Grandmother’s recipe, the one that is a hit at any family meal or church pitch-in, could find a place in local history.
A cookbook is being developed to raise funds and bring awareness to the Hamilton County Historical Society. Anyone can submit family recipes that go back through the generations, said Dottie Young, the society’s president. Folks also can submit some family history and photos to publish alongside the recipe.
Young intends to put in a photo of her great-grandmother feeding the chickens with a chicken-and-dumplings recipe.
“If it’s your grandma’s recipe, if you have a picture of her, we can include that,” said Young, 64, Noblesville.
Deadline is July 1 to submit recipes for “Home Cookin’ in Hamilton County” that will be published this fall. A committee will review the recipes.
The mission of the 206-family society is to gather, share and preserve the county’s history. The cookbook and other projects let the society bring awareness to itself and its museum in downtown Noblesville, and attract new members, Young said.
The cookbook committee has put a call out to Extension homemakers’ clubs, school cooks and former restaurants for family recipes.
“We’re looking for good food,” said Diane Nevitt, 72, Noblesville. (Young and Nevitt are sisters who’ve been involved with the society a combined 67 years.)
Money raised from cookbook sales will help continue the restoration of the museum, the former Sheriff’s Residence and Jail on courthouse square in downtown Noblesville.
The residence was home to sheriffs and their families from 1876 to 1978. It first opened for weekly tours in 1984.
During school tours, students are often fascinated by the jail cells and notorious inmates. For two days in July 1950, mass killer Charles Manson was jailed there.
But contrary to rumor, bank robber and Hoosier native John Dillinger was never held in the jail, “though everybody thinks he was, because we have a wanted poster of him,” Nevitt said.
The jail also served as the residence of the county sheriff for many decades. Susan Lucas, 56, Fishers, who leads the cookbook committee, said her great-great grandfather Franklin Thacker was sheriff from 1894 to 1896; he lived upstairs in the Sheriff’s Residence and Jail.
“He’s what got me started doing all of my genealogy,” Lucas said. “It’s actually neat to be here where my family lived.”
Article source: http://www.indystar.com/article/20110519/LOCAL01/105190346/1115/LOCAL0104
