Throughout my career I have worked with many volunteers and occasionally as a volunteer myself. Some of the organizations which have volunteers may not be able to carry out their work if the volunteers were not there. We have seen this over and over again in our national tragedies in ever increasing numbers.

If there is a need a volunteer will fill it.

One thing I noticed about volunteers is that many of them served their county or were family members of our service men and women.

Recently I ran across a recipe of one of the volunteers from the lung association. Mary Murry was her name. In addition to counting Christmas Seal donations at the end of each year Mary baked the most wonderful pies and cakes for the other volunteers. The stories Mary told added charm and adventure to the work.

Mary was the wife of a serviceman in Germany. When the Berlin Wall went up in the years following WWII Mary was there and experienced it.

Lung association director Herman Allen was himself a POW, so I am pretty sure they met at an American Legion meeting: fertile ground for recruiting volunteers for fighting lung diseases.

I made a call to Shirley Brown who was Mary’s supervisor at the lung association. We talked awhile about Mary’s baking skills and how the volunteers flocked in to count the coins for Christmas Seals. No doubt, Mary’s Mississippi mud cake had something to do with it.

But best of all Mary’s recipes was her Yellow Squash Pie. This recipe has been passed around for decades. My mom knew Mary and saved this recipe for me. During summer months when yellow squash was plentiful many pies were made and the ordinary became sublime. Remember Mary and enjoy.

Yellow Squash Pie.

1 cup grated yellow squash

2 Tbsp. self-rising flour

2 tsp lemon flavoring

¼ cup sugar

2 eggs

½ stick melted margarine

2 tsp coconut flavoring

Sift flour and sugar, add well-beaten eggs and margarine, add flavoring. Pour into a 9 inch unbaked pie shell. Bake 45 minutes at 350 degrees.