25. The Rev. Lowell E. Morris ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

“Your Grandpa and Grandma Morris are coming to dinner today,” Ida reminded the boys. “Robert, I need you to dust, and, Charles, I want you to straighten up your room and put all your toys away.”

Whenever the demands of a farm permitted, the family traveled southeast to Kirklin, Indiana, to visit Grandpa and Grandma Morris. He was the minister of the Methodist Church there. Before Robert could remember, the Morrises had lived in Westville, Indiana, where Ida taught school for the first time after earning her teaching degree at Indiana State Teachers College. Throughout his long working life, Grandpa Morris had taught school in Kentucky and Montana, and had served as minister in such Hoosier towns as Circleville, Frankfort, Hillsboro, Indianapolis, Newtown, Pence, Pittsboro, Waveland, and Wheatfield.

The Morrises came to see Ida, Joe, Charles, and Robert whenever a busy minister could find an opportunity.

Robert's mother had told the boys, “They’re not related to you the way grandparents usually are, but they’re your grandparents, all the same.” Robert had failed to understand what such a cryptic statement meant, but, just by listening to the adults’ conversation, he had discerned that the Reverend Lowell Everett Morris was Ida’s surrogate father who had taken her under his wing when she was a thirteen-year-old girl in the Methodist Children’s Home in Lebanon, Indiana.

Using the dust cloth that his mother handed him, Robert carefully cleaned the surfaces of the furniture in the living room while Charles repeatedly filled a cardboard box with toys that he then deposited in a small room at the foot of the stairway.

Robert enjoyed visits from Grandpa Morris, who was an educated gentleman with thick glasses, thin nose, thin face, thin hands, a ready smile, and … a toupee. Robert’s father had said that Grandpa Morris gave the best sermons of any preacher Joe had heard because Grandpa Morris researched his topics thoroughly, wrote compellingly, and spoke eloquently. Robert had never heard him in the pulpit, but, when Joe married Ida, the Rev. Morris was the minister at the Methodist Church in Pine Village, and he officiated at their wedding, which took place at the parsonage. Robert had no reason to doubt his father’s assessment of Grandpa Morris’ abilities as a scholar, a writer, and an orator. At all times, Grandpa Morris’ intelligence and his intellectual attainments were obvious to Robert. (Many years later, Robert had the opportunity to hear Grandpa Morris give a guest sermon at the Methodist Church in Pine Village, and Robert was appropriately appreciative. Grandpa Morris quoted great literature while constructing an argument of biblical interpretation worthy of an English department degree in a leading university. His delivery was impeccable!)

Before long, Ida greeted Grandpa and Grandma Morris at the front door and welcomed them into the living room. Grandma Morris’ name was Fern. She was Grandpa Morris’s second wife. His first wife, Ella, had died many years earlier.

While Joe put the guests’ coats on the bed in the main bedroom, Ida asked about their drive.

“We made good time,” Grandpa Morris said. “We talked about little else other than how much we were going to enjoy another one of your home-cooked meals.”

Ida excused herself to return to the kitchen while Joe, who taught the adult class at the church, talked to the Rev. Morris about recent class activities. Soon, Ida called everyone to the dinner table.

Grandpa Morris said the grace: “Father, we ask that you bless this food to our good and us to thy service, and we ask a special blessing for the hands that prepared this dinner.”

Then a heaping platter of fried chicken was passed to Fern. Next came bowls of mashed potatoes, lima beans, and corn. A gravy boat made the rounds. Side dishes included strawberry Jell-O with banana slices. Ida had made her yeast rolls for the occasion. They were fat and fluffy! The conversation flowed effortlessly, with Grandpa Morris talking about various churches he had served, including Flackville near Indianapolis. Ida had lived with the Rev. Morris and Ella in Flackville while Ida taught elementary school in Indianapolis. Grandpa Morris also spoke about his service to the settlement schools in eastern Kentucky when he was a young man starting out. Robert listened intently to the Rev. Morris’ stories about the mountain boys and girls that, so long ago, had attended the Red Bird Mission School to learn skills that could readily be put to use.

While the dessert of angel food cake was being served, Grandpa Morris said, “I have good news. Fern and I will be moving back to Pine Village.”

Ida beamed and glanced happily toward Joe, as he said with a big smile, “You don’t say!”

“Yes, I do say!” Grandpa Morris confirmed with a smile bigger than Joe’s. “I have decided to retire from the active ministry, and Fern and I want to live here. A house is available less than a block south of the Methodist Church, and we intend to sign for it.”

