R is for Recipes - Blogging from A to Z April 2020 Challenge!

Today R is for Recipes in British Columbia 

Blogging about British Columbia Genealogy Resources

Fort St. John, B.C. - Alaska Highway. Image MSC130-2181-01, courtesy of the British Columbia Postcards Collection, a digital initiative of Simon Fraser University Library. Unused postcard; no photographer or date; AZO stamp box.

Community cook books can be a fun way of finding out a bit more about your ancestors, especially your female family members. In British Columbia, many organizations and businesses did in the past, and do still, produce recipe books from their members' or employees' submissions.

Find your family names in a cook book and you will know something more about the people - which church they supported, perhaps, and you'll have a new family recipe too. And many of these books have ads from local businesses which may be of interest. Or the owner might be a relative.

Nowadays some of these recipes will be very useful too - involving fewer and more common  ingredients, often including substitution tips, or, for example, how to make breads without yeast.

Here is an index of names from one of the British Columbia cookbooks in my own collection. This one commemorates a great undertaking in British Columbia, the construction of the Alaska Highway, a joint project with the United States, which began in 1942 at Dawson Creek in BC's north. Although the book is undated, it's clear from at least one ad that it was produced during WW II.

The submitters' names are sorted here by surname alphabetically. In some cases, there may be more than one woman with the same surname. And many women have more than one recipe.  I am slowly building a database indexing my own cookbook collection and other recipe books I'm able to index. Thank you to those who've assisted with this. Someday soon I will put that index out for others to search.

The churches involved with this cookbook were:

St. Martin's Women's Auxiliary, Fort St. John, and the North Peace River Parish - St. Martin's Church at Fort St John; St. John's Church at  Baldonnel; Church of the Good Shepherd at Taylor; St. Matthias Church at Cecil Lake; and St. Peter's at Hudson Hope. Rev. Hugh Mortimer was the Rector.

SURNAMES

Ambrose Mrs. 
Ambrose Barbara
Ambrose B.
Ambrose A. L., Mrs. 
Ambrose Mrs. 
Anderson Lucy
Bazeley M.C.
Bazeley M. G.
Bernard Mrs.
Bernard G. M., Mrs. 
Birley M. 
Bowes Mrs. 
Campbell R.A., Mrs.  Fort St. John
Cheurwater J.S., Miss
Clay Mrs.          Fort St. John
Cramer J.J.          Hudson Hope
Dodds Inga
Duddy Mrs. 
Erdos Istuan, Mrs. 
Fenby Glenn, Mrs.  Fort St. John
Finch Mrs. 
Hanke C. W., Mrs. 
Hargreaves Thomas
Hoffstrom Mrs. 
Jewish Recipe
Kearney H.W. Fort St. John
Kehler H., Mrs.
Little Fred, Mrs. 
MacLean Jessie
Martin Grace
Martin Grace S.
Mathews Mrs. 
Matthews Mrs. 
McLeod R.B., Mrs.
Morrison A. C., Mrs. 
Nyberg Al, Mrs. 
Nyberg Ed, Mrs. 
Nyberg Ed. Mrs.  Baldonnel
Oakley R. M. Mrs.
Ogilvie Mrs. 
Pickard J. G.
Pickell Mrs. 
Pickell Mrs. 
Pomeroy Agnes
Prospector's Recipe
Sandy R. W., Mrs. 
Schimberg A.W., Mrs.
Sowden R., Mrs. 
Stanberg J. T., Mrs.  Regina, Saskatchewan
Storrs Miss
Teather G. H.  Mrs. 
The Red Cross Special
Thomas M., Mrs. 
Thomas Bill, Mrs. 

Advertisements

Roche's Store
Dr. Szilagyi  dentist
Florence Shop Mrs. Warren, Fort St. John
Ann's Parka Shoppe Prince George
Fort St. John Lumber Co. Ltd.
Condill Hotel Co. Ltd. Helen Hooey
Paul's Confectionery Dawson Creek
Harold W. Kearney Optometrist
Log Cabin Auto Camp Henry Courvoisier
Donis Hotel Reuben Taylor
C. Ray Fell Saw & Planer Mill, Fort St. John
Walter's Lunch
Les Bazeley Truck Service, Hudson's Hope, Fort St. John
Pomeroy Cafe
Cuthill Meat Market Fort St. John
Fort St. John Flour Mill Otto Hoffstrom
B.C. Cafe Fort St. John
Joe's Barber Shop Fort St. John
J. J. Cramer Building contractor
Coffee Pot Mrs. Ted Boynton, Hudson's Hope
Fort St. John Co-op
Slyman's Store general merchant-fur trader, Fort St. John
Gething Mines Les Bazeley, coal, Hudson Hope  **war related ad
Canadian Utilities Fort St. John
Husky Cafe Gus Halvorsen, cafe & dance hall
Ken Dodds woodworking, Fort St John
Glacier Drugs Fort St. John
Pomeroy Hotel Ralph Pomeroy – hotel & cafe, licensed
Bowes & Herron Garage  Fort St. John
White Spot Fort St. John
Frank Wastrodowski carpentering etc.
Titus Mercantile Fort St. John – also rooms, Fort St. John
Dave's Garage D. Chiulli, Fort St. John
E. J. Paling real estate, etc., Fort St. John
Pop's Coffee J. Stokke
Cuthill Meat Market Fort St. John
Larry's Pool Hall Arctic Avenue
Donis & Taylor general store, Fort St. John
Mrs. Sowden's Rooms Fort St. John
Jack Stain Fort St John to Dawson Creek
Carroll's Bowling Alley transcontinental dog mushers 1936-37
Carlsonia Theatre Fort St. John
T. W. Hargreaves real estate, etc., Fort St. John
C. M. Brooks real estate, etc. Fort St. John
Kirkness Meat Market Fort St. John
Appeal re removal of survey posts - Back Cover

Just a couple of recipes...

