Family Recipe Friday: (Old-Fashioned) Salad Dressing

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)

This recipe was written in Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's hand on a back page of Congregational Church Recipes.  The book, first published in 1916 in Conneaut, Ohio, was a gift to her in 1921, presumably as a wedding gift, from her maternal aunt, Delia "Di" Gaffney.

The cookbook eventually made its way to my mother, Joan (Schiavon) Huesca and then to me.  It is now in the possession of my cousin, Suzanne, Benita's granddaughter.

"To My Dear Detty," reads this
inscription from Delia Gaffney,
on the inside first page of 
"Congregational  Church 
Recipes," dated 1921.

Salad Dressing 

To one scant cup of vinegar, add a lump of butter the size of a walnut, 1 cup of sugar, and 1 tsp. salt.  Set on stove in a glass.

Put in a dessert spoon full of cornstarch and ½ spoon flour, 1 tsp dry mustard and mix well.  Add enough water to make a smooth paste.  Beat egg and enough milk to fill the glass.  Stir well and add to vinegar mixture.  Cook till thick.

Being a good no-nonsense midwesterner, Benita titled the recipe simply, "Salad Dressing."   Presumably, she used this recipe often, because the page on which it appears is mildly stained.  Her descriptions of the ingredients ("a lump of butter the size of a walnut") are amusing yet typical of the time.

I wonder if she got the recipe from her mother?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Treasure Chest Thursday: Sharing a Gift from the Railroad

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Indian Tree pattern teacups and double-handed
bouillon cups, part of a 1921 wedding gift to Phillip
and Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, from his employer, 
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

Of all the wedding gifts my great-aunt Detty (Benita) and great-uncle Phil McCormick received  on October 3, 1921, this charming dinner service of English porcelain is still with us today, symbolizing the enduring love of an unforgettable couple.

The transfer ware set of "Indian Tree" china was a special gift from the management of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (popularly known as the "B &O"), where Uncle Phil worked as a freight service manager in Minnesota and later Chicago, Illinois. 

In the early 1900s, before automobiles became the primary form of transportation in the United States, the railroad industry offered its employees good pay, incentives for hard work, and job security.  The B & O treated its employees like family.  It encouraged them to save money, helped them buy new homes, rewarded them for personal and professional development, celebrated their marriages and the births of their children, and recognized them when they retired. It should not be surprising, then, that a gift such as this was a testimony to the railroad's deep appreciation for Phil McCormick's contributions and their best wishes for his future.

Popular in the latter half of the nineteenth century, Indian Tree china was first manufactured in 1801 by the Coalport Porcelain Company in Shropshire, England. It is characterized by a rising crooked tree branch amid an exotic floral array of flowers and leaves in vivid colors of pink, green, blue, yellow, and brown.  Graceful bands of brown and gold border and define each piece.  The pattern itself was inspired by either an old Indian or Chinese textile design, depending on whom you ask.

Salad plate, Indian Tree pattern.

Aunt Detty and Uncle Phil used this china on a daily basis. With her artistic love of all things beautiful, my aunt appreciated the detail and delicate colors of the dishes and the elegant way they looked on a simple white tablecloth.  On my weekly visits to their San Mateo, California, apartment in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it felt like a privilege to help Aunt Detty serve dinner on them and wash them carefully afterward for her. 

After Uncle Phil and Aunt Detty died, their daughter, Jane (McCormick) Olson, inherited the china. She had her own everyday, off-white dishes in a lovely basket-weave pattern, but from time to time she liked to take out her parents' china as a special treat, always referring to it by name.  "Shall we use Indian Tree tonight?" she would ask, a twinkle in her eye as she waited for the inevitable "yes."  It was always a delight to see those dishes again, as they brought back fond memories. 

Phillip and Benita McCormick, on their 50th
wedding anniversary, recreate a pose taken on
their honeymoon in 1921.  October 3, 1971,
on their balcony, San Mateo, California.

About ten years ago, she called me on the telephone with an announcement.  "I want you to have Indian Tree after I'm gone," she said matter-of-factly.  She memorialized her wishes in a letter shortly after that. Not wanting to think about her being "gone," I put the letter away and forgot about it until her daughter Suzanne gave me the china some months after Aunt Jane died in 2012.

There is an Irish sensibility in me, passed lovingly down through the generations, that tends to make me want to put special things like heirloom china away for "special occasions." But through the years, I've gained an appreciation for not waiting for a "special" day but living each day to the fullest. I still can't bring myself to use Indian Tree every day, but I don't wait for special occasions to use it.  It offers a cheerful and soothing reminder of family and days gone by as much as an opportunity to make new memories with the family present today.  It feels right to not only enjoy such an heirloom, but to add our own story to it.

