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Shelton Mason County Journal
Shelton, Washington
May 20, 1999     Shelton Mason County Journal
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What's Cookin'? Jerry's just about seen it all By MARY DUNCAN  vince Christine (her boss) to let Over the last 80 years Wilma me make enchilada sauce, cause LaFollette has been known by I read up on it a little bit and I grandmothermany monikerSandbesideSgreat.grand.mother, thought, 'Well I can start with mother. "I've got lots of nicknames," Jerry admits. Geraldine is her middle name, yielding her most common nickname. She's also known as "Pa" to her great- grandchildren. "My oldest great-grandson named me 'Pa' and I've been Pa ever since," she explains with a laugh. Some of her handles were be- stowed by truckers and other cus- tomers she knew during a 33- year career as a cook. Jerry ex- plains, "I was known as 'Sam' and 'Cookie' and everything else they could name me. They all had different names for me." She pauses and quickly adds, "But they was all good names, though. "I STARTED SLINGING hash in 1948 and I had to hang it up in 1983," she says. And she still has a reputation at Fir Tree Apart- ments for fixing some fine vit- tles - hot dishes and salads for potlucks, pies and cakes for bake sales. "My mother was a very good cook. It was inherited, I guess you could say," observes the woman who grew up during the Depression on a farm in Men- (ion, Missouri. "I just picked it up myself but I remembered some of the things she had said to me. I got to Ibllowing some recipes of other people, but I didn't use that so much. It was all practically in my head as to what I did." She began cooking profession- ally "when I was raising my children with no support from my ex-husband," she notes. "I worked two jobs. One was a cook and one was a waitress. I worked 16 I/2 hours a day for about eight or" I0 years." JERRY LaFOLLETTE WHO grew up on a Missouri farm during the Depression recalls, "We had rough times but good times." She also remembers Saturday barn dances and going to the movies for a nickel. Her first job was in Alpha, Il- linois, in a railroad diner car known as Zip's Diner. She worked there two or three years because it was close to where she lived and her children were in school. "Then I went to Gales- burg, Illinois, which we lived not too far from and I worked at Marty's Supper Club, and I was a waitress there," Jerry continues. WORKING DOUBLE shifts and raising three children fi- nally took its toll. "That was the reason I had my first heart at- tack in '68. The cardiologists .............. 100 Years Ago From the May 19, 1899, Mason County Journal: ()ld-tmmrs say that this has been the rainiest and most backward spring since 1887. The intervals of planting and growing weather since the beginning of the year have been few and far between. New babies have been added to the following residents in the vi- cinity of New Kamilche of late: Dan Hurley, Fred Taylor, George Tew and Joseph Y. Waldrip. Two women of ill repute started to fix up quarters at the Point, were arrested and on trial by jury before Justice Fisk Tuesday, were acquitted. The council, however, notified them that they will be de- dared a nuisance, and they have promised to pull out, which is good. i light wire while half a dozen more whirled over the little reservoir. A chickadee emerged from a bird- house in a maple tree across the alley and make a quick foraging flight to the sunflower-seed feed- er, where a pair of linnets was also munching away, and a pine siskin was breakfasting on the thistle feeder. A hummingbird went whirring past the laburnum thicket at the edge of the reservoir, a song spar- row announced itself from the same thicket and a white- crowned sparrow checked out the leavings under one of the feeders. A mallard duck took flight from the pond. What a JeckyU-and-Hyde view of the bird world. First thing in the morning, I looked out the south-facing up- stairs window into the front yard. To my disgust, a brown-headed cowbird, one of those nasty nest- parasiters, was munching seed at the bird feeder. ttigher in the same cherry tree were a starling and an English sparrow, both invasive imports with pushy habits. In a nearby fir tree I could hear several crows cawing and a couple of others were quarreling over some litter m the library parking lot. What chance, I wondered, do the native songbirds have? I looked out the back window. The violet-green swallows