October 17 Meeting at Edna's

          Thursday, October 17th, was the occasion of our latest Book/Eating Club!!!!   haahaahaa!!  We met at Edna's house beginning our evening with our ever-present wine!  Appetizers were shrimp salad, cream cheese with hot pepper jelly, crackers, and pickled onions and olives.  After a short period of imbibing and some eating we moved into the dining room. 
           After eating our meal of roast pork, scalloped potatoes, stuffing and steamed cauliflower with broccoli; we got down to the more serious business of discussing the book. 
           Everyone was enthusiastic about it.  The  book was  "The Shoemaker's Wife" by Adriana Trigiani.  I knew how much everyone had enjoyed the first book our bookclub ever read, "Queen of the Big Time" by her;  and this was definitely just as good.  We used the storyline of leaving Italy and immigrating to the USA as a catalyst to discuss our own families'  immigrations.
          Alice talked about her Irish heritage and her husband Bruce's search for his Irish heritage.  He finally was able to trace his linage back far enough to be able to qualify for an Irish passport as an Irish citizen.  Dricka was the one with the most in common with the book.  She spoke of her mainly Italian heritage and was familiar with a lot of the language and expressions used in the book.  Kathy spoke about growing up thinking she was mainly Irish only to find out that her main heritage was Chechoslavakian.  She found out that her Chech grandparents were from the same village but never met until they arrived in America!!  
          Pam said her roots went back a long time in this Country.  One of her Howard ancestors was given land by the King of England.  They were settled in Howard County but she said by the time it came to her, everything was long gone!!  
Louisa was unsure about her heritage.  She said her nephew was actually in the process of trying to check out their ancestry.
         Ellen said that her ancestry was German on both sides.  I seemed to be the only first generation American.   My mother was born in England but my Father's ancestry was German-Irish, and had been here for generations.  In fact, we found that German was the most common denominator.  Everyone seemed to have some German somewhere in the background.
        The most interesting story was about Sharon's ancestors.  She is a native West Virginian.  Her family settled in West Virginia at least a century ago.  One of her great-great-great-??  grandmothers was captured by Indians and held for two years.  All of her children were killed at that time but her husband was out in the fields so escaped death.  Two years later she was ransomed by Simon Legree and returned to her husband.  She went on to have more children with him and when he died, she remarried and had more children with her second husband.  Sharon is descended from the first marriage.
         As usual, the evening ended with dessert of apple dumplings with ice cream and pumpkin roll.  Kathy brought some cute Halloween cookies and Dricka made some of her delicious almond cookies.  What a feast!!!  Thanks to all!!
        We missed Grace's and Roe's contributions considering we would have had more Italian support for our book!!  Also we look forward to Renee making our meeting hopefully next time!!
        Our next meeting is on Thursday, November 21st, at 6:00 pm.  The meeting is at Grace's (I think) and the book is "Baker Towers" by Jennifer Haigh.  Look forward to our next sharing!!!
Love, Edna