While writing my column about my mom last month, I wanted to see inside her old home and meet the person responsible for all the beauty that surrounds it today.

But having no idea who that might be, I was left to appear at 130 North Prairie St. in Batavia, uninvited. My husband, Jerry, came with me.

We walked down a narrow path, adorned in coneflowers and black-eyed Susans, up the porch steps, to the front door. A painter was on a ladder alongside the house.

I rang the doorbell, but no one came. I pressed it again, still no response. I peered in the beveled window where the stars had hung all those years ago.

The painter on the ladder said, “I think Deborah is around back.”

“Oh good, thank you!”

“Let’s go look,” said Jerry.

We stepped into a backyard nirvana of towering phlox, winding clematis, the scent of bergamot. More butterflies than we’ve seen in a long while.

And in the midst was a woman of my age, maybe a grandma, like me. We introduced ourselves. I showed Deborah the picture of my mom sitting on her front step with her brother after he returned from the war.

“I am so glad you came!”

“We are too,” I said, and as she showed us the rest of her lovely peaceful garden, we talked about our moms.

Deborah grew up with a small cherry orchard in her backyard in Lombard. Her job was to pick and pit the cherries and then her mom made the best cherry pies.

“Which might be when I first fell in love with growing things,” she said.

But before Deborah was born, her mom was a Chicago girl and took the El train to work as a copywriter for the Sears Roebuck mail order catalog.

The catalog was delivered to nearly every home in the country back then. You could order most anything: kitchen curtains, a kid’s train set, a septic tank.

You could order a house from the Sears catalog. A whole house. They came in boxes. There are twenty-two confirmed mail order Sears homes in Batavia.

After our outside tour, Deborah took us inside her house, my mom’s childhood home.

We stood in the living room where Mom said Grandma spent months tearing apart a couch, a settee, and two big armchairs with matching ottomans.

“And then she recovered them with new fabric in only two days when she somehow, somehow, got her hands on a pneumatic staple gun and a small air compressor.”

“Maybe she ordered them from the Sears catalog,” said Deborah, smiling.

Finally, we saw the kitchen where Mom said Grandma built cabinets in front of the basement door because she needed a place for her everyday dishes.

“What do you do during tornado warnings?” I asked Deborah, as we were leaving.

“I just run outside to the back door that leads to the basement.”

“In the howling wind and rain? Have you ever considered changing it back?”

“And lose that cabinet space?”

Deborah’s Mom’s Cherry Pie

Pastry for a 2-crust, 9-inch pie

This dough rolled out so beautifully, it is now my forever crust.

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt

1/3 cup unsalted butter

⅓ cup shortening or lard (Deborah’s mom used lard)

8-10 tablespoons ice water

Mix crust ingredients with a pastry cutter and slowly add ice water.

Or use a food processor (boy howdy!) like I did. It flew together in a mere 7 tablespoons of water.

Refrigerate 2 hours.

Cherry Pie Filling

My first not-runny fruit filling.

1 ½ cups sugar

5 ½ cups fresh pitted sour cherries. (Deborah uses frozen, pitted tart cherries. I did too.)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon lemon juice

½ cup all purpose flour or cornstarch

Thaw the cherries in the fridge and then mix all the ingredients in a large bowl.

Roll out half of the pastry dough and place in pie pan.

Use a slotted spoon to transfer cherries on top.

Cook the leftover juice over low heat until thickened.

Cool 5 minutes and pour over cherries, dot with butter.

Roll out the top half and place over cherries. Flute.

Brush with wash of one egg white and 1 tablespoon milk. Sprinkle with sugar. Make a few small slits.

Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Reduce to 375 and bake for 30-40 minutes until crust is browned and juices are bubbly. (My oven runs hot – 30 minutes was perfect) Cover crust edges with foil to keep from over browning, if necessary.

Do you have a special recipe with a story to tell? I would love to write about it. Email me at Janetlagerloef@gmail.com