Cooking With Susan: Memorial Day Edition

With Memorial Day weekend being a popular weekend for cookouts and picnics, we thought we would share some of Susan's recipes. This year Memorial Day looks like it's going to be a bit cool, weather-wise, but the weather is always right for ice cream!

Susan's Ice Cream
Beat yolks of 3 eggs til very light; add one small teacup sugar, one pint new milk. Set in a small metal bucket in a kettle of boiling water; stir til it begins to thicken, then remove from fire. When ice cold, pour this custard into 2-1/2 quarts of fresh, rich cream; add 2 cups of sugar (more or less according to your sweet tooth) then small teaspoon not quite full of vanilla. Ice cream is often spoiled by too much flavoring. Sugar often freezes out. Stir constantly while freezing. So far as I know, the White Mountain Freezer is the best.

-- taken from the Saturday Evening Journal, Dec. 25, 1880

Or if sherbet is more your style, try this one:

Spanish Sherbet 

One can of grated pineapple, two teacupsful or more of sugar, add one pint of cold water and whites of three eggs beaten very stiff, freeze quickly as possible; there is a sharp acid in the fruit which makes poison with tin should it stand melted; if wanted very rich at the last moment before freezing, stir in one pint of fresh cream thoroughly whipped.

-- taken from M. E. Church Cook Book, 1886

If you try one of Susan's recipes, let is know how it turns out! :)

A New Year's Gift

We spend most of our time here talking about Lew, but Susan was also an accomplished individual. She published six books and numerous articles and poems. Several of her poems are about special occasions. She wrote this poem for Lew, and we thought it would be a good one to share today.

A New Year's Gift

As I watch the old year out
I remember that sweet May,
Whose bloom and perfume linger
About my path to-day.
Fleeting years since then have swept
Some joy away from me,
Yet each one brought me nearer,
Nearer, love, to thee.

My heart in even currents
Beats echo to thy name;
Thy pulses leap to answer
The bugle call of Fame.
All the colors of my being
Have taken richer tone,
And deepened into stronger tints
In blending with my own.

Our morning-dreams are broken,
And castles, day by day,
With far and floating banners
In distance fade away.
Dim arcade and airy tower
I never more may see,
But all my lost ideals
Are found again in thee.

The tender spell of starry sky,
The charm of summer night,
Soft pictured dreams, and visions
That haunt the misty light
Of the shadowy Borderland
'Twixt Youth and Childhood free,
Can never fade from out my heart,
For they are part of thee.

But rosy morning blushing
To wake the world from rest,
And lily fair, and fairest rose
Upon her glowing breast,
And evening's balm and beauty,
And birds' sweet minstrelsy,
And all earth's summer lovliness,
Are nothing without thee.

Ah! were but mine the minstrel's hand,
The minstrel's heart of song,
How would I sing beloved years
Whose memories round me throng!
The past so dear--the future
A dread unbounded sea,
Is neither dark, nor drear, unless,
It parts me, love, from thee.

- Published in Home Journal

Christmas Song for Children

This poem by Susan was written Christmas Eve, 1868, and published in the Crawfordsville Journal.

Christmas Song for Children

Oh, could I have my wish this Christmas night,
Some fairy should fly through the cold starlight,
And bear you away on her gentle breast,
To gardens enchanted, where all that's best,
Sweetest, and best, from every clime,
Should blossom in endless summer-time.
Of myrtle and rose should our garden be,
For the children only, their friends and me.

Built round it a wall, with towers high,
Should shut out all but the clear blue sky,
And circle a palace where banners bright
Float far and free in the soft sunlight.
And violet eyes, lifted meekly up,
And the tulip, bearing her golden cup
Of perfume, should greet the morning sun,
As the beautiful days come one by one,
With never a cloud, and never a tear,
From summer to summer, year to year.

And every path in that garden sweet
Should bear the light print of baby feet,
And ring with shouts of children at play
By babbling brooks that merrily stray
Through beds of lilies, away, away,
Where murmuring water, and bee, and bird,
Make the sweetest music ear ever heard.
There would we live and never grow old;
There measure the years with sands of gold;
In the rose garden whose gates are free
To children only, their friends and me.

It cannot be so--the wishes I bring
Are but the longing of Winter for Spring.
One fairy only haunts this world of ours;
His path is crowded with fadeless flowers;
And the spell that lies in his rosy wings
Is strange as the wonderful song he sings
To charm away sorrow--'twill pass you by,
While the fairy Love is hovering nigh.

This Christmas eve, oh, guard them well,
True love, thou sleepless sentinel!
Beneath they wings, warm lands and fair
Lie sheltered in enchanted air;
And circling walls to thee belong,
And mystic bars, unseen, but strong,
Oh, guard them, Love, with magic key,
The children dear, their friends, and me.

The General...and the Boss

As a couple, Lew and Susan had a long and loving relationship. Married over 50 years they had both a public and a private partnership that worked very well. In public, Lew was clearly the leading partner as might be expected in a Victorian marriage. In private, Major General Lew Wallace was not able to pull rank. In letters and references, it is clear that Lew valued Susan’s advice, counsel and thoughtful considerations in a manner that was atypical in 19^th century marriages. Susan’s adept handling of her husband was demonstrated early in their marriage.

Lew and Susan married in 1852. It seems Lew entered the marriage anticipating a large family. It also seems that Susan, who had several brothers and sisters, did not necessarily share that vision. Susan wanted to have only one child. While he may have attempted a face saving compromise it’s clear from a letter that Lew wrote to his brother William that Susan made decisions for herself.

Excerpt from a letter from Lew Wallace to his brother, William.

“And first, Bill, the baby hasn’t come yet, though we’re both in nightly expectation.  We’ve had great trouble over it, indeed, our only difficulty.  I insisted that there should be two:  she insisted on one.  The strife waxed higher, and was warmly waged night after night, until the result we at length grew tremulous about.  Finally, the angel of peace on dark night, about the hour of Tristam’s birth, (which you’ll recollect no critic has ever yet precisely ascertained), flew to our relief.  He suggested a mode of settlement.  I immediately proposed it, and we compromised.  I consented to one, in consideration of a solemn promise on her part that that one should be a boy.”

 

After Susan had graciously consented to have a baby boy, Lew discusses a number of possible names for this boy in another letter to William. After listing and dismissing several names, Lew ultimately informed his brother that the one perfect name for a boy was... Lew. Again, Susan apparently had other ideas as Henry Lane Wallace, the one and only child of Lew and Susan Elston Wallace, was born on February 17, 1853 and named for Susan’s brother-in-law. Even with all of his military training, when it came to big decisions for the family, Major General Lew was not able to out maneuver Civilian Sue.