Food -- a family affair and Mom's family's approach

How we eat has a lot to do with how our families eat. Yes, we pick up the ways of eating of our schoolmates, and later circumstances foster their patterns -- school, military service, workplace, sports events.

I gained 15 pounds in a few months when I moved to California in my 20s and discovered the wonders of really good Mexican food.

But our families are formative, at least in part, of the ways we acquire, prepare, and ingest food.

The United States entered World War II on Dec. 7, 1941, with the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. The world war in the Pacific and in Europe impacted the availability of food in the U.S. I was born in October 1942.

Me, my younger sister Kathleen, and mom.


This must have been in 1945-45 when the war had ended.

I remember no food deprivation, only oleomargarine of white quarter sticks that were mixed with an orange powder to give a yellow butter-like outcome. It wasn't good, but it was a small price. The food deprivations throughout the world and in the battle trenches were life-threatening.

My mother's family, the Sangers -- oh my goodness, were they great cooks. German (with a touch of French somewhere back there), they served delicious food.

For the time, they cooked in what was then believed to be a healthy way. On a plate, equal portions of protein, vegetable, and starch, mostly white potatoes and best mashed with butter.

The role of fat wasn't much attended to. More butter meant better. Same with sugar.

But what an exquisite touch in baking. All were terrific bakers.

In this undated photo, mom -- Anne Sanger Lane, Peg -- Margaret Sanger Drake, Albert (Popey) Sanger, Dolores Sanger Berger, and Pauline Sanger Henning.

Aunt Peg might have had a slight edge on the others in her baking -- her lemon meringue pie could float up to your mouth where mom's and Pausch's called to you from your fork on the plate. Not much of a difference.

Aunt Dolores was famous for her wonderfully decorated Easter eggs. All prepared meats, vegetables, starches (carbohydrates), salads in delicious ways. Aunt Pausch's Sunday dinner -- roasted chicken, mashed potatoes with gravy or butter, asparagus in season, white cake with carmel frosting. Mom's beef tenderloin, roasted potatoes, green beans almondine, tomato aspic salad, angel food cake.

Once a year, currant jellies, from muslin bags of cooked currants hanging from the oven door handle, dripping into a pan. Ah, the smell!

At Aunt Pauline's, bowls of candy always available. Chocolate kisses. Hershey Miniatures. Once at a party, beautiful older cousin Marilyn, who had been a model, took one candy and pointed out to me that that one candy was her dessert. How bizarre, I thought, in my child's politeness, not saying it out loud. Why would anyone stop at one?

It wasn't until I read a Joy Bauer online post about having one scoop of ice cream in a cone instead of two that I saw that one-only was a real strategy, and evidently a workable one.

To abstemious eaters of the world, we multiple-takers looked like we were just indulgent, lacking in "self control."

Nobody knew back then that fats, sugars, salts and processed carbohydrates were addictive.


When my mother and her brothers and sisters were children, a well-to-do branch of the family (to whom they were not close, only holiday get-togethers) was there for Christmas. The wealthy kids got a pony that was brought right in Granny's house.

The Sanger kids got chocolates. At least they got candy.

Those Sanger kids didn't let anything hold them back.  They had a good time. And a tasty one.

When they were older, many of the Sangers had heart problems and diabetes. Aunt Peg, above in pink, who by the age in this photo had slimmed down, lost several toes to diabetes. Pauline, center, had heart and emphysema issues, including from smoking. And mom, left in blue, had congestive heart failure and adult-onset (then-called) or Type 2 diabetes diagnosed at 68.

She became diligent about eating in a healthy way. But a foot sore in the late 1990s took one toe, and not long afterward, her left leg below the knee. I traveled to Milwaukee to be with her as much as I could during that time.

My cousins Bob and Evelyn Drake were her health care supporters. Other cousins, neighbors and friends were sweet visitors and took her out to lunch at Milwaukee's delightful restaurants.

Mom's amputation wound had to heal and that took a costly medication that contained blood cells.

She was fitted for a leg prostheses and engaged in extensive physical therapy. She sort of learned to walk again, but mostly stood to wash dishes and prepare food. She got around by wheel chair.

She is my model for aging well.

She was so valiant in enduring the suffering that the amputation and its aftermath caused.

She stayed tuned in to the beauty of the world -- the red autumn leaves outside the window -- and so enjoyed a good geschnutter -- a valuable, lively conversation -- with anybody who stopped by.

During the last month of her life, in her final suffering and engagement, my brother and I were privileged to be with her.

Patrick is a terrific cook.

Shown here with his sons Geoff and Kevin at the barbie at their home in Tyers, Victoria, Australia, Pat did a lot of the cooking while we stayed with mom that last time.

She went in and out of consciousness in the dining-room-become-bedroom in her home. She went through long stretches of not eating at all, and then eating with gusto. They call it the death hunger.


Pat prepared bowls of sliced tomatoes and perfectly cooked, not one second too long scallops. Mom ate steadily, purposefully.

In and out of dementia, she awoke one morning at 4 am and called out: "Did someone say there was ice cream?" We prepared a piece of apple pie with a nice scoop of vanilla. A little while later her 24-hour caregiver from Bulgaria, Daniela, cooked up a lovely cheese omelet. She enjoyed it all.

And then she went on ahead, Feb. 26, 2000, having achieved her goal of getting into the new millennium "to see how it all turned out."

She went on to the heavenly banquet.

A photo from perhaps 1940, 1941. From left: Uncle Red, Casper Sanger and Aunt Mary Lawler Sanger; Uncle Pope, Albert Sanger; Aunt Pauline Sanger Henning; Uncle Vic and Aunt Dolores Sanger Berger; eldest Uncle Charlie and Aunt Margaret Frasier Sanger of Marietta, Ga.; Uncle Harvey and Aunt Peg Sanger Drake; and my parents, Jim and Anne Sanger Lane. On the mantel, photos of Grandma Margaret Schuler Sanger and Grandpa Cornelius Sanger.