Recipes for Living Marie Hudson Pritchert

The apostle Paul wrote that the sufferings of his life produced endurance, character, and hope, which was evident in my parents' lives as well. When they were first married, a fire destroyed their home and all their belongings. In 1928, just before I was born, Mother and Dad lived on a little farm near Shiloh, Tennessee. A big flood destroyed the farm. They not only had to leave it and everything they owned, but tragically there were lots of illnesses because of contaminated water. My mother was nursing their eight month old baby when she thought the baby had fallen asleep. Mother was trying to rouse her when she suddenly realized the baby had died. They had the devastating loss of my brother who was 16. My older sister, who was probably nine or ten, contracted rheumatic fever, from which she recovered. When I was born, the family consisted of my oldest sister, Juanita, then Lil, Velma, and Jim. My sisters were 10 or 12 years older than me, so, being the baby, I got all the attention and loved every minute of it. They always called me "Little Marie."

My father's sister lived in Aurora, Illinois and was always talking to my parents about going there to start over. So, even though I was born in Tennessee, my life really began in Aurora. It took awhile before Dad got a job at an iron-works factory called Love Brothers, and times were very hard. The strange thing was that we children weren't aware of it because there was so much love in our family. Mother taught us that family was everything. She showed us unconditional love. I wish I could be the kind of mother she was. She thought her kids were wonderful. She always saw the good in us, never the bad. She never spanked us. Her method of discipline was to say, "You know that is not right," and because we wanted to be as wonderful as she thought we were, we always tried to do right. Every night she would gather us around and we would sing and she told us stories. She was a wonderful story teller. Mother set for us an example of faith - a simple, natural faith. She believed - there was no doubt about it.

Dad was the disciplinarian. The population of Aurora was about 40,000, and he had four daughters that he was very concerned about. He was always trying to prevent something from happening. He gave us freedom to do whatever we wanted to, and we considered freedom to be the most wonderful thing there is. Velma still talks about a time when she was about six years old. We lived 1 1/2 blocks from the grocery store. One day Mother sent her with money to buy a loaf of bread. Velma suddenly felt the freedom that she was being given, and it was fabulous.

But while Dad gave us the freedom to see what we would do with it, he was always watchful. For example, Dad never let us wear shorts, but my sister Velma, who had the cutest figure, found a pair and wore them when she went with her friends to the park. Guys were attracted to her, and she was just about to get into a car when Dad stepped out from behind a tree and surprised her. She ran for her life. But these were the ways he protected us.

For lots of years I didn't realize that our family was poor. I am not sure how we happened to live in an apartment on the west side in Aurora, which was the wealthy side. I felt so loved and protected that I didn't even think about our financial state. It was only when I got into school and saw the way the girls dressed that I knew we were different. We couldn't afford those things. One time I asked my mother for an angora sweater and she explained that if she bought one for me, she would have to buy one for each of us girls and there was no way she could do that.

Our siblings make such a difference in our lives. I can't imagine what my life would have been like without them. Juanita was vivacious, Lil was quiet and reserved. They loved each other so much. Velma and I, nearest in age to one another, likewise grew close. I'm not sure how Jim survived being the only boy with four sisters"

There was always something going on in our family. One time there was to be a popularity contest in Aurora and we talked Velma into entering. The process came down to four finalists and people could vote for their choice by a ballot in the paper. So we girls ran around to all the houses we could and gathered up papers. We just voted and voted trying to beat out the other girl. We didn't succeed. She won but Velma came in second.

I had two friends when I was little - Elsie and Donnie. They loved me because I was a story teller. I would tell them ghost stories and scare them to death. It wouldn't work now because I couldn't outdo the movies. Elsie and Donnie and their parents were a Russian family who lived in the back of the grocery store where the father worked. There was always so much wonderful food and their mother was the best cook in the world, it seemed to me. Every Saturday the mother made a Russian dish of cabbage and some kind of meat with a wonderful crust over the top. It was delicious! Twenty years later, I was at the daughter's house and told about that dish and how I loved it. She said, "I know how to make that. I'll make it for you." I went back the next day for dinner. There was that dish! It looked wonderful, just as it had those years before. Sadly, I discovered that my taste had changed and it didn't taste the same.