“It’ll be so nice to have you living nearby!” Ida exclaimed.

“We wanted to surprise you,” said Grandpa Morris.

“You’ve done that alright,” said Ida.

“I’ve always felt a special connection to the church here in Pine Village,” Grandpa Morris continued. “This is Fern’s hometown, and we want to be near you and your family.”

A few months later, the Morrises moved into a tidy white house on the east side of Jefferson Street. A few steps led up to the front porch. The front door opened into a cozy living room. Quite often, Robert’s family looked in on Grandpa and Grandma Morris, who were frequent guests at Sunday dinner. Grandpa Morris usually could be found sitting in an easy chair with his feet up while he was reading a book or a church magazine. Robert liked visiting the Morrises because Grandpa Morris had a special place in his heart for Robert and Charles.

Once, on a hot summer day, Grandpa Morris walked up to see Ida and Joe. He found Robert trying to saw a board that Robert wanted for a birdhouse that needed a new bottom. The handsaw’s teeth had become flattened through hard use, and Robert was making only slow progress.

“Let me show you how to saw,” Grandpa Morris said. Robert gladly let the Rev. Morris take over.

“You want to move your arm straight back and forth from the elbow,” Grandpa Morris instructed. Then he began to demonstrate.

The saw caught and bowed, so Grandpa Morris pulled back on it to straighten it out. He slowly drew the saw in the groove to give it a good start. He again tried to demonstrate how to work the saw forward and back, but it snagged as before.

The saw kept jamming up. Beads of perspiration were forming on Grandpa Morris’ forehead and trickling down his neck. He unbuttoned his outer shirt, removed it, and draped it across the clothesline. In the process, he bumped his toupee, which slipped to one side. He straightened it, and then, with his undershirt clinging to the perspiration, he threw himself into the project with all his strength. By the sheer power of his will, Grandpa Morris finally managed to saw through the board.

He grinned, handed the saw back to Robert, reclaimed his shirt, put it on (this time carefully, so as not to dislodge his toupee), and buttoned it up. “As Ecclesiastes says,” Grandpa Morris began, “‘Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might!’ I think I will ask Ida for some of her sweet iced tea now.”

Robert thanked Grandpa Morris for the lesson.

20. The Cereals and the Baked Goods ... THE FARM IN PINE VILLAGE

Robert had an intense dislike for rolled oats, which his mother often served for breakfast. He despised the texture, and he found the taste repulsive. He was forced to choke down many a bowl filled to the brim with the disgusting stuff. Cream of wheat was almost as bad, but he could swallow it with less trouble. During the year when he was in Mrs. Hail’s class, Ida began to give up the fight for rolled oats and occasionally set a Kellogg’s Variety Pack in the center of the table.

Robert felt a huge relief! Even if his brother took the best cereals (Sugar Smacks, Sugar Pops, Raisin Bran, or Rice Krispies), Robert could easily eat Sugar Frosted Flakes or Special K. Robert found Corn Flakes marginally acceptable. OKs were—well—OK!

On the happy mornings when the Variety Pack made its appearance on the breakfast table, Robert emptied the cereal into a china bowl, put two heaping teaspoons of sugar on top, and poured the fresh milk straight from the cow around the mound of sugar. He was fascinated to watch the milk soak into the sugar, transforming it from white granules to gray layers that gradually slipped below the creamy surface. He spooned the cereal carefully, so that, by the end, the bottom of the bowl would have a thick layer of sugar that he could spoon out with the last of the milk. Kellogg’s had been offering variety packs as long as Robert had been alive, but Ida did not yield to their convenience until Robert was in school.

Jell-O was a different story. Ida had fallen fast for the convenience of Jell-O dishes, and she was quick to use all the recipes in the women’s magazines. Jell-O (a mixture of gelatin, fruit flavors, and sugar) was served at almost every dinner and every supper.

Orange Jell-O packed full of shredded carrots and chopped raisins was a popular item on Ida’s menu. Lime Jell-O featuring crunchy chunks of celery was another. Robert greatly preferred fruit in his Jell-O. Black cherry Jell-O harboring large bing cherries was one of Robert’s favorites. Then came lime Jell-O with crushed pineapple and heavy cream mixed together on a bed of crumbled graham crackers and topped with a layer of whipped heavy cream and chopped walnuts. The latter dish became a staple.

