The Cherry Pudding

Dick Zahner recently found a few more photos and documents that had been my mother's and grandmother's. To introduce these, here is a short story written by Ruth Beck (Armstrong), my paternal grandfather's sister. The Cherry Pudding (PDF file of page images, 513K) The story describes an idyllic day in Iowa nearly 100 years ago, in 1912.

My great-aunt Ruth dedicated this story to the memory of my grandfather, Richard Armstrong. The characters she mentions include Uncle Harvey (I'm not sure who that is), Aunt Harriet (Hattie), "the baby" Ella Grace Findley (Armstrong), Dora Armstrong (Bagley), and "Grandmother" (Ruth's grandmother, who I'll have to find out more about). I know very little about my grandfather Richard's family and childhood, but this story has just helped remedy that. There's even enough detail given that an enterprising cook could probably make the cherry pudding described, or at least a close approximation.