[fvplayer src=”http://myrootsrundeep.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_4117.mov” splash=”http://myrootsrundeep.info/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/IMG_4115.jpg” width=”1920″ height=”1080″]
I LOVE morels! With the odd weather this year, I expect morels to pop up early this year. We have a pear tree flowering in our backyard so I wouldn’t be surprised if the morels are up very soon. I think they actually pop up after the group reaches a certain temperature for a certain amount of time in the spring…. but as a kid I thought they came up under may apples. I would look under all the may apple plants searching every time we went out.
Searching for morels was a spring activity for everyone in our family every year! All of my aunts for sure had their secret spots (they still do), and we all would track where the mushrooms were found last year to know where to search next year. Every possible story was followed, including making sure to pinch the mushrooms off so that the stems were left in case that would cause more to grow. We would find them growing in our large yard also and my mother would insist no one mow during the whole mushroom season. My parents would push sticks into the ground near each mushroom to see if they would grow larger. As the season went on, sticks would mark spots in our yard and we would have daily trips out walking through the wood to find morels. Dinner every night included mushrooms, and there was always a bowl of salt water in the fridge with mushrooms to get the bugs out before washing and cutting up the mushrooms.
My aunts, uncles, and cousins that lived in the non rural areas would all come visit and we would visit the not so secret spots. The mushrooms marked in the yard were saved for little kids to have some mushrooms that were easy to find – Almost like mushroom hunting training! Some of the spots were easier to walk through and access, some tougher, and some led to discussions with trespassers who were found sneaking onto our property.
One year while taking my middle son who was probably about five, my mother had told him that the land would one day be his. Shortly after they ran into people that had trespassed to come hunt on our land…. My middle son proceeded to confront them….. luckily it turned out OK, but that usually doesn’t go well. My father has confronted people in the past that have told him they had the owners permission to be there. I always have to wonder if they are that bold or just that confused about whose property they are on.
People go through extreme measures to keep their spots hidden. Long before I got my drivers license, my aunt would give me her car to drive and have me drop her at her mushroom spot with instructions when to come back and get her. She would hike in to her mushroom spot, but didn’t want anyone to know where the entry spot was. Luckily living on a farm I learned to drive really early!
To cook the mushrooms, we usually just roll them in flower and fry them in butter a little salt and pepper. My mother would first dip them in egg if she wanted to stretch the amount of mushrooms. I’ve tried to reproduce them, but mine never come out the same as my mothers. – Of course I’m sure I’m using a little healthier oil and probably less salt for sure….. My family still eats them. Every year we start with just a few for the first meal, and then eat more the next meal….. According to family stories anyone can be fine one year and allergic the next, so start small. There are also some people that are allergic their first try, so anyone having them the first time, we just let have a few…. Also from the same family stories. My mother tells about being pregnant with me, and my grandfather Richter refusing to let her eat morels, just in case.
Personally I love them though! My husband doesn’t seem to like them, which for me just means MORE for me! Two years ago during a mushroom hunt our family got our first pet tree frog. We now have our toad, but mushrooms are completely to blame for the fire bellied toad in our house.
In high school for Biology class part of the class required us to catch bugs. Somehow I still have my bug collection. – It was in somethings from my mother’s house and my husband was enthralled by it when I tried to throw it out.
Collecting bugs during the 80s included a jar filled with poison and a net. We would catch the bug and then put them in the poison jar until they died. The bugs then having suffocated would not be damaged. My bugs were then attached in the case with thin bug pins and assigned their latin family and classes. – I’m not even sure that’s still taught in Biology anymore, but when I was in school it was as semester.
We also spent a semester dissecting a cat. Each muscle had to be separated out! I’m fairly certain I’ll never forget the smell of the formaldehyde.
High school was tough for me, I was in a high school that focused on sports and had no social skills… but I did enjoy science. (Not the teachers who seemed to cater to the kids that fit in better, but definitely to the classes) I spent high school overloading my schedule with math and science. All that being said, I became a first generation college student. I actually think in another time, my father would have enjoyed college. I’ll never forget when he came to my college graduation and my grandmother declared that h**l must have frozen over! Even without him ever having said it, I’m fairly certain that he was proud that I finished.
My generation was the generation that made it through college on the Richter side. In reality it was mostly the women that graduated college… (my brother also finished!) I have first cousins (women) that became teachers, nurses, sales, and I’m sure more. The men mostly went on to become farmers like their fathers, a couple became sales managers, plumbers, some went into the service for a little bit. – I say that but my amazing Aunt Linda (dad’s sister) went to EIU and became a teacher. She was the youngest and taught until retirement.
