A family in Virginia was amused – and a little confused – when they found an 84-year-old cookie in the freezer of a recently deceased relative.
“Grandma died last month on September 2,” Andy Wiseman of Staunton, Virginia, told Fox News Digital in a Zoom interview. (See the video at the top of this article.)
His grandmother was 90 years old.
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Wiseman received a text message from his mother, who was in the process of cleaning out his grandmother's house. She said she found something interesting: a frozen cookie from 1940.
“She actually found it with a bunch of other stuff in the freezer,” he said. “It's quite troublesome.”
The cookie shown above was found while the family was cleaning out the freezer of a deceased relative. (Linda Wiseman)
Wiseman posted a photo of the discovery on the website “Mildly Interesting” – where it received a lot of interest and comments.
But questions remained about who made the cookie – and why it was kept for almost a century.
However, there was a clue.
Inside the bag of the rock-hard cookie was a note: “Cookie made by Mrs. Dara L. Chambers August 1940 at home in Blankenship.”
“I think my grandma just couldn't throw it away.”
Although the note was intended to inform the reader of the cookie's origins, for Wiseman it only raised additional questions. He didn't know the names “Chambers” and “Blankenship.”
“We talked to my grandmother's sister, Sally, and she gave us some information about these names because they are not family names that we know,” he told Fox News Digital.
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“It turned out to be my grandmother's brother, Harold,” Wiseman said. “These were his first wife's family's cookies.”
Wiseman said his grandmother's sister found a newspaper clipping reporting Chambers' death in 1940, the same year the cookie was produced.
The note reads: “Cake made by Mrs. Dana L. Chambers in August 1940 at home in Blankenship.” Andy Wiseman told Fox News Digital that these names don't immediately jump out at you. (Linda Wiseman)
“We think it's very likely that it could be from her last batch,” he said. Wiseman and his mother think the cookie is “probably old.” soda cake”, but not sure of the exact recipe it was used.
“I was learning more about the history of cookies,” he joked. “I never knew so much about it.”
Wiseman still doesn't know why his grandmother kept the cookie for so long or when she even got it.
“She shouldn't have been saved,” he said. “She downsized and we really don't know” why she kept it, he added.
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Wiseman believes that his Uncle Harold kept the cookie for most of his life. After Harold's death, Wiseman's grandmother likely took him and put him in the freezer – where he remained until discovered in late September.
“I think my grandmother just couldn't throw it away,” he said. It's also unlikely the cookie was hidden and forgotten, he said, because it was found “just outside the door” of the freezer.
Wiseman (pictured) told Fox News Digital that the cookie was found “right outside the door” of his grandmother's freezer. (Linda Wiseman; Fox News Digital)
“It's just a weird biscuit with no context,” Wiseman said. He added that it was “petrified and hard as a rock” and “smells like a freezer.”
Wiseman and his mother have no specific plans for what they plan to do with the 84-year-old cake.
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“The immediate plan is to leave him in (his mother's) freezer,” he said. “And then my brothers and I will find him.”
But the discovery of the cookie brought unexpected joy to Wiseman and his family: It kept his grandmother's memory alive as they grappled with their grief, he said.
“It was great talking about my grandmother. We all loved her very much and miss her very much.”
“It was a kind of cleansing, or healing,” he said.
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“It was great fun talking about family history. It was great fun talking about my grandmother. We all really loved her and miss her very much.”
Wiseman's grandmother, he said, took the whole family out for a big family pizza dinner every month.
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Oct. 7, he said, “was the second day she missed. She was very generous and we all loved her and missed her. And it was great to talk about it.”
