• 1 cup butter, 1/2 powder sugar, 2 cups flour,4 eggs, beaten, 6 tbsp lemon juice, 2 cups sugar

1. Pat crust in bottom of 9x13 pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or 'til slightly brown.
2. While crust is baking put the following into a bowl:
3. Blend and add 4 tbsp cornstarch, pinch of salt and 1 tsp. of baking powder.
4. Blend well.
5. Pour over crust and bake at 275 degrees for 35 minutes.
6. Should be firm but not hard.
7. Loose from edge while warm.
8. Sprinkle with extra powdered sugar.
9. Best when eaten the same day.

My mother, Laurie Jill Finnicum Wilson, was born to Thomas and Thelma Finnicum on May 27, 1954 in Culbertson, Montana. She is the 3rd daughter and 4th child of six. Both of her parents were 4th generation Irish-German heritage. After serving in World War II, Tom worked simultaneously as a master electrician, rural route mail carrier, rancher, and minister. Thelma was employed as a store clerk at Skogmo's when all of the children were school-age.

The Finnicum family did most of the grocery shopping in the hometown store, Miller's Super Value. The family always raised cows, a pig or two, and chickens. Laurie's dad and uncles would raise a beef, which they'd butcher and split up. They would also share the pig. Chickens provided eggs and meat for the family as well. Laurie's family also kept a truck garden when the children got older. All of the children had to hoe and harvest. However, her oldest brother Tommy had to go out to the ranch to put up hay and perform other ranching activities.

When Laurie was in 5th or 6th grade, her mother worked in the winter so she could buy Christmas presents. It was a rule in the house that whoever got home first and would start supper didn't have to do the dishes. Laurie remembers preparing eggs and macaroni and cheese when she cooked. The older siblings always got mad at their youngest sister, Marie, because she'd run in the house and open up three or four cans of stuff that didn't even go together so she didn't have to have to do the dishes.

Anyone who came from out of town joined the Finnicums for Sunday lunch because Tom was a minister. As Laurie recalls, "My folks fed lots of bums. There were a lot of vagrants that would come down on the railroad line." Whatever time of day it was, Thelma would just start making pancakes. Pancakes were cheap and filling. If they didn't have a bottle of syrup, it was nothing to her mother to get out some white sugar and brown sugar and mix it together with a little bit of water to make homemade syrup.

Laurie fondly remembers that when she and her siblings were small they would all sit up to the counter with Thelma while she kneaded bread dough. Her mother would give everyone a little hunk of dough. They would roll it, making "worms." Thelma would cook the bread dough creations if they didn't get "too dirty." Laurie learned a lot about cooking by just watching her mom whip up stuff, never having a recipe book out. Thelma hardly ever used a recipe book, and Laurie hardly ever uses one either. Baked goods that were not quite committed to memory usually did require a recipe. Thelma's Lemon Bars recipe was written down. Her aunt gave Thelma the recipe for this tasty, light dessert sometime in the early 1950s, and it was a favorite at Easter.