Seek, and Ye Shall Find!

Now that headline is -for me, today -really, really accurate!

I feel like I have just won a lottery somewhere -well, one in the cookbook world at any rate!

Last night I posted about trying to track down a cookbook that most likely was published sometime in the mid-50s, all because it contains several recipes that my aunt had contributed to it along with two cousins of my Mom's as well. I really and truly thought when I wrote that post that this search would be very much like looking for a needle in a haystack.

But, believe it or not, I was wrong!

I SCORED a find!

This morning I called a church in Pittsburgh that I thought might be relatively close to the church my aunt, uncle, their family along with those two cousins too all belonged to in the 40s, 50s, 60s. I laughed a bit sheepishly as I explained to the church secretary on the other end of the phone connection about what I was looking for -a cookbook, made by the Women of Friendship Evangelical Lutheran Church. She said she would talk to the pastor there to see if maybe he could offer up a tiny bit of help but she was kind of displaying the idea to me that I shouldn't build my hopes up that he would be able to be of much help.

In the meantime, she did give me the number for the Southwestern Synod's office and I called there and explained my story to yet another secretary. This one gave me the name and phone number for a contact person for this church that now goes by Evaline Lutheran Church. So I called that gentleman, got his answering machine and left a message for him, trying to explain very briefly that I merely wanted some information pertaining to Friendship Lutheran Church.

About 15 minutes after having made that call, leaving that message, I received a call from the secretary at the first church I had called and boy, did her news ever make me happy.

The pastor of that church did know the name of a lady who was still a member of Friendship -or Evaline -Lutheran Church and he was sure she also had a cookbook, such as the one I was searching for too! So I got the number and called the lady.

And lo and behold, she remembered my aunt, uncle and all five of their children. She also remembered both of the cousins of my Mom and my Uncle as well! And yes, indeed she does have a copy of the cookbook I want so much to find!

After talking to her a little while, she said she will call me back this evening to exchange a bit more information. But then she also said something that made my heart sing -truly it did.

She said that since she rarely does any cooking any more and since I wanted the cookbook -or a copy of it, whatever -for personal, family-related reasons, she would go the extra mile for me and she will send me the copy she has!

Now how about that for luck of the draw, huh?

This is one of those things that totally blows me away -to have such good fortune to even locate a member of that church who remembers my aunt, uncle and their family and the other two cousins too is amazing enough. But to find someone who actually has a copy of this cookbook and is so generous as to offer to give that copy to me?

Well, I'm thinking maybe all my embroidery work over the past two years and all the searching I've often had to do around my "base" (as my kids refer to my favorite chair and the little table beside it where I generally have my pincushion and floss and embroidery sharps there, handy for my use but inevitably, I almost always end up dropping a needle (or two) sometime during my work on any project and I have to stop and do a search and destroy mission then and there, looking for a for-real needle in what could be considered the equivalent to looking in a haystack when trying to find something like that on the floor -or worse, one that may have fallen into the side of the chair or some such!

So I guess that practice searching for needles -in that proverbial haystack -has now paid off for me, in spades, hasn't it?