Born 1921, three brothers, one sister, Loyal, oldest brother, Elbridge next, then me, next Marlene, then Nelson. Lived on farm -went to school at Cadron Chapel, a two room building used for school and church. Went to school there in first and second grade, then went to New Hope – two room building for 1/2 year then into a new building at Opal, where all little schools around consolidated. I walked to school at Cadron Chapel – 1 or 1 1/2 miles with my two older brothers, Peterson kids, and the Harvey boys, Vernon and L. B. Marlene, my sister, went second year. Nelson, younger brother, went some with us just to visit (he wanted to go with us) when he was five. Took my lunch in little metal lunch box. When was real cold in winter, the older boys would build a fire alongside road for us to warm our hands. I wore blue velveteen mittens Mom had made for me to keep my hands warm. Vernon Harvey, he was oldest of the group, always carried me across all mud holes and water. Guess Loyal, older brother, would have let e walk right through them. Vernon always watched after me. If ornery Dwight Peterson started to bother me, Vernon put a stop to it. Was pretty good job for him to keep “old Dwight” under control – but he did. He had to keep him from pestering and making his own sister, Nellie, cry. Also, he would aggravate Catherine, his older sister. He was a “pill”. My hair was almost white as cotton – Nelson’s was. The older girls at school would get me at recess and finger wave my hair.
Granny Stamps lived with us as along as I can remember. Grandpa died probably when I was about three or four and I cannot remember when Granny didn’t live with us. Dad farmed or rented out Granny’s farm, which was next to ours. We had to walk across a field to ridge road, to Granny’s house to get the mail – mail didn’t come by our place at that time. All roads, including 64 Highway now, were just dirt roads – no gravel. In fact daddy got a job on hyway 64 when they graveled it, pay was very cheap.
My granny, early years, did her laundry across Cadron Mountain, which ran along in front of their house. She would ride a horse with her dirty clothes tied to the horse across the mountain to Turkey Branch, where there was a spring of soft water, and she had her iron wash pot, which she boiled clothes in to get them clean there, also tubs, etc. She would load her clean clothes on the horse in the evening and ride horse back over the mountain home with her clean clothes.
Marlene and I would go to mail box and pick flowers from Granny’s yard. It was full of flowers she had planted. There were also fruit trees all around, apples, peaches, plums, pears, and cherries, which we would pick and eat.
Dad bought a new Model T-Ford. I was five or six. He built a car shed for it. Must have been 200 yards from house, but when we went anywhere, Dad would go out, crank it up, and drive down close to house and all would get in. For winter, it had storm curtains you would fasten in to place – summer, it was open. Guess it only went about fifteen miles an hour. Guess our longest trip in it was to Little Rock – went down to visit Uncle John’s family. They had moved from New Hope, out in country here, to Little Rock – ran a store next to their house. Went to England one Sunday to see friends of Mom & Dad’s (Perrys). Now that was a trip. Took our lunch, ate at a church on side of road.
Mom decided she would learn to drive and Aunt Roxie, who could drive, was going to teach her, so they got out in pasture and drove and drove, but Mom gave up and never tried again.
Dad always had several hound dogs – two or three all the time, as he was a fox hunter. Sometimes a dog would have what we called “Running Blues” – a fit really. We would all scatter and get inside house and wait until dog run down and fell over, with a kicking fit, then we would venture outside. Dad doctored the dogs for this – gave them big pills. In the winter time, Dad and some other men would spend two or three weeks in the “bottoms” hunting. Stay in a tent. They would skin the animals and stretch hides over boards – hang them to dry and when cured out, Dad would ship them to a company that bought hides. He would make quite a bit of extra money at this, which we needed. No one had any money in those days. Dad sent in a red fox once and had it tanned and a neck piece made for Mom, but she packed it away in a trunk and never wore it. She said no one else wore them, maybe city women – not country women.
