The beanpot

 

Eating at Le Cottage with my husband and a writer friend, I mentioned how the bean pot I use was used by my great grandmother, grandmother , mother and myself. It had been in the family since the Civil War. 

I imagined all the conversations that must have been held over it: the wars, the depression, the weather, what were the Sunday plans, my grandfather's garden. Politics, of course, with nary a good word about Roosevelt, Franklin. Teddy would have been praised.

I'm not sure whether it was my husband or me who suggested it would make a great saga. 

It wasn't me. I have too many projects. Still in the weeks that followed, I keep thinking of capturing my family history in a fictionalized book centered around the women who used the bean pot.

I've done a bit of research. I needed to know more about Beachmont and Google images had some photos. I was able to pull birth-death dates of my relatives from the internet. I kept thinking of scenes as memories of stories my grandmother and my mother had told me.

Here's what could be the opening (draft, rough draft, rough, rough), Time frame late 1800s.

Today, I sat down and free wrote the first draft of the first chapter.

The Bean Pot

Medora Young Stockbridge poured water into her beanpot after adding another log to the stove. The beans needed at least another hour before they would be done.

The smell of burning wood was a constant presence in her kitchen along with roasting meat, cookies, pies depending on whatever she was cooking. 

Cooking was about the only thing she enjoyed in keeping this house for her family. Deciding what to make than enjoying the preparation, watching it all come together. It was her reward later in the day after the tiresome chores of bedmaking, washing clothes, removing dust so it could resettle minutes later.

Her Stockbridges followed the New England Yankee tradition their ancestors: baked beans every Saturday night. The Puritans didn't cook on Sunday so the cold beans would be their Sunday meal or so she'd been told since her childhood. 

There was nothing religious about their Saturday night tradition. It just was what her parents and what Charles's parents had done. It was like brushing your teeth in the morning.

The bean pot had been a wedding present from her mother-in-law, who had written out the recipe that she had used since she had been a bride. 

Medora's own mother had taught her how to cook, including a slightly different version of baked beans. Her mother had added more molasses and a smidgeon of mustard.

Both recipes were similar, but after 24 years of preparing the same meal almost every Saturday night, she didn't need a recipe. Sometimes she made brown bread, sometimes cole slaw to serve with the meal. Sometimes they had ham with the meal, depending if there was enough money at the end of the week.

If there were beans left over she would eat them for her lunch on Monday, the same day she did the washing.

Her husband should be home soon. It didn't matter. He would think the beans were too soft or too hard. There was too much or too little molasses. Had she forgotten the onion? Why did she use so much mustard?

The almost same type of questions every week...she no longer listened.

Charles was always complaining. The children, Archer and Florence were too loud or too quiet. Their grades were too low although both were honor students or had been. Archer had graduated, but Florence still had two more years to go. 

They would be home soon. Florence had gone into Boston to research some subject of another at the Public Library.

Archer was walking along the beach with his girlfriend Maudie. Medora was sure that Maudie Keltie would be her daughter-in-law someday. She hoped so. Archer adored this girl, who was sweet and gentle.

She heard the front door slam and footsteps thumped up the stairs to their bedroom.

She set the table, making sure all the silverware was in matching positions on each placemat.

When she looked up, her husband was in the doorway. He was still good looking and had most of his brown hair with only a few strands of gray. The same with his beard, that he kept well trimmed. Granted he weighed a bit more than when they married, but at 20 he had been much too thin.

Then Medora noticed he still wore his winter coat and held the one suitcase he used when he needed to travel for business. 

"Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving. For good."

Before she could say anything, he disappeared much like a ghost would if there were any such things as ghost.

The front door opened and shut. 

For a few minutes she didn't move. Then she went to the door. 

His house key was on the oak wood table next to the dish that held the mail he hadn't taken with him.

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