Hi there, Freda Merriweather.

Freda Marriweather: Well, good morning, Ms.

Sylvie.

It's been such a long time.

Such a long time.

Such a long time.

Like a week, but yeah.

I know.

Well, before that, we spent nearly every day together.

Every day.

For 10 years.

Every day.

I love it.

Yeah.

W'e're here today, Freda, as you know, with, Family Tree Food

and Stories podcast, that I do with Nancy May, who is an amazing person.

And I knew a lot about your mother, outside of Maysville, Kentucky, and you

did a little video with her one day, and I knew a lot of things about her.

But that video was just priceless, and you did it on your phone.

You said the television was blaring.

It was blaring as usual.

As usual, every time I go there, it's always blaring.

I can hear it out the door.

And she wasn't about to turn it down.

No, she said she can't, yeah.

We're not going to mess with her.

Right.

No, not at all.

I think she must have something going on with her hearing, but it's okay.

It's okay.

I live with it now because, I mean, I'm used to it.

How old is she?

My mom just turned 90 in December.

So she'll be 91 this coming December.

Uh, we had a surprise birthday party for her, 90th birthday, and

it really was a surprise and she was upset that she didn't know about it.

So, no one told her.

No one told her.

Well, now, tell us your mother's name.

My mom's name is Gloria.

Polly Medea Rice.

Well, that's a, that's a regal name.

It is.

she says she's Medea.

I told her don't tell everybody that.

I love that.

Now, your mother, again, I've heard so many things about her.

She's like the official adoptee of the town.

Yes.

You told me that.

Now, I know you're, uh, you're one of the, does she have one,

two, I know she had a son.

Yes, it was me and my brother, and my brother, passed away

in a car accident in 1984, so, but yes, it was just the two of us, and my mom.

And of course, my mom and dad were divorced and estranged, so

my mom raised me and my brother.

Where?

In Lewisburg, outside of Maysville.

she's still in the same house that I was raised in and born, I wasn't born in

the house, but yeah, it's the only house I've ever known is where she is now.

And she says she will not leave it.

No matter what, she had to be carried out, and I told her, okay.

It's in a bit of a state of disrepair.

Just a little bit.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's an older home.

I mean, I'm, without telling my age, I'm like up there in the

60s, so you can imagine the house was there before I was born.

So, she says it's historic, but I'm not sure, but she says it is.

She said some slave person used to live there years ago, so

that to her makes it historic.

But we haven't got a historic distinction on that.

Well, I know as an aside, you're doing some work

on an old black cemetery that's in back of the house, right?

Yes, there's an old cemetery that's

in the back of my mom's house.

Trying to figure out who owns it and really would love to see it

maintained somehow, but you have to cross a little creek to get there.

And back in the day, that's what they did when people died.

They carried them up there across the creek and buried them there.

So a lot of old graves.

And right back when I was young, my brother, uh, He used to take

me in the neighborhood free and we would go up in the cemetery, but

he would leave us and we would cry.

We were scared to death because a lot of the grays were sinking in.

So we didn't know if we were going to leave the cemetery or not.

So I am working.

I like to try to figure something out on that and, and really try to figure out if

maybe there's someone who, served in the military, perhaps that might be buried

there and maybe can get some, Government Help, Because She Fits So Better, and,

that's buried there, but, uh, yeah.

Well, that's great.

Now, you know, Family Tree Food and Stories is all about family

stories, particularly as they surround food, but there's almost

no way to separate all that out.

But what we're going to do today is, I want to give another brief introduction

to a word that is used often to describe your mother, character.

She's a character.

Yeah.

And what would you say that means she is?

She's funny.

She's sassy.

She's sassy.

You never know what's going to come out of her mouth and my husband says I'm

like my mom, but anyway He said this is what we're gonna have to deal with

when you get older I'm like, I doubt it.

But yeah, but she she shoots straight from the hip I think over the years

she's probably gotten more like that Of course when we were younger, it

was just my mom Uh, that raised me and my brother and, back then we didn't

have a car, so we had to hitchhike to Maysville, we call it going to town.

We had to go to town.

So we were sending our laundry baskets down by someone who we'd done a ride

with up on the road and then my mom, my brother and I, we would go down later.

To the laundromat to wash her clothes once a week.

So, but we had to hitchhike everywhere.

And, uh, she, she's a strong woman.

She really is strong.

Now, the town takes care of her, right?

Brings her food.

Yeah, there's you said the banker actually does her.

Yeah, there's a banker friend of ours.

And she helps her, with paying her bills.

And you would think mom has a whole bunch of money, but she really don't.

But it's really sweet of them to do it.

And, she's got a lot of people that bring her food and takes care of her.

I mean, she's 90.

So I'd rather not she do too much cooking.

