Traditional Foods for the Holidays

Home economics students at Indiana State University prepare meals.

As we head toward the holidays, many of us begin to think about all the cooking and baking that is to come. George Washington declared Thanksgiving a national holiday in 1789, and since then we've been celebrating the holiday with  family and good friends, and of course, with food. Over time, families adopted traditional recipes and handed them down from one generation to the next. For some, these recipes are family treasures. They are shared, entered in contests, guarded, and argued over. 

Now that the official Holiday cooking season is underway, I'd like to share some recipes for Hasen Pfeffer and Pumpkin Pie, as well as some images of local bakers, which you will find in the Wabash Valley Visions & Voices Collections. What are some of your  traditional holiday recipes?

Photograph of Carl Prulhiere, baker at Fossi's Bakery.

Video explores Civil War service of Sisters of Providence

Mother Mary Cecilia Bailly, general superior from 1856 to 1868

Shortly after the firing on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Oliver Perry Morton, Indiana governor, asked for the assistance of the Sisters of Providence in the administration of City Hospital in Indianapolis. After inspecting the facility, Mother Mary Cecilia Bailly, general superior of the Congregation, agreed to send sisters to what would become known as Military Hospital.

A new video illustrates how the sisters responded to this call for nurses. First of all, the hospital was in terrible disarray. According to the Community diary of the Congregation, “They [the sisters] found the new hospital in a miserable state of filth and disorder, and the sick in a wretched condition. The Sisters labored very hard to put the hospital in proper condition; their exertions were crowned with the greatest success. The change they soon effected in making it a clean, comfortable house for the sick soldiers, filled the people with admiration and inspired great confidence in them.”

Learn more about the heroic service of the Sisters of Providence during the Civil War on the Congregation’s website for fourth- through eighth-grade students, WoodsUp.

The Way We Interact with Animals

Sometimes they pull us.

If you are an animal lover, you might enjoy looking at some of the wonderful images the The Vigo County Historical Society has in their collection. They provide great examples of how we interact with animals. Here are a few, but there are many more in this collection.

Sometimes we pull them.

Sometimes we work with them

... and sometimes we make time to play!