BMancastar Farming, Saturday, April 4, 1992
Decorating Ukranian
1$ Mitchell Family
GAIL STROCK
Mifflin Co. Correspondent
LEWISTOWN (Mifflin Co.)
As Easter approaches plans for
traditions gain momentum. New
clothes are purchased, Easter egg
dyes examined, beaming little
faces anticipate good things to
come in baskets.
While some families have a
“typical” Easter, others delve deep
into their heritage for their tradi
tions - ones that pass a heart-felt
link from one generation to the
next.
In the months of preparation
before Easter, Connie Mitchell of
Lewistown, colors Easter eggs.
But not in the usual way. Her Eas
ter eggs are decorated Ukranina
slyle. Whether it’s the eggs, the
designs, or the tools used, every
thing involved means tradition to
Connie.
“It’s just something we’ve done
all our lives. And it wouldn’t be
Easter if we didn’t do them, she
said.
“Do them” means hard boiling
the eggs, lighting a candle, and
gathering the old styluses. Using
these simple, hand-made tools,
Connie decorates the eggs, before
dyeing them.
“When we were kids, we’d all
get our little sticks with the wires
at the end and stand around the
table with the candle. We dipped
the head of the metal tip into the
flame, then into the wax. and that
put the design onto the egg.”
Some of the styluses that Con
nie uses were made by her great
great aunt and one was made by
her grandmother.
“My grandmother took the met
al cap of old bottles, flattened it,
and rolled it until it became a
cylinder. Then she’d wire that
onto the end of the stick.” Connie
said.
By heating the metal end and
dipping it into the tax, Connie cre-
If the decorated eggs are etored properly, they will last for
many years.
ates designs on (he eggs as tradi
tional as the process itself.
Since her father’s family was
Ukranian and her mother’s family
was Polish, Connie explains this
tradition that began in Eastern
Europe long before Christianity.
The common people worked the
earth to supply their needs. People
believed an image on an egg
would ensure the sun’s return.
Before Christ’s birth, dots on
the eggs meant stars. After his
birth, dots meant the tears of
Mary. Eggs symbolized new life.
The white shells meant purity and
innocence. When a chick hatches,
it rolls out of the shell the same as
rolling away the tombstone where
Christ was buried.
Connie’s basket of decorated
eggs tells quite a story.
She said, “Some of these eggs
are 10 years old. The yolk inside
becomes dehydrated.”
Showing amid the deep, rich
colors of the eggs are designs of
rams horns for strength and
friendship, spirals for protection,
wheat, stars, and triangles for
mother, father and children,
horses or reindeer as symbols of
wealth or prosperity, and spiders
and webs as symbols of good luck.
Red is for the sun, brown and
orange for nature, the earth and
crops; blue represents the water,
sea, and sky; and black means
eternity and darkness and the time
before dawn.
There is one egg not kept in the
basket a special egg, intricately
detailed, that deserves extra
protection.
“This is my Mother’s egg
it’s 42 years old,” Connie said.
Obviously, these eggs will last
for several years if cared for
properly.
‘‘l store them in the carton
placed in a dark-room. I wouldn’t
put them in the attic. If you put
them in direct sunlight, they will
Jb
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style Eggs
Tradition
fade. You’ll not know if one has a
crack in it until the next year. If it
does, I give it a pitch,” she said.
Connie describes the decorating
process. “The wax is put on the
egg from the stylus. Wherever the
wax touches the egg, it leaves a
white mark. Once you put it into
the color, everywhere the wax was
put on, it will leave a white mark.
Where there is no wax, the shell
will accept the color.
“After the wax is put on, I dip
them into the colors. The purple
color here is the original purple
dye, she says referring to a deeply
colored egg. “We always use
purple. This purple is dark
because of the dye made from an
artist’s pencil. They used to have
an indelible purple pencil that
teachers used for grading or
marking.
But you can’t buy those any
more. You could take the wood
off the 'pencil and heat the color
pencil in water on the stove. I can
make at least a pint of dye from
half of a pencil, which will last for
years,” Connie said.
Since the pencils are nearly
impossible to find, Connie sug
gests using food coloring instead
of the store-bought coloring
tablets. “If anyone wants to do
nice pretty eggs, the best thing to
do is to buy regular, pure food col
oring and mix it with vinegar. I
make it pretty strong to get nice
deep colors,” she said.
“After I take them out of the
color, I leave them air dry at least
overnight,” Connie explains.
The next step in die process
seals the eggs. “Then the next day,
I take an iron skillet, turn it upside
down on my stove burner and it
creates the same type of a surface
we used to use a long time ago
with a cook stove. You can’t put it
on high - about medium. Then
take an old T-shirt and rub it on
the bottom of the frying pan.
When it becomes pretty warm, I
go real easy over the wax. It melts
the wax off of the egg and seals
the color. That makes them last
from one year to the next.”
Connie said, “Some of the
store-bought eggs today don’t
accept the colors like the old
chicken eggs (straight from the
farm). Something is done to the
eggs (before being sold to the
grocery stores) that keeps the col
or from penetrating the egg shell.”
With a life already full of tradi
tions, Connie married into another
heritage. She and her husband
David live on the 300-acre dairy
farm that has been in the Mitchell
family for more than 200 years.
Their daughter Patricia teaches
school while their son David
farms with his father.
“I insist that my kids come
home and do at least a couple of
eggs sometime before Easter.
They each have their favorite sty
lus,” Connie said.
Answering requests each year,
Connie demonstrates her egg
decorating technique and
describes the history for civic and
social organizations. Many want
to buy the eggs.
“I won’t sell these. We give
these away to friends for good
luck. If you sold them it would
just take out all the meaning.”
The rich tradition others admire
is a way of life for many.
Connie said. “It has been part of
my life all these years. What’s
nice is we still keep it going. I
don’t want it to die.”
Connie Mitchell shows an egg decorated 42 years ago,
which is a prized possession from her mother.
Vtemesfead
tMoies
In a home rich with tradition. Connie Mitchell of Dry Val
ley Road, Lewlstown, dlaplaya the Ukranlan way of decor
ating Eaater egga. Dealgna are applied with wax from the
candle. The egga are then dyed and the wax carefully
removed with a warm cloth.