family. For breakfast, Aunt Avis made fried eggs. I almost gagged when she set a plate in front of me with a beautifully cooked, sunny side up, fried egg on it. I told her that I didn’t like eggs. She said that when I was at her house, I would eat eggs and like it! I think I had already started crying, when I looked down at my plate and to my astonishment, saw that my egg was gone! I looked up in amazement and Uncle Bruce who was sitting at the table, winked at me. He had eaten my egg and I was saved!

When I was sick, I always wanted cream of tomato soup and rye bread toast to eat and I didn’t like sugar on my cereal, just plain.

Some nights Mother would make a big pot of cornmeal mush, pour it into cake pans and put it into the refrigerator to harden. Then in the morning, she would slice it and fry it. I do that occasionally for myself. We had it with butter and syrup like pancakes. It was a big treat!

Cute picture of Mother with her catch of trout!
We spent summers camping and fishing and eating the bounties of nature, like fish and berries etc. Some of my likes and dislikes have to do with wild food. I always loved trout and the way my Mother cooked it. I was so disappointed the year we went to Idaho to visit and Mother said I could do all the cooking. She was such a good cook. Father was too. Well, as I said, I love trout. The best part of the trout, to me, is the crispy tail. Mother would dip the fish in flour and seasonings and then fry it. Oh how I loved the skin, tail and fins. They were crispy and delicious. Now I will tell you about Aunt Roberta again. She likes the fish eyes! Mother always left the heads on when she fried the fish and fish eyes were a delicacy that Roberta loved and still loves to this day! She would ask everyone for their eyes and we would pop them out and give them to her. Here's one of me with MY catch of trout. Yes, I fished when I was a kid.


One thing I have to tell you about is picking huckleberries. Huckleberries are about the size of a small blueberry and you find them on bushes in the woods. This is me with a small container and a huckleberry between my fingers! You can see that I am standing in the middle of a bunch of huckleberry bushes.
You can imagine how long it takes to pick a small bucket of huckleberries! Well, Mother canned huckleberries in the summer and then we had huckleberry pancakes, huckleberry cobbler and huckleberry syrup, at home in California in the winter. We loved all these delicious things but we got tired of picking huckleberries pretty fast and there was a lot of whining and oh Mother, do we have to? Now there were times when we went out on our own to pick huckleberries, but those berries never saw the light of day. We ate as we picked! If you are going to eat as you pick though, you need to get a handful before you pop them into your mouth, more flavor. Love Huckleberries! Another thing that we always looked for when we went out for huckleberries is wild strawberries. They grow on the ground and are hard to spot but they taste fabulous! They are about the size of the end of my little finger and packed with delicious flavor.

We loved Mexican food and Mother regularly sent us to a Mexican food place, several blocks over from our house, on Pacific Ave. in Long Beach, to get freshly made tortillas. We always ate one on the way home. Ummm yum, warm, fresh tortillas! Mother got to know the people there pretty well and they taught her to make chile relenos. Being the chicken that I was about food, I never tried Mother’s chile relenos. Too bad. You can ask Aunt Roberta how they were though, she probably tried them. It was the same with wild mushrooms. I didn’t develop a taste for mushrooms until it was too late to cash in on Mother and Father’s wild mushroom hunting. They would bring home these beautiful Morell Mushrooms and cook them in butter and have a feast, mushrooms and steak! Whenever Mother made a pan of enchiladas, she always made an extra one for Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge and even when we lived miles away from them, she would take them enchiladas.


Growing up we lived next door to Grandma and Grandpa Corbridge. Grandpa Corbridge and Father would go deep sea fishing and bring back a bunch of Albacore they had caught. Mother and Grandma would can them and that is the only kind of tuna I had until I was an adult. Mother put the fish into pint jars with some oil and garlic and processed them in either a pressure cooker or a roaster. Sometimes we would just have the fish right out of the jar for a meal. Great stuff! This is out back of the apartments that Grandma and Grandpa owned across the street from where we lived on Chestnut Ave in Long Beach. You can see that the hose is running and they are cleaning fish. You have to get the guts out before you start preparing them for canning.

This is how we got our meat, no walking into a store and picking up the prepackaged stuff!
My Father went hunting every year and we always had deer meat, venison. I remember one time when Mother served us hamburger and we said, “Eww, what kind of meat is this?” It was regular beef hamburger but we were so used to the taste of venison hamburger that it seemed terrible to us!

So no, I don’t remember being forced to eat and I was always accused of being picky but looking back, I guess the only thing I really was was the girl who hated eggs!

1954

Jack is reading a book that takes place in the early 1950's. Could you tell what is was like for you in 1954?