An Autumn Treasure Hunt

Kelly Wade
Pittsfield, IL

One of my favorite fall memories took place about 3 years ago, when my teenage daughters requested my husband, sister-in-law and I put together an Autumn Treasure Hunt. We worked diligently creating clues that would send two separate teams, consisting of a good balance of teens and adults, to various places in our rural community. The clues consisted of everything from crossword puzzles and riddles to stepping off a certain number of paces to a specific location. Everyone started at the same spot, but we sent them in opposite directions so they would not run into each other along the way. Upon arriving at the location the clue led them to, they would then find a clue marked for Team A or B that would lead them to the next location. The last clue led everyone to a lakeside location for a wiener roast and treasure that was “buried” near the campsite. Fittingly, it was a box filled with ingredients for s’mores! The first team to arrive was the “winner”...but of course, we all won, because we had a great time enjoying each other’s company and the crisp autumn evening by the campfire.

A Walk in the Woods

LeAnna Sisco
Miller, MO

Here in southwest Missouri, it is absolutely beautiful in the fall. Every year since I was very little, as soon as the leaves start turning their gorgeous autumn colors and the air starts getting a little crisp, my dad has taken me for long walks through the country woods. We just take our time to sightsee, talk and laugh! We see some critters, and always seem to see something new and amazing. I used to come home with pockets full of unique rocks and leaves and nuts, and sometimes a turtle or frog. We would spend hours out exploring and just spending precious time with each other. We have done this every year for as long as I can remember. Now that I am a grown woman with a 4-year-old son of my own, the three of us go for the same walk every year. I am so lucky that Dad loves the outdoors, takes the time to make such wonderful memories with his daughter and is now passing the same memories on to his grandson. These are memories that will last a lifetime.

Columbus Day Family Gathering

Mary Torrance
Henderson, NV

Every fall, all of our family members, including aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents, gather at Letchworth State Park in western New York on the Sunday of Columbus Day weekend. This date accommodates the college kids returning for the first long weekend and usually coincides with peak leaf viewing in the area. Each family brings a homemade pot of soup or chili to keep warm on the fire and share with one & all, along with coffee, cider and various fall snacks. (Can’t forget Aunt Shari’s cookies!) We all go on nature trail walks, collect acorns, pine cones and leaves, play touch football and enjoy the beautiful fall foliage, the gorgeous views of the gorge, not to mention the smell of a wood-burning fire and the crispness of the leaves in the air! When we leave, it seems that we all end up at one of the local cider mills for fresh fry cakes, cider, pumpkins and apple pie! We’ve gone to this gathering since I was a young child and I have taken my own kids since they were young. I can smell the fall air even as I sit in my new home in Nevada!

Apple Picking with Grandpa

Sarah Klauss
Wadsworth, OH

Every autumn, my grandfather would take my brother, sister and me to a local apple orchard. We would each loop a basket over one arm and run around picking apples and enjoying the afternoon. The best ones were always up higher than we could reach and we would point them out for Grandpa to get for us. Afterwards, we’d come back home and help Mom make her famous chunky applesauce. Grandpa would hang out at the kitchen table drinking coffee and playing board games with us while it cooked. As soon as it was done, Mom would spoon up a big steamy bowlful sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar for each of us. Every year we’d declare that it was the best batch ever!

A Bountiful Harvest

Diane Matzdorf
Plymouth, WI

Being raised on a country farm, I recall the countless hours our family of Mom, Dad, my two sisters and I spent hours in the garden working together. My sisters and I would pick and clean piles of green and yellow beans, beets, peas and corn to be canned or frozen. I always felt secure for the winter when I walked into the fruit cellar and saw onions tied with string hanging from the ceiling, bushels of apples, pears and potatoes, crocks of carrots buried in sand, pails of ground cherries, tomatoes wrapped in tissue, and shelves and shelves of shining glass jars displaying pickles, beets, peaches, jams and jellies. That’s a feeling I will always treasure.

Putting Up for Winter

Gloria Huse
Simpsonville, SC

Whenever the weather starts turning cooler, my mind goes back to my childhood days. I was raised on a small farm with my grandparents living next door to us. We always had a huge garden and worked it all summer long. When cool air hit, we got busy. Daddy and Papa would go into the woods and start chopping down trees for firewood. My job was to bring in 20 pieces of wood every evening and stack it in the basement. Grandma would start putting up all the extra garden goodies so we didn’t lose a thing. We spent all our evenings rocking on the front porch shelling, shucking, snapping and peeling to prepare our wonderful bounty for the winter months. All the while, we would be laughing and talking about our day. I can still taste all those wonderful vegetables, cooked with love...and for dessert, homemade fried apple pies! Yum yum! Precious memories...life is too fast nowadays.

