Learning and science
My mother cooked from recipes. Strictly. She carefully and systematically followed recipes diligently, in the same way she systematically studied how best to clean her house. She taught her children skills they would need: how to garden, how to play piano for church, how to sing, how to sew, how to cook, how to wash clothes and hang them out to dry, how to can vegetables and fruit, how to introduce yourself, how to carry on conversation, how to listen, how to fold your arms and close your eyes for prayer. My little sister and I were the last two of seven; she taught my sister how to clean the bathroom and taught me how to dust and vacuum the house. When I started training my own children, I realized she had never taught me how to clean the bathroom.
I don’t remember a time when I couldn’t read; I know she read to me, and she read everything she could get her hands on. Remember this was before the internet; she had to have physical copies in order to read at all. Her interests covered a wide range of history, how-to, current events, humor, art, music, plus anything I brought home. I walked a mile home from school every day, usually reading a book. She greeted me at the door, took my book, sat down and started to read, saying, “Go get a snack.” A snack was peanut butter and honey on homemade whole wheat bread, with milk. Many times we had fresh milk from friends’ cows, but usually we drank powdered nonfat milk. Powdered milk came as a very fine white powder that easily clumped with the slightest moisture. It had to be mixed carefully with a whisk, beaten for what felt like forever, and if you drank it immediately there would be lumps. Theoretically the remaining lumps would dissolve if you left it overnight in the fridge, but who waits that long?
It wasn’t until I was homeschooling my own children that my mother told me she had never had a science class beyond home economics. Those 4-H meetings where she taught me and my friends the science of baking, how things rise, and how to make grilled sandwiches with decorative garnishes of cut vegetables, were teaching her! I went through public school in northern Wyoming. I had science classes from my youth, and home economics in my high school, instead of being for all women, was about half male, mainly the guys who wanted to eat what they made in class. My physics and biology classes were things she didn’t know, and chemistry was largely a foreign language. Oh, she kept learning all her life, into her 90s, but these basics she had to pick up along the way.