that have taken up residence in a bird- house on the side of the house wre perched possessively on a Look Who's Forty-- Wayne's Still Spor00! back there, both of them, said my body was just wore out and my heart was tired. It was a bad one cause they didn't even want me to move my little finger and they said I would never go back to work. I told them to hide and watch this Missourian. I would be back at work. "So a year and 13 days later I was back cooking again," she recalls. And how did she accom- plish that? "Willpower," Jerry states, "and I knew I had to take care of my children." Not long afterwards, Jerry left Illinois. "On July 8, 1970, I drove, by myself, from Gales- burg to E1 Paso, Texas, and I stayed 10 1/2 years with those people," sh' says, adding that "those people" were owners of McLain's Truck Stop on East Gateway just outside of El Paso, on Interstate 10 South. "When I went down there and put this application in at Mc- Lain's Truck Stop, I told her, 'I don't know a taco from an enchi- lada.' She said, 'Well, you're a good other cook so we'll teach yOU.' " SHE MUST HAVE been a quick study because after observ- ing another cook for several days, Jerry started cooking all the menu items. Her boss in- formed Jerry she made the best Mexican food she ever had. In fact, this feisty lady who did not know one ingredient from another for Mexican food re- calls, "I made my own enchilada sauce. I just start from the raw. For the longest time I had to con- something and come out with something.' After I made the first big batch she said, 'We'll never get anything else. You're nominated to make enchilada sauce.' "Oh, my kids just loved it," she interjects, "when I was able to do it, to have Mexican food when they came home." Jerry continues, "I'll tell you we really used to put out some meals. If you see a truck stop and it's full of truckers, you just bet- ter pull off cause you're going to have a good meal." OVER THE decade she devel- oped a reputation as well as rap- port with the truckers. "I had one that came in from Houston, Texas, and after he had break- fast wherever he was, he hit din- ner before I got off," Jerry notes. In another case, Jerry and one of the truck drivers were friends for years and he used to tell her when he went east he was going to bring "Cookie" along with him, just so other truckers could see who fixed his meals in E1 Paso. With warm laughter she adds, "And I thought, 'Oh, that'll be a trip and a half.' " When the lease was up at the truck stop, the owner opened another restaurant in Anthony, New Mexico, about 30 miles west of El Paso. "She had 17 em- ployees and I was the only one she took with her. Those truckers found out where we were," she says, "and they'd park in a vac- ant lot across the street, taking a detour offI-10 about a mile to still have lunches and breakfasts." In the early '80s Jerry moved to Merced, California, where one of her son still resides. She did some cooking there, but Jerry notes, "I didn't work very long there. My health just kept going down, and that was in '82 that I quit, December 31." JERRY CLAIMS she never had an accident in the kitchen during those 33 years. After a pause, she confesses, "Well, one day I did act foolish." She chuckles and continues, "One day I grabbed a brick of chili that we kept as a reserve and went to cut it and my knife got this thumb. But I didn't miss any work. I went around with a green thumb. They called me 'green thumb' for a while before I could get that big bandage off." Even though she is not cooking professionally, when Jerry moved to Shelton in 1993 she be- came known at Fir Tree for the dishes she brought to the social gatherings. "I make all my pies from scratch," she explains. "I don't use any puddings for a base or anything. I start from the raw Hot dog sale to rinse funds for scout camp Boy Scout Troop 160 will hold a hot dog sale from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the entrance to Wal.Mart on Mountain View. The cost will be $1.50 for a hot dog, chips and soft drink. The items also will be sold separately for 50 cents each. All proceeds will be used to sent the scouts to summer camp. in everything. And I've made some pretty good looking pies when they had the bake sales. I even had one woman come in and ask if I'd make a chocolate pie and keep it for her." Without a hint of self-pity or regret she states, "I'm pretty well-known for cookin' but I had to quit that because I just ain't able to do anything to speak of. I