Margaret Ellen Reese, her cooking

Margaret loved to cook and still does to this day.  She made Christmas cookies and decorated them every year.  They were always beautiful.

She made our Thanksgiving turkey dinner when she was 16.  I got lucky and snapped her taking it out of the oven. MMMMM……

We had a feast at 6633 Campana that day!!!

Aunt Alma Atwood Denny

My father's sister Alma was the second eldest of Mama and Manning Atwood's children that lived.  She lived in Comanche, Texas all of her life.  She was very smart and attended Texas Wesleyan College in Fort Worth for two years.  

She taught school in Comanche before she married Harold Denny in 1926. She and Uncle Harold had one child, Cleve B. Denny; he is shown as an infant in the photo with his mother. In the large family photo from Christmas she is on the far right, standing.

Aunt Alma was particularly active in the Comanche Garden Club and became a judge for flower shows. She researched and wrote a genealogical survey of the George Atwood descendants including Manning Atwood's family.  This project took many years and she traveled extensively gathering data and meeting other relatives through the years. Every one of her generation of the Atwoods and their children all have copies of her book.

Aunt Alma was an amazing housekeeper.  Not only was her house always clean and tidy but it always smelled fresh.  She and Uncle Harold always had a big vegetable garden behind their house and grew their own vegetables and fruit.  They had pecan, peach and apricot trees as well.  She grew roses that were absolutely beautiful. Late in their lives, when her sister Aunt  Ernestine was in the hospital I remember she cut her most beautiful rose from beside her back door to take to Ernestine that day.  

The guest bedroom in their house was the one that had been Cleve's room when he was a boy and lived at home.  She had a particular picture of a little girl in a rocking chair on the wall in that room.  I loved that picture and when I asked her about it she said it was "just a magazine picture" that she had always liked and she had cut it out and put it in a frame.

After she passed away it must have been sold at her estate sale.  But in 2010 it turned up in an antique store in Fort Worth still in the same frame.  Of course I bought it and now it hangs in my house.

Hayne and Patsy wedding rehearsal August 23, 1957

walking down the aisle.  My brother Bill was acolyte.  When he saw me he burst into hysterical laughter.  I WAS wearing high-heeled shoes. 

On the left are birdesmaids Frances Evelyn Atwood, Kay Vanderpool and maid of honor Quay Williams. On right beside Hayne is his best man, Gene Lewis, and his brothers John and Tommy Reese.

On the left seated is my mother Ann Atwood.  Seated on the right are Tom F. and Marian Reese, Hayne's parents.

Hayne's brothers, Tommy and John Reese on the right.

Father John Salberg on the right, lovely lady facing us is  Linda Simpson, my college room mate

who came all the way from Harlingen.

Quay, Hayne, Patsy and Gene Lewis

I think Daddy was speaking when this was made.  How about those CURTAINS?

photos of Patsy, Bill and Bob in 1954

One day a friend took these pictures in our back yard in Comanche.  I believe the Episcopal priest Father John Salberg took these.  They were slides which have now been digitized. I don't know that anyone else had a camera that made slides in those days.

Bob would have been 4 and Bill would have been 12 about this time.  I think it was Easter Sunday.

Margaret Reese at 15

 Margaret was 15 when these photos were made.  In the photo above she is in the Model A Ford that belonged to a neighbor of her grandfather, TR Atwood, my dad.

I have written earlier about how hard Margaret worked when she was young.  I forgot to mention that she was also very beautiful.

Uncle Edward and Aunt Laura in the 1970's

 Uncle Edward Atwood and Aunt Laura ran the Atwood Hatchery in Comanche for almost 40 years.  They had a very nice house on Highway 16 at Wrights Avenue.  Their hatchery property was across the street on Pearl Street.

In 1976 they had a huge estate sale and loaded a moving van with all of their household goods and moved to Everett, Washington.  Aunt Laura's sister Nora lived in Seattle which was just a short drive away.

These photos were made on their moving day.  Aunt Laura took care of her gardens and trees right up until the last minute, and visited with folks who came by to see them off.

Ann Atwood's Vegetable Beef Soup

Ann Atwood's  Vegetable Beef Soup

a pound of lean beef, cubed

at least one large can of tomatoes, maybe some tomato juice as well

half a large or one small onion

lots of chopped celery Ann: "You can't have too much celery")

can of corn, drained

diced potatoes (one or two, peeled)

2 or 3 bay leaves

black pepper to taste

green peas or green beans about 1 cup

anything else that looks like it belongs in that day's soup

Put all of this in a big pot on the back burner.  Cook on low heat for a couple of hours or more.

Serve this to everybody who comes for Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner while they wait for the big meal. Or just have it on a cold rainy day. It's good with cornbread especially.