On special occasions, Ida made a mold of a fruity Jell-O with mandarin orange slices. A topping of whipped cream was available for most of the Jell-O dishes made with fruit.

Ida bowed to convenience when it came to international cuisine, too. Italian food was Chef Boyardee from cans. Asian food was LaChoy’s Chop Suey Vegetables with chunks of pork added and with the dish poured over LaChoy Chow Mein Noodles. Mexican food was Van Camp’s Tamales with Sauce (also from a can). Ever since the Korean War, Ida had witnessed a time of a burgeoning variety of foods and ever-greater convenience—a convenience that she embraced enthusiastically (sooner or later).

Even though Ida was a skilled baker, she enjoyed buying doughnuts and bread from Graves Bakery on the State Street hill near Purdue University in West Lafayette. Almost every week, she successfully made the turn from State Street, across the oncoming traffic, over the gravelly hump just beyond the sidewalk, and down into the parking lot, where she moved her foot back and forth from the brake to the gas pedal to the brake and to the gas pedal until she felt the car was parked well enough. Once Robert’s nearly carsick vision had cleared, he waited in the Chevrolet Bel Air while Ida gained the sidewalk and hurried out of view toward the front door of the bakery. Robert looked up in fascination at the large billboard on the side of the building.

Regularly, the billboard changed, but it always announced the delights of baked goods from Graves Bakery and it always included a painting, usually a child with rosy cheeks and an endearing smile who was enjoying a jelly-filled doughnut or similar sugary treat. The painting on the huge poster always exhibited a heartwarming realism reminiscent of Norman Rockwell’s work but lacking a complete background so that the words could be prominently displayed against a plain backdrop. Robert studied the colors and the ways the artist fashioned the facial features, the clothing, the hands, the light, and the shadows.

Soon enough, Ida returned with two big bags of doughnuts and sweet rolls.

“They had a sale on cinnamon twists, and I bought extras,” Ida said with evident glee, as she carefully placed the white paper sacks in the back seat.

The bakery items usually were devoured before the next week’s trip to West Lafayette, but, when they were gone, Ida might make cinnamon toast for breakfast.

After many glum mornings staring down a bowl of rolled oats, Robert was ready to dance a jig whenever he awoke to the fragrance of cinnamon toast. Ida mixed butter, sugar, and cinnamon and lightly toasted it on slices of bread that were spread on a cookie sheet and placed in the oven. The satisfying crunch when he bit into the caramelized sugar was only part of the pleasure of eating his mother’s cinnamon toast. The sugar coating would flake slightly to reveal the hot buttery toast beneath. On especially fortunate mornings, Ida served mugs of hot cocoa. Dipping half a slice of plain buttered toast in hot chocolate was a delicious experience, but dipping half a slice of cinnamon toast in cocoa would make anyone over the moon!

Yes, Ida could bake cookies with the best of them, and her persimmon pudding was out of this world. Her forte, though, was pie. Robert could not remember a time when there was no pie cooling beside the meat grinder attached to the enameled counter of the Hoosier. Apple, peach, banana cream, cherry, blackberry, sugar cream, pumpkin, lemon meringue, chocolate, mince (but not made with meat), rhubarb, gooseberry, and even mulberry (on rare occasions) were only a few of the pies that came hot and mouth-watering from Ida’s oven. Almost every dinner was fortified with a generous slice of pie for dessert. It seemed she never missed! Ida’s pies never failed!

In addition to being baked in a pie, rhubarb took several delightful turns toward the dessert side of the dinner plates: rhubarb cobbler (sometimes mixed with strawberries), rhubarb coffee cake, rhubarb sauce (sometimes mixed with cherries) for ice cream, rhubarb crunches, and rhubarb crisps.

Ida’s gooseberry shortcake stole the show.

Quite often, Ida brought her brown cups of custard hot from the oven. Using a rasp, she grated nutmeg on top of each. Sometimes, the custard cups were filled with butterscotch pudding, chocolate pudding, or vanilla pudding.

Cakes were plentiful, too. Ida, Aunt Margaret, and Grandma Rhode all made delectable German chocolate cakes. Robert’s favorite birthday cake was a white layer cake with pink peppermint icing, but black walnut cake was also high on his list.

With the butter and cream that were fresh from Joe’s Holstein cows and with lard that was truly lard and with flour that knew how to behave, the baked goods that flowed from Ida’s oven were delicious beyond anyone’s powers of description. They more than compensated for the rolled oats and the cream of wheat that Robert had to consume at the start of the day now and then.