BY LOVINA EICHER
It is early on Saturday morning as I write this and everyone else is still in bed. I decided to get up early today to write this column.
A 79-year-old member of our church district passed away yesterday morning. He had been a widower for the past 23 years. While he didn’t have any children, he leaves to mourn a lot of relatives in this area. He had lived with his niece and her family and had his own part of the house. The viewing will be there and the funeral will be at another niece’s house on Monday. I will help out at the funeral.
Meanwhile, we’ve been busy helping sister Emma and her husband Jacob. My husband Joe and I and the children will go to Emma and Jacob’s today to help with final preparations for church which will be held there tomorrow. Yesterday Joe and I also assisted them with their work. I helped Emma do jobs inside the house while Joe worked outside in the building where church will be held. He put up a partition using canvas on one end of the building so lunch could be served there tomorrow.
Jacob’s will have council meeting (Editor’s note: some Amish refer to this service as “rule church”, when , as the name implies, rules of the church are discussed. It is usually held the service before Communion) tomorrow so services are longer than usual, lasting until 2:30 - 3 p.m. Council services are held in preparation for Communion services. Everyone does get a lunch break. Two tables are set and everyone takes turns to come eat starting around 11 o’clock until everyone is fed. Emma plans to have chicken noodle soup, bologna, cheese spread, peanut butter spread, pickles, red beets, hot peppers, jam, wheat and white bread, and four different kinds of cookies. The bread and cookies are all being brought in by women from our church. I made the jam for her which is the green tomato jam recipe I shared in last week‘s column. I used strawberry gelatin so it tastes really close to strawberry jam. Daughter Elizabeth made two batches of peanut butter cookies for Jacob and Emma’s church services.
Elizabeth, 17, and Susan, 15, stayed home Friday to do my work while Joe and I went to Emma and Jacob’s. The girls did laundry and the weekly cleaning and Elizabeth also baked the cookies. Joe and I came home around 6:30 p.m. and it was nice to see the house all clean and the laundry folded and put away. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to get all my work done when the girls were younger.
Joe also mopped the shed floor at Jacob’s yesterday so he could help set up the church benches today. They will also hang chains outside the barn to make room for visitors to tie their horses. I will help Emma prepare the peanut butter and cheese spreads for tomorrow. This morning we had 50 degrees outside and the air feels chilly. Jacob’s borrowed our propane heater in case it is cool and they need to heat the building for church services tomorrow.
Susan managed to finally get our yard all mowed Our mower gave up on us and we have it back now from being serviced. This whole summer the boys had been doing he mowing which really helped.
The leaves are changing color fast The children say autumn is here now maybe it will soon snow. Joesph, 9, woke one morning and asked if it was snowing. He said he heard the wind howling and thought maybe it was blowing snow outside. It’s still a little early for that!reprinted with permission from www.amishcookonline.com. Richard from Amish Stories
Here is the recipe for the cheese spread.
HOMEMADE CHURCH CHEESE SPREAD
6 pounds of Velveeta cheese
1 1 / 2 cups butter
8 cups cream
Put everything in a big roaster and bake around 150 to 200 degrees stirring every 15 minutes until all is melted. Cover with plastic wrap to prevent it from getting a crusty top while cooling. The spread is served on a sandwich with or without meat and it is good just spread on bread with some pickles.
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