March 15th & 16th, 2014

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Are you not thirsty?

C.S. Lewis is one of my favourite authors, his narratives are engaging and thought provoking so I was thrilled when I came across C.S. Lewis Readings for Reflection and Meditation by Walter Hooper in a thrift store for $1.00.  

The first excerpt that Walter Hooper provides is from The Silver Chair.  We read this story to our children on one of our many vacations and then later purchased the collection of books on audio tapes and listened again while we travelled.   Here is part of the excerpt from Hooper's book.

“Are you not thirsty?” said the Lion

“I’m dying of thirst”, said Jill

“Then drink”, said the Lion

“May I –could I – would you mind going away while I do?” said Jill.

The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl.  And as Jill gazed at its motionless bulk, she realized that she might as well have asked the whole mountain to move aside for her convenience… The Silver Chair Chapter 2 (pg 19)

My Reflections

As God`s children we desire to draw near to drink from the never-ending river called love and to understand ourselves through God`s wisdom – to know ourselves as God knows us. 

At the same time we are afraid to approach because we know we will be forever changed by the experience.  This change is something that we both desire and fear at the same time. 

So we attempt to approach surreptitiously hoping that being near to the shadow of God will be enough to satisfy our desire without losing ourselves totally.

And like Jill we must acknowledge God is everywhere at all times, there is only God`s river and only one way to know ourselves and that is through God`s love.

Proverbs 28:1

The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a lion.

It is only through knowing ourselves as children of God are we bold and so like Aslan in C S Lewis's stories God is both gentle and firm with us. There is only one river and only one way to know who we truly are -- it is through God`s love and wisdom and we can only surrender and drink from the river in God`s presence.

These are my thoughts and ruminations.  I have provided them not as a truth they are here for your consideration – to open a dialogue.

Grandma Snyder

Hooper, W. (1992). C.S. Lewis Readings for Reflection and Meditation. Great Britain: Fount Paperbacks.

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Gluten & Dairy Free Graham Wafer Cream Pie

March is a Birthday Month

In our immediate family there are four birthdays and within our extended family and circle of friends there are four more.

In a previous post I talked about how Miracle Whip Chocolate Cake was and is a traditional birthday desert as is  Graham Wafer Pie also known as Flapper Pie.

As a small child I have fond memories of mother standing over the stove with stirring hot milk in the double boiler.  One of the first independent cooking tasks that I was given was to stir the milk as this thickened for Graham Wafer Pie. 

Mother taught me to stir the milk by alternatively making a figure 8 followed by ∞, an 8 laid on its side.  In this way the milk did not burn to the bottom of the pot and scorch the pie filling.

Today with microwaves in most kitchens we no longer need to stand over hot stoves.

The historical writings on Graham Wafer Cream Pie first shows up in the early 19^th century cook books is thin at best and in the early 20^th century became a favourite of Western Canadian Cooks.

I was surprised to learn this as I always thought of Graham Wafer Pie as a traditional Mennonite Pie as it appears in the Mennonite Cookbook and in Food that Really Schmecks.

Here is my Dairy Free, Gluten Free remake, please enjoy:

Ingredients:

1 ½ cups Gluten free Graham Wafer Crumbs

1/4 Sugar

Melted Coconut oil enough to hold the graham wafer crumbs together in a pie plate

Cream filling:

½ cup sugar

Pinch salt

3 to 4 tablespoons corn starch (enough to thicken the cream filling)

Yolks of three eggs

2 ½ cups almond milk

3 teaspoon vanilla

375 degrees until topping is brown 

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls 

Wordless Wednesday

March 12, 2014

Grandma Snyder

©2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Dr. Emily Howard (Jennings) Stowe

First Woman to  Practice Medicine in Canada

May 1, 1831 to April 29, 1903

Source

  

Emily was the first woman to practice medicine in Canada and she is heralded as the First Lady of the Canadian women’s right and suffrage moment.

Emily was the oldest of six girls born into an Ontario farming family.  Emily’s mother a Quaker encouraged her daughters to expect equality with men.  Emily received the best education possible at a co-educational school Quaker school in Providence Rhode Island.

Emily was 15 years old when she started teaching in a one room school house.   After seven years Emily decided to go to University however her application to Victoria College in Cobourg Ontario was denied because she was a woman.  Undaunted she applied to newly founded Normal School for Upper Canada and she graduated a year later in 1854.

Source

She return to teaching and quickly found herself being promoted, becoming the first female principal in the Upper Canada School District. 

She married John Stowe in 1856 and when John developed tuberculosis Emily turned to homeopathic medicine that her mother used.  Needing to know more she applied to the Toronto School of Medicine and in 1865 she was told that women were not accepted and never would be.  Not a woman to accept arbitrary limits being set for her she applied to the school for homeopathic medicine, Medical College of Women in New York and graduated in the same year.

Returning to Canada she set up her medical practice becoming the first woman to practice medicine in Canada.  Emily wrote and lectured exclusively on issues pertaining to women’s health.  She was so inexhaustible in her work for women’s health that in 1870 she was invited to attend the Toronto School of Medicine only a short 5 years after she had been summarily refused entrance.  

 

Source

Emily either failed or refused to take the final written and oral examinations there are differing historical reports on this fact.   However there is no ambiguity in the historical records about to the harassment and ridicule that she had to endure while at medical school.  

Emily returned to practicing homeopathic medicine and on July 16, 1880 the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario bestowed on Emily a license to practice medicine in Ontario, 30 years after she started practicing medicine.

In her work for women’s rights Emily:

• founded the Toronto Women’s Literary Club that later became the Canadian Women’s Suffrage Association, which lead to the establishment of the Ontario Medical College for Women

• was the first president of the Dominion Women’s Enfranchisement Association a position she held until her death

Emily died in 1903, 14 years before women were granted the right to vote.

Emily Howard (Jennings) Stowe is a woman of history.  As parents it is important that we remember and talk about the courage and tenacity of the women who opened up the opportunities that women benefit from today.  Let’s continue to tell Emily’s story to our children providing them powerful examples of social change.

Grandma Snyder

© 2013-2014 twosnydergirls

Articles used in preparing this post.

Feldberg, G. (1994). JENNINGS, EMILY HOWARD. Retrieved from Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 13: http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/jennings_emily_howard_13E.html

Library and Archives Canada. (2014). Dr. Emily Howard Stowe. Retrieved from Library and Archives Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/physicians/030002-2500-e.html

Phototheque Homeopathique. (2001). Dr Emily Howard Jennings Stowe. Retrieved from Phototheque Homeopathique: http://www.homeoint.org/photo/s2/stowe.htm

Wikipedia. (2014). Emily Stowe. Retrieved from Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Stowe