Let the birthday girl eat anything but cake

This birthday girl does not like cake.

A youngest and only daughter, our friend Janet grew up on a busy farm with her mom, dad and five older brothers.

She wasn’t allowed to do outside work. Those jobs are for your brothers to do, her mother told her.

So, other than an occasional outing to pick berries, Janet had to spend her days indoors.

On Saturdays, she had to bake cakes.

“My parents played cards on Saturday nights,” she said. “They didn’t drink, so they had cake and coffee. Every Saturday night.”

That meant that every Saturday afternoon, Janet had to bake a cake. She spent so many Saturdays elbow deep in cake batter, that she grew to despise the treat.

Until, one day, a handsome soldier named Doug arrived to rescue her from her patisserie prison. But first the man, who would later become a decorated soldier in General Patton’s Army, had to face the gauntlet of gentleman Lindoff’s crew.

Before he would give his blessing, Janet’s dad interviewed Doug while Janet waited outside.

“What did he ask you?” she asked Doug when he finally came back out to the car.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” a flustered Doug said.

When Janet asked her dad the same question, he told her it was none of her business.

Doug must have passed that first interview, though, because he later found himself at one end of a large farmhouse table while five brothers and their father made themselves comfortable on the other.

Our intrepid soldier passed that interview too. He and Janet were married in August of 1951 and spent the next 64 years building a happy, mostly cake-free life.

Today is Janet’s 95th birthday. Please join us in wishing a Happy Birthday to our feisty, elegant, funny, cake-avoiding, beautiful friend.