As a child I always had a love-hate relationship with Easter. I loved the egg hunts we had at school, walking to a nearby classmate’s home and searching for the elusive eggs scattered about the yard. I wasn’t crazy about being required to dress up for the church service—mainly because I wasn’t crazy about being required to dress up for much of anything. There were corsages and Easter finery and all the women wore hats and the men and boys showed up in their best suits and ties and highly polished Sunday shoes. Weather permitting, we always walked to church and Easter Sunday was no exception. Following the thrift that lined the sidewalk and hung over the rock wall in front of the Stephens house (and that was covered with all the bees that I just knew were going to attack me), on down the street past the Nesbitt home, then turning left once we reached Dr. Gallien’s office. A sum total of a block. Usually walked in new white patent leather shoes that weren’t quite broken in and definitely not comfortable.
Once I married and left home, the dynamic changed a bit. I was still expected to find something new and spiffy for church, but the egg hunts became a thing of the past (because evidently I was too old for such . . . a conclusion with which I will argue to this day). There was still the very formal Easter lunch, taking place usually about 2:00 in the afternoon, so changing out of our church clothes had to wait. We would arrive at my parents’ apartment to find the table covered with a lace cloth and set with the good china. And at each place there sat a large candy egg, homemade by the nice ladies from a local church, decorated with a tiny rose bud and leaves of icing and covered in chocolate that hid a delicious filling of peanut butter. Because we are Shackelfords and Shackelfords can, and often do, live on peanut butter. As a matter of fact, if you don’t like peanut butter, it’s grounds for dismissal.
I’m sure the menu included ham, because there’s always ham at Easter, and probably raisin sauce because my father loved it, but the only food I really remember was a casserole my mother always made. It was deviled eggs nestled in some kind of creamy something or other. And I loved it. I also have no idea how she made it, but there’s probably a recipe in one of those thousand cookbooks I boxed up when emptying their apartment. Or possibly ‘mongst the plethora of loose ones she had clipped from every newspaper and magazine known to man. We would gather in the dining room (which was far too small for the amount of furniture and people involved, but my father couldn’t stand the thought of one carport being smaller than the other [which would have provided the extra dining room space . . . all it needed was the equivalent of one parking spot] even though no one would or could EVER see both at the same time), so we all squeezed ourselves around the table, between the tea cart and the buffet, and enjoyed our time together. Once we managed to get seated, the lack of space no longer mattered.
One year she decided to have an egg hunt for my children. This proved to be a bit of a challenge because she really didn’t have a yard. I mean, they lived in an apartment in the funeral home and, although it was a very nice apartment, it was still an apartment and not many of those come with a yard. This one came with an abundance of asphalt for funeral parking. So, she decided to host said hunt in the foyer of the funeral home, hiding Joseph’s eggs on one side and Kathryne’s on the other. Fortunately, there were no visitations or services on that particular day.
This Sunday I was blessed enough to have my entire family present for our Easter festivities. Yes, there was an egg hunt. An indoor egg hunt so the dogs don’t find them first. And yes, everyone got to hunt, from ages 5 to 42 and everything in between (the 5 year old might have gotten a little bit of assistance from his Papa Joe). And then we settled in around the tables that accommodated everyone, in a room that is large enough no squeezing is necessary, and feasted on foods that didn’t require silverware to enjoy. But we did use real plates. And in the midst of all the chaos, I looked around and quietly traveled back in time, to a day when the people and the menu were very different, but the end result was the same. Time spent with those I loved. And although I would not have traded my Easter Sunday for anything, I miss the ones that used to be and the people who made them what they were.
About the author: Lisa Shackelford Thomas is a fourth-generation member of a family that’s been in funeral service since 1926 and has worked with Shackelford Funeral Directors in Savannah, Tennessee for over 45 years. Any opinions expressed here are hers and hers alone and may or may not reflect the opinions of other Shackelford family members or staff.
