Journal Gazette from Mattoon, Illinois • Page 15

Mid-Illinois Newspapers Thursday, September 1, 1994, The Green Thumb i C2 Farm C3 Horoscope C5 7 is nut; I- i Front rowfrom the left: Margaret Koehnke and Audrey Morris. Back row from left: Dorothy Craig, Ruth Lash, Emogene Burrows and Joan Hughes. Not pictured is HelerrEccles. V( A even bisters I Smllivam Cookbook Try these recipes for 6dowmi Komnie9 cooMm would be doing the next day," Burrows By SUE SMYSER Lifestyle Writer Growing up on a farm in Moultrie County with 12 brothers and sisters, provided ample opportunity for Emogene Burrows and her sisters to learn the basics of cooking. Burrows, now of Atwood, decided to put into print family recipes and those of friends, along with' those she has collected throughout her 70 years.

"I lived in Arizona for 24 years and that's where I lived when I made the book. I just moved back to this area in May," Burrows said. The cookbook "Seven Sisters From Sullivan Dlinois" was compiled after she wrote to her sisters and told them to send herrecipeSjT "None them thought I was serious and they would send me one or two recipes. And I wrote back and said Two don't make a book. Send lots and The sisters all live in the area and keep in touch.

Dorothy Graig, Ruth Lash and Joan Hughes, all reside in Sullivan; Burrows and Audrey Morris live in Atwood; Margaret Koehnke settled in Mattoon; and Helen Eccles chose Bethany. A brother Dale Matheson lives in Texas. my microwave to refer to," she said. The recipes tell which sister or friend contributed them or. what book they were taken from.

Several have little notes tacked to the bottom such as the note on page 69 for Spanish Steak: This was quite a specialty at the Curve Cafe in 1954 through 1960 at Bethany, Illinois. In the Breads, Rolls, Pies and Pastry section are recipes for biscuits. A recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits uses pie crust mix to skip the step of mixing shortening and flour. The result? Extra-flaky biscuits in a flash. Burrows' recipe for Apple Pie on pge 145 won her a blue ribbon and silver coffee server set Sister Dorothy Craig still bakes and makes homemade noodles.

ir Sharon's Family Restaurant in Sullivkit "Everything in the cookbook is cooking. There are no low fat or social diet sections," Burrows said. There are nearly 250 pages in the book. More than 300 copies have bpn sold and it is now in its second printing Anyone interested in purchasing a cookbook can contact Burrows; 578-2845 or her sister Margaxft Koehnke at 235-4786. Two sisters and three Jbrothers are deceased.

The family farm, when they were growing up, was located eight miles west of Sullivan, then known as Cornbread Bottom and now called Wilborn Creek, Morris said. Their parents are Robert and Dorothy Blanche Matheson. "We have peeled potatoes, washed dishes, all with no electricity and used" a gasoline iron. We learned to wash leaf lettuce from the garden many, many, many times. On Sunday, we watched Dad wring four chickens' necks for Sunday dinner.

That was an exciting event. That was our entertainment. We never went to town. We helped Mom fix fluffy mashed potatoes, slaw and tomatoes to go with the fried chicken," Burrows said. A recipe for WiltdLettuce was her mother's speciality.

She and Morris recalled gathering vegetables fresh from the garden, breaking bushels of beans and hulling mounds of peas. "At canning time we worked with bushels. Dad had an old time Buick. He would drive south and put all the bushels of peaches he could in the caf on top and on the hood. He returned with 21 or 22 bushels of peaches.

We all knew what we All the girls used the Daisy churn to turn cream into butter and then drink the buttermilk left over. Tt was fun. And milked the cows by hand. Dorothy helped Dad the most outside. Ruth waa Mom's right hand (girl).

