Eating grapefruit

As I ate a grapefruit today,  I recalled childhood experiences with grapefruits. I wondered if I had already written about those experiences.  Indeed I had.  I found a copy of an article I'd submitted to the Danvers Herald in 2014. It remained online via "Wicked Local" for years. 

Remembering Danvers: Eating grapefruit with a spoon

Staff Writer

Wicked Local

April 6, 2014, 10:40 a.m. ET

By Sandy Nichols Ward

Large family dinners at the Nichols homestead in Danvers often started with grapefruit. The long dining-room table (composed of a row of shorter tables covered with white tablecloths to resemble a banquet table) was set with silverware, glassware, and traditional blue and white china. At each place setting, centered on a small plate, was a golden half of grapefruit. We ate it with silver spoons that were about the size of teaspoons, but more pointy on the end. We called them "grapefruit spoons." Those spoons fit well into the triangular wedges of juicy fruit.

My earliest memories of grapefruit involve gift baskets of citrus fruit that arrived from Florida. My mother’s Aunt Catherine used to send us a basket each winter. I was confused about whether she lived in Florida; I thought she lived in New York. (I hadn’t yet learned about mail-order catalogs.) My mother was always delighted to receive this southern fruit, though it wasn’t exactly my idea of a Christmas present.

We ate the oranges and the grapefruit in the same manner: cut in half, and then each triangular section scooped out with a pointed spoon. My mother even had a set of spoons she called "orange spoons." Each spoon had her maiden initials, JNC, engraved on the handle, in various styles of lettering. She explained that as a child she had received one monogrammed spoon each year from an elderly relative; the style of the spoons matched, but sometimes the engravings didn’t match. No matter. We used her orange spoons for both the sweet oranges and the sour grapefruit.

I remember resisting the grapefruit one day, fearful that it would be too sour. My mother cheerfully encouraged me, saying, "Only the first three bites will taste sour." I immediately pushed my grapefruit towards her, asking her to eat those first three bites. I was very serious about this, taking her statement literally. She and my father laughed heartily, but I didn’t get the joke. I was upset that she wouldn’t help me by taking those first three bites!

Now as an adult I love the taste of grapefruit. Except for the danger of squirting juice onto my glasses or clothes, I enjoy digging out the grapefruit segments with a pointed spoon. My stainless steel serrated grapefruit spoons, however, are in sad condition. The plastic handles are mostly broken. The tip of one spoon was mauled years ago by falling in an automatic disposal unit in a sink. The handles of others were bent by a young guest who misused these spoons to dig hard-frozen ice cream from its container. Honestly, I ought to throw these worn-out spoons away and buy myself some better ones. That’s what I muttered to myself last month, between bites of succulent grapefruit.

Throwing anything away, however, is hard for an old New Englander, especially if you can continue to "make do" with the worn-out item. (I’ve been using these battered spoons for at least 40 years, so replacing them clearly isn’t high priority.)

Instead of shopping for new grapefruit spoons, I pursued other tasks on my "to do" list. I drove to a community where I used to live and stopped at the bank to investigate my safe deposit box. Since the fee for that box was about to increase, I wondered what was still in there and whether I’d need to renew the box rental. I hadn’t looked in years. To my surprise, I discovered a green cloth package enclosing various old silver spoons inherited by my father from that Danvers homestead. A scribbled note said "Pine Knoll items: save for Sandra and Tonya." Inside were six matching spoons with the monogram E.P.S. on the backside of the handles. Lovely pointed grapefruit spoons! I recognized the initials: Elizabeth Perkins Stanley, of Salem, known as "Lizzy" within her family. The spoons were made by "J.J. Rider" and stamped "Salem." It is likely that these were wedding gifts to Lizzy as she married Andrew Nichols of Danvers in 1861. He built their home at Pine Knoll (98 Preston St., Danvers) and they raised eight children there. I have now brought her spoons to my house and will think of my great grandmother Lizzy as I enjoy eating grapefruit with my "new" spoons.

Music Lessons Finally Took Hold

I wrote this article in 2010. It was published in the Danvers Herald on March 2010.  I'm re-posting it here to replace a broken link from my related March 2010 blog posting about childhood music influences.)

Music Lessons Finally Took Hold

By Sandy Nichols Ward

"F sharp!" my grandmother called loudly from upstairs above her living room, where I was practicing. "That F should be sharped."  How did she know?  She wasn't looking at the little book of piano exercises in front of me.  Nana's ability to call out corrections from a distant room astounded me.  I hated practicing piano.  I just wanted to go outside.   I figured that the faster I played through the notes in the assigned pieces, the sooner I'd be free to go.  What a disappointment I must have been to my musical grandmother, who supervised my daily practice, and cousin Annie Brewster, who taught me weekly on a piano in her home.  Both Nana and Annie loved music and had a life-long interest in attending good concerts.  For me, however, playing piano was a chore, a daily obligation.  

