Homemade ice cream and summer celebrations go together like fun and family. So with Independence Day around the corner, Fran Brown and her granddaughter, Kate Scott Gee, got in a pre-Fourth ice cream-making practice at Brown’s home near the Mississippi University for Women campus. That it was the same place Fran had her own early cooking experiences when she was about Kate Scott’s age made it all the sweeter. Four generations of Fran’s family have cooked and laughed in the high-ceilinged kitchen of this circa 1840 home that has been a school, a stagecoach station and a tavern in its time.
“Growing up, this was the only house I knew,” said Fran of the historic place.
A warm color palette and fireplace give the kitchen cozy ambiance. A four-globe chandelier overhead adds early American charm: it was once powered by kerosene and illuminated the church Fran’s father, Max Andrews, attended as a child. Max and Cile Andrews bought the Ninth Street South home in 1948; Cile would use a portion of it for her kindergarten.
“She didn’t know then that, 100 years prior to that, Matilda Phillips had a school there, too,” Fran said. Phillips acquired the property in 1840. It was about 1850 when Green T. Hill bought the structure and added on to it for his stagecoach line. (Hill’s wife was one of four Columbus ladies credited with helping establish Decoration Day by putting flowers at the graves of both Confederate and Union soldiers at Friendship Cemetery in 1866, inspiring Francis Miles Finch’s poem “The Blue and the Gray.”) Fran and Richard Brown purchased the home from Fran’s father in 1986, keeping it in the family.
Next generation
As Fran looked on, Kate Scott added ice cream salt to a churning ice cream freezer that was putting finishing touches to an old family recipe.
“This is the recipe as my grandmother Frances Gardner told it to me,” explained Fran. “It’s really frozen boiled custard, but we call it ice cream.”
Fran’s advice to her granddaughter is “don’t leave it” while the custard is in the cooking stage. “That’s one thing my grandmother would say, once you pour the egg mixture, don’t leave it. Stir. … It’s done when it coats a metal spoon.”
Kate Scott loves spending time in the kitchen where her own mother, Fran and Richard’s daughter Betsy Gee, learned many of her own cooking skills.
“I learned from watching my mom and grandmother bake, and by attending the MUW culinary camp,” said Kate Scott, who was celebrating her 13th birthday that very day. “I love to bake! Cookies, bread, banana bread — and any kind of sweets.”
Her grandmother complimented the Heritage Academy eighth-grader: “She’s gotten a lot more confident and is willing to experiment.”
Just like an old-fashioned Fourth of July celebration, an old family recipe and a four-generation kitchen to prepare it in are powerful ways to build bonds.
“Mother encouraged me and my sisters to spend time in this kitchen, to experiment and try our hand at whatever,” said Fran. “It was a fun place to grow up, and I’m delighted for my children and grandchildren to be able to enjoy it, too.”
BOILED CUSTARD FROZEN ICE CREAM
2 quarts milk
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
(Source: As told to Fran Brown by her grandmother, Frances Gardner)
Jan Swoope is the Lifestyles Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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