Driving from Champaign to home past Muncie I decided to click some pictures. The road before Muncie is flat with fields – apparently a new hog farm (huge) is being discussed for the area North of Muncie. Parks Livestock and another group are planning some hog farms. At the turn of the century Muncie was a mining town. The mining dirt piles are all covered now, but the area is on the east side of town.
The second picture shows a couple places I thought the train station may have sat, and then the main road in Muncie. Population 200 by the sign but 155 at the 2000 census…. According to the 2010 census, Muncie has a total area of 0.18 square miles. Interestingly enough I remember the High School on the east side of Muncie has the address of Fithian Illinois – so is Muncie surrounded by Fithian?
Oakwood High School looks different from when I was a student but a lot more similar to when I was there than when my dad was there. During the years my father was a student the high school burnt and only the gym was left. (According to my aunt the high school exploded?) The high school I went to was built around the gym my father attended. The drive that came in to the front door and went off in each direction is no longer there. The drive now goes across the front and includes a parking lot, but the drive from the road is gone. Seeing the new drive did make me question my memory a little. Even the name has changed a little. The school was Oakwood Township High School, but has now dropped the Township.
As I moved toward home and turned onto our road I passed the location my father went to grade school – one room school house at the time, and the house he grew up in. Finally I passed the location of my great grandparents house! Where the orange flowers grow. Those flowers caused my allergies to act up every year!
The one room school house was turned into a residence many years ago and burnt one night. It was named Lakeshore school for the area that the school was built in. A new house stands on it’s spot. My grandfather’s house still stands in the same spot with a new family living in the house. 
Save
When my great grandfather Moretto immigrated to the US he included on the ship manifest that he was coming to be near a cousin in Westville Illinois. This was right between two censuses, making it hard to be sure that the family would be in the same place at the 1900 Census and the 1910 Census, but my next step should be to search for a person living in the area with a similar name around those times.
My mother remembers being told that my great grandfather was an orphan, but I remember hearing a story about him visiting an aunt that lived in Havre France…. So finding whether he knew his family would be interesting. Great Grandfather passed away when my Grandmother was only about 3 in the flu of 1918. He had worked as a coal miner his whole life in the US, and left 9 kids with my great grandmother. My great grandmother scraped by, cleaning houses, raising a garden, and doing what little she could. My grandmother was the only one of the kids to be able to go to high school. Her mother thought she was too sickly to be able to work, according to my grandmother…. so the kids scraped together the money for her to go to school. My grandmother borrowed old school books and managed to finish high school. I remember her getting to attend her 50th class reunion! One of her jobs, and the one she was working when she married my grandfather, was as a kindergarten teacher. -Teachers at the time couldn’t be married, so she had to hide her marriage until later. My grandfather and grandmother got married in Indiana to hide their marriage.
My grandfather only lived a few years, and then my grandmother moved back with my great grandmother. My great grandmother had left family behind in Italy, but my grandmother never mentioned family that was already here in the US.
Things that I will search include Census Records and Directories….
Save
Looking through my own family photos I find that many of my family photos were Christmas pictures! Everyone dressed up – and apparently I liked to put the bow on myself sometime during the evening while at my Aunt’s house too! I definitely remember those hot wheels, and riding them around and around the house. That’s house one corner of the fireplace bricks got broken off! I’ve forgotten that red cowgirl outfit, but seeing it makes me want to make myself a new one to wear again!
Christmas and Thanksgiving were the times of year everyone got together in my Aunt’s basement. There was no invitation that I ever remember seeing, we just all knew to go. Coats were piled in one of the bedrooms down the hall, and I’ll never forget my father’s reminding us as we left each year to leave with a better coat than we came with.
Kids would get passed around and the teens would hang out by the pool table at the back around the corner in the basement. The brothers and sisters mostly all sat at the one table at the end, though my aunt Linda, if memory serves was usually around the couch or moving around. Most of the cousins as we got older would hang out by the fireplace. I have no idea if there was ever a fire in it, but I remember sitting on the floor near it and talking to everyone.
The kitchen was always full of potluck from everyone, and by kitchen I mean the second kitchen down in the basement. – Though when I think of it, I can’t remember what was there other than lots and lots of food. My favorite was always my Aunt Tootie’s noodles! I would look for them every year.
I know other parties happened at my Aunt’s, just not that many pictures were taken. Parties also occurred other times of the year, but Christmas was the biggest treasure trove. I especially remember cookouts with Lemon Chicken (turns out the main ingredient was beer). where everyone stayed gathered in the back yard and barnyard.
We also gathered many times at my grandfathers years earlier, and get together at the pond where my aunt Linda now lives. There were also summers at my Uncle Franks – that included all sorts of things like snapping turtle… and of course 4th of July at my cousin Buddy’s!
Save
