Mother's Fruit Cake from My Brother

"Mother died and this recipe was not written anywhere. My brother, Drew, spent years working to duplicate it. This is the result. By the way, Mother made these in September every year and then applied brandy at least once every week until Christmas. I think that is why people liked them so much. They were so pickled that they were known to be savored by people for years. I will make these without that citron fruit. I will substitute something else. This is just my taste. There is a fruit cake recipe in the "She Could Cook" binder my sister, Anne, put together of Mother's recipes. It is NOT what she made year after year. In it I did notice and do remember cherries, so I added that to what Drew gave me. She also had 1 lb of currants. Her raisins were not white. I also observed that it had 3 cups of VERY STRONG coffee. She would boil the fruit in the coffee. I wonder if that is the recipe she started with and switched to rum somewhere along the line as she developed it."