The Job My Mom Had That Made a Huge Difference

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As a new school year begins, I'm reminded of my mother, Hilda Kringstad, a school cafeteria cook, whose warmth and humanity touched so many in our small town. The lessons I learned from her had less to do with food than with charity, compassion and an enterprising spirit — and they continue to inspire me in my daily life long after her passing.

My mother, a farmwife with three young children, flabbergasted her friends in 1950 by getting a job at a time when married women were expected to be stay-at-home housewives. But it occurred to my mother that working as a lunchroom cook fit very nicely with the end of seasonal work on our family farm and her children’s school schedule — and she could earn sorely needed extra income.

My mother was charitable by nature. I got an unhappy taste of it one morning when I arrived at my second-grade classroom to find the new girl, Betty Olsen, wearing MY dress! Not just any dress, but my brand-new cherry-red plaid with a tie-back bow that my Aunty Pat had made for me. Before I could yelp, “She’s wearing my dress!” my mother, waiting in the hallway, gave me a fierce look and whispered, “Not a word out of you!”

She took me aside and quietly explained that she’d spotted Betty walking across the playground early that morning wearing a soiled nightie and scuffed oxfords too big for her feet. Betty told her she’d had nothing to eat and nothing else to wear. Mother left the girl in the care of the school nurse while she raced home for my Sunday shoes and the only dress I hadn’t yet worn to school.

Having my mother share this grownup confidence meant the world to me and took the sting out of giving up my new dress and good shoes. Betty became my best friend, and, as an eight-year-old, I learned that true charity was giving your best without acknowledgment.

Although she wasn’t supposed to do it, my mother regularly packed up leftovers and handed them out to neighbors-in-need waiting at the side door of the school’s kitchen. She also trafficked in “hand-me-downs,” cycling castoff clothing from one family to the next. Long after I left home, I learned that my prom dress was still making the rounds.

People sought my mother’s counsel because she listened without judgment and could be trusted — another valuable lesson I learned through her example. My science teacher, a distinguished woman with steel gray hair, turned to my mother after our beloved home economics teacher unexpectedly passed away. The two middle-aged spinsters had long shared a house, but as my science teacher tearfully confided to my mother, they also shared their lives.

The two had bought the home together, but for propriety’s sake, only the home economics teacher’s name appeared on the deed to the house. In the wake of her death, her family wanted her “roommate” to move out so they could sell the property. Wracked with grief and fearful of losing her home — and possibly her job if the nature of their relationship were known — she asked my mother to take on the delicate task of speaking to the family.

Some years after the science teacher retired, my mother told me the story, revealing that once the family understood the circumstances, they discreetly reached an arrangement allowing their aunt’s “friend” to continue living in the house.

When my mother began cooking school lunches in the 1950s, everything was made from scratch, including every kid’s favorite, peanut butter cookies. To raise money for the school, my mother spearheaded a cookbook project to convert school lunch favorites into family-size recipes — with a twist.

Knowing that housewives were often called upon to cook for large community, church and family events, the cookbook featured recipes for such popular fare as chili, potato salad, fried chicken with biscuits and gravy, coleslaw and macaroni and cheese that yielded servings for eight, 20 — or 50.

According to an article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which featured my mother and her recipe for a spaghetti casserole, Mom’s School Lunch Recipes sold more than 10,000 copies in three printings.

My mother, who passed away at age 93, would have been 111 years old this year. She worked as a school cafeteria cook for 28 years, turning what was a job into a gratifying career. In 1978, she was voted outstanding cook for the Twin Cities Schools Food Service Association, and that spaghetti recipe took top honors for best school lunch recipe. The Tribune quoted my mother, saying, “If you can’t have fun while you’re working, forget it!”

Another good lesson!

Here is our “school favorite” cookie recipe:

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES

Yield: 5 dozen

Cream together:

1 cup butter

3/4 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup white sugar

3/4 cup peanut butter

Add:

2 eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon soda

2/3 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

Mix well, roll into 1” balls on a baking sheet and press down with a fork dipped in flour. Bake in a 375-degree oven for eight to 10 minutes.



Do you remember your school cafeteria? What was YOUR favorite school lunch? Let us know in the comments below.