Add:
5 cups rolled oats

Cook 5 minutes stirring occasionally. Then add:
2 cups grated potato (left-over baked or steamed is best)
1 cup pecan meal
¼ cup brewer’s yeast flakes
2 cups soft, fine bread crumbs

Mix well. Remove from stove. Mash into a wide-mouth jar lid and ring to form uniform patties. Drop onto skillet and fry on both sides until nicely browned. Freezes well in a Tupperware container.
Can layer in a casserole dish with tomato soup and sautéed onions and bake at 350° until bubbly. Your company will never guess they are vegetarian.
Yield: About 22 large patties.

Many thanks to Janet Evert for adapting this version of Josephine Cunnington Edwards' original recipe (if my memory serves me correctly!)

1)      Eugenia Esther Weis Heinrich was an only child.

2)      Her mother died when she was 8 years old. The few memories she shared of her mother weren’t terribly positive.

3)      She rarely talked of her dad, probably because she then lived with relatives while he traveled the country looking for work.

4)      She became very independent and basically made all her own decisions from then on. Being so self-sufficient was a valuable characteristic in her life.

5)      She was the BEST COOK, hostess and household manager. Unfortunately I was too much of a fool to make use of the many opportunities I could have learned from her.

6)      I must have thought Grandma was immortal when I was a kid, or I might have been more motivated to learn before she wasn’t around to teach me any more.

7)      Grandma could tell some REAL mother-in-law stories. Fortunately she could look back on them and laugh, although it was a real trial at the time.

8)      Grandma’s birthday was December 14, six months before Grandpa’s. Grandpa loved to tease her by telling people his age and then how old Grandma would be NEXT year, which made it sound like she had robbed the cradle.

9)      In a sense Grandma did rob the cradle since Grandpa was the youngest, favored, and spoiled child of his mother. He never grew out of some of those “spoiled child” habits. Grandma had to do everything for him. He worked hard outside but when he came in the house he had to be waited on hand and foot.

10)  Grandma was always a sickly person with her asthma and allergies and a host of other ailments. Grandpa used to really rub that in since he was never sick.

11)  Grandpa died of cancer at the age of 59. Grandma lived another 32 years.

12)  Grandma was so independent and self-sufficient she never showed the least interest in re-marrying.

13)  She always preferred to live on her own than with someone else. I’m glad she got that privilege until the last three years or so.

14)  She loved to garden and always had the most gorgeous flowers. The bushes and trees she planted bloom on in her memory. I hope that the people that bought her house take good care of them.

15)  She loved to read which helped her pass much time alone. She was really disappointed when she lost her eyesight to molecular degeneration.

16)  When she was young she declared she was NOT going to be an Adventist.

17)  She spoke nothing but German until she had to go to school in English. It was real difficult when she couldn’t understand anything that was going on. At least some of the others spoke German as well.

18)  She did her best to forget her German, not using it again until she and Grandpa made a trip to Europe.

19)  Church was in German when she was young which very much contributed to #13.

20)  She was most offended by the stuck-up attitude of Germans who refused to adapt to the US English culture. (Reason for #13 and 15)

21)  After high school she worked as a nanny and cook for different families in the City. She attended the OKC Central SDA church which had lots of things going for youth—in English! She enjoyed the classes where they went through the doctrines of the SDA church so much that she decided Adventism made sense after all.

22)  From that time on she never missed church except for extreme circumstances, and always studied her Sabbath School lesson every day.

23)  Whenever we visited she never failed to have morning and evening worship with us.

24)  Grandma enjoyed traveling with her kids or to see her kids anywhere in the country.

25)  Grandma insisted she didn’t know anything about raising children, but she did a good job with her own four as well as seven grandchildren.

26)  Grandma always remembered her children and grandchildren’s birthdays. Even when she could no longer write, she had my mom send the cards. I miss those.

27)  I am thankful I realized before it was too late that Grandma wasn’t immortal and recorded her telling her life story and many other stories on tape. I love listening to her voice again.

28)  I am thankful for the treasures I inherited from her and sooooo wish her flour bin could talk. At least the cuckoo clock that she bought in Europe will talk—once I find someone to repair it. Too bad it will only say “cuckoo” and not tell all the stories of the things it saw and heard while it hung in her living room for 30-some years.