LIBERTY Apple butter bash: quite a spread

Apple butter has become the focus of a Liberty gathering.
By TIM YOVICH
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
LIBERTY -- Steve and Marian DeGenaro have a deep commitment to traditional family values.
Each fall since 1988, the DeGenaros gather with family members and friends at their East Liberty Street home.
Oct. 11 was no exception as they came together to spend the day chatting, eating and above all, filling the neighborhood with the savory aroma of apple butter cooking outside over a fire.
"We do a lot of traditional things during the holidays. We've made a commitment to do it," said Mrs. DeGenaro, a 61-year-old homemaker and mother of three adult children and seven grandchildren.
"The idea is to get everybody involved so they will continue when we're not able," Mrs. DeGenaro added.
"There are usually about 100 that come," said her husband, a 63-year-old retired Mathews schoolteacher who spends his time cooking, gardening, going to auctions and flea markets, and raising chickens, ducks and geese.
History
The DeGenaros live in a somewhat rural setting in a warm four-bedroom home, built in the early 1800s, that just invites guests on its own.
In the late 1800s or early 1900s, an addition was built onto the house they have lived in for 34 years.
The DeGenaros had an old copper kettle but never used it. In 1988, the couple spent $200 on a new kettle.
"If you spend that much money, you want to use it," Mrs. DeGenaro said.
So, they invited his family for a reunion and then her family to another reunion and cooked apple butter with the apples they picked from their orchard.
"We decided we would quit having [separate] family reunions," Mrs. DeGenaro said.
What resulted was a gathering that includes cousins, children and their friends, neighbors and those they have met at church.
"It's kind of a word-of-mouth thing," Mrs. DeGenaro said with a laugh.
Last year, an old neighbor stopped in because she thought the DeGenaros were having a garage sale. She stayed the rest of the day and returned the next morning for breakfast.
"We always say the more the merrier," Mrs. DeGenaro said.
"Everybody has to stir," DeGenaro warns.
This year's menu included chili, hot dogs, pumpkin and apple pie, hot cider and popcorn balls.
Orchard
Mrs. DeGenaro explained that though the trees in the orchard aren't sprayed and cared for, they manage to get about six bushels of different varieties of apples that are first converted to sauce and then boiled down to the butter.
Everybody seems to be involved.
The DeGenaros' neighbor Sam Pokus a blacksmith, made the stove that encases the kettle.
"Everybody looks forward to it every year," commented Pokus' wife, Juanita.
The gathering isn't just a one-day affair; many stay over Saturday night.
Everybody brings a sleeping bag. "We're wall-to-wall sleeping bags," Mrs. DeGenaro said.
On Sunday morning, breakfast is served before those remaining get on the road for their homes, taking with them apple butter that isn't given away Saturday.
yovich@vindy.com