I loved looking through Granny’s trunk with her. She had lots of interesting things in it. She had some high top shoes she used to wear and she also wore high top shoes at that time herself. She had letters in the trunk that Granddadís father (Jimmy Stamps) had written to him. Granddadís father was a school teacher and his handwriting was beautiful. He was one of several (4 or 5) brothers who came to this country from Ireland. They went to school in Dublin. Their parents advised them to get their schooling and not marry then leave and go to the USA.
We never locked our doors at night or when we left home. On hot nights in summertime, some of us would probably be found sleeping on front porch where it was cooler.
Flies would, get bad after several days, we would close all windows and doors and Mom would sift out of a can, fly poison, don’t remember name, then we all left house and stayed outside for 2 or 3 hours doing something – chores, playing, working in garden or flowers, or go visiting or work in field, and when we came back into house, every fly would be dead. We would open all doors and windows and sweep down all powder and dead flies, and sweep them out of the house. This was done probably once a week.
We had pine wood floors, and when they got dirty, Mama would scrub them with lye water and soap and would make them white as could be. Later years, people began to get linoleum rugs for their floors, which was a great improvement. They were only 10 ft. by 12 ft. and didn’t cover all of the floor but we thought they were really nice. We slept on featherbeds and feather pillows.
Daddy always kept geese to run in the cotton fields to keep the grass picked out. We only chopped out weeds when we chopped cotton. In the spring time, one day would be set aside to pick the geese’s feathers. They would be corralled together in a pen and Dad and boys would catch them and Mom, my sister and I would pick the feathers off. You had to put a stocking over their heads, or they would bite a plug out of you. The feathers would be stored for making pillows and featherbeds. I hated that job. Don’t think Marlene and I picked too many, I think Mom did most of it.
I remember having goose for Christmas dinner. I Don’t know if it was good (dark meat) or not. At Christmas time, Mom would always make a jam cake and several different kinds of pies. Someone, sometimes ate Christmas dinner with us. Once in a while maybe, we ate with someone. We kids got usually one gift each – which didn’t amount to much, but we thought they were great, maybe cost a quarter. Our stockings we hung up would have an apple and orange and candy and usually some nuts. Mom always cooked a ham from freshly butchered hogs. Most of time it was fresh and not cured, as there hadn’t been time to cure one out after weather turned cold. They used to smoke the meat in a log smokehouse, but later started sugar curing and didn’t smoke it. Our cured pork would last until up in to the spring before it was all eaten. Sometimes a bug called a skipper would get into it. Mom would sew cloth bags around the hams and shoulders to keep the skippers out. Mom would can sausage cakes – fry them, then pack into half galon jars and seal. They would also stuff sausage into long cloth bags Mama sewed, hang them in the smokehouse, and slice when wanted to cook. In early fall, Daddy would butcher beef and cut it up and take around over neighborhood, and peddle out for 10 or 15 cents per pound. He always had to have his ox tail soup, no one got his ox tails. He sometimes butchered goats and peddled out the meat as quick as he could, there were no refrigerators so he sold most of it and people were glad to get it. He would butcher beef in fall for Mama to can after pressure cookers came out. They would cut up and bone whole thing and can – was really good eating. In summer time, if someone came and spent night, Mom would go out, catch a fryer, kill it, dress it, and fry it for breakfast. If she wanted to fix chicken and dressing for dinner, the hen would be caught and dressed, then cooked.
Spring and summertime was busy. School would be out by May. Strawberries then would come on. We usually had strawberries in the truck patch. Mostly for own use. Sometimes had so many and would take some to market and sell. We would go to the neighbors and pick for them for 3 or 4 cents a quart. Didn’t make much money, only picked until noon – that would be all they had. Daddy would plant cotton in May – brothers would help. Marlene and I would go out to the field and ride on the drag – a rig made of flat boards to knock down clods of dirt and make the soil smooth for planting. We liked to go to the field when Dad and the boys were unhitching the horses to come for dinner, so we could get to ride the horses home. We would plant a big field of peanuts the plowed them up late summer, and they were hauled in and put into barn loft, where they were fed to the livestock. The boys – sometimes Marlene & I and Daddy would go out to barn in winter time and knock off peanuts – hit the vine against side of barrel andthe nuts would fall into barrel. We roasted and ate them all winter. Nelson sold lots of them to a peddler (Bill Fisher) for 25 cents to $1.00 bushel. Nelson also trapped and caught rabbits and sold to the peddler for 25 cents each.