have to walk with a cane." Of all those recipes she kept in her head, Jerry does concede, "I should have wrote them all down." She smiles and adds, "I told my daughter Connie, "You know, some days I can't remem- ber what you told me day before yesterday but I can remember things 50 and 60 years back.' " JERRY OFFERS an example. "I can remember when I had a problem with this knee when I was about 4 years old. They really didn't know what was wrong with me but I couldn't walk. Dad, years later, said he thinks I had a light case of polio. I can remember him coming in and he'd put me in a little red wagon and pull me all around town so I could get outside. I had to learn to walk all over again when I was about 5. "But I never had anymore problems until the osteoporosis set up. It hurts like thunder at times, but I guess that's life for you. I don't get down about it. A lot of people, you know, they let their illness get them down. I just figure it's for a cause. You can't figure all these things out. "My sister calls me from Al- buquerque and she'll say, 'How you doing?' and I say, 'I'm kick- ing but not too high.'" Jerry says, "It makes me feel good that people like what I fix." Requests at Fir Tree include her ham and scalloped potatoes and pea salad. She uses the regular peas, not the miniature variety, because Jerry explains it makes the salad better. v sated- 1 16-oz. package frozen peas 5 hard-boiled eggs, chop four, reserving one for garnish 3 slices American cheese 1/2 med. onion, diced 3 Tbsp. pickle relish 3-4 strips each green and red bell pepper, diced Miracle Whip to moisten sal- ad salt and pepper to taste Steam peas until done, drain and put in the refrigerator to cool. Cut up cheese and add to chilled peas. Add chopped eggs, relish and diced red and green peppers. Moisten with Miracle Whip and add salt and pepper. Garnish with sliced egg and two small pieces each of red and green bell pepper. Sprinkle with paprika. Choi, Ngvtyen play at honors recital Three piano students repre- sented Mason County at the Washington State Music Teach- ers Association's District IV Hon- ors Recital held Sunday, May 2, at Shelton's United Methodist Church. Ina Choi, a Shelton High School senior, performed "Hun- garian Rhapsody No. 6" by Franz Liszt. Thi Nguyen, an exchange student at SHS, played "Toccata" by Aram Khachaturian. Both are Page 8 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, May 20, 1999 b SUN. * MAY 23 * OLYMPIC HWY. N. Reistrati0n 9 a.m.-no0n atA&W-- Mt. View Dash Plaques for the First 500 Pre-1975s $10 per car entry free students of Gary Bensen. Choi and Nguyen were among 15 students from 10 Western Washington counties chosen in competitions to perform at the honors recital. Friends and Family, please join us for a potluck celebration at the Shelton Yacht Club on May 22nd, 3p.m. Questions: contact Sue Moulton 427-2665. Ill Greig, Sheetz to wed Maria Greig and Travis Sheetz, both of She°i _w)ll be umted in marriage on April 22, 200o: Shelton. The bride-to-be Is the daughter of Msr ° DO and Kim Greig of Shelton and Deborah and .e Young of Lynnwood. She will graduate with $ Shelton High School Class of '99 and is cmpl°Yke at Shelton Cinemas. Her fiancd is the son ox ,, and Marina Sheetz of Shelton. He graduated lv. sl SHS in 1998 and attends Clover Park Technic College. He works at Cut Rate Auto Parts. Dig up rhodies at Methodist Shelton's United Methodist Church is clearing part of the property surrounding its parso- nage at 825 Grant Avenue and gardeners will have the opportu- nity to purchase rhododendron plants again this Saturday. The sale will run from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the parsonage on Angleside. This is a "dig-it-your- self" sale so those attending should bring shovels and forks and be prepared plants they want to Plants ranging iJ small to very large "bargain prices," accO church spokesperson who adds many plantl available. The Angleside, not near Mountain View, she noteS. At Alpine Way, your security is our nuffleo one concern. That's why our facility is equip P, with a 24-hour security staff, intercom arid emergency call systems, smoke detectors, sprinkler systems and more. You're never alone  friends are made quickly here, and you'll have plenty of the nearby. Your next-door neighbor is just a few steps away, and there is always a licensed ntg'se available in the event of an emergency. So come to a place where you can feel safe and sound. Call us today for a complimeritaff