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1C Tuesday, October 12, 1999 Aiken, South CarolinaWilliston family raises food on their farm and cans the fruits of their laborsBy LYNNE KATONAKWILLISTON - Grocery shopping isn’t a real time-consuming chore for Cora Wimberly. Sugar, flour, rice and some cleaning supplies - that’s about it.That’s because Mrs. Wimberly and her husband raise all their own food. They have a vegetable garden, a peanut field, fruit trees, milk cows, beef cows, pigs and chickens.“My husband does the outside work and I clean, cook and put up the food,” she said.Mrs. Wimberly moved to the 85-acre farm near Williston in 1952. “My father had 100 acres on the property where the Savannah River Site is now. They came in and said, ‘You have to go.’ That’s when we moved here,”she said.Mrs. Wimberly’s husband was a gardener for some of Aiken’s winter colony families. “I taught school but I didn’t make much. We had four children and I didn’t want them to have to work till after high school so we sort of had to farm to feed them.” she said.When the children grew up, Mrs. Wimberly gave up her teaching job and thought she’d be able“My husband does the outside work and I clean, cook and put up the food.”- Cora Wimberlyto start taking it easy with the food preparation chores.“However, my son’s wife left him with four children, the youngest being only four months old. My husband and I raised those children,” she said.Those grandchildren are now grown but Mrs. Wimberly still spends a lot of her time in the kitchen.“My son lives right next door; he can cook good but he usually eats with us. My daughter is around the bend; she can’t boil water so she comes over a lot. My great-grandchildren come in the summer. There’s always someone here and when the whole group gathers, like at Christmas or44The Wimberly family still makes butter in the churn used by Mrs. Wimberly’s mother.Thanksgiving, well, wre have a crowd,” she said.Mrs. Wimberly takes care of all these hungry mouths by freezing quantities of food as it is ready.I have three freezers. Right now I'm putting up hutterbeans, squash and peas. Later we’ll have collards, turnips and other winter vegetables,” she said.Mrs. Wimberly still has her mother’s old butter churn and her husband makes the family’s supply of butter in half-pound molds. When asked how she gets her husband to do the tedious job of churning, she laughed and said, “I don’t know; he’s just always done it.Mrs. Wimberly puts up jelly in quart canning jars. “1 have one daughter and one granddaughter. All the rest are boys. Those little jelly jars wouldn’t last any time around here,” she said.That home-canned jelly and homemade butter is piled on bread, muffins and biscuits. One day Mrs. Wimberly was watching a grandson woof down her biscuits and she told him he shouldn’t eat so much. He replied, “I wouldn’t if you didn’t make them so good.Besides the people who come and go at the Wimberly home, there’s a whole collection of animals. Thefarm animals, of course, live out on the farm property but in the yard are three dogs and a flock of peacocks.“Two of the peacocks justCora Wimberly prepares beans for cooking in her Williston kitchen.Staff photos by Glnny Southworthmil mu iimV.;,;, . .. . . ., ...S’’.....1• • . *-■». s.-V - S . 'lt;-:mSm... ^ ....sii.oolott, (-boppedgrated CheddarcheeseIt/.- . ; a. f -. 1- .•’t • vPOMt top* salt black, pepperm lt;^ a 0US| ^ *5*«butterPepper to1/4 t anala oilDredge okra In corn meal.Heat oil in whlUet. Add »kra a ltd etlr while fry log'• : . veil? y...peeperCut eorn offml.\ 1st salt, pepper and pepperleat oil in wkillef andcorn mixture.Cook squash and onion; drain, layer ^uash and taeese in an 8-ioeb greased[dare baking dish,. milk, salt and pepper, over squash; do butter nr margarine, Hadegrees for aboutminutes.kw'3r,lt;hm*.* . w ~''......■mmm*.1I®»*’ ' ai-■ v fflnj-ikai—suWvi. ■arrived here. They were up in a tree and at first, I couldn’t figure out what they were,” she said.The two were females and Mrs. Wimberly’s son bought a male; that was the start of the flock.One would think Mrs. Wimberly had enough to do without worrying about others, but that’s not the case. She has taken disaster training and so she was called in to work at theSouth Aiken High shelter during Hurricane Floyd.Mrs. Wimberly contributed several recipes she uses for her garden vegetables. They are given below.
Newspaper Details
Aiken Standard
Aiken, South Carolina, US
Tue, Oct 12, 1999
Page 15
Full Page
Clipped by
Library O.
USA 27 Oct 2021
Other Publications Near Aiken, South Carolina
Aiken Daily Mail
Aiken County Rambler
Aiken County Register
Aiken County Journal
Aiken Standard
