This is my Great Grandmother Grace Colley-Munn. She was an amazing woman and lived to be in her 90’s so I actually was able to spend some time with her while I was growing up. She had the best laugh, and would tell you “like it is” on whatever it was you were doing right or wrong. She was strong and had a great big personality.
In this picture she is walking downtown Salt Lake City in 1948. But you will notice she was wearing pants. She said in this picture she was the first woman to walk downtown Salt Lake City wearing pants. She said she got quite a lot of negative looks. 😉 Way to go Grandma…you rocked those pants. That’s just the kind of woman she was!
When she passed away she wanted me to have her personal little recipe box. At first I was like … great, a recipe box when my sister got the antique rocking chair and someone else got the fancy table/chairs set. I stored it away in my keepsake box, not really even looking at it, still grateful for the memory of her. I loved her very much.
But when I started thinking about old recipes for this series…I wondered if there were any cool old recipes in that box my Great Grandma Munn gave to me. So I dug it out and started thumbing through it.
There were TONS of great old hand written and old type-written recipes inside this. Some had dates of 1935 and even older. This was an amazing treasure! I can’t believe it. I don’t know how she knew this would be perfect for me, but I will forever now cherish this gift she gave to me.
Here are just a few of the recipes, but there are hundreds! What do you think? Should I make some of these recipes in this box as part of my Happy Homesteading series?
Anyone want to see me cook Brown Betty, Sunshine Cake, Sand Bakkles, Belgard Cookies, Buttermilk Bisquits or Corn Bread? It might be fun… 🙂
Definitely…… It would be incredible to compare with some of the newer recipes and for some of us, it would great if you would share 1 or 2…!!
what an amazing treasure trove, please reprint.
Do share… Most of our families food sources now are from what we grow here on the homestead and I find most of my recipes in the old Whitehouse cookbooks… from the countries first ladies back in the late 1800’s.. I love the terminology… 🙂 My aunt just found an old recipe for apple pie cookies… that I will be making for our annual family reunion… for a throwback. She’s in her 80’s… She said one of thier babysitters would make them back on the ranch and she loved them… they were so… wonderful to an eight year old… Would LOVE to hear of more ‘real’ recipes out there… 🙂
Are you interested in Kefir or yogurt making? I have some kefir grains that have multipied and need a new home? As long as you are homesteading… fermented foods are high in nutrition and something that everyone ‘way back when’ did… 🙂
Hi Rachelle, I might be interested. I was given a bad grain once and it never quite worked out for me…but maybe in the next few months I will email you for some. That would be a cool thing to learn about for sure.
Hi, I would be interested in some of those old Whithouse recipes. Sounds like fun to make.
Is your grandma related to Lorin Munn from Hooper, Utah? That’s my grandpa.
Hmmm…I’m not sure. I know my sister did some family history research on her lines..I will have to ask her. 🙂
Oh please post that would be wonderful
Hey, your Grandma’s handwriting looks just like my Grandma’s handwriting! ;0) Was so excited when my Mom gave me some of my Grandma’s recipes in her writing. I was so excited, I even laminated some. Found one on the back of a paper bag – so cool! Thanks for all your fun and yummy stuff!
Thank you so much for sharing this and really putting thought into what a treasure Grandma Grace is and will always be. This brought tears to me remembering howuch she means to me. She is still a presence here with us. She was so beautiful and lived up to her name in every way. Yes, she was strong. I saw that picture so many years ago and loved how assertive and determined she looked. She had her own mind and lived as she set her standards to the last day. She was the best cook and said the last few years she was not going to cook Thanksgiving dinner any more, but she always did. With help from Aunt Shirley, Ramona, and Mom and me. You are blessed to be left the writing of her hands, passing on what she did every day for us all, one of the many things that made us so proud to call her grandma or mama. She always told me the possessions she had were “just stuff. ” She cared only for independence, self-reliance, dignity, humor, family, cleanliness, and making the most of every day. Her hands she made those meals with for us all were always perfectly manicured, no matter how much she worked to look after her home which we were always welcome in, and all of us to the end.
We are all so blessed to have known her and call her out grandma for so many years. She is irreplaceable and as always, my favorite person. I love her more than anything in this world. Even though she left me her bedroom set, which I cherish, the thing I cherish most is the little note I wrote to her when I was just a small girl, and I was moved deeply when Mom gave it to me after she passed, because she had said to give it to me. She had saved it my whole life. That is the kind of grandma she was. She never forgot our birthdays and Christmas and always let us know how special we were to her. Her recipes are a great treasure and she knew you would be the one to carry them on, and you have!
