Tecumseh news: June 13, 2018

On Sunday, June 10, my memories took me back to June 10, 1939, when Eldon Pitcock and I were married in Gainesville by my cousin Ray Ebrite, justice of the peace. It was a marriage that lasted 32 years, until his death on May 3, 1971. We were blessed with four children and several grandchildren through the years to follow and even some great-grands.
My daughter Kris Luebbert visited her brother Marlyn and wife Charlene Pitcock’s family in Forsyth Sunday for McKayla Braden’s baby shower. McKayla is their granddaughter. Her baby is expected in October.
My former son-in-law, Bill Luebbert, is here visiting his son Allen and Allen’s family members here. He and Allen spent Sunday at Silver Dollar City and also visited in Forsyth. Bill is helping Allen work on some plumbing problems. He and Allen also did some fishing and enjoyed being together.
My great-granddaughter Alexus Owens enjoyed her 11th birthday recently. She also went to Silver Dollar City on Sunday with Bill, her granddad.
Congratulations to my step-nephew Jonathan Mitchell and his wife Amanda, who have a new baby girl to join her sister in their family. They’re at Ogden Air Force Base in Utah. He is my grandson Larry Davis’ stepson.
Dave and Karen Davis visited friends Friday in Pocahontas, Arkansas. They knew these friends when they were all at Whiteman Air Force Base near Knob Noster. They went to Pocahontas after Dave’s visit to the Poplar Bluff veterans hospital.
I have enjoyed the smoke tree shrub in my front yard. It’s unusual and kind of pretty. Close by is the red rosebush full of blooms. Also blooming is a “blue” rose, which has blooms that are more in the purple and lavender range.
Loretta Davidson and I visited by phone; she said she was watering her plants, including the gooseberry plants I gave her husband Harry before he passed away. He had been anxious to get them. Delbert Rackley is another one who likes gooseberry pies. We’ll think of him when it’s gooseberry picking time. I learned long ago that the secret to cutting the tartness in a gooseberry pie is to add a half teaspoon or so of baking soda to the berries as you’re heating them for the cobbler. Gooseberries do have a unique flavor.
My neighbor Paralee Rea has a pretty red rosebush with her day lilies blooming alongside it.
Peppermint and spearmint leaves are good to discourage flies from the picnic tables when we’re dining outdoors. It’s strange that flies don’t like the mint leaves.
As I haven’t checked my persimmon tree, I’m wondering if there will be some this year, ripening in the fall. Good ones are delicious if you let them ripen to full maturity. Persimmons are favorites of deer and opossums. But the seeds are large, and cows are usually steered away from them as they have serious packed-stomach problems because of the large seeds. I remember this from the time we had a cow who ate too many persimmons and we had to get the vet to come out.  
In small supply but also delicious were our huckleberries – the best things in the world if you can find some! They have a blueberry flavor, and they’re small little fellers. What a treat they are when found.
Blackberries were always our standby. In spite of all the thorns, we were rewarded when we picked them. You would see people out picking the berries in the hot summer with long sleeves on, trying to be protected from those thorns.
Our fall festival, Hootin an Hollarin, isn’t too far away, and I’m thinking the vendors are busy preparing. Our extension club still sponsors the quilt show with help from others. Although I did quilting in years past I was never as patient or as talented as others are. It seemed I always had many outside chores to do that kept me from my quilting.
My daddy made a quilt frame we had in the living room of my childhood home that could be lowered from the ceiling. On club days we would sit around it and do some quilting as we visited and then pull it back up to the ceiling, out of the way, after the meeting. Thank goodness the rafters holding the frame were strong. When our house was built, the lumber was hauled from the sawmill at Rockbridge by team and wagon. Our house was later torn down, which was sad for me, as it held many memories of growing up there. It was the place my grandfather had homesteaded when he came from Pennsylvania.
I need to have my lilac bush trimmed so I can see the martin house as the martins have really been busy since early March. I heard they rode in on the backs of geese from Mexico. Could that be true? I’ve had migrating geese stop over and stay a bit in my pond in times past.
Hello to Beulah Satterfield, who keeps in touch with us from her home in Sparta. Her husband Merle is in Mount Vernon at the veterans facility there. Beulah and I enjoy our phone conversations.
I also enjoy talking to my friend Marsha Lyon at Dora. She keeps busy with church activities and teaches the adult class at Lilly Ridge Church. I haven’t been able to go in a while, and I really miss that. I hope to be able to go again one of these days.

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423