Recipes from the Vault: Ice Box Rolls

Every so often, the museum receives a donation that includes a cookbook or recipe card. Sometimes the recipes are familiar comfort foods still served on many Thomas County tables. Others… well, let’s just say some recipes are best left in the past. This series highlights some of those recipes: from the classics to the experimental. If you try any of these recipes, successfully or not, let us know what you think in the comments!

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Today’s recipe is a sweet treat to beat the spring heat! It comes to us from the Terrace Tea House, a restaurant and boarding house in Thomasville during the early half of the twentieth century. In 1937, just a few years after the death of her husband, Lillie May Winstead Montgomery (1887-1965) opened the Terrace Tea House inside her home at 628 Gordon Avenue. With the help of her daughter, Mary Louise (1912-1976) and son, John (1920-2003), the family kept the business going throughout the start of World War II before Lillie May took on the role of running the Three Toms Inn, a much larger hotel located further down Gordon Avenue.

Lillie May was born and raised on her family’s homestead in Paducah, Kentucky. In 1908, she married John Swift Montgomery (1882-1930) of Thomasville. Just like her father, John was what we would now call a pharmacist. The couple moved to Thomasville and lived down the street from John’s parents on Madison Street (currently part of the TNB parking lot). Lillie May ran the family home and earned extra income by taking in lodgers. Two children, one World War, and a Great Depression later, John died suddenly, leaving Lillie May to care for their two children on her own.

In 1937 she started the Terrace Tea House, serving lunch and dinner throughout the week during the winter season and housing lodgers, many of whom were newly-weds waiting to find their first home. Several clubs held meetings there, such as the Rotary Club after their usual spot, Glen Arven Country Club, was damaged in a storm. By 1942, Lillie May was approached with a new opportunity of running the Three Toms Inn. She closed down the Tea House and moved to the Inn, but we are fortunately left with her hand-made recipe books to remember her business by.

Ice Box Rolls

Ingredients:

• 1 egg
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 tablespoon lard
• 1 yeast cake
• 1 cup cold water
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon salt
• Enough flour to make soft dough.

Method: Let [mix of all ingredients] stand in ice box over night. Roll out [dough] two hours before baking and let rise. Bake about 20 minutes. Put melted butter on top.

Terrace Tea House Recipes. Thomasville, Ga.