I was seven years old. My first summer at sleep-away camp. We traveled there... to Pennsylvania...first by ferry, (the Erie Lakawanna Railroad left from New Jersey and was reached by ferry from New York) then train and finally bus. I was happy not to feel my usual motion sickness as I traveled and made new friends that day. My mom's friend was Camp Mother and kept a watchful eye on me.
I loved it! From the very first day, unpacking my trunk and filling my cubby with my belongings, I knew it would be fun. And it was. The summer was filled with learning sports, swimming, dancing, singing, making new friends. On visiting day I rowed my parents across the lake. I won a bubble blowing contest (and spent a week getting the bubble-gum out of my hair!) I became a swimmer. My couselor was named Edie and she was loving and fun. What an outstanding way to spend a summer...what could possibly go wrong? The pale, skinny little blond girl who had arrived seven weeks ago was tanned and fit now.
The summer flew by in a whirl of activities. The big banquet was a day away and two days later we would head home. The night of the banquet one of my bunk-mates fell ill with chicken pox. By the next day more bunkmates had spots and fever. Their parents were called to pick them up. They could not go home on the train for fear of infecting everyone. On the night before we were to go home I awakened in the middle of the night, hot and feverish...the dreaded chicken-pox! I tried to hide it but I was really feeling sick and went to my mother's friend to tell her the next morning. It was about 8:00 a.m. and the buses were due any minute...The camp mother immediately called my mother to inform her I could not go on the train, and I would have to be picked up. Just as she was speaking to my mother, my bunkmate's father arrived to take her home. He heard that I needed to get home too, and offered to drive me there since I lived close to them...my mom was thrilled! So...both little girls were packed into the car, each with our bedding, a small suitcase and a jug of water...she in front with her dad and I in the rear with her grandmother (who smelled faintly from onions, sweat and Tabu perfume!). Her mother was too pregnant to make the 6 hour round trip car journey. 
My parents recounted this saga a million times so I will retell it from both perspectives...theirs and mine!
Me: I remember the hot breeze blowing into the car...the bouncing of the car over bumpy country roads and being sorry I had eaten breakfast...feeling feverish and itchy and the "Grandma Smell" was beginning to make me car sick. Finally I cried out to please stop the car...oh, how I hated this feeling...and I was soooo car sick. The Grandma was kind and gentle but I so hated returning to sit by her side. After a few such stops, the father pulled in to a little country store to use a telephone...(yes...there was a time before cell phones!) As he ran back to the car, he was flushed and excited...and informed his mother that his wife was in labor and a friend had taken her to the hospital. He now drove with a sense of urgency...and I too had a sense of urgency...and we stopped and stopped and stopped for this poor, car-sick child to relieve herself. The father stopped at a little store on a lonesome road in a farm town. We were in up-state New York now. He knew this town because he had business here. He used the telephone here and returned to the car upset and tense with anxiety.
My Mother's Story: She had just received a call from the man bringing me home from camp. He was apologetic, but he could not continue with this sick child and his wife about to give birth and his own sick child in the car as well. He knew a family in this town who had emigrated from Germany and had a farm nearby. He gave careful instructions on how to get there and hung up. Panic. She called my father and arranged to meet him at the ferry. A schedule was consulted and a time to meet agreed upon. She arrived at the ferry terminal but my dad was nowhere to be seen. The warning whistle blew...gangplank was removed...and just as the ferry left the dock my dad came running...too late...my mom was on her own!
Me: Ohhh...I felt sooo sick...but I comprehended that I was being driven to a farm filled with GERMANS! This was just post WWII and I was only seven. Germans meant Nazis and air raids and bombs. Germans meant my parents talking in hushed tones about secret "camps"...Germans meant trouble...I just knew it! We drove down a winding unpaved country road, verdant and lush. A huge white farmhouse sat on a little rise surrounded by a garden filled with an explosion of colorful flowers. A fat, white goose waddled onto the porch and seemed to announce our arrival, because the door opened and an equally fat lady stepped out. She was short and round, I can still see her chubby, red cheeks, bulbous nose and white hair pulled back into a huge bun. A faint glaze of perspiration covered her face...she had been working in the kitchen. Just behind our car came the rumble of an old farm truck. A skinny old man with overalls covered in dust pulled up. Suddenly other people seemed to emerge from everywhere. Several teen aged girls, two more women and a young man converged on the porch. The GERMANS!!!
The old woman approached the car. She smelled like baking cookies. Gently she took me in her arms and carried me to the house. The young man collected my belongings and followed behind. A lot of German words were traded. My mother's telephone number and that of the camp was handed to the skinny old man...and then they were gone and I was left alone with THE GERMANS! I was beyond terrified. I began to cry.
My Mother: My father had just missed the ferry so my mother continued alone. She took the train to a small upstate New York town and found a taxi at the station. She gave him the name of the farm that she had been given...and he looked at her in puzzlement. "No such place here, lady!" My mother explained the situation and the cabby was touched by her panic. He suggested going to the police station. The small, wooden building housed the police station, court, jail and bail-bond office. The chief of police was most sympathetic, but he too had never heard of the farm. Finally he assigned a policeman to travel with my frightened mother and assist in finding" the child".
Me: I was carried upstairs and placed on a huge, high bed with soft, downy bedding. Piles of soft, fluffy pillows were propped behind me as the teen-aged girls took my pajamas from my little suitcase, washed me and changed me into them.
