MaMa's Tomatoes

As I think about all the people who have had an impact on my life (and there are many!) I often think about my paternal grandmother, known to many as "MaMa". My first entry in this blog was about a long ago thanksgiving dinner and an experience that I often think back on today. The entry is entitled "Legacy", go and take a look if you have a second.

Well MaMa was not only an influential person to me an many, she was also a wonderful cook and gardener. Over the years I enjoyed many meals at her table, often laden with homemade rolls, deviled eggs, southern pole beans, and if in season, fresh tomatoes from her garden. One variety that she raised over the years was some sort of yellow tomato that when ripe, took on pink stripes. She would save the seed year to year and over the years, those seeds were passed to my father , my brother and me to propagate season to season. Not of us are certain when MaMa started raising these tomatoes but my father remembers them from when he was young and he was born on 1930.

I have planted those tomatoes in various gardens and cities over the years and have shared the seeds with friends across the country and across the world. Recently I taught a module in my son's 5th grade class focused on family/history/ and botany. We took the seeds that I had saved from last season, planted them into "mini greenhouses" and watched the process of germination up-close. After a few weeks we thinned the seedlings and finally after enough growth, we transplanted the seeds into little pots and all the students (and the teachers) had at least one tomato plant to take home and plant in their own gardens. It was something special for me on my last day in the classroom to see a picture of my grandmother posted on the wall. It made me smile to think of MaMa and all the things she has passed along to so many over the years, including a class of 5th graders in Atlanta!

My lesson from this experience is that we are all affected by many important people in our lives. Whether a parent, a spouse, a boss, a friend, an aunt or a grandmother, we have all learned many "lessons of life" from those that have meant the most to us. My encouragement is to try to find ways to be "generous" with those lessons to others in our lives. Find opportunities to share a story, pass along a recipe, or maybe a few tomato seeds, and in the process continue the chain of finding and sharing ways to make this life better for all!

Below is the prep-sheet that I used with the 5th graders recently, take a look!

Mama's Tomatoes

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