Notes from Dr. Sam

Good Day,

My Grandmother Taggart was a heavy-set woman who seldom smiled except when she was with her grandchildren. Her maiden name had been Nannie Florence Amman; she was of good German stock, born in Kentucky and raised in the Stuttgart, Arkansas area. She and Grandpa moved to Augusta, Arkansas in the late 1920s.

Grandpa and his sons went to work for the Connor Company as share-cropper rice farmers on Gum Ridge, a farm two miles east of Augusta. Grandpa Taggart died when I was about one year old (1947), so the woman I remember was a widow with two teenage children left at home to raise.

The home she lived in was an old wood-frame house with high ceilings, and extra bedrooms that were no longer needed. As small children, we never tired of exploring those rooms hoping to find a treasure someone had overlooked.

The men in the family worked all the time, including Sundays and holidays. There was never a time during the year that there weren’t some important tasks that needing tending to.

The center of Grandma’s home was the kitchen, dominated by a wood-burning cookstove, an old icebox, a bread box that was always full of fresh baked bread, and a pantry with rows and rows of mason jars she had canned in the summer.

Just off the kitchen was a dining area with a large round wooden table that could always take one more chair. Many of the joyful memories I have of my early childhood revolve around that table. Grandma was a superb cook. Her meats were well-cooked but never overdone. One of my favorite dishes from her table was her thinly sliced scalloped potatoes with onions in a creamed sauce and a layer of cheese on top. Her vegetables always had a slightly sweet taste.

As many of you know, my mother was a wonderful woman who loved her children, and we loved her dearly. But my mother was not a very good cook. She didn’t bake well and was not that interested. Therefore, I did not grow up eating sweets on a regular basis.

That was not true of my Grandmother Taggart. Her house was always full of sweets and freshly baked goods. The one dessert I most remember was an ever-present large German Chocolate cake that topped off all our holiday meals.

For Grandma, it was all about the icing. Her version of this recipe was as much icing as it was the cake in between. The icing was full of sweetened coconut and fresh pecans (from the tree just outside her backdoor.)

At age 79, all these fall into the category of ancient memories, but I suspect that sometime in the future when I don’t remember who or where I am, I will still remember the taste of that German Chocolate Cake at Christmas time.

Have a good journey,

Sam

 Dr. Sam Taggart is a retired doctor/writer/marathon runner who practiced in Benton for 45 years. He recently released For Every Family, A Family Doctor: a history of the modern Family Medicine Movement in Arkansas. His other books include Country Doctors of Arkansas, The Public’s Health, With a Heavy Heart and We All Hear Voices.