Home Canning - A Family Affair

One of my fondest memories is of sitting on the front porch of my Aunt Wanda's house during the hot days of summer. Mom, Aunt Wanda, and Mamaw were canning. It was a women-of-the-family affair, with me and two of Wanda's daughters helping (though my dad liked to help, too).

Canning day was fun, except when it was monotonous. My job as the youngest, about age nine, was to shuck the corn, string and snap the beans, and peel the peaches. I sat on the porch with Mamaw and Dad and shucked, strung, snapped and peeled all day long. Even now, I see mounds of corn and beans. I really don't remember ever getting done.

Wanda's girls, older than me, got the important jobs. The younger girl washed and scalded the jars, while the older one got to do the dangerous (translated: fun) stuff. I walked into the kitchen from time to time, and was in awe of the whole scene: the whistling pressure cooker, the boiling jars and rings, and the pouring of paraffin wax onto fruit jelly. Then, I dutifully marched back to the front porch and shucked, strung, snapped and peeled. At least I got to be a part. I felt important.

Later that year, my mom would send me to the pantry to recruit canned vegetables for a meal. Reviewing the formation of green beans on the shelf was a heady task. I walked the rows, inspecting the jars. Which one would pull duty that day? Which would join forces with a boiling stew to fend off the snowy cold of a winter's day? Alas, Mom would enter and say to use the jars in front first.

Time seemed to stand still back then. I knew nothing of its fleeting nature—that the changing of seasons represented more than school days or summer, Christmas or the Fourth of July. Each day that passed was gone for ever. The women of my family, however, gave me something that would last as long I live—as long as I could remember those days of shucking, stringing, snapping and peeling—a sense of continuity, of unity, of purpose, of family.