Emily Paine Carter

Recent columns

• Readers write of run-ins with political bigwigs
• Recording holds clues from 6 decades ago
• Rubbed shoulders with any big names?
• Column archive

Easter recalls traditions. Here's a little-heralded one: Who bakes the sacramental Communion bread? It's a story-after-the-story of "the greatest story ever told."

Some churches buy bread or wafers. Others have faithful church members do the baking.

I witnessed this tradition on a recent evening at Salem Presbyterian Church's kitchen, where Toni Jolly reminisced with two of the three bakers (Jan Minton was away on business). Toni said she and Clem Brown had taught this new batch of bakers, finally passing the rolling pin in December 2003.

Roanoker Kim Sullivan Murray, 40, and Salemites Martha McDearmon, 51, and Toni chatted about the line of succession -- like an Old Testament list of begats. Toni estimated that she and Clem -- my former Girl Scout leaders at this very church -- had started baking 20 years ago; the late Dolly Frantz had helped. "Before that," she continued, "[the late] Ruth Wood baked by herself; she took it over from [John] Schumacher, who had stepped in when his wife [Vera] died."

Longtime SPC member Toni chuckled, saying folks teased Mr. Schumacher: Did he use his wife's lipstick case to cut his perfect circles? (This was later confirmed by Susan Schumacher Cox.)

Now the wafers are square -- "maybe slightly larger since we started," said Kim. "We miss Clem's broken yardstick; we need an 18-inch ruler [for scoring the dough]."

"We used to bake wherever Clem lived," recalled Toni. Martha noted that the spacious church kitchen speeds the process: All can roll dough at the same time.

"Kim's the expert dough-maker," said Martha, handing me the plastic-sleeved recipe filled with exacting directions. There are notes about supplies (say, a pizza cutter and a cocktail fork), reminders to pat out any bubbles and hand-drawn patterns of how to cut and where to prick three holes (symbolizing the Trinity) per square.

Kim expertly wielded the pastry-cutter: old-fashioned, except for an appreciated, new-fangled wrist rest. How funny, I thought, to observe Kim's confident motions, and recall last seeing her dancing on a Camp Fincastle dock, back when Alex Brown and I were youth fellowship leaders.

"You have to feel the dough after rolling it out to get the right thickness," Toni said. "And fresh ingredients [real butter, 'sweet' whole milk] make it taste good ... better than pie crust."

Is it OK to admit that? I asked. "Yes, and it's fair to eat the [baked leftover] edges," Martha assured me.

An evening's baking yields about five Communions-worth, since SPC celebrates the sacrament about once a month, the women said. (It's freezeable.)

The bakers enjoy "communing" with one another. And, unlike unleavened bread, new generations "rise" to the occasion, to give their time and talent.

You can think of apostolic succession, of elder priests anointing younger ones down through the ages. But I also think of generations of youth fellowship and Scout leaders and all the "everyday saints" whose work-worn hands pass on good deeds: deeds as symbolic and as real as the bread we break Easter morning.