Elderberry time, a special time of year for friends in old Eaton!

Its late August and this time of the year always takes me back to thoughts of my old neighbors, Nellie Belle, Betty and Pauline.... great friends that I miss so much.

In the past when late summer came to the Eaton area, my neighbor Pauline would cart us all off to pick elderberries. Over these little purple clusters of fruit, Nellie and Pauline would spend hours talking as they used tweezers to pull each of the little stems off.  This was too much work for me, but picking them was okay.  

Pauline said that there was a huge patch of them next to the old barn building on Pauline’s property on Jack Ass Hill. So off to Jack Ass Hill we would go.  The brush was so thick that you got scratched and cut, but it was all worth it for those special elderberry pies that Pauline made.  As a matter of fact, Pauline was considered one of the best cooks in the whole area.  She had actually been the head cook for the Madison County Infirmary for years.  Everyone knew “Pauline’s Perfect Pies”.

The first time I came in contact with Pauline and elderberries was the second summer I lived in Eaton.  I heard a knock on my back door, and there stood my neighbor Pauline.  In her hand were two huge bags of elderberries.  She had come over to inquire if I knew how to make elderberry wine.  Seems it was a banner year for elderberries, and she and Nellie could remember their mothers making the wine for special occasions.  I guess I look like the guru of this type of knowledge.

Actually I did have winemaking supplies, and we did make Elderberry Wine! It was a banner year for elderberries, and I remember thinking it was a banner year for new friends too!

One time after Nellie’s death when Betty, Nellie’s daughter-in-law, lived in Nellie’s old house, Pauline came over to the house and said that she talked with a woman we all knew and she told her she could go elderberrying on her property. She said that there were loads of elderberry bushes up there and she didn’t pick them.  They wanted to know if I knew where her house and the patch of bushes were. 

Well I did, and I also knew why she didn’t pick them, but we will get to that.  

That morning I picked the ladies up, and off to the berry patches we went.  I took them down the slope to where the berry bushes were.... and sure enough there was a mess of berries.  We picked and picked and picked.  Finally we had filled all our bags full and were leaving when Pauline said, “Why, that woman leaving all these berries here like this--it’s a shame!”  

Betty said, “Why doesn’t she pick them!”  

I casually replied,  “Because of all the snakes that live in this patch of bushes.”  With that, old Betty kicked up her heals and beat a path for the car at double speed.  Betty claimed that if she had seen one of those wiggly creatures she would have made a path out of the patch the size of a two-lane highway!  

I miss my friends and all the fun..they are gone now and I would give a fortune for one of the Elderberry trips and the taste of those pies again.....

Enjoy life while you can and the people around you..because those times are golden!

P. S. I didn’t tell them that the kids told their mother there were snakes there just to scare her!