MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) - In the summer of 1959, Daisy Miller came to Memphis to work for her aunt and uncle at Orange Mound Grill. She'd done it before, but this visit was different.
"I came that summer to get a little money together for school clothes, because I was going to Mississippi Valley (State University) in the fall," she said.
But that year would change the course of her life.
"My uncle got me to stay because I could cook so good," she said. "He gave me his half of the business in exchange for staying. Then I worked with my aunt for 14 years, saved my pennies and bought her half."
It's a family affair, from start to whenever it might end. Walter and Daisy Young started Orange Mound Grill in 1943 and moved it to its present location in 1947, making it among the oldest restaurants in town. It stayed in the family when Miller purchased it, and will go to her granddaughter, Hope Beck, when she retires. Miller's son and daughter help out from time to time, and her mother used to come from Greenwood, Miller's hometown, to help around the holidays and other busy times.
"My mama was a pretty good cook, too," Miller said. "I learned how to cook from my grandmother, but my mama could cook. She worked with me until she was 96. She was still cleaning greens then."
Beck was impressed with her great-grandmother, who just died last year.
"Everything she did, it was so fast," she said. "Whether she was cleaning greens or slicing pears, we could never believe how fast she would do things. There must have been something about her hands."
Like the process - everything is from scratch - the menu hasn't changed much. Open every day except Monday, Miller and Beck serve soul food classics such as pig feet, pig tails and neck bones daily, along with meatloaf, chicken and dressing and baked chicken. Greens are fresh, sweet potatoes are sliced for candied yams, and spaghetti is a side dish. And Miller still cleans "red bucket" chitterlings every day.
"Don't you think that's our biggest seller?" she asked Beck.
"Ain't no think to it," Beck replied. She whipped out her phone and did a bit of quick math, then she and Miller agreed on a figure of 480 pounds of chitterlings per week, not taking into account the big increase over holidays.
Chicken and dressing comes in second, they agreed. In March, they'll start serving fried chicken.
"My husband and I have been working on it and we've about got it where we want it," Beck said.
They'll also add a few new items to the menu. Beck plans to start serving wings, griddle-fried burgers and salads.
The sweet potato pie is a big seller and available every day, as is egg pie (pretty much the same as chess pie, Beck said) and peach cobbler. Cakes are available on weekends or by special order, and there's generally banana pudding on weekends, too.
And ox tails on Sundays, fried catfish on Fridays.
"We pretty much have the same menu every day, but some things change a little bit," Beck said.
And some things never will.
Miller, 77, knows the day will come when she'll retire, but she has a little time left. And she's not planning on staying away, even when she does.
"She'll be in here bossing us around, telling us what to do," Beck said.
Miller agreed.
"When I go to the doctor, he tells me to keep working, says it's good for me," she said. "And it might be that he's telling the truth too. My mother was the hardest worker I ever knew, even starched and ironed her sheets and pillowcases, and she lived to be almost 100 years old. She lacked about four months, and she was in her right mind all the time."
A delivery man bringing greens waited for his money as Miller visited last week. She sorted bills to pay him and he told her she was short a couple of dollars.
"You gone up?" she asked and he said yes.
"I keep up with it," she said. "I'm going to stay in my right mind, too."
She knows this, for sure. It was July 9 when she agreed to take her uncle up on his offer.
"July 9 this year, I'll be here 57 years," she said.
"I figure I might retire when I get my 60 in."
___
Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://www.commercialappeal.com