Born on the family farm, which nibbled on the limits of the hamlet of Echo Bay, just a stone's throw south of Sault Ste. Marie, Nell Hurley was the second youngest of the family's dozen kids. Her favourite activity was sniffing the delightful kitchen aromas, and helping to supervise a variety of mysterious pots brewing on her mother's stove.

In 1925 when Nell married to raise her own brood of two girls and five boys, she brought her love of cooking along to her new relationship. I was the youngest member of her tribe, and I still have the fond memories of the smells of baking bread, cookies, pies and perhaps a roasting chicken. Before Tim Hortons ever dreamed of the Tim Bit, Mother used donut holes to test the temperature of her cooking oil, and she went one step beyond the illustrious hockey player, and created donut men with large heads and twisty arms and legs. Her donut sinkers were always a family favourite, particularly at Christmas.

Nell also applied her cooking skills at summer camps, and in the McIntyre arena's coffee shop, but not all of her culinary activities were successes. Once while preparing grape jelly, she dangled a dripping cheesecloth sack of mushy grapes over a bowl on the kitchen table. When the string broke, the bag of grapes plunked into the bowl of juice, and Nell instantly became the owner of the only wall-to-wall purple kitchen in town.

While preparing supper, Nell sometimes left a can of peas to warm in the oven as she was preparing the rest of the main course.

One afternoon, I sat in the peace and quiet of the living room, my brother Eldon was reading a newspaper, and my father's attention was focussed on his favourite television program. At the sound of an explosion, Eldon shot to his feet and skidded on a scatter rug, on his way to the kitchen. I arrived at ground zero first, and found mother, her back to the wall, a dazed look on her face, as if to say, "What happened?" Peas littered the floor, and the last pea from an exploded can, was just rolling to a stop at my mother's feet. The oven door had blown over backwards, and hung limply by one hinge.

During the commotion, my father hadn't budged. When I returned to the living room, he simply looked over at me and muttered, "The darn fool!" Being married for almost 50 years will perhaps temper your reaction to such unexpected events. I had a feeling he'd anticipated such an accident long before this time.

For her Eastern Star Lodge meetings, mother usually wore a stylish long white gown, but to me she always appeared to be more comfortable in her gardening garb -- a colourful floral kerchief wrapped around her head, floppy rubber boots and baggy bib-overalls. A threadbare wool sweater-coat set off this sartorial splendour, work gloves bulged her sweater pockets, and a pair of pruning shears usually protruded from a back pocket of her overalls.

On one occasion, I remember mother in her gardening clothes, a hatchet in her right hand, grasping one of her own home-grown chickens by the head as she maneuvered the bird's neck over a chopping block. Once she had dispatched with the flopping fowl, her job then was to pluck and eviscerate the bird before it could be roasted, and finally the carcass used for chicken soup.

Perhaps these recollections of a mother are unique to mine, but hopefully on Mother's Day, May 11, you will take the occasion to celebrate your mother's memorable traits, and what she means to you.

Orangeville resident Clare McCarthy is a retired high school math teacher with an interest in writing. With this column, he plans to focus on local human-interest stories and nostalgia. He would appreciate reader responses to his column and can be reached through The Banner at banner@orangevillebanner.com or by dropping a note at the front desk.