How lucky you are. That is so much more personal than a chair or table. She loved you and wanted you to have a piece of her with you. Then you can pass these on to your children.
Oh Yes…Are you going to start a series with her recipes? That would be great.
I think that might be kinda fun to do a series…or just add it to the happy homesteading one! I am thinking of even having some of my readers do some of them too – so I will be asking for volunteers later this week. 😉 wink wink…
SURE… JUST EMAIL ME
Yes share as many as possible! My great grandma passed a few years ago and your cornbread recipe is exactly like hers! I would love to see if any others remind me of hers. Most of her recipes were lost when she passed. She didnt write recipes she remembered them and tried to teach me but I could never memorize them all. I wish I could. I miss her and her cooking!
Hi Karrie,
Such memories we have. Seeing your Grandmother’s recipe box, looks so much like the one I have that belonged to my mother. Even the recipe cards are typed and yellowed like my mother’s. Every
time I use one of her recipes my heart fills with joy and happiness. Even though my mom has been
gone for almost 44 years now, I can still remember her sitting down and going through that box looking for just the right recipe to make for that special occasion. Now when I go through it, I find it very hard trying to see through my teary eyes. But, in the end when the dish is made and served and that first bite is taken…it is almost as if she is there sitting beside me again.
Thanks for sharing not only the recipes but the pictures as well.
Ann
I would love to see a birthday cake made out of one of your Grandma’s recipes. We try to eat all organic, all natural, and non processed foods. I need to make my daughter a chocolate b-day cake and that’s normally not in my recipe box. I would love a tried and true recipe to use. Even if it’s not a cake, I love old recipes so cook on…
Will do! 🙂
Hi
I was looking at your grandmas recipe card for buttermilk biscuits and she has melted butter, but your recipe shows melted shortening., but not explicit in the rest of recipe, whether to knead, roll, cut etc? I’d rather make biscuits as she did. Does it call for shortening on the back of the card?
Thanks and can’t wait to make strawberry jam the old good way!
Wonder can you make all jams this way? I make awesome habenero and jalapeño jelly using pectin and would rather not, but maybe there is no natural pectin in peppers?
Thanks
Susie
Please share the home made Buttermilk Biscuits and other baking items. I love home made, since with a few tweaks you can make them healthy if you cannot have certain ingredients you can always substitute or ones you can have… PLEASE SHARE!
I just found you site and am hooked and spend so much time looking at all the info you have here. What am amazing site this is. Bargains, recipes, DIY items we can make that are sold for way too much money…. I’m lovin this site and hope to get a lot more info, to help spread our limited funds to make it stretch a bit farther.
Thanks for sharing.
Love it from Phoenix, AZ
You are in luck. Here is the recipe for the biscuits. So glad you like the site. Hopefully we will be seeing more of you! 🙂
Such perfect handwriting!
I know! There is something so enchanting about her handwriting!
Would love to have received the ” box”.. But in early years I would have thought the same as you. With age comes wisdom-someone said!!!
Please share!!!
I think it is wonderful that you got her recipes, they are a treasure for sure, and her handwriting omg how great is this, i to have some of my grandmothrs recipes in hr hand and my mothers recipes in her hand, as well as there cook books. be sure and pass it on to your daughter or son, boys like to cook to, happy memories to you as you make a dish from her cards
Oh this is sweet! Love g-g’ma and her recipes and you for doing this. I’d be more than willing to get a quick family tree together for you . . . free. Just send me a line with info. You can post it or not. Thanks for the stories and the fun and especially the recipes!
Please post the recipe for Belgard Cookies.
Thanks!
Sure, I’ll try to get to that asap!
Thank you for posting your g-gm recipes, my uncle has my gm recipe box. I am going to enjoy looking at your recipes, please keep posting. I lost my grandma at age 10, I still miss her so. She would cook rabbit and catfish, she had her own garden. I’m still trying to find a recipe like her 2 crust peach cobbler, instead of ice cream she would take a glass of milk with cinnamon and sugar mixed in and we poured on to the cobbler. I still do that.
Love your blog,I think this will be my favorite!