This one is for Maddie, Ella, and Sam:
Your daddy's predilection for growing vegetables and giving them away carries on a tradition in the Thomas family dating back over 75 years. Your great-great grandfather Samuel Alexander Thomas lived in "the bottom" in Groesbeck, Texas on land that once was part of a river and land which would grow anything. He grew a huge garden every year fertilized by the droppings of his prize chickens (of whom he often boasted). "Back" ( the name his grandchildren gave him) would take bags of vegetables to town and deliver them to all who made his list. His visits often began with the house of his preacher.
Later, Back's sons Adelbert Brann and Ralph Tennyson Thomas did the same thing. A. B. loved giving away figs off his trees in Pasadena, Tx. He himself once "put up" 100 jars of fig preserves in one year. Ralph who also lived in Groesbeck, grew huge gardens until the day he died (although his wife Ruby did most of the tending). Ralph's job was going to town and giving the vegetables away--again stopping first at the home of the church of Christ preacher. Ralph and Ruby had two freezers and a large storeroom full of homegrown vegetables every summer....Brandon can wax eloquently about eating fresh corn there many times.
Then your grandfather Poppy had a huge garden out in front of our house where he grew things like peas, canteloupe, squash,onions, asparagus, green beans, blackberries, a kind of fruit called the Jerusalem melon, okra and fruit trees. Teachers at Poppy's school would often find bags of vegetables in their mail boxes on Monday morning.
And our freezer was full and running over in the summer.
How I do miss those days when I shop at the grocery and find scrawny squash and hard tomatoes that taste like cardboard.
Who knows? Perhaps someday you will grow gardens too and carry on the tradition.
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