The "Other Lady" took my soiled clothes to wash and I was tucked into bed. It smelled sweet and clean. I could not stop crying. Fear and illness were swallowing me. I had no way to know my mother was on the 3 hour journey to find me...I had been left with the GERMANS. I was tired and hungry but afraid to eat. I was offered wonderful, fresh picked berries swimming in home-made cream...something I ordinarily would have loved.
Fresh eggs were scrambled for me...just baked cookies were offered, but all I could do was sob. Exausted, flushed with fever and almost hysterical with fear, I snuggled into the bed. Tears soaked my face and my tight little blond curls were damp with sweat.
Suddenly the door opened and in came the skinny old man. Of them all, he frightened me the most. Unsmiling and stern, he made his way to the bedside. I remember that I actually shook. He carried a white ball of fur, which he set down beside me. He whispered to me, "Leibchen, Ich bringe Ihnen ein Freund ... ein Hase!" (Loved one, I bring you a friend, a bunny!) Little red rimmed eyes peeked at me from a fluffy white face. The white, furry body was warm and silky to touch. 
It comforted me. I was still so afraid but it was as if the bunny absorbed some of my fear...as if he could hear my thoughts..."Will Mommy ever come for me? Am I here forever?" I closed my eyes and slept.
My Mother: After a call to my father from the police station, my mother and "her policeman" continued through the town. It was after five o'clock and all day had been spent searching and questioning but no one knew anything. The policeman questioned everyone they saw. My mother was frantic. At last an ancient man sitting on a bench was approached. "Oh, yessir...I seen the child...throwin' up and cryin' her eyes out... Man came outa that store and took off from there with her, an old lady and another child." My mother almost fainted with excitement. They entered the store and spoke to the proprietor. "Sure, I know the man, comes up here often on business. Took the sick child to the Jewish refugees over the old Hadley's farm...don't know what they call it now..." Her policeman knew just where to take her...My mother was weak with relief.
Me: I awakened to the voices of my hosts...I could hear them shouting and heard the sound of tires on the dirt road. Downstairs I heard the women calling to eachother...
"Die Mutter ... die Mutter gekommen ist. Die Mutter ist gekommen ... Wecken des Kindes, wird sie so glücklich!" (The mother...the mother has come...the mother has come...wake the child, she will be so happy!) The skinny old man came up and collected me and the bunny and carried us downstairs. I threw myself into my mother's arms and felt her hot tears on my cheek. I breathed in her sweet smell, sucked in her love, savored her presence. Relief flooded my body, joy filled my heart... Mein mutter ist gekommen!
The Goldshmidts invited my mother and the policeman for dinner. He declined, and left because he was still on duty. We, of course, stayed. I was given soup, chicken and tea. My mother partook of a feast set out in her honor. Their story was sad and harrowing., relayed in broken English, Yiddish of which my mother had some understanding, and German. They were German Jews, (but I had just heard GERMAN). They had been hidden by friends and finally escaped to England but the "Skinny Old Man" had been in a concentration camp. Somehow they were reunited after the camps were liberated, and came to America, bought this farm and were working it. Warm, sweet, wonderful people...and I had, in my frightened child's way, placed all of my anxiety and ignorant fears onto them. The young man drove us to the station. He placed us on the train, tucked my bedding and suitcase on the overhead rack, then bent down and kissed the top of my head. My mother said something in Yiddish and he smiled and took her hand, turned and left the train.
My dad and Uncle Sam met us in Hoboken and we drove home. Uncle Dave, the doctor, waited there for us. I was examined, medicated, calomine lotioned and put to sleep in my own, beloved bed. It was 3:45 a.m. I reached out as if for a bunny...closed my eyes...and fell into a deep, relieved, healing sleep.
My love affair with farm fresh food began that day.
Roasted Fresh Chicken with fresh vegetables, herbs and fruit
1 whole, cleaned roasting chicken
1 small onion cut in quarters
1 small orange cut in quarters
several sprigs fresh thyme and rosemary
8 shredded basil leaves
4 cloves of garlic slightly smashed
salt, pepper
olive oil
1 lemon
Set oven to 375 degrees
1-Rinse chicken inside and out and dry with paper towels, squeeze juice of lemon over skin
2-Set chicken breast side up on a rack in roasting pan and stuff with onion, orange, herbs and garlic and the pulp and skin of the lemon ( push in as much as chicken cavity will hold
3-Brush chicken with olive oil and sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper
4-Roast for 45 minutes...while this is roasting make basting liquid
Mix 1 1/2 cups orange juice
3/4 cup white wine or sherry
3 full tbsp dark brown sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved...
5- After 45 minutes baste chicken with liquid then baste every 1/2 hour until juices run clear or meat thermometer reads done,
5- Let sit for about 1/2 hour to let juices set...remove stuffing and discard...slice and serve with glazed apples .
Fall is just around the corner, and a day of apple picking could bring a great treat to your chicken dinner...
Glazed Apples
3-4 granny smith (or any firm cooking apples) apples peeled, cored and sliced in 8/ths
2 tbsp. butter
1/2 cup white wine
1/4 cup Calvados...(optional)
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/4 tsp. cinnamon (more if you prefer)
1- Melt butter in large skillet
2- Add apples and let simmer until they sweat
3- Add wine, Calvados, sugar and cook until liquid is syrupy and apples soften but not mushy. (you may need to add more butter or wine)You can add Raisins or currants to this...delicious over rice and chicken.
Ellie,
ReplyDeleteYour stories, pictures and recipes all devine!! What a "talent" you are!!! Thanks for sharing all your wonderful talents with us. I always enjoy!!!