I was out in the driveway washing the car one day when I looked over and noticed Mom’s peach tree because it was so heavy with peaches.

Mom’s peach tree is special because the peaches are not yellow like most peaches.  Mom called them “sugar peaches”.  The inside of the sugar peach is white, with a tinge of pink at the center next to the seed.  They are a little bit smaller and sweeter than yellow peaches.  The tree is also special because Mom made a lot of pies and cobblers from it and although she
is gone from this earth now, I still think of it as her tree.

The tree’s branches were bending really low from so many peaches this year and two branches had already broken.   I had checked it a few days before but the peaches weren’t quite ripe enough but I decided
it was about time to check again.

I walked over and reached up to test a few peaches to see if they were ready and sure enough some of them were just about perfect.  I picked up some that had already fallen to the ground as well as picking some from the branches.   I gathered up my oversized T-Shirt and I soon had it filled with
peaches and headed for the house.

Later, as I was rolling out piecrust, I remembered something
that happened a few years ago:

It was about a year or so after Mom died, that my brother and his family happened to be at my house for a visit. I was fixing supper that night when all at once it dawned on me that I had forgotten to make the dessert that I
had planned for the evening meal.

I went to the freezer, opened the door, and stood there staring at the contents of the freezer; as if standing there and staring, would cause a dessert
to materialize before my eyes.

As my eyes skimmed over the frozen foods, my eyes focused on something wrapped tightly in the corner of the freezer underneath a frozen pizza.  I couldn’t remember what was in that strangely shaped package that was larger than most of the items that were there. I pulled out the package and removed several layers of wrappings.  There before me was a beautiful pie in a glass pie plate.  The crust had neatly fluted edges and there was that all too familiar wheat pattern that was Mom’s signature design that she always cut into the top crusts of her pies.  I couldn’t believe it, I was standing there, holding a pie that Mom had made and frozen.  I wondered if it would still be good after all this time.  I decided to take the chance and bake the pie.  After all, I had some vanilla ice cream and if the pie wasn’t good, we could just have ice cream for dessert.  On the other hand, if it happened that the pie was okay, then we would have pie à la mode!

I told my brother about it and we both wondered what kind of pie was in the dish.  From the color, we thought it might be apple.  We tried to peek under the crust a little with a knife but we couldn’t tell much with it being frozen so
we decided to just be surprised.

It turned out that our surprise pie was made with peaches from Mom’s own peach tree and it was delicious.  Our thoughts turned to how much she would have enjoyed the idea of us having her pie for dessert and it gave us the feeling that Mom and heaven weren’t really so very far away.

By
Pamela R. Blaine
© August 22, 2003
 

Mom’s Peach Pie

(Ingredients)
4 cups of fresh sliced peaches
1/4-cup all-purpose flour
1-cup sugar
½ tsp. Cinnamon
3 Tbsp butter
1 recipe pastry for 9-inch double crust pie

(Directions)
Combine flour, sugar, and cinnamon and toss with peaches
 Pour this mixture into pastry lined pie plate.
Dot pieces of butter around on top of the filling
Cut slits (Mom’s slits were made by the wheat pattern) into the top pastry
And cover the pie with this top pastry
Pinch the edges to look pretty and sprinkle the top with sugar, if desired

Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until crust is brown
Best eaten slightly warm with ice cream on top