ORAL HISTORY
Eula Mae & Alton Stitcher
There are few dishes Eula Mae Stitcher cannot cook. The very thought of Eula’s fruit cobbler or Red Velvet, fresh apple, Amish Friendship, Coca-Cola, and punchbowl cakes can leave anyone’s mouth watering. The biggest fan of Eula’s baking is her husband of forty-two years, local musician Alton Stitcher. Mr. Stitcher has seen the modern evolution of baking and his wife’s recipes over the years, and he still has vivid memories of the ingredients and methods his mother used in preparing food for his family as a child. Growing up the son of a widow on his grandfather’s farm in Carroll County, Georgia educated Stitcher on how various ingredients could be produced by a small family farm, as well as how individuals survived during times of scarcity. At sixteen years of age, Alton began working at Carrollton’s Lawler Hosiery Mill, a job where he learned the exact value a cheap, filling, and portable breakfast and lunch had to a tired and overworked mill worker. Often in the Stitcher household the leftover biscuit from breakfast was saved and used as lunch with a slice of ham or other filler. Mr. Stitcher can still recall with great clarity his mother’s bread bowl, iron boiler, bread pan, stove, and the family flour barrel, and how she effortlessly made delicious cakes, pies and other dishes for holidays or the church’s dinner on the grounds.
