119 years ago

Today is my great grandmother's birthday. Mary Elizabeth Frizzle was born on June 26, 1888 right here in the same town I live in. She met her first husband Edmund Burliegh Ryder in Chatham MA, picking cranberries. They both were born on the same day, and I believe the same year! He was a lighthouse keeper and died early in their marriage of TB. She later married Frank Lynch who she also outlived.

When I was a child my sister and I would spend weekends with my great grandmother. I called her Nana, people in the neighborhood called her Miss Lizzie, but she was Lizzie to her friends. There are lots of things I remember about her.

We would walk down the street every Sunday morning to church and come home to a big Sunday dinner.

On Saturday she would do her baking. She'd make fresh apple pie almost all the time. I remember her getting out the paring knife and peeling the skin off the apple. I used to get to eat the apple peel. When it was cold out she would take the pie out of the pantry and put it on top of the kerosene stove that was in the living room to heat up. The whole house smelled wonderful. She was a wonderful cook. I still have some of her cookware and recipes that I use. She had a great recipe for orange cake. It had a marmalade like filling and an orange glaze frosting. It was so good, but I never got the recipe for that.

My Nana taught my sister and I how to play croquet in the backyard. She also taught us how to play Parcheesi and Checkers.

I remember the big old tin of buttons she had in the spare bedroom. We would open that tin and play with those buttons for the longest time.

I also remember on Sunday afternoons watching a Shirley Temple movie with her. I still love Shirley Temple movies.

My great grandmother died when I was 16 years old. I still think about her all the time.

Happy Birthday Nana.

take care,
Dawn