Summertime Canning

As quite a lot of Oliver families did, we also did a lot of canning in the summer time. In the early days, my Dad had a machine that cranked the lids onto tin cans. We got the cans from Fairweather’s and the fruit came from Uncle Bill..no charge as Dad helped pick and haul to the Packinghouse.

For some reason, I found canning to be a pleasant way to pass the day. We would start first thing after breakfast and Mom would wash the tins in soapy hot water and Sandy would rinse. I would place them upside down on a large tray.

We canned everything: cherries, apricots, peaches, pears, Italian prunes, tomatoes,dill pickles and two specialties: spaghetti sauce and fruit salad.

Dad set the canning machine on the ledge of the back porch and made sure it was tight. His job was to take the tin and lay the lid on top and then put the lever on top. He would crank so many turns to the right and then so many turns to the left until the lid was sealed.

When we had a full canner, it would go on the old wood stove we had outside and boil for the allotted time. Sandy would carefully lift out each tin and when they were slightly cooled, we marked each tin with a grease pencil from Dad’s tool box. We had our codes for what they were so there was never any mix up. We put the date and what it was on the lid for easy reading.

When the canning was done for the day, Dad would take the peelings and dig a big hole in the back yard and bury them. The next morning we would start all over again with a different fruit.

Mom always canned 100 cherries; 100 apricots; 200 peaches,100 pears, 100 prunes; 200 tins of tomatoes; 150 dill pickles; 24 spaghetti sauce and 12 fruit salad for our special treats.

After each batch of fruit was done, they were wiped down and carried to the basement where the old tins were pulled forward and the new ones put in their place. When all of our canning was done, we would stand back and admire our handiwork!!

Mom made pies from the cherries, apricots, peaches and prunes as well as cobblers too. Of course we also had fruit in a bowl for dessert. She saved the spaghetti sauce for winter for those times when unexpected company showed up and the fruit salad was a special treat at Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter and birthdays.

When Norma was old enough she would help out as well. Mom always found some little job for her to do. On canning days Mom would get out some home made bean soup or minnestrone that she had frozen for just this occasion and with a nice large fresh loaf of bread we would enjoy our special soup and a cobbler of whatever fruit we had just canned.

I am sure that many of you have memories of canning in the summer. When mason jars became more readily available and cheaper we switched to those but canned our tomatoes in tins for several years after.

Good memories of a family that all pitched in and got the job done. When I was tall enough, Dad would let me crank the canning machine to seal the lids. I loved doing it. I don’t remember any of us complaining about having to can….we loved the results in the dead of winter.