Memories of horseradish still linger

Yesterday, I saw a bunch of cousins.

I have a lot of cousins. A few have died by now, but I started out with 36 cousins, and only two were on my father’s side.

My mother came from a large farm family, and her brothers and sisters had a lot of children, and so I got to have a lot of cousins while I was growing up. I thought it was normal, having this second layer of siblings that I would see up at the farm. We ate sitting on the stairs, because there were many more people than chairs. We picked eggs and played in the haymow together.