The Women Who Fed Me

I had a conversation recently with my cousin McKenzie that reminded us both of home. She and I sat in my kitchen, in Indianapolis, about 1,500 miles away from our small hometown of Warren, Utah. We grew up kitty-corner from each other, both of us a few houses away from where we would gather during the week and on most Sunday evenings—Grandma's house. Grandma's house was a place where McKenzie and I, along with our siblings and other cousins, created some of our most wholesome and happy childhood memories. From riding our bikes around the cow pens and the hay barn, to getting scared by the ghost in the old milk barn, to creating a dance to country singer Alan Jackson's “A Holly Jolly Christmas,” we played and laughed together until our mothers told us it was time to go. There are a hundred good memories to tell, but one memory McKenzie and I recently reminisced about helped me realize the strong female community I got to be a part of, and it starts with a tractor bucket full of corn.Surrounding a hill of corn sat my grandmother, her six daughters, and their daughters. Each summer we would get our camping chairs, sit in a circle, and shuck corn for hours. We would fill the Rubbermaid storage bins with shucked ears of corn, then transfer them into the house, where together we would boil, cut, and bag the corn kernels. Sometimes I would be assigned to cut the corn, label the Ziploc bag with the year, or help clean up. After we finished the work, my aunts would divide the bags of corn between them, usually about a year's supply each, and the bags of corn would be stored at home in our extra freezers. I watched similar processes when we would gather together to make and can peaches, pears, applesauce, bread-and-butter pickles, or strawberry jam. These jars of food, as well as the beef from the cows my grandpa would divide amongst our families, were the staple foods of my childhood.As I got older, these traditions slowed dramatically. I asked my mother, Shawnette, why she thought this tradition with the women in our family declined. Her first thoughts were the practical aspects. First, canning and freezing food became more expensive or equal to the cost of buying packaged foods at the grocery store. Second, my mother and many of my aunts began working full-time because of the growing need for a second income. The practical option for these working moms was to buy frozen corn at the supermarket, rather than spend their summers canning and freezing food. In addition to these practicalities, a third reason for the decline was the loss of social connection. She said, “When I was younger it was a whole family thing, we would all help pick, shuck, and help out. You had your grandma, your mom and the kids all doing a job, and it was very social and it was a lot of fun. I remember it being a very fun event to look forward to.”1 When they decided that they would no longer do large batches together as a family, it was more work and less enjoyable doing the work individually. For Shawnette, shucking corn was a time also spent connecting with the women in her family.Shawnette, along with the other women in my family, deeply value the connection we have with one another—those of us in the present, as well as those who have passed. One way that we connect is through food. Our mothers fed us, taught us how to cook, and passed on recipes when we started our own families. My memory of shucking corn isn't important because fresh freezer corn is the most delicious; it's because I am remembering the women who fed me. Drawing on oral interviews, family history sources, and community cookbooks, I will explore how food memory is a source of history for maternal family lines. While some food historians have shown that food is connected to self-identity or place, I agree with scholars who have argued that food is connected to the matrilineal history of women in local communities.2 This essay will analyze the food memory of female members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints living in rural northern Utah through the lens of my maternal lineage. In rural Utah Latter-day Saint families, where women are the main cooks and bakers, their food memory and church cookbooks are sources that illustrate female history. Within family recipes, cookbooks, and memories we can see the larger shifting domestic, religious, and social lifestyles, as well as the continuity of family traditions and sociality. I will argue that analyzing food memory within my family demonstrates how others can use such memories to connect to the women who fed them and thereby preserve these women's history.The women in my maternal family line, including myself, who are the focus of this essay, represent five generations of Latter-day Saint women who have lived in rural northern Utah farming communities throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. That line begins with my great-great-grandmother, Vera Stoker Graves, who was born in 1902 in Clearfield, Utah. She married Christian Graves in the Salt Lake Temple in 1923 and raised five children with him.3 One of those children was my great-grandmother Verla Graves McFarland, who was born in 1928 in Ogden, Utah. She married my great-grandfather Charles Ray McFarland in 1947, also in the Salt Lake Temple. They raised seven children on a dairy farm in West