My father was sympathetic. He spoke of his own dislike for the piano lessons that had been imposed on him, too, at an early age.  I took some comfort in the fact that I was not alone, but why didn't he stick up for me and put an end to this?  I endured these lessons for about five years, until I grew bold enough to protest.  Nana and Annie gave up without a fight, no doubt realizing my lack of talent for piano.

In my teenage years I took up the recorder and taught myself to play simple tunes.  My sister objected to the "noise" I was making, so I walked outside to sit under the trees at Locust Lawn.   To my surprise, the black and white cows grazing there in the pasture stopped, looked up, walked towards me, and then stood in a semi-circle, staring straight at me while I played.  I enjoyed this appreciative audience!  My mother's horse stepped forward in his pasture, too, leaning his head over the fence and listening to the music.   This was MUCH more fun than practicing piano!    No one shouted "F sharp!"

Grandmother's piano, after her death and after we had moved into a larger house, came to us. It sat in the den, right by the heavily trafficked path to and from the stairs, the living-room, the front hall.  Both my father and I, at various stages, played it again.  I experimented with playing hymns from a church hymnal, figuring out how to make the chords with my left hand.  My father got better and eventually, in retirement, purchased an electric organ for the living room and took organ lessons. He really enjoyed playing for guests. 

Meanwhile, I moved to California, played one year in a Recorder Orchestra, and later discovered the joys of playing Balkan folk music.  At a summer workshop I took lessons in bagpipe, which I figured was just a recorder with a bag attached. Wrong!  My skills didn't transfer and I lacked lung power.  I tried an end-blown flute the next summer, but couldn't make a decent sound.  Next I tried tupan, a double-headed drum. Good choice!  As a dancer, I already knew the Balkan rhythms well. It's fun to express them on the drum.  I've been performing in folkdance bands ever since.  When I moved back to New England in the 1990's, I began performing at the New England Folk Festival each April with Panharmonium, a band that practices weekly and plays monthly in Amherst, MA.   I now understand, of course, why my grandmother fussed about each wrong note.   I too cringe at a missed F sharp or other error.  The music lessons, eventually, did sink in.  

Letter about Battle of Bunker Hill

The Battle of Bunker Hill happened on June 17, 1775.

While reading some resources about family genealogy in winter 2023, I encountered a remarkable quote from a letter written by husband Edward to his wife Mary telling her of the happenings.  

* During the revolutionary war, Edward sent Mary and the children off to Nantucket, an island inhabited by peace-loving Quakers who, he presumed, were neutral in the conflict.

* Letter about Battle of Bunker Hill Edward sent to Mary:

Well, my dear, I am heartily glad you are not here just at this time; you would, I know, be most terribly alarmed. We had an appearance yesterday of a most prodigious smoke, which I found was exactly in the direction of Charlestown and as we knew our men were entrenching on Bunker Hill there, we supposed the Town was on fire, and so in fact it proved, for in the evening (that is last evening) we were told the Regulars had landed at Charlestown under cover of the smoke from ye buildings they had set fire to, and forced the Entrenchments on the Hill and had beat our men off with loss, & this morning our intelligence was that 400 of our men were killed & the Regulars had pursued our men as far as Winter Hill; (tho' we just now learned that the Regulars still keep possession of Bunkers Hill, & that our men are entrenched upon Winter Hill) & that there is a probability of further action soon, and that our loss amounts only to about 150 killed. … The commotion here was so considerable, though none of our men went to ye Battle (as the northwest part of the Province and not the sea coast were called upon the occasion) that we had but one meeting house open in ye morning. --and this afternoon while some were at meeting and others talking over ye action of yesterday, we were alarmed with an appearance of smoke at Marblehead, which broke up ye meeting. & the people with their engines & buckets went over to extinguish the fire, and I among the rest, tho' I should have been glad to have been excused on account of the prodigious heat of the weather, but as I thought that under Providence I owed the preservation of my House to the assistance from Marblehead, when we were in the utmost hazard, I could not dispense with going; but we were stopped when about half way there, with an account that ye smoke arose from a field of grass on fire, and that no building was hurt, so I returned home, and am now set down to rest and cool myself, and to give you this account.

[quoted from a website accessed on 2/21/2024: 
https://theholyokes.com/ps01/ps01_152.html ]

Who were Edward and Mary?  Edward was a doctor in Salem named Dr. Edward Augustus Holyoke (1728-1829). Mary was his second wife, Mary Vial Holyoke (1737-1802). They had married in 1759, after the death of his first wife. 

In February 2024 I had received an unexpected email from a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of Dr. Holyoke. He was contacting me because of an email correspondence his mother Susanne (a descendant of Dr. Holyoke and the first wife, Judith) had had with me in 2015!  I'd forgotten about that, but was glad to be reminded, and to re-read the family information we had then shared.  Susanne's son Peter wrote to inform me that his mother had died in summer 2023; he and his sister are now my link to that branch of the family tree.