GREAT GRANDFATHER BAIRD'S VICTORY GARDEN

                                                                                             Janine Stubbs

           GREAT GRANDFATHER BAIRD’S VICTORY GARDEN

                                               AND

                        AUNT MARY’S CHERRY PUDDING

     Great Grandpa Baird was anxious to cultivate many flowers, fruit

trees, nut trees, and whatever else he felt like planting. He designed

gardens around the houses where he and his family had lived over the

years,  but later he wanted more space to create beautiful grounds and

gardens for his friends and family.

      He planned for much more, when he found the right place. He

would experiment with grafting and build a greenhouse and plant cherry

trees everywhere. Cherry trees were his favorite. He loved the beautiful

blooms that burst forth in the springtime.  He popped the newly formed

cherries into his mouth and savored the sweet juices as they

 saturated  the inside of his cheeks.

      It was time to retire. He worked most of his life. When he was a

young man he worked beside his father on the family farm, outside of

Hope, Arkansas.  After he finished high school he went to work for the

Pioneer Telephone Company, laying the first telephone lines all the way to

Oklahoma and Texas, from the far reaches of Arkansas, where he was

born. His father fought in the Civil War, but he fought in no real war.

However, he did fight along with his wife, her war with cancer, as he cared                                                                                                                     

 for her and his four little girls, when younger men than he, were soldiers in

 World War I. 

     Being quite successful in his career as a manager for what eventually

became Southwestern Bell Telephone Company, he saved enough

money to buy a twenty acre farm between Oklahoma City and Lake

Overhoster.  He built a stately house with Grecian columns and a

large basement that covered the entire size of the house.

     He retired in the early 1940’s when this country was involved in

World War II. There were shortages of food and supplies and he wanted

to make sure he could provide enough food for his family that lived

nearby.  The basement provided cool storage for vegetables, fruit,

and canned preserved foods.

     Every Sunday Great Grandpa Baird invited all the relatives to a

big Sunday dinner. It was usually his daughters and their families. The

women would prepare the meals and clean up and the men worked in the

fields, caring for the crops.

     It was a bountiful garden that provided food and beauty for numerous

tables. Fields of daffodils jumped up brilliantly yellow every spring. Red

roses climbed arbors leading into smaller flower gardens with  fish

ponds on three sides of the house.  White lilies floated on

 flat green leaves and peeked out of the ponds' waters.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

     There were rows of nut trees and fruit trees, but the most prolific fruit

trees were Great Grandpa Baird’s favorite, his cherry trees. They

blossomed a spectacular show every spring and took up much of the

garden. When the cherries appeared from the pretty pink flowers there

wasn’t much time for harvest. The guys were prompt in picking them

so as not to lose them to the midday sun.

     There was little refrigeration in the 40’s so my aunts used their creativity

to cook and prepare them in different ways. They canned cherries. They

prepared cherry jams and jellies. They cooked cherry pies, cherry cakes,

cherry short cakes, but the family’s favorite cherry dish was Aunt Mary’s

Cherry Pudding.     

    Many years later, I inherited one of my Grandmother Nellie’s cook

books and when I opened it, I saw tucked inside was a yellowed index

card. On the card was written Aunt Mary’s Cherry Pudding Recipe. 

Aunt Mary’s daughter, Daisy,   sent the recipe to my grandmother in a

letter long ago.

     Sometimes, I take out the old yellowed card and display it on a silver

tray on my kitchen sidebar. When I pass by I reflect back to my aunts

and other relatives who worked so diligently  to provide food for their

loved ones’ tables when it was most needed. And I think of my Great 

Grandpa Baird’s beautiful garden and I cherish Aunt Mary’s Cherry

 Pudding Recipe.