Mom loved being a mother and a housewife. When I was growing up, she babysat other people’s children just so I wouldn’t have to go to a baby-sitter. Until I was ten, I had multiple “siblings,” but Cindy was a constant who occasionally spent the night and was even the flower girl in my brother’s wedding.
Mom was an immaculate housekeeper. She used to say that some people couldn’t help being poor, but anybody, rich or poor, could be clean. In the 1960s, housework was more difficult than it is today, especially laundry.
Part of her love of being a housewife revolved around her love of cooking and baking. We never had much junk food in our house. We never had soft drinks on hand, even when I was a teen-ager, and chips were seldom purchased. Freshly popped popcorn (on the stove), though, was a regular part of our lives because my dad loved it and wanted to eat it almost every night. He also expected sweets to be available at all times, and an evening meal without dessert was taboo. So Mom baked a lot.
Did I mention my dad was six feet four inches tall and weighed a whopping 165 or 170 pounds until he got into his sixties when he ballooned all the way up to maybe 200 pounds? He had an enormous appetite and was able to eat all he wanted. People were so jealous of him!
Before electric ice cream freezers, we used a hand-cranking wooden bucket style that required some kid to sit on a towel placed on top while an adult turned the handle. We were pretty excited when electric freezers came along!
Mom’s Homemade Vanilla Ice cream
3 large cans Carnation milk
1/2 gallon whole milk
3 cups sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla flavoring
six junkets (good luck finding them!)
Instructions:
Dissolve junkets in one cup of warm milk. While junkets are dissolving, mix all other ingredients with a hand mixer. Add milk/junket mixture and beat well until frothy. Pour into ice cream freezer and follow instructions for freezing. Usually you must purchase a bag or two of ice and ice cream salt to place around the metal container and add ice and salt at intervals until ice cream is ready. The electric freezers usually stop turning once the ice cream is ready.
Top with any toppings if desired. Enjoy!
Life As I know it 
Homemade ice cream was a special treat for us when I was growing up. We had our own cow, so fresh cream was readily available, and my mother made a custard to flavor it. We also used a wooden ice cream freezer and had to crank it, but no one had to sit on top of it.
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