So I'm grateful and appreciative of those people who rally around her.

And it is like a small community.

I'm not quite sure she would get that kind of service in Lexington,

I remember a time when, the mayor of Maysville, when we worked together

at KLC, was, on the board, but she would get her license plate.

And she would take it down to the mayor's office and have the mayor

to put her license plates on.

Now, do you think our mayor here would put a license plate on anybody's car?

I doubt that.

But that's the small community.

People just take care of each other.

And her highlight was she could get around.

Well, she'd just go everywhere.

Everybody knows her.

they bring her Diet Coke.

I mean, she just, you know.

She gets everything.

I mean, she's like, she's spoiled rotten.

That's her problem.

Okay, now, so we've sort of established that this is a true character.

Now, you only had to watch that video to have that confirmed.

one of my favorite parts is when she's leaning over to get a cigarette

as she's telling you that she's not about to tell you her recipes.

Exactly.

But then you kind of reminded her that.

She would not be able to take them with her, right?

Exactly.

Oh, that's a secret.

I think she gave me recipes for her macaroni and cheese

and her scallop cabbage.

And she said, I can't give you the recipe.

But I'm like, Mom, when you pass away, the recipe is gone.

So there will be no secret.

I mean, I won't know.

I can't tell my kids If they wanted to know..

I mean, it just kind of goes with you.

So, we want to share that so it can continue on, in life.

So, she kind of went through it.

And yeah,

Well, can you tell me generally one of those recipes?

Because we could barely pick up on this specific because she was kind

of like, you know, this is what we did and we didn't write it down and.

Yeah, all that.

So what's your memory?

It was like a spur of the moment kind of a video play I did

with her, just trying to record history.

You know, she's 90.

But she talked about her cat, Scallop Cabbage, and one of the things she

said, you know, you gotta decide how much, how many people you're feeding.

Is it going to be a small head or medium head, if it's just a few people,

a small head, but it need be hard.

The cabbage need to be solid.

So I'm like, okay.

She talked about she boils her cabbage, puts a lot of water, salt

in it, pepper, boil it, get it half done, cut it up, put it in the dish.

Oh, so she boils the whole head.

Boils the whole head.

She cuts it up, puts it in the dish.

Put some, save some of the liquid that's on it and pours that on there.

Um, she said you use butter, stick of butter, not margarine.

You gotta use stick of butter.

And a stick.

You gotta have a stick of butter.

And she uses the, the cream, the cane cream.

She won't use the milk we get 2%.

I mean, she's gotta be, yeah, gotta be cane cream.

With some milk, salt, pepper.

She pours all that over there.

Crackers.

If you use saltine, you don't need really add a lot of salt because the

saltine has salt, the crackers had salt in it and pepper, and then you kind of

put some, like get a stick of butter over top of it and put it in the oven.

And uh, she said, well delicious.

Just delicious.

That's just the way she tells her stories.

So, but she says the thing is about recipe.

I can't tell you exactly how much.

She said, you gotta use your brain.

She called it a brain quiz.

That's rights.

Yeah.

She said it's a brain quiz, you gotta use your brain.

She said, I could never ever cook with any kind of recipe because you just got to use

your brain on deciding how much goes in.

In where?

Is he a taster?

Did he taste what she made?

I'm sure, I'm sure, I'm sure.

And how did it taste?

Good.

I absolutely love her scallop cabbage.

It's almost like same way you do scallop oysters, I guess, but it

would just be creamy because she's going to add that cane cream in

there, her butter, not margarine.

A stick.

A stick, exactly.

Yes, yes, but always so good.

Of course, as she's gotten older, it's hard for her to cook now, but I just

remember How much I love her scholarship.

How often would she cook then?

Probably quite often.

Quite often as I was growing up.

I mean, of course, back in the day, Sylvia, in the country,

we had everything on the table that could run out in the yard.

That's what we ate.

I mean, anything that was out in the yard, even now, will be out.

She says, Oh, cut that, because I can put that in some grains.

I'm like, what?

I don't know.

That's like weeds to me.

I don't know about putting weeds in my grains.

I mean, I don't know what that is.

But she said, No, no, you put that in there.

So everything she sees outdoors that could be cookable back in the

day, that's kind of what they did.

You know, uh, we had, we didn't have, we had fresh chickens, you

know, chickens to be out in the yard.

Go get you one, go get you one.

And they cut the heads off and they pour things to be running around the yard.

And I just be, I was a kid, I'm looking like where is this chicken

going to land, it's running around.

I mean, even now people will bring her, rabbits.

I'm like, I'm talking about they've skinned it.

The rabbit in the freezer shaped like the rabbit is like very disgusting

to me at this point in life.

