Sometimes recipes slip into the forgotten, so I should really thank my Aunt Martha for reminding me of my Aunt Millie Malone Brown’s lemon cake. When Aunt Martha reminded me of how much we loved this cake, I couldn’t just go and ask my Aunt Millie because she has Alzheimer’s Disease. So I got to digging around and found her recipe tucked into a notecard box in my Dad’s belongings. What follows are some of my cousins and aunts telling stories about this beloved aunt and sister, and then her recipe for the lemon cake we all love.

When I say beloved I should probably type it BELOVED. My Aunt Millie never had children of her own, and she had this way of making all of us feel as if we were the most important person in the world.  There is no way to expound on that. I think a lot of us have someone like that in our lives. If you do, cherish them. If you don’t, here’s a lot of my Aunt Millie to go around.

Gayle Riley Slusher:  As a sister – she is the best.
I remember when she and BH lived in Waco. I loved to go and stay with them. Sidewalk skating. I learned how to skate. She and BH loved to go frog gigging. They would come fix them for frying – I had never seen that. I learned if the lid was not on – they would jump out. HOW THEY LAUGHED. I Remember Coco the long-haired dog they had for years. Lots of great memories of both Millie and BH.

Martha Johnson Malone:  Millie had a way of making each niece and nephew feel like they were the most special one. She sincerely loved being the Aunt everyone adored! As her sister-in-law, I was always excited to know she would be at Grandma’s for Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter. She would make the holidays fun! Of course she loved playing cards and the big table that Papa Callahan built would be full of adults playing spades and bourre (Boo-ray) late into the night.

Millie had a gift for gab…and still does…she can talk to anyone (now she makes up the conversation as she goes along. LOL). She loved more than anything to buy groceries. It was nothing for her to come home and get Grandma and go spend several hundred dollars in groceries. Grandma would be in heaven as they both loved to shop and cook and bake for the family. I think her happiest time was spent in the kitchen.

Bart Malone:  Memories of Millie and BH. Where do I start? From Millie giving me my first dog when I was 3 that was with me until I turned 19. My dog’s name was Cheena, and she was a Pekingese. Or Mom and Dad putting me on an airplane at age 10 and sending me to St. Louis to spend 2 weeks with Millie and BH, that’s a whole another story. But the best memories are the ones Martha talked about and that’s the holidays. The baking she and grandma did. Don’t forget the homemade peanut brittle she made. Luv ya Millie.

Anne Malone Abbott:  I remember watching her oil paint in the front room out at the old house. I loved watching her. I used to paint but I was never as good as she was. We have one of her paintings.

Callie Malone Bertaud:  My favorite memory would be listening to her sing “way down yonder in the Johnson grass” and making all the nieces and nephews laugh (Note: the song has the assumption that the next line will include the word ‘ass’ to rhyme with grass. Sometimes Millie would say the word. Sometimes she would stop short of saying it. But to us it was funny to hear an adult say a “BAD WORD.”) Of course her and my dad would duet and sing it—lovely.  She liked to wink a lot, like after she would tell a story. And of course she has never been without a lap dog. I think every one of them was named Buster Brown. I thought she was the coolest aunt ever using all those dirty words and wearing a size 12 shoe.

Aine Malone:  When we would have breakfast at Grandmother’s house,  Millie would make us slices of Texas toast with huge slabs of cheddar cheese melted on them. We thought that was the best thing ever. She loved to buy things. Once I was staying with her and grandma and she got a wild hair to go buy peaches. Grandma said “Millie we have 2 freezers full of peaches from last year we never canned.” Millie said “Now Pauline (my grandma) get in the car. We need fresh peaches and peaches in the freezer aren’t fresh.” So off we went to buy peaches.

She’s a great story-teller. She used to tell us stories about my Dad and all our aunts and uncles when they were kids. I think every kid wants to hear stories of their parents when they were little. She would always tell us about her getting my Dad stuck in the hay loft of the barn and how she pulled away the rope for him to get down. She would laugh and describe how he would beg her to let him down and she would tease him until he started to cry and then she would get scared that they would all get a whipping so she would let him get down.

My favorite memory is one summer I went with Millie and Grandma and Mike  Sims(my cousin) to see Uncle Malcolm. From New Mexico we went to the Grand Canyon and Vegas. Millie kept teasing Grandma about whether she was going to gamble because many people she knew considered gambling to be ‘sinnin.’Grandma kept calling people back home like my great Aunt Willie Mae and maybe ladies in her church. Grandma would say to them on the phone “oh Millie and Malcolm are taking me to Vegas. I know but I am just going to stay in the hotel room. I am NOT going to gamble.” So we get to Vegas and have a great time but Grandma does not gamble. She stays in the room except to eat. On the day we check out, Mike and I are helping wheel her out of the casino in a wheelchair when we finally talk her into “trying” a slot machine. Mike tells her “come on Grandma. Just a dollar. We will never tell.” So our Grandmother Malone drops a dollar that Mike gives her in the machine and out falls a few hundred dollars. Grandma was picking that money up so fast. Well we get back to Uncle Malcolm’s house in New Mexico and of course Grandma has to call Aunt Willie Mae and all her church ladies and tells them ” well we went to Vegas and I won some money but don’t you worry I am going to TITHE my 10%.” Millie would not let grandma forget that. The whole rest of the trip she would say and laugh “Now Pauline as soon as we get to Longview I am going to take you to Gum Springs Church so you can tithe your 10% otherwise Willie Mae may be onto you.”

And finally from an interview taken at a family reunion in 1990, my Aunt Millie talks about her idea of a project. A project that to my knowledge was never finished. We might just have to get on finishing it for her. And y’all need to do the same. My Aunt Millie would love it if she knew she gave y’all a good idea.

Millie Brown (from 1990): I am trying to work on a project for our immediate family.  We get together every Thanksgiving—my brothers and sisters all come home at that particular time. So I am going to start a cookbook that we all can add to—a chapter every year. We are going to have our family tree in the front of the book. It will be very fun and interesting. One of the things I want to do is have them recount some of–or at least one—of their favorite memories of childhood that can be included in the cookbook.

MILLIE BROWN’S LEMON LOAF

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup shortening

1/2 cup almonds

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

1 lemon grated rind- save lemon and squeeze and save juice for glaze

1.  Sift and mix dry ingredients

2.  Cut in shortening until it has a coarse texture like cornmeal.

3.  Mix in nuts.

4.  Beat eggs. Add to the mixture with the milk.

5.  Add the grated lemon rind

6. Bake at 375 degrees for one hour.

7.  After loaf has cooled make the glaze by mixing the saved lemon juice with 1/4 cup of additional sugar. Drizzle glaze over cooled loaf. (Note: use granulated sugar NOT POWDERED SUGAR for the glaze)