It was a regular day in which five little girls and their tender-hearted great grandma decided to labour the chilly afternoon away making homemade apple pies … but these pies were lovingly made with a special piece of family history interlaced in the flaky pastry and cinnamon dusted apples.
These pies were to be made for someone special [more about that later] and on something special – my great grandmother’s Hoosier cabinet.
Passed down from my great Aunt Marie’s home a few hours away, our family was recently blessed with receiving this beautiful piece of history from my grandmother’s past. And as my daughters helped roll out soft pastry and sprinkle cinnamon and brown sugar on top of sweet, sticky piles of sliced apples, my heart could not feel more blessed for the heritage my grandma is passing down to her great grand daughters.
She has prepared and baked many pies with the girls in her few years of living in our town … the time, the love and the patience it requires to bake together … it is certainly not wasted on these young lives …
I know, as they grow, they will fondly remember the days of baking apple pies with their great grandma, the afternoons of peeling and slicing, rolling soft, warm pastry and messy flour spills …
and truly, what a blessing, what a heritage she is investing in …
… gentle, patient hands that not only teach the younger generation the fine art of baking for and nurturing a family … but also teach the importance of time spent together with less distractions from the world and a focus on the simplicity of working together …
[playing with the leftover pastry to make their own treats]
…and as the overwhelming, delicious smell of the freshly baked pies wafts through the house …
it feels we have interwoven the deep roots of our heritage and with the new sprouts of our young family as we learn, live and grow today …
… blessed to be connected to our rich, family history and blissfully joined together with memories in the making.
by Gigi
2 comments