Growing Up in Williamsport, Ohio

The Cookie Makers

One day we were sitting on our front porch when my brother Bob ambled along and sat down with us. My mother asked, “Where have you been?” He said he had just come from cleaning out the Schein girls’ gutters. My mother then asked, “Did they pay you?” He replied, “Yes, 50 cents and some cookies”. Then he laughed. The fact is, he would have cleaned the gutters out for nothing.

My brother Bob loved the Schein girls. Neither one of them ever married. They were like the “genteel” Emily and Mamie Baldwin on “The Waltons”. The difference is that the Baldwin sisters always invited people in to share the “recipe”. The Schein girls’ recipe was for cookies not moonshine. Their kitchen always smelled like cookies. When I was in high school, we sold occasional cards and stationery to fund our Washington D.C. and New York City Senior class trip. Of course, they ordered some and invited me in and served cookies to me.

Lena died in June 1967 and Grace in January 1977. Their nephew Carl passed away July 7, 2015 at the age of 87.

Is it possible that when we get to heaven, the Schein girls will be standing at the entrance with a plate of cookies to welcome us?

©Marilyn Francis Ferguson 2020
Photography/graphics by Michele Ferguson Schuck