Some day, God willing, Indian Tree will go to my children.  But it will be minus three pieces, which I'll mail today to each of my sisters, who also loved Aunt Detty, Uncle Phil, and Aunt Jane.  They, too, will surely treasure it as much as I do for the happy memories of our beloved McGinnis-McCormick relatives. 

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Traveling Tuesday: Kegfully Yours

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Newlyweds Phil and Benita McCormick took the train out west to Southern California for a month-long honeymoon.  One of the many places they visited was Santa Catalina Island, just off the coast.  The island became a favorite place of theirs, as much for its beauty as for the memories they made during their sojourn there.  Half a century later, they used this photograph, taken in the island town of Avalon, as the cover of the invitation to their golden wedding anniversary celebration.  

Honeymooners Benita (McGinnis) and Phillip McCormick linger
on an oceanside bench in the town of Avalon, on Catalina Island, October 1921.

On October 10, 1921, while staying at the famed Beaux-Arts Rosslyn Hotel in Los Angeles, Benita received a letter from an unidentified correspondent from Chicago.  It read,  

Dear Madam,
I am shipping to you today one keg of beer and hope it reaches you in nice shape.  Wish you were here.
Yours etc.
Sears, Roebuck & Co.

While it would be nice to learn who sent the note, it would be even more interesting to know whether the sender actually sent, or intended to send, a keg of beer across the country at the height of the Prohibition era.

Never at a loss for words, my great-aunt Benita immediately dashed off a reply:

Dear Mr. Sears, 
If you really sent me a K.O.B. I know damn well I'll be in nice shape.  Thanking you for your beer I am
Kegfully yours,
Mrs. P.C. McCormick

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Sentimental Sunday: Not About to Let Her Get Away

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

Phil McCormick had found someone special in Benita McGinnis, and he was not about to let her get away.  

On June 20, 1921, he went downtown to a diamond importer, August Rassweiler, where he selected a diamond engagement and wedding ring for his intended bride.  He paid $271.00 dollars for the set, equivalent to about $3,200 today.  The couple would later playfully dub the venerable gem, nearly a carat in weight, "San Dimmo," or Saint Diamond.

Receipt for the San Dimmo diamond engagement and wedding ring set, sold to Phillip Columbus McCormick on June 20, 1921.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Either that day or shortly afterward, Phillip proposed to the 31-year-old Benita.  She gladly accepted.  Soon afterward, Phil invited Benita's family to celebrate their engagement at their future residence at 1435 Midway Plaisance, near the University of Chicago.  It was a happy occasion, as the photograph below shows the beaming McGinnises dressed in their best Sunday clothes. Though Benita's brothers Gene and John are not in the picture, her maternal uncle and aunt, Thomas and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney and daughter (her cousin), Agnes, were there, along with her parents Thomas and Mary Jane, and her sister Alice.

Left to right, back row: Thomas Charles and Cora (Terrill) Gaffney, Phillip
McCormick, Benita McGinnis, Alice McGinnis,; center row: Thomas and
Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis;  front row: Agnes Elizabeth Gaffney and unknown girl.  Circa late June 1921; taken in the back yard of the engaged couple's home-to-be at 1435 Midway Plaisance, Chicago, Illinois.

Some four months later, Thomas and Mary Jane McGinnis proudly announced their daughter's marriage to Phil McCormick on Monday, October 3, 1921, in Chicago: 

Announcement by Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney)
McGinnis to friends and family of the marriage of
their daughter, Benita, to Phillip McCormick.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Eugene McGinnis

announce the marriage of their daughter

Benita Elizabeth

to Mr. Phillip C. McCormick

on Monday, October the third

One thousand nine hundred and twenty-one

Chicago, Illinois

At Home
after November the first
1435 Midway Plaisance

   

The happy couple:  Mr. and Mrs. Phillip Columbus McCormick,
on their wedding day, October 3, 1921, in front of the
bride's family home, 8052 Vernon Avenue, Chicago, Illinois.

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

Thankful Thursday: "The One"

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick (1889 - 1984)
Phillip C. McCormick (1892 - 1981)

93 years ago this week, my great-Aunt Detty - Benita McGinnis - mailed a rather flirtatious, if not somewhat mysterious, penny postcard to a certain Mr. P.C. McCormick:

(Postmarked May 14, 1921)

Mr. P.C. McCormick 

#112 W. Adams St.

Chicago, Ill.

 
Dear Egg,
Just here for the night - walking up and down this yere ole alley, thinking of you.  When I'm in Chicago for a right while I'll look you up.  If you're ever in our town give me a "ring." $1.00 down bal. on delivery.                                                                                     - B. 

