Thanksgiving Preparations

I started making salads today in preparation for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. One of those salads is a raspberry cranberry jello concoction. That is what made me think of my favourite sister-in-law, Ruth A. Nicolaisen Lynam.

There were two Ruth Lynams in our family after 1968, my mother, Ruth Voneta and Ron's wife, Ruth Anne; known in our family as Ruthie to differentiate. (Ironically they both died within six weeks of each other - Mom Dec 16, 2003 and Ruthie Jan 29, 2004.)

Ronald met Ruth in Denver where she had returned to work after nurses training in Chicago. If I remember correctly they met at a church youth group softball game when Ron slid into base, knocking Ruth over and breaking or spraining her ankle.

When Ron brought Ruth home to meet his family I was a nervous wreck. She was a professional woman; I was only a high school graduate working in an office. I wanted so much for her to like me. Years later when we talked about this, she admitted how nervous she was and how much she wanted me to like her.

Our friendship grew after they moved back to SW Iowa from Colorado and we were together more often. When I was pregnant with Preston, she was also pregnant. We were really looking forward to sharing our pregnancies and having babies almost the same age. Then she miscarried. Not only did I feel sorry for her, I felt guilty.

When Preston was 16 months old, Ron and Ruthie had their first baby, a little girl they named Jennifer. She died three days later. We mourned their loss and then celebrated a little over a year later when their twins, Lorrie and Andrew were born in January 1974. Their daughter, Christine, was born in September of '76.

Ruth was so easy to get along with; she had many friends. After my only sister died, Ruthie became more a sister than a sister-in-law. We both liked antiques. We loved going to garage sales and delighted in our "treasures". Family dinners weren't complete without her homemade rolls and Swedish cardamom bread. Not only did she introduce our family to some new foods, her sense of humour enlivened all our times together.

Which brings me back to the jello salad. Once Ruthie discovered another of the in-laws did not like cranberries - wouldn't eat anything with cranberries - it became her mission to get the other person to eat cranberries. She was successful with her raspberry cranberry jello salad. The one who disliked cranberries ate the jello and liked it until being told it contained cranberries. From then on that person was extremely skeptical and would not eat anything red at our family dinners.

My daughter Kari now uses her Aunt Ruthie's Swedish Cardamom Bread recipe to take to family dinners in Portland, OR and I continue taking Raspberry Cranberry Jello salads to Thanksgiving dinners here in Iowa. It is one way we remember the woman who was my favourite sister-in-law.