October Bonfire Party

Roberta Hoch
Harrisburg, PA

My husband and I started this tradition. We raised our three children in the country and every year on the first Saturday in October, rain or shine, we held a bonfire. We provided the grilled sausage, baked potatoes and warmed May wine, while our guests brought covered dishes to share with everyone. The number of guests increased every year...the first year we had 17 people and the last year we had about 150! Our children are all grown now, but they still remember these bonfires with fondness.

A Pumpkin Party on the Farm

Lynne Doughan
Wesley, IA

Fall and Halloween have always been my favorite times to decorate inside and out! I would spend DAYS decorating the outside of our home just for those little beggars on All Hallows’ Eve. But after living in town for 18 years, we decided to move out to the farm. I thought, who’s going to care what I do out here? But since Halloween is such a huge part of who I am, I invited family & friends out to carve and decorate their own pumpkins. We had some pumpkins weighing in at 100 pounds! I had paints and glitter just for the smaller children too. We had such an arrangement of pumpkins, all lined up in a row, ready to be lit for Halloween! Then we went on a hayride all around the farm, had a bonfire, cooked brats and hot dogs and served up s’mores. It was one of those beautiful fall days to be remembered as we celebrated our first Halloween here on the farm.

Little Princesses

Robin Muer
Encino, CA

My father, who was a Holocaust survivor from Poland, never knew what Halloween was until he came to America in 1949 at age 42. On Halloween, he always came home early from his little shoe repair shop to take my twin sister, Debbie, and me trick-or-treating. He had as much fun as we did! In 1958, when we were 7, we were princesses. Daddy made us each a beautiful powder blue satin cape with gold stars on it. Mother, who stayed home to give out candy, warned Daddy not to take us anywhere “upstairs” so we wouldn’t trip over the long capes. Of course he didn’t listen to her! To this day, I remember how, trying to hold onto my mask, cape and bag of candy, I went tumbling all the way down the longest staircase I ever saw. I didn’t hurt myself...I was too worried about all of my candy falling out of my bag! That’s one Halloween I’ll never forget.

Colored Leaves in the Windows

Sherri Fry
Alliance, NE

I have a favorite fall memory from when I was a little girl. My family lived in a big old Victorian home built in 1904 and it had lots of huge windows. My sisters and I would gather beautiful Nebraska fall leaves and place them on wax paper, then we would shave crayons around them in contrasting colors and add another piece of wax paper on top. Then, using a hot iron, we would bond them together. We made many to display throughout our big house in all the windows. I followed this same ritual all the years that my own son was young. Now every fall I simply must walk through the town looking for those special leaves. Even if I don’t hang them in the windows, they still look beautiful on a tabletop.

Leaf-Raking Fun with Dad

Penny Hart
Clarksville, AR

One of my fondest memories of autumn started out as a disliked chore. We had a big backyard and lots of trees nearby. Come fall, the leaves did...fall, that is. And it was the job of us kids to rake up those leaves and put them in piles for Dad to burn. One time we got the leaves all raked up, then noticed one of the piles moving. Dad had crawled in and covered himself with leaves, then jumped out at us! Needless to say, he soon had a pile of kids on top of him. This was followed by lots of fun and laughter, and lots more raking, of course. That night we had a big fire to burn all the leaves. As the fire burned down to hot coals, we roasted hot dogs on sticks we had picked from the woods. And for dessert, we roasted marshmallows. One of the best meals ever...at least from a kid’s viewpoint!

Hometown Halloween Parade

Sheila Peregrin
Lancaster, PA

I grew up in a small town and every Halloween there was a parade. The high school, VFW and town bands were there, as were the town’s fire trucks, the ambulance and colorful floats done by scout troops, churches and other groups. But my favorite part of the parade was the people in costumes division, because my younger brother and I always entered and usually won! My mother loved to sew Halloween costumes for us. One year we won as a Pilgrim couple; another year we won as Raggedy Ann & Andy, complete with wonderful red yarn hair. Dinner on parade night was always quick, hot and filling, something like chili that we could just grab a bowl of while Mom finished hemming or adding a final detail to our costumes. Then we got dressed and ran through town to get to the beginning of the parade. But my favorite part of the night was when the parade marched past our house. Mom would be standing on the sidewalk beaming as we walked past. Win or lose, I always felt so special seeing her waving to us as we headed towards the grandstands for the judging. Her smiles made me warm even on the chilliest nights!