She was the oldest and Mom took her out of high school when she was asophomore to help with the babies," Burrows said. The girls learned to cook using a "pinch of this and a dab of that," Their mother used recipes from a book called "Household Searchlight," in the 1930s. A recipe for Vinegar Pie was taken from tha'tbook. "We remember Mom using Watkins products and also buying things from the Huckster wagon that came around loaded with canned goods and things a store would have. She raised 300 to 400 ducks and chickens and sold the eggs to the Huckster man for items," Burrows The experiences of cooking on the farm coupled with running a restaurant from 1954 to 1960 in Bethany and research helped make the Seven Sisters of Sullivan Cookbook.

Burrows researched and drew on her own experiences to put the cookbook together. "I keep one of these books open over said." "We washed jars, but first had to carry and heat the water," Morris said. The peaches were peeled and either cold-packed or hot-packed and sealed. "At butcher time, Dad butchered 11 hogs at a time and they weighed 300 pounds a piece. Neighbors Would come to help.

We'd scrape the casing to stuff sausage in. The casing would be washed and washed, but first we carried water and heated it Dad had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to start a bigbonfire. We would dunk the pig in the water to loosen the hair." Butchering lasted all day and after a big meal they still had the fat to render into lard, Burrows said. "We put the pure White lard into 50 pound cans." "Our mother could pull out the most delicious pies from the oven, you'd think they came from a bakery used cobs in the summer and coal in the winter to cook with," Burrows and Morris said.

Every other day their mother made nine loaves of homemade bread. Tve set at the table and watched her knead the bread," Morris said. Mad Gasser legend is 50 wardness, there is a little fun poked at those who were swept up in the whole story. But now there's very little said about Mattoon's most famous non-resident Except for a small mention in a story about mass hysteria, the Mad Gasser just doesn't generate much press. Even the toy line that featured the Mad Gasser as one of its characters is defunct Charlie Mack, editor Matchbox USA of the Matchbox USA in some form.

Even a magazine geared toward men carried a fictional account of the story, complete with terrifying drawings. Although Sept 1 1, 1944, sig-naled the last of the Mad Gasser's attacks in Mattoon, he's cropped up from time to time to have his smelly story retold. Twenty-five years later a few stories in the Journal Gazette and the Cleveland Plain-Dealer celebrated the anniversary of Mad Gasser's prowl. The Sept 2, 1979 issue of the 1 1 I I III JP I i i. i mm 1 '4 4 a By DEBBIE CARLSON.

StaffWriter Among all the anniversaries ofWorld War II, Mattoon has its very own anniversary to mark. During the first two weeks of September 1944, Mattoon residents had their first and last encounter with the legendary Mad Gasser, even though no one ever saw "him." The Mad Gasser's supposed exploits in those 14 fretful days in September have lived on in journals and newspaper articles. He's evenbeen immortalized as a character in a line of toys. flowers outsidirthe window. However, the odor grew stronger and I began to feel a paralysis of my legs and lower body.

I grew frightened and according to the Sept 2, 1944, Journal Gazette. That was the birth of the "Mad Gasser," a term coined by the reporter. After that people began seeing a "tall, thin man wearing dark clothing and a dark skull cap." In au, 24 people claimed to be victims of the Mad Gasser's fumes in the 13-day time period. Four of them were seen by doctors; two were diagnosed as hysteria and the other two as nervous tension. No attacks were reported after Sept.

11, 1944. The Mad Gasser gained national attention. Wire services, Chicago newspapers and news magazines all carried the story magazine, a collector's maga- Washington Post's Outlook sec- a i a i i- tion mentioned the 35 year an- lmc tne saia nivernarv of the attacks aa company created a lme of leg- one of the most stunning demon It all started innocently endary creatures for children to play with, but the Mad Gasser enough. On Sept, 1, 1944, Mrs. strations of the potency of the American newspapers The story also reached the wnnnla ofbooks on unusual phenomenon and strange happenings.

While most treat the subject with a bit of straight-for- and crew didn't spur anyone into buying frenzies. "I guess they picked out different American legends in creating the series line," Mack said in an earlier interview. Bert Kearney reported prowlers to the police. When she went to bed around 11p.m. she "first noticed a sickening sweet odor in the bedroom, but at the time thought that it might be from Billy Mauslis of Mattoon holds a Mad Gasser character figure in a 1 993 file photo..