Sherry Chandler » The Colonel and Silas House
The Colonel and Silas House
The second issue of the rejuvenated Oxford American is out – the Southern Food Issue. In it, Carson McCullers celebrates “The Great Eaters of Georgia,” Andrew Hudgins writes an “Ode to Manna,” and on pages 99-100, Silas House tells us “how fried chicken saved my family.” “Everybody Loves the Colonel” is the story of Silas’s grandmother, Mae House, who kept their family together working in the original Sanders Café in Corbin:
So the day after Jasper [House] went to prison for his first two-year stretch, Mae walked to the mouth of the holler to board the bus that would take her the twelve miles into Corbin, where Sanders had set up business. It was December, and a war was on. I imagine her in a long wool coat and a dress with little violets printed on the fabric, clutching her purse the whole time as she studied the faces of the other passengers. That day she had carefully counted out her last ten pennies to board the bus.
Mae’s accomplishments are as heroic in their way as the Colonel’s. But did she know the secret recipe? You can find out for $4.95.
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