My favorite recipes - Dec. 3, 2009

Jana Mathia | Dec 03, 20090

Meet Mary Kaye Stelzer, Pine City

When Mary Kaye Stelzer was four years old, she started to collect horse figures. She never had a horse of her own growing up, but purchased the little figurines in Pine City, Thornton and Colfax.

“I even liked the smell of horses when I was a kid,” Mary Kaye recalled.

Back then Pine City had two grocery stores, a garage, school and bank.

“It was a going thing,” Mary Kaye said.

By the time she was in the third grade, one grocer had closed. School districts were starting to combine, and Malden students were sent to Pine City in the sixth grade. Many of Mary Kaye’s closest school friends came from Malden.

When Mary Kaye became a freshman at Pine City High, six students were in her class. That year the high school split and she spent the rest of her school years at St. John. Malden students went to Rosalia.

She met her husband John when she went to work for his mother as a junior in high school.

“He asked me out to a show, and we just kept going to more shows,” she said.

After they were married, they lived in the Pine City area. John raised Poland China hogs and they also had two milk cows. Mary Kaye finally got her own horse when John gave her one in 1965. That same year he was drafted for the Vietnam War and Mary Kaye was left to care for the 40 hogs, milk cows and two horses. She sold the cream from the cows for her grocery money. During that time she also broke in her horse.

Mary Kaye owned seven good horses over the span of 48 years.

“I’ve enjoyed my horses, but I’m not a horse shower,” she said.

John returned from Vietnam in 1967 and brought with him an ivory horse for her figurine collection. They found a property 10 miles from where she was born and managed to buy it. They moved into a house that was on the property, but it had a spring under it. In 1990 they moved a house, which had been built by her grandfather, to their property, but they didn’t occupy it for several years.

In 1970, their daughter Coral Anne was born. They farmed their property and his family’s land in Lancaster. They also continued to raise hogs until John decided he wanted to rebuild the barn and sold all his stock for the money to do so. They fixed her grandfather’s house and moved into it.

Mary Kaye never tired of riding horses. She made many friends and became acquainted with many people, especially youths, through riding and letting them ride her horses.

She still has all the horse figurines and pictures she collected in a room in her house. Some are simple plastic while others are ceramic, brass, silver and ivory. She was once offered $200 for one at a plastic horse show because it is a rare item.

“That was silly,” she said, noting she paid about $4 for it in high school.

Mary Kaye also has a collection of antiques, all from family members.

“I love history,” she said, but added. “I would not buy antiques.”

Her antique items were passed down from family. While an antique collector might rate her collection valuable Mary Kaye calls it just junk from past generations. Among that junk are dishes that came across the plains in 1870 with an ancestor who settled in the Thornton area and some of her childhood toys. She also has pictures, dolls, books, house- wares, brushes, chaps, chests and more, all neatly displayed in several rooms upstairs.

Mary Kaye is a member of the Malden Church, LWB and the Junior Excella club. John was a 4H leader for 15 years and now is a member of the Palouse Country Cowboy Poets Association. He will perform in Rosalia this weekend.

Recipes:

White Christmas Pie

1 1/2 cup sugar, divided

1/4 cup flour

1 envelope unflavored gelatin

1/2 tsp. salt

1 3/4 cup milk

3/4 tsp. vanilla

1/4 tsp. almond flavoring

3 egg whites

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

1/2 cup whipping cream, whipped

1 cup shredded coconut

Mix 1/2 cup sugar, flour, gelatin and salt thoroughly in pyrex bowl. Gradually stir in milk. Microwave for 2 to 5 minutes, or until mixture is thickened—stir often, Let cool until mixture mounds slightly when dropped from spoon.

Stir in vanilla and almond flavoring.

Beat egg whites until they form peaks—then add cream of tartar and 1/2 cup sugar gradually to egg whites. Beat until very stiff.

Whip 1/2 cup sugar into whipped cream until very stiff.

Gently fold gelatin mixture, egg whites, whipped cream and coconut together and pile into cooled baked pie shell.

Sprinkle a little coconut on top of pile. Chill several hours or over night.

Aunt Cora’s Angel Cake (pancakes)

2 cups flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

2 Tbsp. sugar

2 large or 3 small eggs

2 cups buttermilk or 2 cups milk and 2 Tbsp. vinegar

Mix all together and fry on electric grill.

Granny Mortimer’s Brown Sugar Syrup

1 cup thick whipping cream

1 cup brown sugar

While stirring, bring to a boil on the stove in a kettle that is 2 qts or deeper because it boils over very easily and quickly and will crawl over sides. Serve hot on pancakes, waffles or biscuits.

Carmel Corn

1 cup of popped popcorn

20 lg. marshmallows

1 cup butter

1 cup brown sugar

Put marshmallows, butter and sugar in a 4 qt. bowl and microwave for 2 minutes. Stir and cook for a few minutes more until mixture is melted and mixed.

Pour mixture over popcorn, mixing in a large metal dish pan. Next, pile corn mixture onto a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan and bake at 250 for 15 minutes. Break apart and serve in a big bowl.

Poem by John Stelzer

My feet are getting’ blisters

My boots are soaking wet.

I’m tired as a hound dog

But I ain’t half through yet.

I’ve walked about 10 miles

And I’m only half way there,

As I stop and think how nice it would be

Sitting in my chair.

Then I trudge ever onward

With no real goal in sight.

As morning turns to mid-day