Haven, Utah.4 Her daughter, Ilene McFarland Wade, is my grandmother. Ilene was born in Ogden in 1953, married my grandfather Blaine Wade in 1972 in the Ogden Temple, and had eight children.5 They raised them in Warren, Utah, on a dairy farm. My mother, Shawnette Wade Horton, was her third child, born in 1977. Shawnette was married in the Logan Temple to my father, Jonathan Horton, in 1999. I was born in 2001, and my parents raised my four siblings and me in Warren, Utah, three houses down from my grandmother's house. These women have fed a posterity of Latter-day Saint men and women and helped further traditions that continue to connect our family.Following this maternal line even further back in my family tree is my fourth-great-grandmother Susana Baumann, the first in this line to be a Latter-day Saint woman living in a rural community in Utah. She was born in Switzerland in 1838, then moved to Bountiful, Utah, in 1862 with her family and many other Latter-day Saint pioneers. Since Susana's generation, this branch of my family has lived relatively close to one another in Latter-day Saint communities along the Wasatch Mountains within the seventy miles between Logan and Bountiful. Within the span of more than 160 years these women have been important participants in their communities, especially through their participation in the local congregations of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known as wards. My family's belief in the Latter-day Saint faith has influenced our family culture more than any other aspect of their lives, and my female relatives have been particularly devout. In addition to the theological aspects of our religion, social and cultural participation in communities that were predominantly Latter-day Saint has been integral to our family's life. One social and cultural tradition that has been an important aspect of female Latter-day Saint culture is the creation of ward cookbooks.Ward cookbooks are similar to the cookbooks created by other communities and religions across the United States.6 Compiling community ward cookbooks is a popular tradition in American chapters of the Relief Society, the women's organization of the LDS church. Women in the ward would provide a copy of a favorite recipe or two to the group of women in charge of the project. The name of the woman who donated the recipe was printed with the recipe, connecting the woman's memory to her dish. The ward cookbooks could also include poems, cleaning practices, or short histories of the congregation. The group of women in charge would type all of the recipes and arrange for the printing and binding of the cookbooks. When the cookbooks were finished, they were sold back to the ward community for fundraising purposes. These cookbooks were done for practical reasons like fundraising, but also because women believed and hoped that they were preserving their community's food traditions through these projects. The earliest recorded ward cookbooks in the LDS church archives date from the 1920s; subsequent cookbooks date from throughout the twentieth century, with a notable from the to The of ward cookbooks has in but many in this a I helped in the of the in I asked my mom to her recipes and them in to the My name is recorded to her recipes for in a to her She me this to with me when I got When a Latter-day Saint woman in rural northern Utah a is a ward it was an even more popular to in the to My Ilene that was very popular in the time we got married and years for the to make cookbooks, because She many cookbooks for her and they her with These ward cookbooks were to her as a and She the recipes to make family and church the Ilene for some recipes these ward cookbooks were an important Ilene and the for to Ilene as a and My was the dairy and of and a need for Ilene to have for when in the In an with my mother, Shawnette, she how Ilene happy to be of the family, and of the house, and Ilene the in and the and In a similar Ilene told me how she to be in of was for was a She with a have that to was I was Ilene her mother Verla and Vera have similar they were the for the house. Ilene Vera and houses as clean and where Vera and Verla would and and even in their small Ilene how they had like or mother on in the to to when I like that is a tradition that started with that to she had a for This tradition with my who has a to with family and who to in was to my on her by her mother, The women who this were Latter-day Saints living in West Haven, many of them were and the were This poems, and scholars and demonstrates the of Latter-day Saint women living in West at this In “A it one or more and One and One and One food, clean and this the home is with a and mother, an father, and a home that is clean and children with food, and similar for a a of a of together with a of in a of a of one of and to a of that the to at with the of in a good and creating a a woman was to many of these and a good Shawnette her Verla many of these was to and make her and I her her important aspect of a woman's was her with her The for the in the “A woman happy with her is for her children than any other in the like these are in ward cookbooks throughout Utah. One printed in the and many others is to a well in a of with a of and with and When they for is to help in the of a good and to from Latter-day Saint were the to use