Reflections on Door County : a Grace Samuelson sampler.

200 Pages·1986·27.261 MB·English

by  Grace Keith Samuelson

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VOYAGEUR PRESS
Copyright © by Grace Dorothy Keith Samuelson.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or used in
any form by any means-graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval
system-without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by Voyageur Press Incorporated
212 N. 2nd Street
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55401
ISBN-0-89658-062-8
Printed in the United States of America.
Table of Contents
Editor's Preface V
REFLECTIONS
My Immigrant Heritage 3
Great-Grandmother Was A Scientist 12
She Left Me A Legacy 14
"My Father Says .. :• 17
Father OfT he Groom 20
Dog And Pony Show 23
Black Cats and Sidewalk Cracks 30
Birdie's Revenge 33
The Creek In Springtime 35
Collectibles 37
What's Wrong With Flag Waving? 41
No Party Line 44
Christmas 1931 48
Don't Let Your Guard Down 51
A New Grave 55
GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE HELP
A Lonesome Fireplace Looking For A Home 59
A Motto. The Help. 61
Home Cooking? Heaven Forbid! 66
Quirks and Quibbles 71
"To Everything There Is A Season" 77
Who's In The Night? 84
A Cook On T.V. 87
Rajah 91
Real Life Intrudes 93
The Customer Is Always Right 98
The Customer Is Always Right
P.S -Revenge Is Sweet 103
Last Move 105
A YEAR FROM THE PAST
January 109
February 115
March 123
April 128
May 135
June 142
July 148
August 154
September 160
October 166
November 172
December 180
Editor's Preface
Grace Samuelson has been writing and publishing for a long time, and
there should have been a book of hers available long since. For a num
ber of reasons, this is the first time that some of her work has been selected,
arranged, and prepared for publication in one volume.
The prose pieces here included can speak for themselves. The first sec
tion "Reflections" is composed of miscellaneous pieces ranging from fa
mily history to description and anecdote. "Good Enough for the Help"
contains eleven essays that describe the existence of the well-known and
lamented "Samuelson's," a restaurant that lives on in the memories of many
happy and well-fed Midwesterners, as well as the television work that oc
curred because of the restaurant and Grace Samuelson's way with food.
The third section, "A Year from the Past," needs some explanation.
For a number of years the Door County Advocate, the twice-weekly news
paper published in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, has printed a monthly fea
ture in which Grace reminisces about that month in years and times gone
by. The series has become one of the most popular on-going parts of the
newspaper, and no selection from her work would be complete without
a chronicle of the months. The twelve months included in this volume
have been selected from a number of possibilities; thus, the year presented
is "constructed" and is not a previously published sequence.
Fiction and poetry have been excluded from this selection for the pur
pose of unity, but she has worked, and continues to work, in these forms
also. Her vitality and love and reverence for life show in all her work. That
she is tough-minded and able to court sentiment while seldom becoming
sentimental are bonuses. I hope you enjoy her work.
Harold M. Grutzmacher
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