Heirloom Recipes: Grandma's Pulled Taffy from Sarah Calder Dustin

3 cups sugar
1/2 cup vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp vanilla

Combine sugar, vinegar and water.  Cook to the hard crack stage.  Remove from heat.  Add vanilla and pour into a buttered platter.  When cool enough to handle, pull until taffy is white and porous.  Twist into a rope.  Cut.  Break into pieces.

Sarah Caroline Batty was born in Old Whittington, Derbyshire, England May 17, 1870. She was a bright little girl with dark hair, blue eyes and fair skin; eager to learn and with the tenacity to push forward. Sarah's mother was a kind and loving person, protective of her children. She, was short with dark hair that she wore in a bun in the back.. Her father was a tall blond handsome man, kind and tender in his treatment of his family. Sarah's mother was a kind and loving person, protective of her children. She, was short with dark hair that she wore in a bun in the back. Her father was a tall blond handsome man, kind and tender in his treatment of his family.

Sarah's mother was a kind and loving person, protective of her children. She, was short with dark hair that she wore in a bun in the back. Her father was a tall blond handsome man, kind and tender in his treatment of his family.

Her father was called to serve in the Crimean War and was wounded in the leg with a bayonet. He said Florence Nightingale dressed his wound. He was sent home and given a job as guard at the Palace for a while and then he was able to go back to the mines part-time. 

Sarah’s mother died and the family struggled.

Sarah came to the United States when she was about 15 on the ship Nevada and then by train  out west to settle in Garden City.

She married Robert Calder and they had 8 children.  When Robert died, Sarah married her widowed neighbor, Levi Dustin.  Levi also had 8 children and they had 2 more children together.

The house was close by the lake and sometimes the ground would be wet a long time in the spring. At that time there were often water snakes in the yard. Some of them would get quite large, although they were not poisonous. One day Sarah went out into the yard and in front of the door was a large snake with a frog in its mouth. She took her broom and pounded the snake until he released the frog, all the while she was saying, "We don't allow that to happen here; pick on someone your own size!" The frog hopped into the bushes and the snake slithered away.

One day Sarah looked out the window to see three Indians in a buckboard wagon stop outside and start toward the house. Levi had gone to the field to work and wouldn't be back until evening. Sarah was frightened but told the children to hide and went to the door. The Indians said they were hungry and wanted food. She remembered her husband had brought home fish the night before and put them in a tub of cold water until he had time to clean them. They were at the back of the house. She told them they could have the fish and could cook them in the lane by the side of the house if they were careful. They soon had a fire going and cooked the fish. Then they went to sleep and stayed the night in the lane. When her husband came home he agreed she had done the right thing. Two or three weeks later the Indians returned. Sarah was so frightened, she couldn't think of any thing to give them this time, but she went to the door. They didn't need food this time but gave her a strand of Indian beads that were very beautiful, for being so good to them when they were there before. The beads are still kept in the family as a reminder of that experience.

Her life was spent doing things for others. She had two snowball bushes and two pink honeysuckles beside them in the front of the house. They were very beautiful when they bloomed in the spring. Sarah would wait until they were at their best and then pick almost all the blooms and send the children with a bouquet of flowers to all the neighbors in the area. 

From a history by her daughter, Lee Etta Dustin Sorensen