We had lots of fruit trees to can fruit from in summer. Peaches of all kinds, several kinds of plums, and an early harvest apple tree. On our grandparents’ place, we had an Arkansas Black Apple Tree and was good mostly for cooking. Had a whole row of bushes call Sarvisberries, which none of us liked, except Daddy. Had a row of grapes Mama made juice and jelly from. She mostly canned in half gallon jars, as there were seven in family until my brother Elbridge died at fourteen, (he had a brain tumor, nothing could be done for that in those days), so we needed everything in half gallons. We would have watermelons and cantaloupes in the field – sometimes Daddy would plant watermelons in the cotton and we would bust them open in the field and eat them when picking cotton.
Marlene, Nelson & I and would roam the fields and woods in spring & summer and pick wild flowers, wild grapes, muskadines, and sweet gum. We would pick the gum off the sweet gum trees and get some sawbrier berries and take the rubbery skin from around the seed and mix with the gum and chew it. We could blow bubbles also with the rubbery skin mixed with the sweet gum and it wouldn’t stick to our teeth. There needed to be a wound in the tree to cause the gum to drain out. In summer after crops were laid-by, Daddy and the boys would go huckleberry and blackberry picking and Mama would can them and make jelly and jam. Sometimes our cousins from Little Rock, Attice and Ruby Stamps, would come out and help with canning and would can for themselves to take home. We would all go out and pick blackberries and huckleberries when they were there. Summertime canning was a pretty busy time, with all the peaches, plums, grapes, other fruits, and vegetables coming on. Can remember some neighbors coming in their wagons t get peaches and tomatoes when we had more than we needed. You didn’t think about selling anything like fruits and vegetables in those days – you gave them away. I have heard Ruby and John say it would have been impossible to get by without dad and moms help. They had a wood cook stove and they would come out to our farm to get wood to cook with. They had a little one seated car with a little trunk behind. Was always mine and Marlene’s job to wash the fruit jars to can in. We would use a wash tub filled with soapy water. We would wash 1/2 gallon jars until we would get so tired of it.
We had two occasions every year we looked forward to. Both in May. Grandpa Parks birthday dinner and Aunt Molly Massey’s birthday dinner. They were both celebrated every year with friends and relatives bringing food and eating outside with long tables of food. Our uncle (Mom’s brother) lived in Oklahoma City and worked for an ice cream company and always brought ice cream packed in dry ice, and did we look forward to that. Brought enough to feed everyone and there were lots of people there. Grandpa lived at Ward at this time. When they moved from Missouri they came by train and moved to the Opal on a farm Grandpa bought. They had a store that was a shed with sides that closed up, you couldnít go inside. Mama was known as a good cook. Whatever she cooked and took to the dinners, people would scramble for Maude’s chicken & dressing, RedDevil Cake, banana pudding, or whatever she brought.
We always went to Sunday School at Cadron Chapel Methodist Church, where we went to school first. Later years, Cadron Chapel Church was moved to Stoney Point Methodist Church to make that church larger. Was too far for us to go over there, so we went to Union Valley Union Church, until later it was made a Baptist Church. I was about grown by this time.
Did I mention Daddy dug sassafras roots in the spring for Mama to make tea for him to drink? Was supposed to be good for you – would thin your blood or something. None of us could stand to drink the stuff but Daddy. I couldn’t stay in the house and smell it without becoming nauseated. Mom made her own laundry soap by saving old grease – instead of throwing it away, she would save it up until she was ready to make it in the wash pot outside with lye and I don’t know what else, or the procedure, but when it got cold, she cut it out with a butcher knife in blocks and chunks. She used this to wash the clothes with. We had toilet soap in the house to use. Mom also made hominy in fall after field corn matured. It was boiled in wash pot outside with lye and washed and washed, then finally was ready to eat. It was really good, so much better than the canned you buy. She canned it for eating later.