A Family Scarecrow Party

Lea Blakney
Scotts Hill, TN

One of my favorite autumn memories and tradition is our family’s annual Scarecrow Party held on our small farm in West Tennessee. During the year, we collect all the fixins’...old clothes, hats and trinkets. After an afternoon of cider and hayrides, each individual family creates their very own scarecrow and we display them as a family of scarecrows for the season. Such fun! We end the evening with a campfire and lots of treats. It could not be a more beautiful day together.

Grandma’s Popcorn Balls

Donna Goodman
Delhi, LA

My favorite fall memory happened each year at Halloween. I grew up on a family farm and my grandmother’s house was only a quick walk across the field. She and I would spend all day making popcorn balls for the trick-or-treaters that would be coming to her door that evening. Once the task, which was more fun than work, was completed, I would return home to dress up in my costume for the night’s exciting event. We walked to Grandmother’s house by the light of the moon. There has never been a more beautiful memory than the brilliance of a full moon shining down on the freshly harvested field of soybeans. When I rang the doorbell at Grandmother’s house, she always acted so surprised to see me, as if I hadn’t been there all day, and I acted so surprised to receive a popcorn ball from her. It was a wonderful time of pretending for young and old.

Gathering Hickory Nuts

Jennie Wiseman
Coshocton, OH

When I was young, my parents and I would go for long drives in the country. As soon as my dad saw a hickory tree, we would stop and pick up as many nuts as possible to deposit in a peck basket that we had brought along. Back home, we cracked them open and placed the nutmeats into jars to store in the freezer. We would send some to my aunt who loved them also. Then Mom would bake my dad a hickory nut cake, his favorite from when he was quite young. I savor those memories since my parents are long gone.

Trick-or-Treat!

MariBeth Parks
Andover, MN

When I was a child, there were several other children in our neighborhood in a range of ages, from three years to high school age. The older children always helped out and included the younger children in play. On Halloween night, all the children dressed up in costumes and went together from house to house trick-or-treating. We never rang a doorbell. Instead, there would be a three count, then all the children gathered on the doorstep (pushing and shoving and stepping on each other’s feet) and would shout as loudly as we could, “Trick-or-treat, money or eats!” We would continue to shout until someone answered the door. This was done at each house. I still can’t believe that we never lost our voices! It is a memory that is relived every Halloween at the sound of the doorbell ringing.

Thanksgiving Memories

Michelle Corriveau
Blackstone, MA

I remember going to my grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving every year. We would sit down at a beautifully set table and feast on food prepared by Mom, the aunts, and of course, my Mémère. After dinner we would all get together and clear and clean the dishes. I remember the anticipation I felt as we were cleaning, because after it was done we would all go for a long walk in the field next door and gather creeping jenny vines to make our Christmas wreaths. Then we would go back to the house for dessert. I still remember it like it was yesterday...I am so thankful for memories like these.

Apple Pies by the Dozen

Amy Bell
Arlington, TN

When I was in college, each fall I would get together with my two best friends to make apple pies. We would drive through upstate New York where the trees were at their peak foliage, to an apple orchard. The crisp air, the smell of the apples and a cup of hot cider in our hands all set the stage for the perfect day of apple picking and pie baking. We would pick a couple of bushels of apples, and head back to one of our houses where we would bake 40 pies! Barbara would always make the crusts, while Mary and I would prepare the apple filling and the topping. There were so many laughs...like the time one of the pies got dropped upside-down in the oven! The next day, we’d hand out the pies to our delighted families, church friends and neighbors. We always had such a wonderful time that we could not wait to do it again the next year!

A Farmhouse Thanksgiving

Beth Schlieper
Lakewood, CO

I have wonderful memories of Thanksgiving from when I was growing up. We always went to Grammy & Pappy’s house in Nazareth, Pennsylvania. On that side of the family there were seven children, plus my cousins and the great-aunts and uncles. There were always at least 40 or so people at the old farmhouse. My cousins and I would have a great time with each other playing around the farm, finding treasures in the barn and hiding up in Grammy & Pappy’s bedroom! When it came time for eating...and of course the kids had to eat in the attached garage kept warm with space heaters...the meal would not be a holiday meal without Pappy’s famous stuffing. He was always swatting someone’s hand out of it as it cooked. Finally, after everything was cleaned up, it was time for dessert. My family just loves baking and dessert...no matter if you brought anything else along with you, you always brought dessert! What a feast for young eyes to behold! Crumb cake, lemon meringue pie, eclair cake, pumpkin pie, apple pie, cakes with cherry toppings and puddings, cookies...so many choices, or you could sample all of them, which was always my favorite option!