Margie Swan was my high school friend. She's the one that told me the plan of salvation and wouldn't leave me alone until I understood that I needed to be born again. In high school I didn't want to hear it, but all that she told me registered in the back of my mind. I realized that I had heard the exact same thing when I was in Oklahoma visiting my aunt. A 16 year old girl lived next door. She had a serious case of t.b. (tuberculosis) and wasn't going to live long. She told me that very same wonderful good news about the Lord, and that she was looking forward to dying. That really impressed me, and it came back to me years later.

In 1941, Lil and Velma married their husbands in a double ceremony in Dubuque, Iowa. It was not planned. Lil and her boyfriend, Art, were going along to chaperone Velma and her husband to-be. While they were in Dubuque, Art talked Lil into getting married. This took a great deal of persuasion. She was 22 years old and did not want to be married. In fact, she was scared to death of it, but he persuaded her. Needless to say it was quite a shock when they returned and announced that they were husband and wife. Dad was so mad. He didn't think Art was the right husband for her at all. However, as Dad got to know him, Art's wonderful personality won him over, and he became practically Dad's favorite son-in-law. Art was a mechanic who could fix anything, but most of all, he was fun! Whenever we got together, he always initiated some game.

Art died in 1978, and what happened to Lil was very interesting. She had taken a "back seat" to Juanita's buoyant nature, then to Art's personality, but when she had neither of them, she came alive. She finally had a chance to talk and express who she was. We discovered that she could do so many things. She went back to school, she painted photographs for Velma's studio, and she did beautifully clipping dogs. It was wonderful to come to know this new person!

Velma married George and they had three children, one right after the other. After the third one, my Dad confronted her one day when she was up in a tree picking fruit, "Velma you had better not have too many kids. Don't you know how expensive they are to raise?" Her answer was, "I'll have as many as I want. Who do you think you are, Hitler?" But three was all she ever had, and I baby sat. It was so much fun. The other sisters didn't have children so that was the place to be.

Velma was continually trying some new venture. She had a photography shop in her home, and Lil did the photo painting. For awhile she had a restaurant. She would give the shirt off her back to anyone who needed it. In the years when she had a health food store, she was always selling things at special prices-33 1/3% off was not unusual. In her health food store she had a peg board with cups for her special customers and they would gather in the back room and have coffee and prayer and Bible study. She loved the Lord and wanted everything she did to be related to the Lord's work. She found a little poem that she loved and it was a total expression of her personality:

I'd love to send you a sunbeam
Or the twinkle of some bright star
Or a tiny piece of a downy fleece
That clings to a cloud afar.
But these are just wild wishes
So I'll clasp your hand And you'll understand
All the things that are left unsaid.

She persuaded me to find something that expresses what I think about life. I chose:

Let me grow lovely, growing old
Many fine things do: Laces, and ivory, and gold,
And silks need not be new; There
is healing in old trees, Old
streets a glamour hold; Why
not I, as well as these, Grow
lovely, growing old?

Velma's interest in health foods, however, is a story in itself. In it, Juanita plays a key role. She is the one who recovered from rheumatic fever. She was my oldest sister, the kindest, sweetest, most caring person that ever was. When she was 16 or 17, she got a job and always brought her check home and gave it to the family in one way or another. For instance, she was a great cook and we would get ideas of something we wanted her to make. She would buy the ingredients and maybe spend all her money and all day to prepare what we suggested. It made her happy and we loved it!

