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Note: "Grandma Seeley", wife of Pleasant Davis Seeley, is remembered as a tall, gaunt, farm lady, not very emotionally demonstrative, particularly toward her grandchildren. Despite that we grandchildren always liked to go to Grandma's. She regularly put a sumptuous meal on the table, particularly if hired hands were working on the place. They were always invited to join the family at the noon meal, which was the big meal of the day. Usually there was two, sometimes three different meats, such as fried chicken, country ham, sausage, head cheese (a type of sausage made from the bits of meat cut from the hog's head), and perhaps pork tenderloin or roast. During the growing season all the vegetables grown in her large garden, were represented. She preserved the meat and vegetables that were not earmarked for the table, canning all the various vegetables, as well as sausage The old farmhouse had a cellar, which was cool enough to keep the milk in for a few days. Grandma churned the buttermilk and made her own butter. She also made laundry soap, known as lye soap. It was made from the fat rendered from the hogs killed on the premises and mixed from lye also made on the farm by collecting wood ashes in a V-shaped wooden trough, through which water trickled and lye (potassium or sodium hydroxide) collected below the opening in the trough. I cannot remember, if I ever knew, the recipe for the soap, but recall that it was very strong and used for laundry and sometimes dish washing. If exposed too long it would redden and irritate the skin. I can recall seeing it drying on boards laid across sawhorses, in somewhat of a pyramidal shape. I am not sure just how the shapes occurred, because I do not remember any molds that she had. She always had a flock of chickens, including laying hens from which she collected all the eggs used in the household, and I remember her taking a basket of eggs to town to sell or trade. She had a buggy pulled by a mare named Maude. A few times some of the grandchildren were invited to ride in the buggy with her, usually when visiting a neighbor because I suspect she didn't want us underfoot when she was in town shopping. She also had two or three cows, which she milked, although Uncle Kash sometimes did the milking when he lived there. The household and garden were solely her responsibility. Before Grandpa Seeley became confined to a wheel chair, due to polio contracted in adult life, he was away from home most of the time pursuing his vocation as a traveling salesman for a dry goods broker. In Grandma's kitchen, I remember the big table set by the window with chairs on three sides seating about nine to ten people as I recall. There was a big wood burning (or coal) cook stove with a warming oven above and a well on the side to heat water. She was always up first to build a fire and start breakfast, another very hearty meal. Against the wall facing the stove were four or five chairs that had been homemade by various acquaintances of theirs. The chairs had seats woven of oak splints, and some of corn shucks that had been torn into strips and rolled somehow to make long strands that were used for the weaving. These chair bottoms were quite strong and had been there for some time, Meaning years. In the summer the meals were often set on a table in the screened "porch", a space between two wings of the house that had some cross ventilation. When we visited, in the summer we sat out under the water maple tree near the kitchen door, or on the front porch which wrapped around the parlor, a separate room with no connecting doors to the rest of the house. Grandpa had bought an organ someplace, for which the air was provided by foot pedals that powered an air pump. We kids would sneak into the parlor and play with the organ, because it had stops which enabled us to produce the different sounds characteristic of an organ. This organ was about the size of an upright piano. Sometimes when we were all visiting, the aunts (daughters-in-law) would gather in the parlor and my mother, Louise, would play and sometimes Aunt Gladys but she usually demurred. We would sing hymns that everyone knew, because that is about all my mother knew how to play. She played "The Blackhawk Waltz" by memory but if it had any words nobody knew them. At the time we grandchildren were pre-teens Grandpa's farm comprised hundreds of acres. At one time it extended from the main road (now KY 229) over the hill, all the way to the railroad. Submitted by E. C. Seeley, grandson.
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