Three Minute Cookies

2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

Mix together in a bowl. Press into a 9x9 pan and bake 12 minutes in a moderate oven. Cut while hot.

Submitter Jessie Maclean, well known in the area, a teacher for many years. A similar recipe to one my Na used to make for us. 

Vera's Sour Cream Pie

1 cup sour cream 

3/4 cup sugar

1 cup raisins

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 eggs

Salt

Mix cream and sugar and vanilla. Add well beaten eggs. Pour into uncooked pie shell. Cover top with strips of pastry. Bake in a fairly hot oven. 

No submitter's name. I suspect many would have known who Vera was. If you know or think you do, please let me know.

My idea would be to add the raisins and salt once the eggs were added. Does this sound right? (Maybe Vera didn't want to give her pie secrets up?) 

Dawson Creek, BC, Canada, Image MSC130-2160-01, courtesy of the British Columbia Postcards Collection, a digital initiative of Simon Fraser University Library. Postcard mailed 1942. Watch for another story.

CATCH UP ON ALL MY A-Z APRIL 2020 BLOGGING CHALLENGE ARTICLES - 

https://canadagenealogy.blogspot.com/2020/04/my-blogging-for-a-to-z-april-challenge.html

A Hard-Working Woman - 1890s

Some of the favourite talks I’ve given have been about women’s work in the home. These prompt lots of discussion!

The ‘women’s pages’ of the newspapers, as we used to call them, in the 1890s included a variety of topics suitable for readers from many walks of life. In this one newspaper, I just read “Useful Recipes” for a Jennie Lind Cake, Thin Cookies (“Watch them constantly as they burn very easily.”) and “homemade tooth soap”, a variety of salads and an Omelet with Baking Powder (!). As well there are descriptions of “Interior Novelties” most women seldom dreamed of, for example, a wallpapered dining room with garlands of rosettes and knots of ribbon, and a row of pearl ornaments above the moulding.

And then there’s a long practical discussion of “The Kitchen Floor” – “It must be something that will stand the tramp of many feet in a farm-house. Boys and men, with heavy boots, pass over it many times a day…. A clean floor is a delight to a tidy housewife, and a soiled one an annoyance which must be removed at the first opportunity.”

Whether in BC or on the Canadian prairies in the past, for most women there was always a task to be done, a chore to be completed, and a new day full of the same routines and challenges ahead, most often with few conveniences and never enough hands. But as my Na used to say “A change is as good as a rest” and any opportunity for socializing was likely appreciated, even if work was involved, as in this photograph.

Greta McCleery (right, born about 1880) and her cousin Agnus Mary (born about 1881), in a kitchen, churning butter". Documenting Dunbar project, Vancouver, BC, Canada. 

Courtesy of the City of Vancouver Archives: AM1533-S2-4-: 2009-005.231. 

This poem, printed in the ‘Ladies’ section of this 1893 Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada newspaper, one that my relatives likely read often, sums up decades of women's experience.

A Hard-Working Woman

All day she hurried to get through;

The same as lots of wimmin do:

Sometimes at night her husban’ said:

“Ma, ain’t you goin’ to come to bed ?”

An’ then she’d kinder give a hitch,

An’ pause half way between a stitch,

An’ sorter sigh, an’ say that she

Was ready as she’d ever be,

She reckoned.

An’ so the years went, one by one;

An’ somehow she was never done;

An’ when the angel said as how

“Mis’ Smith, it’s time you rested now,”

She sorter raised her eyes to look

A second, as a stitch she took:

“All right: I’m coming now,” says she,

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be.

I reckon.”

The author’s name wasn’t given but I’ve since learned the poem was by Albert Bigelow Paine.

Published in the Portage la Prairie Weekly Review, Portage la Prairie, Manitoba, Canada, 8 March 1893, page 2 – “FOR THE LADIES”.

Many of Manitoba’s historical newspapers, and more, can be searched and read for free at the University of Manitoba's Digital Collections (formerly on Manitobia).

Recipes and Government...Helen Deachman's Pecan Pie, 1963

I've been busy lately, but I have been chipping away at a few projects, even some indexing. Several nights lately I found myself going through old recipes, some my own, some Mum's and Na's - mostly cut out from newspapers.

But here's a well used recipe card I found that's a part of British Columbia history.

Front and back of Grant Deachman ad card, Vancouver Quadra candidate, Vancouver, BC, 1963.

Now, while I can well believe my Na voted Liberal, I think this card was likely kept because of the recipe. She never lived within his district (although I believe her sister did at one time). Maybe he spoke at a meeting she attended, maybe Helen Deachman was in one of the many groups my Na was involved with, or perhaps the ladies 'traded' these voting cards?

At any rate, Grant Deachman, a member of the Liberal Party of Canada, won this April 8, 1963 election. He was Member of Parliament for the Vancouver Quadra electoral district (in the City of Vancouver) from 1963 to 1972. (Defeated in 1962 and 1972.) Helen Hughes (née Anderson) Deachman, his wife, was born, I believe, in Ottawa, where they lived for many years. Glen Grant Deachman was born in Calgary, Alberta. Both are buried in Beechwood Cemetery in Ottawa.