In Memorium

Minnie's girls (l. to r., Margaret, Charlotte, Glenadore, Doris)

The last of Minnie's daughters has passed away. Doris Jane, born August 1, 1925, died on Friday, April 20, 2012, after a brief illness. She was 86 years old. She will be sorely missed. Her nieces and nephew knew her as Aunt Doris, or as "Moonbeam." She was always cheerful and generous, made us cookies and snackies, and took us on trips to Rockport, Massachusetts and Mystic, Connecticut with her elder sister Glenadore.

As far back as I can remember, Glen and Doris also took my sister and me to Fort Plain on weekend trips to visit Grandma Minnie. As a toddler, I would sit on Glen's lap as she drove along the highway past Little Nose and Big Nose, two humpy hills that form a gateway into the Mohawk Valley. Of course, that was in the days before seat belts and car seats!

Doris graduated from Fort Plain High School in 1943, and immediately went to work for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. It was during World War II, and the company needed workers to replace those who had gone off to war. She spent her entire career at GE, commuting home to Fort Plain with Glenadore every weekend.

The photo above was taken sometime in the late 1940s. But Doris chronicled family trips and visits well into her eighties, bringing out her camera every time we visited, so that she could record the occasion. She was following a tradition that has also left us with photo albums from the days of our grandparents and great-grandparents, going back to the early 1900s.

My siblings and I will always remember the stories, games and trips we shared with Doris and her sisters. But now that they are gone, as another aunt said when our last grandparent passed away, "We are the older generation now."  That's a sobering thought.

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So that you may pass on a traditional cookie recipe to your own children or nieces and nephews, Doris's recipe for snickerdoodles follows:

Snickerdoodle cookie recipe