To: Mary Ellen “Grammy” Ross Moreland Quandt

From: Joan Marie May Bundy

For: Grammy’s 80^th birthday, Dec. 9, 2000

A grandchild’s memoir

Many behavioral scientists believe that of all the human senses, smell is most closely tied to memory and emotion.

That would certainly be true in the case of my earliest recollection of Mary Ellen Ross Moreland Quandt—the person I have always called Grammy.

It happened about three decades ago, during my first visit to the farm about two miles east of Audubon where my mother grew up and I would later spend the majority of my childhood.

I remember stepping into the kitchen to greet Grammy and being simultaneously embraced by a new and arresting aroma. I’m not sure if I can accurately describe the scent—probably a combination of home cooking, farm eggs, garden produce and years of well-loved use as the center of life in a typical Midwestern farmhouse.

What I do know is that you could blindfold me, plug my ears and wrap me in a straitjacket, and I still would be able to identify my location as Grammy's kitchen of yore.

Many years have gone by, but one thing has remained the same: the love I feel for and from Grammy.