Ancestry Magazine

“Grandma, what am I?” I used to ask while bouncing about her culinary kingdom, the farmhouse kitchen, while Grandma multi-tasked, keeping the woodstove going and tossing a pinch of this and a dash of that into a big bowl.
Not who but what. I wanted to know our ethnicity.
“You’re a mess,” Grandma would say, her hazel-green eyes twinkling. Grandma had what she called “cat eyes” and she passed those eye-color genes along to me. I knew I was special because of them.
We’d play this game often as I helped her with her holiday baking. “Let’s see,” she’d continue, pretending to be thinking hard. “You’re French, Scotch-Irish, German, English, and Black Dutch. On your daddy’s side, you’re Holland Dutch, French, German, and Cherokee.”
Having settled the ethnicity question, we’d move on to other matters—like which holiday treat Grandma was making and what my mother and the aunts would bring this year. Aunt Helen’s famed chocolate cake, slathered with icing and weighted down with pecans the size of half-dollars, was a perennial favorite. Aunt Thelma’s mincemeat and raisin pies and my mother’s pumpkin and pecan pies were always delights.
Christmas at Grandma’s in rural Oklahoma was an eating fest. There were no presents or even a tree—just a warm kitchen filled with chatter and laughter and the smells of country cooking.
“Grandma, please make a vinegar pie,” I’d beg.
She’d heave a big sigh. “Is that what you really want?”
“Yes! Yes!” It was my favorite dessert.
I’d watch Grandma as she rolled out the piecrust and then put the ingredients for the filling in a heavy saucepan. She let me separate the eggs, and retrieve the sugar, cornstarch, apple cider vinegar, cream of tartar, and vanilla extract that would be needed. By the time the piecrusts were coming out of the oven, the filling would be ready. Then we’d beat the egg whites until they were foamy and add sugar, cream of tartar, and vanilla until stiff peaks formed. On top of the filling, we’d put the meringue and slide the pies back in the oven until the meringue was slightly browned.
It was difficult to wait until the big day arrived so I could have my vinegar pie, but it was always worth it.
The years passed and all too soon Grandma was gone. And there were the thousands of questions I wish I had asked her about the family. Which of her grandmothers fought off those “damn Yankees” in Georgia who tried to steal her mule? Where was her brother who died by snakebite buried—in Alabama or in Indian Territory? And what did she mean by Black Dutch?
Not long ago, I reminisced about gifts remembered from my childhood. I realized for the first time that Grandma never gave me a store-bought present. Instead she gave me many other things—“cat eyes,” family stories, the recipe for vinegar pie. And Grandma gave me one more thing—an appreciation for learning as much as possible about who and what we are while there are still people around who can tell us.

Myra Vanderpool Gormley, CG, is a former Los Angeles Times Syndicate columnist and the editor of RootsWeb Review http://newsletters.rootsweb.com.