Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - The Turkey
"My husband was very ill, and it had been so depressing, and the holidays were coming up and I thought, “I have got to think of something to cheer this family up a little bit.” My daughter called and said, “Mom, they gave me a turkey as a bonus, would you pick it up?” I said “Oh, yeah, I will pick it up. Where is it?” She told me. I picked it up and I got home, and I thought “I am going to tell her that turkey is alive.”
I told her, I said, “I am never picking up your turkey up again, because it was alive, and I have it in the trunk!” She said, “Well, I’m not going to skin it!” I said, “You don’t skin it, you pluck it!” Before she came home, I told my son about it, so he got in the trunk of the car. She said, “Where is that dumb turkey?” I said, “It is in the trunk of the car.” My son was out there making all kinds of noise like he’s a turkey. I unlocked the trunk and she screamed. She said, “Mom, how dare you! You’ve embarrassed me. I told everyone at work who were picking up the turkey’s that you said the turkeys were alive. You humiliated me!”"
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Perfect Children
"She was wonderful to raise 8 children. She would talk about each of us to the other one. But never would she allow anyone to say anyone to say anything about HER children, because they were all perfect – yes, they were perfect!"
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Mischievous Doug
"My oldest son, Doug, he lives in Idaho. When he was 2 years old, I went out to get the milk. There were no neighbors. But he locks the door with me in my nightgown. Then he climbs up on the cupboard, and I could see him through the windows laughing, throwing coffee, sugar, flour. I really wanted to scalp him. But he was just always mischievous – cute as a button, so everyone thought he was a cute, cute kid. I bought him books every time we would go to the store he would want a book – a little golden book. We had 100’s of those books. Sometimes he would go through them and then leave them. Him and I would have the biggest fights over him picking up those books and putting them back. I am going to go see him next month. He lives in Idaho. He built me a swing that I swing on when I go. He pulls jokes on me on the time. He used to drive by in Fresno, he would be in the pick-up, and fake his voice pretending he was somebody else. He gave me a run for my money."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Learns to Bake Bread
"I wanted to learn how to bake bread. I said mom, “Give me the recipe on how to bake bread.” She said “Bertie all I know is that I use a pinch of this and a pinch of that”, and she had no idea how to tell me. So I baked my first bread out of a Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook. It said I’ve got to keep it warm. So I had a heater that would go on real hot and then it would cool off. I put my bread on there - well it killed the yeast - so when I baked it, it was like a brick. If you dropped it on your toe it would break. My husband went ahead and ate that bread because he did not want me to be discouraged in baking. So I learned how to bake, and kept asking neighbors and friends and relatives and then I started baking bread nine loaves at a time and I ended up giving them to the neighbors and so I thought, “I am going to teach them how to bake bread. I am not going to do this anymore.” And that’s what I did."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Half Brooms
"She would not let us use a mop to scrub the house. We did it on our hands and needs, because you cannot do it clean enough with a mop. My brothers gave her a run for the money. I seen her chase the kids with a broom. We had ore half-brooms than anyone in the country because she broke all the brooms on my brothers."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Dad and Mom
"My Dad pulled jokes on her all the time. I have to tell you he went in to buy a bra. They said, “What size?” He took off his cowboy hat and said, “One of them fits right in here.” He bought the bra. It fit! Another time she was out in the garden and he was in bed because he was off in the season of sugar beets. He kept saying “June come here, June come here.” She comes all the way into the house, and He said, “I messed the bed.” She started having a big fit about it, and he said, “April Fool!” She was not happy about that, but she was used to it."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - Canning Apples
"I dislike summers because it was canning. We canned everything, and my Dad would take us out and dump us at a crab apple tree wild. The apples were about the size of plumb. We had to peel all of those apples to can them, bake pies, do whatever you can with apples."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - The Neighbor
"When we first moved into a new neighborhood, this lady lived next door to me, and I was burning all the papers and the boxes from the move. I didn’t realize her clothes were on the line, and oh my gosh did she let me have it, so I never did that again. One day my little girl was playing on a step and she crawled over to that neighbor. She came over and picked her up and practically threw her at me and said, “Keep this damn kid at home.” I thought, “I am going to get along with that woman if it kills me.” So, I baked a fresh apple pie from scratch and took it over to her. The next day she brought me cinnamon rolls. She had a metal plate in her head. She wasn’t quite right. She would shake her fist at kids riding on the sidewalk. She was just different."
Alberta (Bertie) Whipple - About Baking
"I was the oldest of 8, and my mother could bake bread and cinnamon rolls. Every Sunday she would fix a huge dinner. All her relatives knew that she always cooked on Sunday. She would get up at 4 in the morning and start the pies. We had chicken and noodles and fried chicken.
We would come home from school and of course the bread was hot. She didn’t want us to cut the loaf because it would smash the bread, but we would talk her into it. She made little cinnamon rolls so we would leave the bread alone."
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