Maxine Menster’s Gravestone and her Christmas Cookie recipe

If there’s a recipe that carries on the warm, sweet love of a mother who is gone, it probably begins with a cup of sugar, eggs, vanilla and flour. It is baked in the oven at 350 degrees, allowed to cool before frosting and eaten with lot of approvation for generations to come.

In the little town of Cascade, Iowa, there is a gravestone that stands out among the others in the local cemetery.
Instead of a traditional epitaph, Maxine Menster’s family decided to share their love for their mother by sharing her Christmas cookie recipe, a recipe that was part of a long-standing family tradition.
As a child in rural Iowa, she’d watch her parents bake the cookies every Christmas Eve, then hang the sweet result around the tree.
And now It is to be remembered, shared and revered.

“Every year, Mom would talk about how it was such a wonderful thing to wake up on Christmas morning and have those cookies on the tree,” says Jane Menster, one of five Maxine’s children (one is deceased).

Handed down through generations, this recipe was never a secret and, before she died in September 26, 1994, at age 68, she carried on her own version of the cookie tradition with her children and, later, grandchildren. Today, Jane and her siblings continue to make the cookies each holiday.
And thanks to their generous sharing of the recipe, others can too!

“Mom’s Christmas Cookies”
Cream:
— 1 cup sugar
— 1/2 cup oleo

Add:
— 2 beaten eggs
— 1 tsp. vanilla

Add:
— 3 cups flour
— 3 tsp. baking powder
— 1 tsp. salt

Add alternately with 1 cup cream. Chill and roll out with flour. Bake in a 350-degree oven, and frost.

Images from web – Google Research