Column: Pat Mulso, Preserving the Past

Harvest time is such a great time of the year. My sister, Sandy, and brother-in-law, Marty, were here from Ohio to help with Autumn in the Village, and Sandy and I were talking about all the food that mom would can each year to help feed us through the winter. We did not live on a farm, but we grew up in farm country. My brother and I worked on a farm of some close friends of mom and dad’s. My mom would usually can over 100 quarts of green beans, freeze corn on and off the cob, freeze sliced apples and apple sauce (we had one or the other at every meal), make strawberry, strawberry-rhubarb, and grape jelly as well as raspberry jam. She canned pears and peaches if they were available. We had walnut trees so we had to collect, dry and crack the walnuts. That was a job we didn’t like because it would make your hands black, and the smell was not good! Sandy remembers Mom also making sweet pickles, which must have been before I was old enough to help, because I don’t remember that. I also don’t remember her putting up tomatoes, probably because several of us are allergic to them, we didn’t have them too often.

As we were breaking beans, husking corn, peeling apples or cleaning and preparing other fruits and vegetables Grandma and Mom would tell us stories about their younger years and it never seemed liked work when we were all helping. After I returned to Ohio in the mid-1970s, Sandy and I did a lot of canning together and we would go together to pick fruits and vegetables and then work together to put our produce up. We have many fond memories as young mothers as we worked together to carry on our family traditions. We added cherries to our list and found lots of good recipes to use our frozen cherries in through the winter.

We want to say a special thank you to Hy-Vee Foods (for donating the food) and Trail’s Travel Center (for donating the apple pies) for our Autumn in the Village and to the Freeborn County Chapter of Thrivent Financial for the supplemental funding to make this event very successful even on a rainy cool day. We still had a good turn out and want to say thank you also to the 62 volunteers, 20 demonstrators and staff that helped make the day a success. We logged a total of over 300 volunteer hours for this four-hour event.

The historical village at the museum will be closing for the season at the end of September, so you only have a few more days if you wish to tour the village this year. The museum, library and village are open Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Sept. 30; after that the museum and library will be open 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday from Oct. 1 through March 30, 2012.

The museum is hosting a Mystery Bus Tour on Thursday, Oct. 13. Join us to enjoy a Minnesota Autumn Day and leave the driving and details to us. The bus will depart the museum grounds at 8:30 a.m. and return at approximately 4:30 p.m. The cost is $50 for members and $55 for non-members. This includes the bus, lunch and other cost of the day. You must pre-register for this tour by Oct. 7, don’t wait — register now.

The Freeborn County Historical Museum will be hosting a four-hour defensive driving class on Saturday, Oct. 15. The class will begin at 8:30 a.m. and end at 12:30 p.m. The cost is $19 per participant, and you must pre-register for the class. This refresher class is required every three years after the initial eight-hour class. Please call or stop by the museum to pre-register for the class.

Pat Mulso is the executive director of the Freeborn County Historical Museum in Albert Lea.