Recently, two of our children have approached my wife asking that she hand-write some of her treasured recipes, especially around the holiday recipes. I think this was prompted in part by the death of my sister-in-law and one of my son's wife's grandmother's demise. There is also the pending possible death of a daughter-in-law. It seems that some of our children are now realizing that the old folks won't always be around. Last night one of our grandsons(who is a type I diabetic) asked my wife to make macaroons and asked for her recipe for them which he promptly types into his laptop. She then coached him through making a batch, as his mother can no longer separate eggs in the conventional manner as she doesn't have good control of her hands and her memory is failing. The grandson is only 12 years old and is watching his mother slowly waste away. Anybody else have similar requests from children, grands, nieces or nephews?
My kids also asked me to do this. Since my parents were in their 40’s when I was born, and I was an only child, they really didn’t have relatives on my side of the family, only on their dad’s side. My oldest son asked me to write down some of the stories from when I was growing up, as well as stories that my mom had told me about their lives before I was born. I started a blog about that and wrote stories, but it was in the google blog, and it no longer works for me to write. I have written some stories in our family chats , and also my oldest son has started videoing some of the stories, which is cool because the grands and GGKs can actually see and hear me telling the stories once he has them stored online where they can be accessed. I have also written down recipes and shared those with my kids; and we have a family share album with all of the old photos, and I have labeled all of them that I know what/who they are. I think that this is a good idea when you have a family that wants to know and remember about their lineage. There is SO much that I wished I had asked my mom and dad about when they were still here, and all that I have is some old photo or legal record to try and figure things out from. Here is my blog that I started, but there are a lot more stories that I just never got written down in there, and now I am thinking of maybe a special facebook group for the stories and make it accessible to all of my family, and they can add people as they see fit, too. http://happyflowerlady.blogspot.com/
He was older than I am, so I did not know him when I was growing up. After I discovered his books, I loved reading the stories, and I knew most of the places that he described. I well remember riding my horse down the steep, windy road to the Sand Creek bridge, where he had the wild ride down on his bicycle, and also rode in many of the hills around Sandpoint where he went on his camping trips. We still had the 10 o’clock whistle each night that meant all kids under 18 were supposed to be off the streets, and Sandpoint was just as he described it in his books.
I have a few recipes framed, and hanging on my kitchen walls that I cherish. I didn’t realize it at the time how much those recipes were going to mean to me later in life. My first recipe request from family I was in my 20’s. I had been asking my grandma for a few canning recipes that I liked. She no longer canned and I was missing some of those canned and baked goods that it seemed only she could make. She made my grandpa write the recipes down. When they gave me the recipes, I noticed my grandpa had sighed at the bottom. Your grandpa, (His name) Date and year
They request recipes alright, but they want me to make the recipe for them. One of my nieces always asks me for recipes. BUT...If it has more than 5 ingredients in it and takes longer than 30 minutes, forget it. She said she won't make it.
Good idea and nice background. I think we should all try to do something like this for our kids and grandkids.