Aunt Stell's Date Filled Cookies

I have been searching for days for the recipe for Date Filled Cookies that I got from my late Aunt Stell.
I found it in a basket of miscellaneous papers that I have been saving. I would have made them last night, except that I had an ear ache. The ear ache from hell actually.
Aren't I too old for an ear ache??? for crying out loud.
So I am off to the doctor's to make sure that I don't have an ear infection. My suspicion is that I have a trigeminal neuralgia, left over from the shingles I had last year, aggravated by the root canal I didn't need.
Oh, what a tangled web...... you get the picture.
But back to Aunt Stell.
I think if you looked up fuddy duddy in the dictionary, she would be there. She was one of a kind.
Aren't we all?
Anyway, she lived several miles outside of town, and periodically I would go there to visit.
I always secretly hoped that she would have one of two things in her kitchen.
Her one egg cake, or date filled cookies. I loved them both, and no one made them like her.
So one day, when I was a grown woman, I asked her if she would give me the recipe for the cookies.
Ayuh, she said. With a soft laugh. She didn't have it written down, but she could tell me how she made them, and I could write it down, if I wanted.
The hard part was translating her cupped hand, and her 'smidgens' and 'bits'. But I tried, and when I got it home, I got to work making them.
Oh, everyone should have a little satchel of date filled cookies to take along with them on their daily rounds. Life would be just better, if you know what I mean.
They are supreme. With a cuppa tea, nirvana.
So without further ado. I do hate ado....here it is:
Aunt Stell's Date Filled Cookies.

Date Filling
1 8oz pkg dates cut up
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
Cook.

From december

Cookies
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup Crisco
1/2 cup milk with 1 tsp of baking soda in it
2 c flour with 1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
flour to roll out.
Now the dough is sticky, and you have to be VERY generous with the flour to roll it out. I usually split it in half and roll out half at a time.
Roll out dough, use cutter to make round cookies about 2.5" across
or the size you like.
Put a 'gob' of dates in the middle, put another cookie on top of it, use fork dipped in water to seal the edges. (kids love this part)
Bake at 375 degrees about 15-20 min or until lightly browned.

From december

Aunt Stell called me once, back when I was working in the ER. Said she fell. Could I come up? She thinks she did something to her arm.
When I got there, one look was all it took. My God, Aunt Stell, you broke your arm!
Off to the ER, for the Xray and then the cast.
A week or so later, she called me back. She said, can you come up?
I'm having trouble with the other arm.
You guessed it, she broke that one, too, with the same fall! When I asked her why she didn't complain about that one when she was in the ER, she looked at me like I was the dolt of the year, and said, "Well, I couldn't have casts on both arms, now could I?"
Uh, OK.
Every time I eat a date filled cookie, I remember Aunt Stell.
They are both 'one of a kind'.