Dinnertime at Grandma’s house was always delicious — endless bowls and platters of food, eating more dessert than Mom would normally allow, and always cups of coffee for everyone, no matter what the age. What I remember most, though, was not what was on the table, but what sat on the floor next to the buffet, directly in my line of vision whenever I would sit on South side of the dinner table.
It was an old-fashioned glass butter churn.
One Easter Grandma decided, because we expressed amazement over the object, that my cousins and I would make homemade butter in the churn. So we added cream to the jar. The process seemed easy enough.
It wasn’t. The manual labor got the best of us so other family members took turns cranking. Finally we had our very own creamy, homemade butter (and homemade bread to go with it).
For Grandma and for us, this wasn’t just about butter. My great-grandparents, my grandparents, my mother, and now I had used the antique churn. It was a connection between generations.
I appreciated the butter more because of all the hard work that went into it, like the same hard work that my ancestors used to make their butter, and we swore it tasted better than anything purchased at the grocery store.
