Recipes from Ollie J -- Company Pickles

This is really another entry for the family recipe archives. It assumes that you know how to can -- which was really a misnomer, as you use glass jars. My mother stopped canning years ago. It's a hot, long process ... one that I'm not in any way eager to learn.

I'm pretty sure that the Bettie who gave Grandma Ollie J this recipe was her youngest sister. Grandma was the oldest of eight surviving siblings: Ollie J, Hyrum, Shirley, Ruby, Dorothy, Henry, Betty, and Martha. Their eldest sister, Rachel, died in infancy before Grandma was born.

With this many children, they grew a lot of their own food, including, I'm assuming, their own cucumbers. If you add in the time it takes to grow the cucumbers and then make these pickles, it's a commitment of at least a season or so.

Company Pickles

20 medium cucumbers
8 cups sugar
2 tblspn spices (pickling?)
5 tspn salt
4 cups vinegar

Cover cucumbers with boiling water.
Let stand until next day.
Repeat on next three mornings with hot water.
On the 5th day, drain and slice 1/2 inch pieces cucumbers.
Now combine sugar, spice, salt and vinegar.
Bring to boil and pour over cucumber.
Let stand two days.
On the 3rd day, bring to boiling and put in jars hot and seal them.

7/12/70 Bettie

After working on these pickles for more than a week, you had to be good company to deserve to get to eat them! It's not that I don't like you enough to work on the pickles for eight days, but let's be realistic. It's easier to walk to 711 and buy some Vlasics.