lunch and tour. No down payment or buY "iri required. RETIREMENT APARTMENTS 900 Alpine Way Shelton, WA 98584 (360) 426-2600 What's Cookin'? Jerry's just about seen it all By MARY DUNCAN  vince Christine (her boss) to let Over the last 80 years Wilma me make enchilada sauce, cause LaFollette has been known by I read up on it a little bit and I grandmothermany monikerSandbesideSgreat.grand.mother, thought, 'Well I can start with mother. "I've got lots of nicknames," Jerry admits. Geraldine is her middle name, yielding her most common nickname. She's also known as "Pa" to her great- grandchildren. "My oldest great-grandson named me 'Pa' and I've been Pa ever since," she explains with a laugh. Some of her handles were be- stowed by truckers and other cus- tomers she knew during a 33- year career as a cook. Jerry ex- plains, "I was known as 'Sam' and 'Cookie' and everything else they could name me. They all had different names for me." She pauses and quickly adds, "But they was all good names, though. "I STARTED SLINGING hash in 1948 and I had to hang it up in 1983," she says. And she still has a reputation at Fir Tree Apart- ments for fixing some fine vit- tles - hot dishes and salads for potlucks, pies and cakes for bake sales. "My mother was a very good cook. It was inherited, I guess you could say," observes the woman who grew up during the Depression on a farm in Men- (ion, Missouri. "I just picked it up myself but I remembered some of the things she had said to me. I got to Ibllowing some recipes of other people, but I didn't use that so much. It was all practically in my head as to what I did." She began cooking profession- ally "when I was raising my children with no support from my ex-husband," she notes. "I worked two jobs. One was a cook and one was a waitress. I worked 16 I/2 hours a day for about eight or" I0 years." JERRY LaFOLLETTE WHO grew up on a Missouri farm during the Depression recalls, "We had rough times but good times." She also remembers Saturday barn dances and going to the movies for a nickel. Her first job was in Alpha, Il- linois, in a railroad diner car known as Zip's Diner. She worked there two or three years because it was close to where she lived and her children were in school. "Then I went to Gales- burg, Illinois, which we lived not too far from and I worked at Marty's Supper Club, and I was a waitress there," Jerry continues. WORKING DOUBLE shifts and raising three children fi- nally took its toll. "That was the reason I had my first heart at- tack in '68. The cardiologists .............. 100 Years Ago From the May 19, 1899, Mason County Journal: ()ld-tmmrs say that this has been the rainiest and most backward spring since 1887. The intervals of planting and growing weather since the beginning of the year have been few and far between. New babies have been added to the following residents in the vi- cinity of New Kamilche of late: Dan Hurley, Fred Taylor, George Tew and Joseph Y. Waldrip. Two women of ill repute started to fix up quarters at the Point, were arrested and on trial by jury before Justice Fisk Tuesday, were acquitted. The council, however, notified them that they will be de- dared a nuisance, and they have promised to pull out, which is good. i light wire while half a dozen more whirled over the little reservoir. A chickadee emerged from a bird- house in a maple tree across the alley and make a quick foraging flight to the sunflower-seed feed- er, where a pair of linnets was also munching away, and a pine siskin was breakfasting on the thistle feeder. A hummingbird went whirring past the laburnum thicket at the edge of the reservoir, a song spar- row announced itself from the same thicket and a white- crowned sparrow checked out the leavings under one of the feeders. A mallard duck took flight from the pond. What a JeckyU-and-Hyde view of the bird world. First thing in the morning, I looked out the south-facing up- stairs window into the front yard. To my disgust, a brown-headed cowbird, one of those nasty nest- parasiters, was munching seed at the bird feeder. ttigher in the same cherry tree were a starling and an English sparrow, both invasive imports with pushy habits. In a nearby fir tree I could hear several crows cawing and a couple of others were quarreling over some litter m the library parking lot. What chance, I wondered, do the native songbirds have? I looked out the back window. The violet-green swallows that have taken up residence in a bird- house on the side of the house wre perched