She had a great sense of humor, which prevailed even though not everything in her life was perfect. She married but it didn't work out. She had no children. The effects of the Depression lingered for years, but in spite of it all, she always had ways to make us laugh. She was a true comedienne, the bright star in our family. We looked to her for everything. This made it seem so unfair when she was 30 and diagnosed with cervical cancer. She died at age 40, and suffered horribly the whole 10 years. We three girls took care of her. She taught us how to do that, how to turn her in bed and everything. She called us her "angels of mercy." There was a time in the '50s that she was really, really sick. I had gone shopping and bought a pair of the pointed-toed shoes that were popular at that time. Juanita couldn't even walk but she loved everything we did. Although my sister Lil said, "Don't show them to her, she is sick," in my heart I knew she would want to see my shoes. So when Lil wasn't looking, I sneaked in and showed Juanita my pointed-toed shoes. It actually made her day. It was one of the sweetest moments that she and I had together.

Juanita's illness had a profound effect on our whole family. It was devastating to watch this vivacious person, wracked with pain, go down to a few pounds within a year. One day she was sitting in a rocking chair looking out the window and suddenly commented that she was sure this was not right. She believed that it was caused by something we were eating or drinking. Velma was particularly impressed by this and became one of the first people to open a health food store in Aurora.

Juanita died at home on July 4, 1956, and all of us were there with her. Sister Lil had a particularly hard time getting over her death. She left Aurora and moved to Arizona. After our parents died, we all moved away from Aurora, with the exception of my brother-I moved to Osceola, Lil moved to Kingman, Arizona and Velma to Prescott, Arizona.

I married Bob right out of high school in 1946. I met him through his cousin Margie. There are seven in Bob's family - five brothers and two sisters. Norma is the oldest girl and Bob is the oldest boy. We became acquainted when he was in the Navy and wrote back and forth for a couple of years. We came to know each other through the mail. We actually met when he was home on leave, but then he had to go back to Great Lakes for another year. He was discharged from the Navy and came home in December. After a three months courtship, my two sisters and their husbands went with Bob and me to St. Louis to be married on February 26, 1946. He is the neatest guy! Those who know the two of us tell me, "You are the luckiest person ever." I agree! We've been married 55 years.

Bob and I were both saved shortly after we were first married. Dr. Peter Joshua was the minister at First Presbyterian Church in Aurora. Through his ministry, all that Mother had taught me, all the things Margie said, and the words of the dying 16 year old girl led me to know that I really needed to be saved. Bob and I both accepted the Lord in 1947.

In January 1947, Cindy was born. Eight years later in 1954, Bob Jr. was born, and 16 years later in 1970, Julie came along. Bob worked at Kroehler Furniture Manufacturing Company for twenty years, then at Furnas Electric. They transferred us to Osceola in 1973.

When Cindy was about eight years old, my friend Eunice Morris and I wanted to start an Awana group in our church. That is an acronym for "approved workmen are not ashamed" from 2 Timothy 2:15. These groups were quite familiar to people living in Illinois. It was geared to children up to high school age. We had about 30 to 40 girls in grades six, seven, and eight, which was the group I led, and there were other groups. There were four leaders in my group, so it was a big venture. We had circle games for an hour, the second hour was for memory work and Bible lessons and music. It was a popular Thursday night activity.

Bob and I invested in a one-acre country lot that had nine full grown evergreens surrounded by honeysuckle bushes. In 1954 Bob built me a beautiful ranch style home all by himself. He wasn't a carpenter and I asked him if it was going to be crooked, but he assured me it wouldn't be. He put in the plumbing and hot water heat. The only thing he didn't do was the electricity. It was "my blue heaven" for those who remember the song. Bobby was a brand new baby when we moved there, and he and Cindy were raised there.

Cindy grew up to be the funniest little thing. She imitated her grandmother or others and had us in stitches. She was very clever, like her aunt Juanita. I was so young at that time, and she and I enjoyed playing together. I didn't have to work or worry about anything because Bob was such a good provider.

Cindy went to Robert Morris Junior College in Champagne, Illinois and married Ted Lewis. He was in the service, and they moved to Arizona. Cindy is a born salesperson, and the product presently is carpet. This past year she was given an award for having sold $1,000,000 worth of carpet.

