She grew up in a family of good cooks and made her first cake at 10 years old. By 12, Susan Brooks Adams was cooking dinner for the family when her mother and daddy were out delivering. “She would let me know what she had in mind and I would prepare it by the time they got home. I was even frying chicken, but I had an aunt (Mary Brooks Weaver) who lived close by and I could always call on her if needed.”
Susan says she learned about cooking from her mother and father, and her grandmother, Grace Callis. “My father (Elwood Callis) taught me how to cook eggs because my mother was allergic to them. He was a good cook and a master of many talents. As a child I spent a lot of time outdoors watching him work. He believed in repairing if you could. If necessary today, I think I could sharpen a saw and I did repair my washing machine with a new switch. When Edgar and I were married, my mother-in-law didn’t have to teach me like she did her other daughter-in-law. I had already learned.”
When Sus...