Today’s column is one that is difficult to pen.
Today’s paragraphs represent the passing of an important life, guiding spirit and kind soul of inspiration as a foundational reason for the success of this farm column for two decades, as well as the series of accompanying published cookbooks.
Of the more than 2,000 recipes, shared memories and photos showcased in columns and cookbooks, I would credit more than 40% are courtesy of and connected to Joann Scamerhorn, our dear farm wife friend from down the road.
Joann M. (Wojdula) Scamerhorn, 84, of North Judson, passed away last weekend around 4 p.m. on Oct. 12.
While growing up and throughout my youth, if I wasn’t spending time with my own family, then the family I spent nearly just as much time with was certainly the Scamerhorn Family, farming parents Steve and Joann, and daughters Ann and Amy.
Classmate Ann ranks as one of my first rural friends from our first days together in grade school in San Pierre, alongside other farm friend classmates and cornfield neighbors like Tracy Skuderna, Keith Spenner, Chad Schumacher and Tina Justice — all of us also members of All Saints Catholic Church in San Pierre.
Any extra and added worldly wonders and discussion of the latest news and current events, arts and culture, cooking and entertaining and history that I didn’t absorb from under the roof of my own parents, grandparents and aunts and uncle, I definitely gathered with great interest from Joann and her family.
A second mother in so many ways for myself and many others — all who knew her watchful eye, wit and humor from her volunteering as a chaperone for classroom field trips, church hayrides, choir practice and teaching Sunday school, “Mrs. Scamerhorn” was a patient saint, hardworking team member and stellar homemaker.
Her recipes for both cooking and baking, Polish preferred as a nod to her own family heritage, were unmatched. She loved to entertain and host any and all with a welcome smile around any table.
When I began writing for the food section of the newspaper, a new journalistic frontier for me in 1993 when assigned to the features department at The Vidette-Messenger in Valparaiso, Joann, my mom Peggy, and my Auntie Lilly were my Holy Trinity for recipe questions and kitchen matters for what was my then-novice introduction to cooking and baking. I’d never even taken a home economics class, which wasn’t required for boys in our middle school and high school classrooms of the early 1980s.
Joann had a razor-sharp wit and humor that was always entertaining and akin to the late comedienne Kay Ballard, the latter whose TV character career often included her musings about her Italian family traditions. Joann also had all of the qualities of a Martha Stewart long before Martha Stewart was a known media name.
Gardening, canning, her kitchen craft, sewing and creativity with holiday décor ranked among Joann’s talents, with her Catholic faith and Polish heritage always first factors of her identity.
Joann was born on Sept. 28, 1940, in Chicago to Joseph and Julia (Miskowicz) Wojdula. Once settled to their farm in North Judson, she and younger sister Alice attended Catholic School. My mom Peggy always marveled and complimented Joann’s beautiful handwriting which she credited as result of the nuns who taught her. She graduated from North Judson High School in 1958 and married Stephen E. Scamerhorn, Jr. on Jan. 25, 1969 at SS. Cyril & Methodius Catholic Church in North Judson.
Joann worked as a medical receptionist for our small town doctors Herbert C. Ufkes and Teofilo Bautista before her later work as a pharmacy clerk at our local drugstore.
As the wife of a mint farmer, with mint being our small town’s crop claim-to-fame, one of Joann’s most iconic and delicious baked goods remains today as her recipe for chocolate mint squares which she entered as an award finalist in the 1978 “Cooking with Mint” annual contest at our town’s “Mint Festival.”
Joann is survived by husband Steve and daughters Ann and Amy Scamerhorn and her sister Alice Bailey of Fishers, Ind.
Visitation will be held at 9 a.m. on Oct. 26 followed by a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. at All Saints Catholic Church in San Pierre with a private interment later at St. Jacob Cemetery in North Judson.
My last time visiting Joann was on her birthday Sept. 28 with a gift of white roses and purple, fragrant lilacs, the latter a rarity to be blooming for a second time this year and during a fall season.
Joann now has her watchful eye on us from the heavens.
But her life, legacy, and stories and recipes will live on forever in my columns and cookbooks. In the past 22 years, it’s been only on rare occasion that I’ve ever re-published a recipe that I’d previously shared. To date, I’ve done so only when my Auntie Judy died, for a re-share of her bread recipe since it was her bread recipe which was the first recipe I ever published in my first column. And when our dear family friend Irene Jakubowski died, I reprinted her “Go-To-Sleep Melt-Away Meringue Chocolate Mints” as a tribute.
Today, I republish and once again share Joann Scamerhorn’s Chocolate Mint Squares, which are featured on the front cover of my first published cookbook “From the Farm: Family Recipes and Memories of Lifetime” (2004 Pediment Press) in Joann’s honor and my admiration for her lifetime of giving so much to others, especially the time and memories treasured forever in my mind and heart.
Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, P.O. Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.
Joann Scamerhorn’s Chocolate Mint Squares
Makes 60 bars
Chocolate Brownie Layer:
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
3/4 cup margarine
1-1/2 cups granulated sugar
3/4 cup all-purpose flour, sifted
3 eggs
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
Green Mint Layer:
1/3 pound butter
1 pound powdered sugar
2 teaspoons mint extract
3 drops green food coloring
Chocolate Drizzle Design Topping:
2 squares semi-sweet chocolate
3/4 tablespoon white shortening
Directions:
1. To make brownie layer, melt chocolate and margarine and mix together.
2. Add the last four ingredients of brownie batter and spread on a greased and floured 15-inch-by-11-inch jelly roll pan.
3. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes at 375 degrees and let cool.
4. To make the mint green layer, cream all ingredients together until light and fluffy (2 or 3 tablespoons of milk may need to be added to ingredients to make a spreadable consistency).
5. Spread on cooled chocolate brownie layer and place in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
6. For chocolate design topping, melt all ingredients in a small bowl over boiling water.
7. Drizzle over mint layer to make swirl designs and cool and cut into squares.