to how women their and cookbooks to a and of it throughout the United and for of the twentieth similar that was in many to a in the This the in to a men to and this recipe a to how women are to their “A good many are by in and are and The women their them in them by them with and be that any will be and good when but they are when and are them from of the a was to the with a strong as the one is to be their with good and but use or on any with and with home will very with will a of The of these was a and to and children for a this and on a to her is for a it also and by women at this and Ilene all their in their own Ilene the of was similar to her but she was even more I like Graves had a very strong and in that the men to be a more in at in my all the of a mother, including and Ilene and Verla were also for on the farm and church Shawnette she was of her or her mother or because a she was less than she was her of her for her and her She was for those of I was of her that she could do these as a In she Verla and Ilene in in the as of the local LDS and Relief women in my were by the my were very women the men around them My mom my they were on the of my grandpa they of the home or Ilene she to be a and have “When we got married we we of we and we the and we the and we she was to have eight children and at she is very that this is the with that family is and I had or have or were to have is our place to was to have eight some would have to but Ilene was with her and within her family, Latter-day Saint woman was happy with her Ilene a working mother in the larger who had with of the church during a church in the women to at home. The working mom very and she I do both and working I I be to do my because I need to it was a has their but I in my own a very from an with the of as a was and by the Relief The of this could be to it and would be by many other women in the by the that other women to the of being a in this woman's and her was important to have a place in the why this woman the need to make her name This could be by the of this especially to the and that The woman's that she was with her as the and cleaning all the time for her and This woman was and in her of her as a the she her of in her of for being a the of this is to the history of women at this time it is in I have a that it is to less than a I am a of and is other woman I who from her to a or to some of or Church it's no is of in a work that even until the first time I am in our family is a a of for a of or a and to make I am a through the across the as I make a I up by down on it for a The work is it up until at the of a is more to do than was that I was to was no be of a of the that a is and a at any is the with the of the been told to of as a to my to that is the of them In I am I when I a and who can a or even a with her on the is a for me to from the and to with my and children or to like a tree and that I the be any to me is about up and them and to do about the I more than and it to be in work that has no but a of could be that the part of my work is but in my I it like or I am like is to and to do The are when a to be is with a small to be is up when be and a to or the to and is The of children is as to all other and the other are at where be time in work the the the the any time spent in like to with even of their by about work or children who at have more to do than I can get more to and I have to more to that I can she this woman the many women have about their as Latter-day Saint My mother, Shawnette, a similar when it to for our I asked she for us because she or because she she had to do She I to is where I have to get this but would do it I would to Her was that they would need to clean up the with Ilene or in many In addition to the in that have the of women in the twenty-first century, Shawnette was the first woman in her maternal family line to a and has been a working mom for many When it to the family with she she recipes that were and Since Shawnette recipes that were to her became the of the house. and recipes were even as a mom with small She said, was was with I would and to get to with a or they were down for a or I had to up a from the had to be a the of Latter-day Saint women the recipes and within ward cookbooks as of this is a recipe from the printed in The recipe the with another recipe for but the recipe the of and about a third of the work in to the For a working the less in the to be an with was a by my to work as a mother was for Shawnette, but she had where she that she was doing the Shawnette about or her working when Shawnette that had of the home for many years as a she said, on in my that she it helped me that it was for me to work Shawnette no one her for she as she her mother and being as some of the women in the Relief have the it was a for Shawnette to that she was in her as a for the of mothers has in ward cookbooks in the twenty-first have to the use of fundraising printing like This was by my ward in for the organization and printing of There were no for preserving or a house a the was the name of the woman who a recipe on the of each were to in these but some the of men in the cookbooks. The from recipes from the men of their and are their recipes for and recipes in ward cookbooks, even in small is of a culture to in the traditions continue to and for women in rural Latter-day