Alma Related Articles

Cookbook by Allentown/Scio area Native; Photo brings Re-connection with Allegany County.

The surname, Norton, has left it's mark in several spots of local history through the decades as the Towns of Scio & Alma have progressed.  Early landowners, farmers, oilmen, timber men. 

As a result of a photograph from Allentown School that is published on this website a re-connection has been made between a lady in Georgia and former home county and birthplace, Town of Scio in Allegany County.

(Marilyn) "Kandy" Norton-Henely has enjoyed many active years in her lifetime--a TWA Flight Attendant, Dancer, Wife & Mother of 6, a Restaurant Operator and an Author of a most interesting cookbook, "The Farmer's Daughter Cookbook", published by Fawcett Books in 1971.

Although I will not present the cookbook here, there are some very interesting words written in the dedication and story of the "Farmer's Daughter".  With permission from Kandy, I am proud to print them here.....you can get your own book, if you wish.  It so happens the book was in my wife's cookbook collection by pure chance!  What a great collection of recipes.  Ron Taylor

"To Mom"

 “Your berry-patch girl looks back on the sunlit days of a perfect childhood---meadows, the brook, the scaled-to-size playhouse.  But best of all were the days in your country kitchen---measuring, and rolling, and opening the big black oven door to discovery.  This was the joy; this was the contentment;  this was the birth of the dream which came to fulfillment and made a success of the Farmer’s Daughter Restaurant.”

The Farmer's Daughter Story

By Kandy Norton Henely

“I grew up in a berry patch, Mother often told me, and I almost came to believe it. The wide fields below our farm were dotted with wild berries during strawberry season.

When I was too young to walk, Mother would put me under an umbrella on a blanket to keep me from the hot sun. As I grew older, it was my doll that found shelter there while I wandered through the berries after butterflies. When I became tired, I would crawl under the shade and fall asleep with my doll wrapped in my arms. Here Mother would find us, both faces smeared with berries.

Mother would seek the most delectable patches and then call to my brothers and sisters to fill their pails. Only she took the job seriously, but every berry counted. When we saw the farm teams coming homeward, we knew our day in the field was ended.'

Each year we looked for the spread of deep red that topped our meadows, so we would be the first ones in the strawberry patches. But this wasn't necessary; we knew a more interesting sign to watch. A neighbor with eleven children lived behind us on the farthest side of Turkeyfoot Hill, and often Mother, a nurse, was called upon to help in an emergency. One winter morning after she had delivered one of the many babies, she asked, "Where are the clean clothes?" Katie looked up surprised and answered, "Ain't got any. I jest wash once a year, in strawberry time." None of us ever forgot this, and when the smell of berries was in the air we would wait until we saw a string of clothes dancing on a sagging line. It was then we knew it was really "strawberry time."

Almost each night, after supper Mother and 1 took a lighted candle and passed it over the cans of fruit and vegetables that stood in perfect formation against a background of whitewash. The cellar was damp, for a tiny stream coursed across the hard dirt bottom, to disappear under the foundation that walled our basement. As summer passed, it became a fortress of plenty. With all the bins full of apples and an assortment of vegetables, it was a harvest that would make winter more secure.

Our garden was large, and all of us helped care for it. 1 did my weeding on a low stool after the sun went down.  What wasn't eaten immediately was canned. Nothing was left for winter snow but dried vines and com stubble. The best pumpkins were stored in the bam, and I always helped Mother prepare this fruit for pies. She would tie her big apron around my neck, as I liked hers better than mine. It gave me a feeling of being needed to be dressed like Mom.

Growing up in Scio County was having a playhouse with electricity and dimity curtains and serving a real tea; being cornered in the cornfield by Jupiter, the unfriendly bull; being a sleepy-eyed tot who tried to help Mother on Fridays with the dawn baking and the foolish little girl who throttled all the yellow baby chicks because she liked the black ones best. Growing up was experiencing the beauty of the sugar grove, the deer in the deep woods, the flowers in May, the turning leaves of autumn. Growing up was being allowed to meddle in Mother's kitchen-not only allowed, but encouraged-and Mother wiping away tears for failures and giving warning looks to the family when my first biscuits were served yellow and soda bitter.

Today as I write these words and live in the past again for just a little while, I pay tribute to Mother, who was my right hand in those early years. It was she who washed the endless stacks of pots and pans and took the words "I can't" from my vocabulary.   I remember Mama's cookbook. She had only one. It was covered in red checkered oilcloth and stood between two potted geraniums on the south windowsill. "One is all I need," she would say, "I keep everything in my head." Whenever we had company and long before I could read or write, I hoped to impress guests by peeking into the living room and importantly saying, "May I use your cookbook, Mother?"

I used to go exactly by a recipe, but later my flare for improvisation took me beyond the routine effort. As each new dish came to the table, my family courageously gave me their unbiased opinions. My crop of home-grown Henelys does the same thing today.

During modeling, a dancing career, and college, I still found time to cook and bake. As a TWA hostess and later when married, my travels brought me to some of the finest restaurants in Europe, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. Here I sought the secrets from the world's famous chefs. Sometimes it took persuasion and compliments when they reluctantly held back, and many times even a bribe was turned down. But more often my sincere admiration for their art took them by surprise, and I came away rewarded for my time and efforts with a menu filled with notes, or a recipe on a cocktail napkin.

In my kitchen hang three cooking diplomas which make me happy and proud. Any morning, if you wish, you may watch me cook and bake with the imported spices and distinctive recipes that are used today for the pleasure of those who dine in the Farmer's Daughter Restaurant.

Through the early years Mother and I worked together.  Her patience and understanding became an inspiration that helped me fulfill a dream. It has taken years to complete and test all my recipes, but from this wide selection I have chosen my favorites: some from the growing years, some from the gadabout years, and some from today. All I am happy to share with you in the Farmer's Daughter Cookbook.”