* * * * * * * * * *

The meaning of this postcard remains a secret between the sender and the recipient. Based on the postmark, though, Benita clearly was in Chicago, her hometown, when she wrote this.    

"Egg" was Phillip Columbus McCormick. He had, in fact already given Benita a "ring," all right.  A wedding ring.

If you've been reading this blog regularly, you already know my great-aunt Detty, or Benita McGinnis, fairly well. You've learned she was an outgoing, larger-than-life Ohio native who moved with her family to Chicago, Illinois, at the turn of the 19th/20th century, studied art there and in Paris, had her first serious relationship in Ireland that later left her with a broken heart, and was chief of the motion picture Censor Board in Chicago.

Army Sgt. Phillip Columbus McCormick
Circa 1918.  From Benita (McGinnis)
McCormick's scrapbook.

While Phillip Columbus McCormick was certainly Benita's opposite in temperament and ambition, he proved able to hold his own and then some.  Born on October 24, 1892, in Camden Township, Minnesota, he was one of eight children born to Patrick McCormick and the former Margaret Craven.   When he was about four years old, the family moved about miles away to the town of Hopkins, where Patrick McCormick was appointed postmaster.  

On June 5, 1917, two months after the United States entered World War I in Europe, Phil registered for the newly created Selective Service. At age 24, he was one of many young American men ages 21 - 31 years who did so on that very same day. He was working as a freight service agent in Saint Paul, Minnesota, for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, also known as the B & O. 

He was called up a year later and served in the United States Army for about nine months.  He never went overseas, serving most of his term in Washington State, where he worked his way up the ranks to the title of sergeant.

Upon his discharge at Christmastime in 1918, Phil returned to work for the B & O, this time as an assistant general freight manager in Chicago.  While living there, Phillip and Benita were introduced by a mutual friend named George Butcher.

"George came to see me one day," Aunt Detty told me in May 1981, just two months after Uncle Phil's death.  "He told me he'd learned there was a saint named Philip Benitius.  George thought it was a sign that his two friends - Phil and Benita - should meet."

She was skeptical at the time, not just about George's story but also about his friend.   But it turned out there really was such a saint.  "George was very anxious about this," she recalled.  "He said Phil was 'just my type,' so of course I was wary.  I remember when I finally met this fellow, he had brown eyes. I thought, 'I couldn't trust brown eyes!'"  

She decided her sister (my grandmother) Alice would like him, and arranged for them to meet.  

It turned out the entire boisterous McGinnis clan liked him, especially Tom and Janie McGinnis, Benita and Alice's parents.  Whenever he visited the McGinnis home, he was well-mannered, responsible, and respectful of both their daughters. Though from a large family himself, he was quiet and modest, the perfect complement to a family of unique and sometimes competitive individuals who were used to lively conversations around the dinner table. Tom was pleased that Phil was a fellow railroad man and a hard worker. As he had worked on the Nickel Plate Railroad in Conneaut, Ohio, some years before, he and Phil probably got along famously, comparing notes about railroad service and the changing industry. 

Benita's younger brothers Eugene and John enjoyed Phil's easygoing personality and dry sense of humor.  John especially enjoyed talking to Phil about history and his own experiences in the Great War as a cavalryman.  He became a regular visitor to the McGinnis household.

While Phil was kind to Alice, she was not particularly interested in him. On the other hand, he was especially drawn to Benita. Benita, for her part, began to pay more attention to the "man with the brown eyes," and their friendship blossomed into romance. The entire family rejoiced the day she ran into the house one evening and announced breathlessly that Phillip Columbus McCormick was "the one."

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday: Awkward Family Photo

The Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis Family


What was going on in this picture? 

The best photos are sometimes the awkward ones, the ones that went slightly wrong and no one did what they were "supposed" to do.

The time would have been about 1920 or so.  Imagine the McGinnises, sitting comfortably at the table after dinner one Sunday evening and engrossed in conversation, when someone apparently had an idea to capture the moment. 

Clearly, not all were amused. 

Here are some possible captions for this photo:

"That's right, we won the right to vote!"

"But we've never been to a speakeasy!"

"Next year, let's all wear matching t-shirts."

Left to right, back row:  Edith (Hoag) McGinnis, Thomas and Mary Jane Gaffney)McGinnis, Eileen Kelly; front row:  Benita, John and Alice McGinnis.  Photo
may have been taken by Eugene McGinnis, one of the McGinnis siblings.
McGinnis family home, 8336 Drexel Avenue, Chicago, Illinois, between 1919 - 1921.
From Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's scrapbook.

Come on, readers.  What do you think the caption should be?

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Copyright ©  2014  Linda Huesca Tully