Mrs. Hollenback's peaches

You could call them the formidable four.

There was my mom, Mrs. Hollenback (a widow), Mabel Brantner (local tavern owner’s wife), and the preacher’s wife, Mrs. Stott. They spent a lot of time together.

They attended church together and sat as a unit in one of the front rows.

Their mission was to get the Rev. Stott to stop preaching on time. They set the time, 12 o’clock sharp.

The four carried some soda crackers in their purses and would pull them out and start eating them. When he could contain himself, his message was over.

I enjoyed the ladies because they always checked in on my mom, making sure that she was okay.

So when I returned to Palouse to visit, it was almost obligatory that I stopped by to say hello.

My mom didn’t like to be so closely watched and would run off to stay overnight with one of us kids. I had two brothers in Spokane and another in Lewiston, and at the time I lived in Othello.

This set the other three ladies into a frenzy.

I tried to get back home to Palouse as often as I could. 

On one such visit my mom asked me to take something over to Mrs. Hollenback.

She always treated me with respect and it was like having a second mom.

This time she asked me in and then asked if I would like 

To see her peaches. She had just finished canning peaches and was proud of her work.

We went down in the basement, and there they were, loads of peaches, fruits and meats in all their glory.

Every jar was like a sculpted piece, every item precisely placed, much like DaVinci would have done. All the jars were dusted and turned so that they showed off the precise nature of the Hollenback canning operation.

I would venture to guess that I was one of a very few that got into that basement.

This went on for a few years. I would see my mom and then pop in to see the girls.

Then suddenly it was all over. All of them were gone.

Going home to Palouse lost its meaning for a time. I would look up old classmates, and they also began to dwindle.

Now only one remains, Bob Olson, and he now is in an assisted living facility in Pullman.

Along the way I developed a friendship with Janet (St. John) Barstow, the daughter of one of my schoolmates. She and her husband still operated the family farm.

Janet had taken an interest in the Palouse Museum, and nurtured it through the years. 

She keeps up with what is going on and lets me know about families I might still remember. She and others like her are responsible for the town still having vitality. The younger families have built a new community center, largely through money raised through a Halloween fright house that raises some $60,000 each year. The town draws a lot of students for this from both the University of Idaho and Washington State University.

Now a trip home is a long visit with Janet, a trip to the cemetery, and a drive through town. It’s amazing how we can build substitutes for things we used to do and enjoy. Still, you can’t beat Mrs. Hollenback’s canned peaches.