Saint communities as family members in recipes to the ward as they into the and women more recipes the of the one Latter-day Saint to gather recipes from Latter-day Saint from across the in She has four include recipes from to the recipes in ward cookbooks more because of to the some of the recipes continue to be passed When I got married in my mother Shawnette and Ilene two cookbooks to me. The first is the from and the second is a Wade family by of Wade family recipes that my were important to with ward the name of the woman in my family who is with the is on of the I have moved away from Utah, I am reminded of my female as I use their recipes for or the tradition of ward cookbooks is my family's demonstrates one way the recipes and local female food traditions from female Latter-day Saint communities that recipes the memory and tradition with food into more than in that is then into a of a woman's that recipes and by women in her through their Relief help her to connect with the memory of those She her time she or her and her recipes are for me in women in Utah, in recipes, recorded in this ward were an that to up a memory of her I agree with and further argue that the food memories with the women in community cookbooks to be recorded as a way to more women's Latter-day Saint women's are recorded in ward cookbooks and are in archives throughout Utah. of on of recipes is a were these women they were some of the they the history of a or in our but be a in place, one by Latter-day Saint an of use such as or to the history of their family the and sources for women's history are for a is to each in a family creating a place for and other to be These source help to the lifestyles, and of these to a food memory preserve women's history in a will these memories the of they also preserve the food traditions and within a larger female illustrate food memory look I will connect a few recipes and to the women in my this I will also illustrate how these food memories can the important traditions in rural Latter-day Saint women's of these in the but also and for mothers and in many are a way for communities to and by them with In rural northern Utah Latter-day Saint these are for the women and women to The for the would be to the in the female family and any other female of the or I was when my mother decided I was to with her to my first I remember how each woman would packaged into the event and place them by the woman being I from my mother Shawnette and my Ilene how to these in and them with and how to bags with with like or a the of five I that to these and was a time when I had my mother all to into the or being by the of female to one the of a or mother by a of and the of foods I could to line the were with like or like strawberry or and a of After we got a of these we would sit together and the of the My great-grandmother Verla and who lived with would usually the woman and and and and I remember the and each woman into her When I of my own I of these my mother Shawnette and These memories me the of and from the women in my family and memories like this one connect us to the women who are with they also us about local and food traditions by women in these rural When most of Utah they of or but they be less with other local and food culture that were in my like ward camping foods like at summer family or even of many communities, the together on to with food, and a small is part of and very of family and of food or small This event is by the ward community on a The starts with a and and a small community and the short full of kids and parents riding and in and and the the women in the community gather their and other for the most popular event of the The is is played a group around a of when the sit on a on a with the home with a of your I remember my to get in the growing line, as we all the would be we the I it was to be a good I could get my or my and the we two to sit in a until the was a to many of the including my why as a family we would to the and then usually our own family's they were the we I I am back to those of of these traditions are or to preserve the history of it is that we food memories in or other family or local history my food memories of of or are women who have their to and their families. as women's from to working many women continue a tradition of family When my mother, Shawnette, to work full-time for the first time she told her am to work, but I to that I am a mother, and and I have a family and I need to of them, and work in the then I will have to Her has her the many other Latter-day Saint women in northern Utah, even look for Shawnette than it for or she to her family first in value she from her we preserve our recipes, food and continue important family and community food we will be to connect with and the women who fed to and In on until about and do with and or place in and to up. of or can milk and then together and or other and have been and in of on of this and to to up about hours. or be and to For large use of and with or no on and for with then to has been and then with on with and In a then then and then at for in a large and until is and is in and to boil, and and For or and in with with and on in for or until and as in can of with can with at for all together and in about with with or as on the and of to and and into a and in until with and