Seeing them move to Arizona was hard! I didn't know she would move out of the state. Cindy didn't have children but when she turned 30 she adopted two-Mandy and Christopher. Mandy is so smart and such a leader. She is serious about her education and doing well. She graduated from Mayo Clinic in Rochester, is an x-ray technician, and talks about becoming a doctor. Christopher is innovative. He can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. He has a great personality and should be given extra credit in all he has done and will achieve because he has had to deal with dyslexia. He hasn't made a career choice.

Our son Bobby was Bob's miracle. He was so easy to rear, always wanting to do the right thing. Like other mothers, I was concerned about him graduating from high school and going off to college, but one of his Sunday school teachers said, "He is well grounded and he will be fine." She was right. He attended the University of Denver and graduated from Iowa State University with an engineering degree. He graduated from the University of California with a certified professional engineering degree.

Bobby lives in Phoenix with his beautiful wife, Doris, and children Sara and Zack. Sara is going on 15. She is a little scholar, on the honor roll, particularly good at math. Becoming an actuary would be a natural for her. Zack is three years younger, a great little boy, the apple of his parents' eyes. He plays several musical instruments and has lots of friends.

Julie is the best thing that could happen to a person. It took me 40 years to have this fun person in my life. She married Daniel Driggs in the year 2000. She had a beautiful wedding in Maui with family and friends. We were in a place that travelogues call "Paradise." They live in Minneapolis where they have bought a home that was built in 1904 and are having a wonderful time decorating and furnishing it. Julie was delighted when she could have a dog. She had never lived where she could have one before now. He was their first purchase when they got this house, and they named him Scout.

Julie graduated from Iowa State University with a Master's degree in Early Childhood Development. She became the editor for Harper Collins Children's Books in New York, and was right in Manhattan when 9/11 hit. Her husband was working on Wall Street and was close enough that their offices were covered with dust. That was an experience that neither she nor we will ever forget. It was so scary!

Julie is leaving tomorrow (Thursday, May 30, 2003) for a tour of Italy. She has a friend who is going to school there, who knows her way around and will take her to many wonderful places. The two of them will explore out-of-the-way places that tourists don't usually see.

Bob is retired but works part time at Highway Lumber. That plus taking care of the apartments keeps him busy, and he loves to be busy. He collects toy trains and spends a lot of time at Hobby Haven in Des Moines. There is no room in our apartment but he built himself a track a couple feet from the ceiling so we have all these train noises going on above our heads. We really need to live in a house and I'd like to go to Arizona, but Bob isn’t ready. He would like to stay here with his present life forever.

Except for being away from our children, that would suit me because all my life I have wanted to live in a small town. I was so excited when Bob was transferred here. Osceola offers a lot of opportunities for a small town. It has been good to me. Everything I have wanted to try I was able to do.

For instance, my collection of hats. I started collecting because of my older sisters. Every spring and fall, Mother, my older sisters, and I would go to hat shops - there was one on every corner in those days. They would pick out their spring and summer hats and gloves and I would watch them. Every hat would make them look so different. We would laugh at some, ooh and aah at others, and that is when I really fell in love with hats. I probably started collecting them in the '50s, when they began to go out of style. Also, I've always loved poetry and if you memorize it, it is more wonderful. It becomes part of your life. So, between the hats and poetry I put together a little hat show that takes about 45 minutes and am having a wonderful time with it! I did four this month, and have one coming up this Thursday at the Village. Lately I have added singing, using some old songs from the '20s-songs people haven't heard in a long, long time. I have been invited to perform at various clubs and for special events in a radius of about 50 miles. I've been to Ottumwa several times but that is a little bit far.

I would like to encourage people to take up a hobby because it can turn into something wonderful in later years. My hats and Bob's trains have given us a great deal of pleasure and I've told my kids to begin now thinking about something they might want to do when they get old.

As long as I live, I know that God has a plan and a purpose for my life. I have claimed the promises of God and my favorite is Isaiah 58: II: The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.