One year way back in the early 1950’s, it was a winter much like the one we have just finished experiencing in 2016. There was little snow in the Bear Paw Mountains and roads to Clear Creek were open all winter long.
This was unheard of for Bee Lucke and C. L. Stuart who, had they had their way, would have spent every weekend all winter long at their current fishing shack.
However, their wives put a stop to that. After all it was winter that Bee and C. L. got all their projects done around their Havre homes so they could spend the summer out on Clear Creek.
By Easter that year Bee had enough of projects around the house. After working hard every weekend until Easter, he announced to his wife Virginia that he was spending Easter at the cabin. I think Virginia was secretly glad to get rid of him for a weekend and it might as well be Easter.
C. L. Stuart was met with the same eagerness by his wife. So it was a matter of figuring what to cook, let people know when to come to the big Easter feast and to determine when it was going to be held.
When it was going to be held was easy to figure. Just in case people wanted to be in church on Easter Sunday, Bee decided to cook up on Saturday afternoon just before Easter Sunday.
Bee chose an unusual menu for him. He decided to cook up a mess of his famous spaghetti and meatballs.
Now, you might be asking how a man of German and Scotch ancestry could possibly be an expert in Spaghetti and meatballs. I didn’t question such things myself. At around 8 years of age, I just knew that if my dad was cooking spaghetti and meatballs I was going to be there.
At the time I didn’t know how Bee learned to cook spaghetti and meatballs but I learned later. Bee had a Lou Lucke Company delivery route from the dry cleaning department each morning. That delivery route took him to the east end often where he looked over the great Italian gardens all summer long. He talked to all the old grandmothers in those neighborhoods and eventually got all their recipes for spaghetti and meatballs or meatballs with gravy as many grandmothers referred to the red marinara sauce.
Once dad told me he got recipes from Grandma Granier, Grandma Fillicetti, Grandma Mariani and Grandma Mazzuca.
He experimented for months and by using bits and pieces from all those recipes he got a perfect spaghetti sauce and meatball recipe.
People who had cabins on Clear Creek were all invited to the spaghetti and meatball feed and when they heard what the menu was going to be, they invited their friends too.
No problem for Bee as he always cooked enough for a regiment.
The Catholics did have a problem as most of them wanted to go to Saturday night Mass instead of Easter Sunday mass. No problem they decided and asked Father Penna to come out to Clear Creek on Saturday and say Mass at Black’s cabin up Greenough Gulch.
Father Penna did not like that idea at all. It was his most busy time at St. Jude’s in Havre and he did not feel right leaving the other Jesuit priests alone to handle Saturday Mass. So, reluctantly Father Penna said he just could not accommodate that request on the Saturday before Easter.
And besides he wanted to know what was so important that he should be on Clear Creek then saying Mass anyway?
Francis Black said, in his quiet voice that Bee Lucke was serving his famous spaghetti and meatballs that Saturday afternoon.
Father Penna’s ears perked up and he thought for about four seconds and said, “Why didn’t you say that Bee was cooking his spaghetti and meatballs in the first place. In that case I will be there. What time are we going to eat?”
