When the Saints Go Marching In
This past December, my Nanny, Bertha Pedersen, passed away. She was 92 years old and hands down my favorite person. She was fun, she loved to play games, she was well traveled, she loved when family visited, and loved all 18 of her grandchildren and the 34+ great grandchildren. She was a legend. She could school you at any jeopardy game and also astound you with her crosswords. She was a lady by all means, loved her hair done, but wasn’t fussy. She served for many years at the pregnancy resource center, even attending a few the births of her mentees. She loved the Lord and was quick to remind you how to “be a good witness”…but perhaps my favorite attribute was her love for baking.
Her parents immigrated from Norway and settled in Brooklyn, NY. Her father was so proud to be American that he required only English in the home. While we wish we knew some Norwegian, something is so sweet about that to me. The work to get here and the pride to belong. But something she did not lose was all the Norwegian baking.
Somewhere around my middle school age, my sister Gillian and I started going over to help Nanny bake at Christmas. She would make anywhere from 25-30 types of cookies. Each requiring their own techniques, irons, tartlet pans, etc. I remember being nervous the first year. I wasn’t sure how to take Nanny, she was very blunt and I had not spent a lot of one on one time with her. But as time wore on she won our hearts. Her ways became endearing, we shared in laughs while she taught us and shared stories. We would thumb through 10 different recipes for the same cookie, while she racked her brain which was her favorite. Sometimes we would try one and it was a fail. One year Gillian perfected something with the sandbakkels and she didn’t break one cookie. Nanny was astounded. We will never forget it. We didn’t just bake, we would pause for a game of phase 10, rummikub or chicken foot. She loved to have us push all the dominos in the middle and hear the loud clank. As a kid, I felt like we were breaking the rules when we did this and thinking back to the mischievous glimmer in Nanny’s eye, I feel like maybe she did too.
As I write this and remember, I have tears in my eyes. What I would give to step back into her kitchen, to feel the greased and worn recipe cards, to see her fat cats waddling around the house, to hear the car talk on the radio, or the way the worn pyrex nesting bowls felt…to see her strong hands effortlessly whipping together treats as they had done so many years before. She developed Parkinson’s and as the years went by, Gillian and I assumed more and more of the baking while she sat by and instructed. It was so gradual I almost didn’t notice. We would snack along the way and brew fresh, black, coffee and try a few samples in the afternoon. Then we would box the rest up for Christmas Eve. It should also be noted she had an amazing collection of scratched up tupperware, vintage tins and containers of various sizes that we lined with wax paper to keep all the cookies in. Since it was cold in Ohio we would keep all of these tins out in the garage.
There was no one like her. I know I’m not the only one who misses her so dearly. You never knew what story she might tell or memory she might share, but you did know you didn’t want to miss one word. I wish I could tell her now how much all of these memories are imprinted on my heart.
As we were getting ready for her funeral I wanted to have a dessert table. Funerals are already so sad and melancholy. For years Nanny told us that when she passed she wanted it to be a celebration because she was now in Heaven. She wanted balloons released and parade to “When the Saints Go Marching In” playing. Together, with my cousins, mom, sisters and aunts, we divided up all of her recipes (and even a few we thought she might like) and put together a magnificent dessert table. One that you would expect to see at a wedding. I think it honored her so sweetly. Everyone knew her to be a wonderful cook and host. It was lovely, a tangible picture of her legacy living on in each of children and grandchildren, stretching across states, each of us in our own little kitchens, buzzing around and baking, just like she would have done.
Some days I burst into tears when I realize I can’t pick up the phone and give her an update on my life or check in with how she is doing. She was always so excited to hear what baking adventure I was taking on or what Willa was up to. This is the first I’ve tried to write about it, it seems as though my words fall short of who she was and how she has forever changed me. I hope to tell her story to my children and my children’s children. Teaching them her recipes, showing them pictures and videos of her sweet face and voice.
One of the many Christmas Eve tables at Nanny’s.
I can hardly fathom her time in Heaven. I’m sure it is more glorious than the best krumkake, more divine than a perfectly baked julekake, more grand than a kransekake, sweeter than a pecan tassie, richer than her lemon bars, more satisfying than a batch of sandbakkels that all come out of their tins, more abundant than the powdered sugar on a Russian tea cake, more perfect than a peanut blossom, and somehow more celebratory than even her best Christmas Eve table. My mind cannot comprehend, but my heart is filled with joy thinking about the restoration of her strength, the absence of her Parkinson’s and the glory of being in the Presence of her Savior. I long to one day be in that number, in the hopes I maybe one more time will get to touch her soft cheek and tell her I love her.
“Oh when the saints, go marching in, oh when the saints go marching in. How I long to be in that number, when the saints go marching in”