possessively on a Look Who's Forty-- Wayne's Still Spor00! back there, both of them, said my body was just wore out and my heart was tired. It was a bad one cause they didn't even want me to move my little finger and they said I would never go back to work. I told them to hide and watch this Missourian. I would be back at work. "So a year and 13 days later I was back cooking again," she recalls. And how did she accom- plish that? "Willpower," Jerry states, "and I knew I had to take care of my children." Not long afterwards, Jerry left Illinois. "On July 8, 1970, I drove, by myself, from Gales- burg to E1 Paso, Texas, and I stayed 10 1/2 years with those people," sh' says, adding that "those people" were owners of McLain's Truck Stop on East Gateway just outside of El Paso, on Interstate 10 South. "When I went down there and put this application in at Mc- Lain's Truck Stop, I told her, 'I don't know a taco from an enchi- lada.' She said, 'Well, you're a good other cook so we'll teach yOU.' " SHE MUST HAVE been a quick study because after observ- ing another cook for several days, Jerry started cooking all the menu items. Her boss in- formed Jerry she made the best Mexican food she ever had. In fact, this feisty lady who did not know one ingredient from another for Mexican food re- calls, "I made my own enchilada sauce. I just start from the raw. For the longest time I had to con- something and come out with something.' After I made the first big batch she said, 'We'll never get anything else. You're nominated to make enchilada sauce.' "Oh, my kids just loved it," she interjects, "when I was able to do it, to have Mexican food when they came home." Jerry continues, "I'll tell you we really used to put out some meals. If you see a truck stop and it's full of truckers, you just bet- ter pull off cause you're going to have a good meal." OVER THE decade she devel- oped a reputation as well as rap- port with the truckers. "I had one that came in from Houston, Texas, and after he had break- fast wherever he was, he hit din- ner before I got off," Jerry notes. In another case, Jerry and one of the truck drivers were friends for years and he used to tell her when he went east he was going to bring "Cookie" along with him, just so other truckers could see who fixed his meals in E1 Paso. With warm laughter she adds, "And I thought, 'Oh, that'll be a trip and a half.' " When the lease was up at the truck stop, the owner opened another restaurant in Anthony, New Mexico, about 30 miles west of El Paso. "She had 17 em- ployees and I was the only one she took with her. Those truckers found out where we were," she says, "and they'd park in a vac- ant lot across the street, taking a detour offI-10 about a mile to still have lunches and breakfasts." In the early '80s Jerry moved to Merced, California, where one of her son still resides. She did some cooking there, but Jerry notes, "I didn't work very long there. My health just kept going down, and that was in '82 that I quit, December 31." JERRY CLAIMS she never had an accident in the kitchen during those 33 years. After a pause, she confesses, "Well, one day I did act foolish." She chuckles and continues, "One day I grabbed a brick of chili that we kept as a reserve and went to cut it and my knife got this thumb. But I didn't miss any work. I went around with a green thumb. They called me 'green thumb' for a while before I could get that big bandage off." Even though she is not cooking professionally, when Jerry moved to Shelton in 1993 she be- came known at Fir Tree for the dishes she brought to the social gatherings. "I make all my pies from scratch," she explains. "I don't use any puddings for a base or anything. I start from the raw Hot dog sale to rinse funds for scout camp Boy Scout Troop 160 will hold a hot dog sale from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at the entrance to Wal.Mart on Mountain View. The cost will be $1.50 for a hot dog, chips and soft drink. The items also will be sold separately for 50 cents each. All proceeds will be used to sent the scouts to summer camp. in everything. And I've made some pretty good looking pies when they had the bake sales. I even had one woman come in and ask if I'd make a chocolate pie and keep it for her." Without a hint of self-pity or regret she states, "I'm pretty well-known for cookin' but I had to quit that because I just ain't able to do anything to speak of. I have to walk with a cane." Of all those recipes she kept in her head, Jerry