Treasure Chest Thursday: West Virginia Wesleyan College Club Cook Book (1909)

It’s Treasure Chest Thursday, and I have a treasure to share.

It started with a Mother’s Day trip to the antique market. As my mother, sisters and I weaved in and out of the consignment booths, oohing and ahhing over old-fashioned serving trays and Coca Cola memorabilia, a browned and wonderful mystery caught my eye.

To Cousin Alice from Nelson Dec. 25, 1909.

Now, I graduated from Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia, and the antique market in question is in Georgia, but I knew there was a chance that this, the Wesleyan College Club’s Cook Book, might not be what I wanted it to be. Wrapped up in tape and plastic as it was, there was only one way to know for certain, and that was to purchase the item and see for myself.

For eight dollars, I decided it was worth the risk. (Click to Tweet this!)

The Wesleyan College Club’s Cook Book Choice Recipes Contributed by The Ladies of Buckhannon and Their Friends.

And yes, my heart fell when I saw that the cookbook originated from West Virginia Wesleyan College . . . but it didn’t fall far. It’s a magnificent treasure, no matter how you look at it. And I don’t want to keep it to myself.

I decided to blog this cookbook. I wrote to West Virginia Wesleyan College first to verify that it is in the public domain, which they graciously did, along with providing some details about the College Club that produced it. Formed about 1895, the College Club was a group of Buckhannon women dedicating to providing service to the College, particularly in raising money for items needed for the ladies dormitory. They received an expression of appreciation from West Viriginia Wesleyan College’s Board of Trustees on June 17, 1909. It is likely that this cookbook was a fundraising effort. (You can read more about the College Club here.)

We’re going to ID these folks, just so you know. (Click to Tweet this!)

As I carefully handled the fragile pages, I felt like I was reading the owner’s diary. “Cousin Alice” added recipes and notes, dutifully crediting her sources, and stuck clippings and recipes and helps between the pages. There are bookmarks and checkmarks inside, places where she either tried a recipe or intended to. Before there was Pinterest, there were compilation fundraiser cookbooks, complete with charming quotations and a chapter of “lifehacks” under the heading Fragments.

And then there are the published recipes, many of them credited to these ladies of Buckhannon, West Virginia. Why not transcribe these pages so they can be found? Wouldn’t it be nice to hear from someone that Great-Grandma’s lost recipe was found as a result? (Click to Tweet this!)

Wouldn’t I love to find one of my grandmothers’ recipes in a brittle old cookbook? Yes, indeedy.

Scan, transcribe, annotate. We’ll take a Family Recipe Friday journey together a page-a-week, or two or more to good stopping points. And I will definitely try some of these recipes along the way. (Come along via email or RSS reader!)

For a taste of what’s to come (pun completely intended), here’s an article Alice saved. If you’ve ever wondered about “Those Frenchy Food Phrases,” wonder no longer. I didn’t have any luck finding Maria Lincoln Palmer on FamilySearch, but I did find that she is credited for two articles, “Christmas Dinners” and “Meats That We Should Use,” in the December 1917 issue of The Delineator.