And, but that's just, they bring her, they'll still bring her the

wild animals that people I love that,

And the weeds and all of that, if we only knew,

I mean, we don't know that now.

Right, right.

And as a young kid, I do remember going with my mom and my grandma,

uh, my grandmother, we'd go out in the fields and cut greens.

Well, I always said, show me one.

And then I'll try to find it in the grass because I didn't know

what they look like, but they did.

That's just how they did it.

They, it was just the old way.

Not everything is so convenient for us now, but back in the

day, that's how they lived.

Was getting their foods.

Do you now cook some of the same recipes?

I'm assuming you, you don't go out and pick weeds.

No, I don't do any of that.

No, I do cook greens.

I get them from the grocery store.

So I do cook fresh greens and always.

In my mind, acclimated in my mind is you always gotta have a

piece of old meat of some kind.

Yeah.

In your greens.

Yeah.

You know, so I would go to maybe get some country ham hawk

and, and put it in my greens.

So I try to do a little like her, but I don't cook rabbit.

I don't fry squirrel.

I don't do any of that.

I, yeah.

Now I love chitlins.

I do eat that however.

I don't clean 'em.

My husband does.

My grandfather, he would make souse uh, from the hog head, so, Souse,

Souse, and I think you can still get it in store, but it's probably not the

same way my grandfather would make it.

They just kind of grind up the hog head and I'm not sure where

all else, but my grandfather will always vinegar, salt and pepper.

And it's kind of cut like in a square, but it's called Souse.

Yeah.

The way I was raised was on food from the farm.

From nature.

but it's just grown differently.

And whatever didn't make it across the road.

Exactly.

Turtle.

You name it.

Like, Oh my God, frog legs.

I mean, you name it.

That's just the way I was raised.

And my mom said, you should.

So I forgot where you come from, especially when she

starts talking about all that.

And I'm going, Oh God, no, I can't eat that.

And it's like, you were raised on this kind of food.

Yeah.

You know, but she's definitely, definitely a card and, and being 90, I'm trying to

get as much history from her as I can.

Oh, please do.

'cause family is so important to me at the age I am now, is knowing my history

and knowing my family where I come from.

That's so good.

And that's so Family tree, food and stories.

And I know you go every Thursday.

And, My favorite recent story, though, was that you said she thinks she owns

the seat that she sits in at church.

Oh yeah, we had that conversation.

Yeah, she's like, no, that's my, I'm like, Mom, you literally

don't own the seat at the church.

And she said, uh, you know, someone comes and sits in it, she's going

to stand there until they move.

I'm like, seriously, you can't just go and sit somewhere else.

I said, that's not very welcoming to people trying to come to the

church, but she's not any different than A lot of people, older people

who think the seat is theirs, but you get used to a particular spot.

I think in the church, it's not so much that you feel it's your

seat, but if you get there first and you sit there every Sunday.

And she's the oldest member of the church.

That's the only church that she's known So yeah, but she's definitely

A walking page of history.

Yeah.

Every once a week I go down to help her and there's always some

kind of story, but as I've gotten older I kind of just let her.

Let her be, let her say the things that she want to say, even the

things she say to other people.

It's just so funny.

I just sit there and look.

I used to get embarrassed, but I'm not embarrassed now.

She does not embarrass me.

I love my mom and, um, uh, we go a long way.

I mean, she helped, she raised me, you know, she taught me to be

the person that I am today and,

Which is phenomenal, I might say.

I know you well.

Thank you, Freda, for this wonderful little moment, and thank you on behalf

of Family Tree Food and Stories, and Nancy and I, this is just wonderful

for us, and we'll probably be back.

We want to hear the constant stories, that are streaming away.

from this phenomenal woman who will not be with us that much

longer, so let's soak it up.

Exactly, and I appreciate what you and Nancy are doing.

I look forward to seeing all the stories and the things that you have posted

so far now out on the Facebook page.

It's just so interesting the things that you all have, and everyone has stories.

Everybody has stories about Recipes and family, and I just encourage people

to sit and talk to your older members, find out about your history, find out

about those recipes, uh, just stories of their lives as they grew up, because

everybody didn't have it easy, so you want to hear about your family,

And they had to make do with what was right there

at hand, and that's what we're exploring, and there's so many of

those memories that go around food.

Yes.

You know, even when we're talking about the cemetery,

there are recipes etched on cemetery stones throughout the country.

Yeah.

I saw the article and I'm like, wow, I hadn't thought about that.

That's what people are known for.

Why does it have to be your, uh, the information that's normal?

Why can't it be that person's favorite recipe?

Maybe the scalloped cabbage.

Exactly.

Okay.

Well, very much for your time.

Thank you for taking time to talk with me and we will definitely be

back and so here I am signing off for Family Tree Food and Stories.

Thank you very, very much.

Thank you.