May 7/365 Three Sisters

Growing up in southwestern New York, I was the youngest of three daughters. We Hannigan girls learned about the three sisters crops of the Iroquois: corn, climbing beans, and winter squash. Fair-haired, blue-eyed Cheri was maize. Cindy, with her beautiful hands and stubbornness, was a green bean. And that left late-ripening butternut squash for me.

The Hannigan women, clockwise from top: Millie (Mom), Cheri, Kim, and Cindy. Summer, 1962.