does concede, "I should have wrote them all down." She smiles and adds, "I told my daughter Connie, "You know, some days I can't remem- ber what you told me day before yesterday but I can remember things 50 and 60 years back.' " JERRY OFFERS an example. "I can remember when I had a problem with this knee when I was about 4 years old. They really didn't know what was wrong with me but I couldn't walk. Dad, years later, said he thinks I had a light case of polio. I can remember him coming in and he'd put me in a little red wagon and pull me all around town so I could get outside. I had to learn to walk all over again when I was about 5. "But I never had anymore problems until the osteoporosis set up. It hurts like thunder at times, but I guess that's life for you. I don't get down about it. A lot of people, you know, they let their illness get them down. I just figure it's for a cause. You can't figure all these things out. "My sister calls me from Al- buquerque and she'll say, 'How you doing?' and I say, 'I'm kick- ing but not too high.'" Jerry says, "It makes me feel good that people like what I fix." Requests at Fir Tree include her ham and scalloped potatoes and pea salad. She uses the regular peas, not the miniature variety, because Jerry explains it makes the salad better. v sated- 1 16-oz. package frozen peas 5 hard-boiled eggs, chop four, reserving one for garnish 3 slices American cheese 1/2 med. onion, diced 3 Tbsp. pickle relish 3-4 strips each green and red bell pepper, diced Miracle Whip to moisten sal- ad salt and pepper to taste Steam peas until done, drain and put in the refrigerator to cool. Cut up cheese and add to chilled peas. Add chopped eggs, relish and diced red and green peppers. Moisten with Miracle Whip and add salt and pepper. Garnish with sliced egg and two small pieces each of red and green bell pepper. Sprinkle with paprika. Choi, Ngvtyen play at honors recital Three piano students repre- sented Mason County at the Washington State Music Teach- ers Association's District IV Hon- ors Recital held Sunday, May 2, at Shelton's United Methodist Church. Ina Choi, a Shelton High School senior, performed "Hun- garian Rhapsody No. 6" by Franz Liszt. Thi Nguyen, an exchange student at SHS, played "Toccata" by Aram Khachaturian. Both are Page 8 - Shelton-Mason County Journal - Thursday, May 20, 1999 b SUN. * MAY 23 * OLYMPIC HWY. N. Reistrati0n 9 a.m.-no0n atA&W-- Mt. View Dash Plaques for the First 500 Pre-1975s $10 per car entry free students of Gary Bensen. Choi and Nguyen were among 15 students from 10 Western Washington counties chosen in competitions to perform at the honors recital. Friends and Family, please join us for a potluck celebration at the Shelton Yacht Club on May 22nd, 3p.m. Questions: contact Sue Moulton 427-2665. Ill Greig, Sheetz to wed Maria Greig and Travis Sheetz, both of She°i _w)ll be umted in marriage on April 22, 200o: Shelton. The bride-to-be Is the daughter of Msr ° DO and Kim Greig of Shelton and Deborah and .e Young of Lynnwood. She will graduate with $ Shelton High School Class of '99 and is cmpl°Yke at Shelton Cinemas. Her fiancd is the son ox ,, and Marina Sheetz of Shelton. He graduated lv. sl SHS in 1998 and attends Clover Park Technic College. He works at Cut Rate Auto Parts. Dig up rhodies at Methodist Shelton's United Methodist Church is clearing part of the property surrounding its parso- nage at 825 Grant Avenue and gardeners will have the opportu- nity to purchase rhododendron plants again this Saturday. The sale will run from 8:30 a.m. to noon at the parsonage on Angleside. This is a "dig-it-your- self" sale so those attending should bring shovels and forks and be prepared plants they want to Plants ranging iJ small to very large "bargain prices," accO church spokesperson who adds many plantl available. The Angleside, not near Mountain View, she noteS. At Alpine Way, your security is our nuffleo one concern. That's why our facility is equip P, with a 24-hour security staff, intercom arid emergency call systems, smoke detectors, sprinkler systems and more. You're never alone  friends are made quickly here, and you'll have plenty of the nearby. Your next-door neighbor is just a few steps away, and there is always a licensed ntg'se available in the event of an emergency. So come to a place where you can feel safe and sound. Call us today for a complimeritaff lunch and tour. No down payment or buY "iri required. RETIREMENT APARTMENTS 900 Alpine Way Shelton, WA 98584 (360) 426-2600