Grange celebrates 100th anniversary with cookbook
The re-issue of the 100th anniversary Harveys Grange Cookbook comes just in time for the holidays.
Mary Jane Dinsmore Kent, president of Harveys-Aleppo Grange, in the kitchen of the grange hall with copies of the 100th Anniversary Harveys Grange Cookbook.
The re-issue of Harveys Grange’s 100th anniversary cookbook, just in time for the holidays, symbolizes much of what the grange organization is all about – community.
Aptly titled, “Here’s That Cookbook You Wanted” includes 1,500 of the recipes that have warmed the life of family reunions, Christmas dinners, the home and hearth of beloved relatives and neighbors.
“We wanted something to commemorate our 100th anniversary, and it is a fundraiser for the grange, but I think it’s more important as a treasure,” said Mary Jane Dinsmore Kent, grange master and president, a former Penn State Cooperative Extension home economist who now works on staff of the Greene County Department of Economic Development.
“It’s a treasure because of everything that’s in here; not just the recipes, but the memories, the reminders of the people who were in our community. And it is important to preserve some of these recipes.”
The first printing in 2009 sold out, not only near the western Greene County home of the grange at Graysville, but also in “every part of the country” where it was shipped to fill requests, Kent said.
Rural grange cookbooks that gather home-cooked, made-from scratch recipes are always popular, Kent said. This hardbound binder expands on the Harveys Grange edition put out in 1983 that was one-fifth its size. The new, 634-page volume includes some notes from the people contributing, and a brief history of the grange, which was founded in 1910 when the village of Graysville still held its original name of “Harveys.” The grange recently merged with the Aleppo Township Grange to become Harveys-Aleppo Grange, but the cookbook project predates the merger.
On March 25, 1910, B.B. Waychoff organized Harveys Grange No. 1444 with E. H. Mc Clelland; S.S. Leslie; R.P. Leslie; J. W. Spragg; Mr. and Mrs. C.A. Smalley; John Church; Guy L. Goodwin; A. G. Nelson; Ruth Leslie Hamel; J. B. Orndoff; Linda Supler; Lillian Leslie; Mr. and Mrs. W. H. Spragg; Russell Smith; Miles Meek; Seth Webster; John Pethtel; and J.A. Nelson.
The last names of the charter members echo in the list of recipe donors today, which says a lot about cooking being the essence of tradition.
The Goodwin family’s Cranberry Salad recipe on page 59 refreshed many a holiday meal, and is now shared by Rita Goodwin Spencer in memory of Anna C. Goodwin. It is a mixture of one box each of lemon and orange Jell-O with two cups ground cranberries, 1 1/2 cups sugar and two cups crushed pineapple, in a particular order, of course.
All of the old familiar Christmas candies can be found within the pages, confections such as the colored “hard tack” that when cooled is broken into pieces and sprinkled with powdered sugar. Even today’s busy working moms can master the technique with the help of hints like Dorie Alger’s advice to use a pizza cutter to make marks in the candy for cleaner breaks.
Kent, a fourth-generation grange member, shares “Old-Fashioned Molasses Taffy to Pull,” a candy recipe that has a social tradition to go along with it.
“Stamina is the key in pulling taffy; you will likely want a partner,” she writes. “You will understand why ‘Taffy Pulls’ actually were social events in the communities after the sticky sorghum molasses syrup was made into taffy.”
From canned venison and sugar plum bacon to a modern-day pizza crust made in a blender, the recipes run the gamut of gastronomic delights. It’s no secret how to duplicate “Grandma Day’s rolls” or Kent’s well-known cream pies, thanks to instructions from the West Greene-area kitchens. But better yet, the collection encompasses the whole of Greene County and beyond, as well.
When the book was being compiled, the invitation to submit recipes was opened to those beyond Harvey’s Grange. The East Franklin and the Dunkard Township granges are represented. They, too, are among the few holdouts from among two dozen or more of these agricultural family fraternities that once dotted the county farmscape.
The winner of the 2004 Hershey’s Cocoa Classic Cake Contest at the Greene County Fair hails from Carmichaels. Judy Kerr-Workman’s, “Jody’s Cocoa Almond Surprise Cake,” is on page 319.
Fairs and granges go together like cake and icing, and it was an “eats stand” at the Jacktown Fair that paid for the new building of Harveys Grange to be built on Route 21 in 1966-67, Kent’s compiled history says in the beginning of the cookbook.
“I’ve had people say they sat down and read this cookbook from cover to cover like a book,” she remarked.
The origins of a community compilation such as this really go back to the origins of the grange in America.
“As a farm organization, originally the grange was organized by seven gentlemen after the Civil War. The country was just ravaged and the farmers needed help to get their products to market and such, so that was one of the original purposes of the grange,” said Kent, who has held the statewide position of Lecturer.
“Formerly we were known as the Patrons of Husbandry, and that is the official name. The grange was almost a nickname, but it is the name we have come to use,” said Kent. “Patron being someone who supports or takes part in something, and husbandry being anything that has to do with the soil or animals. Grange is an old word for an estate, or farm.”
“But the farms have disappeared, as the multi-faceted life of the family farm that we all remember. You can’t afford to farm anymore unless it’s a huge operation. I don’t think we have an active farmer on the rolls here. We have retirees, we have businesspeople … whether or not they’re a farmer has nothing to do with whether they’re accepted into membership.”
“Over the years we have evolved into community service,” Kent said, “and we still help farmers – legislation is a big focus at our conventions; we have lobbyists in our state capitols and in Washington.” To learn more, go to www.pagrange.org.
One of the far-reaching changes for which we can thank the grange in America is rural free delivery of mail. Like all grange initiatives, it started “grassroots” in a community grange, Kent said.
“Some grange somewhere thought that mail ought to be delivered to the home, and that was approved, then it was approved in a state grange, then in a national grange, the national grange lobbyists fought for it, hence we have rural free delivery, we have mailboxes out there alongside the road.”
Today the Harveys-Aleppo Grange is “very much alive and well,” with about 45 members, Kent said. It offers a scholarship, grants space to civic and church groups, and does special projects like granting the Christmas gift wish list of personal care home residents.
“We provide a place for the Game Commission’s hunter-trapper safety education course and the AARP senior driving course, and First Aid and CPR courses,” Kent added. “Most of what we do is free to the public.”
This Christmas season, a knock at the grange hall door one Saturday ended up in a family being helped with a tank of gas, food and a little cash to get home on. The father from Virginia had come to rescue his pregnant daughter from a reported drug situation in her married life in Cameron. But his car struck a deer and the towing bill took the money he had brought. The grange building was the first place he saw where he believed there were people who could help.
“That’s what we’re about. You help people you know and you help people you don’t know. You do it in good faith like God tells you to,” said Kent, who added that every grange meeting is held with the American flag and an open Bible.
Harveys-Aleppo Grange now has a Facebook page, one way word has gotten out about the cookbook. Cost is $25; add $4 if the book needs to be shipped by mail. Orders can also be made by contacting Kent’s e-mail at kentmaryjane@yahoo.com or by calling her office in the Fort Jackson Building in Waynesburg at 724-852-5300, including Christmas eve until 4:30 p.m.
“This makes a great Christmas gift. It’s so large it just goes on and on. Where can you buy a gift like this for under $30.” she said.