My favorite recipes - Meet Nancy and Larry Wriggle, Pullman

Mar 31, 20110

Art has always been a passion for Nancy Wriggle. While growing up in Newport she loved to paint. When she went to Eastern Washington University she majored in art.

“I always wanted to be in art,” she said. It was at Eastern that she met fellow artist Larry Wriggle from Spokane. They were married in 1955 and moved to California for a while before coming back to Washington.

“We’re both artists,” she noted.

Nancy planned to be an art teacher, but when she first started teaching she didn’t have some necessary requirements, so she taught first grade for a while to make up those requirements. She found she loved first grade and taught in Spokane, Colfax and Pullman.

She taught in Spokane for two years before moving to Colfax where she began a three-year teaching stint in 1960. Larry worked on his degrees at Washington State University while Nancy taught.

“(School) got to be a hobby, I think,” Nancy noted of her husband. In addition to degrees in art and education, Larry has degrees in jewelry, ceramics, computer media and math education.

After three years in Colfax they moved to Pullman where they built the home where they still reside.

Nancy started teaching first grade. After four years she suggested the Pullman School District hire a full-time elementary art teacher and was given the go. She taught art to about 1,000 students a year in the Pullman district for 21 years by rotating among the schools. She retired 20 years ago.

Teaching didn’t keep Nancy from her own artistic endeavors.

“I’ve done a lot of different mediums,” she said. Besides painting, she has worked with wood and sculpture, including soft sculpture. She has painted murals at schools, around towns and in Ecuador. She likes and collects all kinds of art and antiques and their home contains a collection of old and new.

She has also refinished about 100 pieces of furniture, many of which remain in their home. They have various items from the old Farmington store including an ice cream counter, scale, barber chair—which Nancy recovered—and mailing racks.

Mixed with antique collections, the Wriggles have glass flowers from Ecuador displayed in front of a wall covered in the metal cut-outs from the windows of Boeing airplanes. Another wall is covered with pressed tin-type ceiling tiles from an old hotel. The artwork of friends and family also decorates the home.

While Nancy taught elementary, Larry taught students at Washington State University and the University of Idaho where he served as the assistant dean in the education department. He has done a lot of sculpture, taught photography and likes to fish. He used to rebuild BMW motorcycles and now in retirement refinishes grand pianos, some of which start out in very poor shape.

“They’re like 10-year projects,” Nancy commented on the piano work.

She also builds cathedral bird houses, likes to garden and cook and is in a writing group. Both Wriggles like to golf. Larry has done it most of his life while Nancy didn’t start until in her 70s.

Nancy also spends time in the Elberton area helping their son Ken and his wife build their new home. Nancy noted Ken is a chip off the old block and has done a lot of things, including making Celtic harps. He is now a computer programmer for Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories.

Recipes:

Grandmother’s Apple Pork Roast

Use a large tenderloin roast.

Cut roast into slices but not all the way through.

Slice apples—core and place a slice of apple in between each cut of the roast.

Top with Quince Chutney (see below).

Bake at 350 degrees about 2 1/2 hours.

Quince Chutney

2 cups each chopped quince and apples

1 cup raisins

1 cup chopped onion

2 cups brown sugar