Occasionally, someone would come through with a movie machine and would show a movie at the school for 10 to 25 cents admission, which is where we all were one night about 1936 and our house had burned to the ground when we got home. Never knew how it caught. Had no insurance. We all stayed around at different relatives and friends for a few days, until Daddy and neighbors did some repairs on my grandparents’ house and got some furniture then we lived there until Daddy bought Peterson place. It was next to our farm and across road from Grandpa & Granny Stamps’ place.
A story Dad always told about when his dad, my Grandpa, lived in Oregon and herded wild horses for a man, he and his boss slept in a little cabin out in the woods, and one night they heard a noise at the door, opened it, and a deer ran inside. They shut the door, and right away heard a loud thump at the door and was a bear. It was chasing the deer. Every night at the same time, the deer came back to the cabin, and they let it in until finally it didn’t come anymore. My Grandpa also told about he and his boss eating supper with Indians one night, and after supper, Grandpa’s boss asked him if he knew what kind of meat they ate – it was dog meat. They also ate with Indians another time and had big ants to eat. I’ve heard Daddy say that Grandpa never used a bank. One day, Daddy was forking hay for the cows and ran a pitch fork through a fruit jar of money, where Grandpa had it stashed. Grandpa went blind before he died. Think he was a pretty cranky old man sometimes. Granny said would make him mad if he came in or dinner, and it wasn’t ready. One day, he came in and dinner wasn’t on the table so he began throwing her dishes and breaking them. Granny said she walked up behind him and kicked him in the seat as hard as she could kick him, and he, not being able to see well, she got away before he could catch her. Granny was twenty years younger than Grandpa. By the way, she wore high- top pointed toe shoes when she lived with us after Grandpa died. One day, Grandpa was sitting on front porch and a neighbor whom he disliked intensely passed by in a buggy. Grandpa, not seeing well, thought it was someone else, and he waved and spoke real friendly. When Granny told him who it was, it made him so angry that he had spoken to the man.
We always grew sorghum for molasses. I hated the stripping of the sorghum. We took blades, wooden or metal, and stripped all leaves, cut off tassels, then cut the cane and it was hauled to the sorghum mill where the juice was pressed out and was cooked in a big vat and made into molasses. The molasses were eaten for breakfast with hot buttered biscuits, along with sausage or ham or bacon, as long as it lasted – in to spring and summer, and eggs, also fried potatoes. We never heard of eating dried cereal or toast for breakfast. Sometimes, we would have fried cornmeal mush with molasses or other syrup. These days corn meal mush is what they call Polenta, really popular, we never dreamed thats what we were eating then. Mama made biscuits every morning – 365 days out of the year, unless we were gone from the home, which hardly ever happened.
In the early years, when we were little, Mama & Daddy would take us and all spend night with one of Mama’s sisters family. Aunt Mary’s or Aunt Roxie’s. They would bring their family and spend night with us. Would sleep on floor when not enough beds. Then the families got so big and too much trouble, and they quit doing that.
For couple years we had to walk to school at Opal. Probably two miles. The school bus didn’t run. Was not enough money in the school district to run them. We had two. They were jut like wooden boxes. Hand built with three benches running parallel for us to sit on. We used to find lots of flint rocks out in the fields, which meant Indians were there. There were several mounds of dirt around in the fields, which I’ve been told was where Indians were buried.
We had an elderly lady names Mrs. Ingraham who came through the country about twice a year, with a horse and buggy, selling Rauleighs Liniment and other things. She always spent the night at our house. She and Granny were friends. Daddy always unhitched her horse and took him to the barn and fed him for her. The old horse was sway backed. Mama and Daddy always bought things from her, such as liniment, cloverine salve, chill tonic, etc. We also had a peddling wagon come by every week after Mrs. Ingraham’s time, that sold almost like a country store. Bill Fisher was the man who ran it. Also, Bradberry ran one first. He had everything from candy to dress fabrics. Mama always had a list ready. Nelson would sell him peanuts by the bushel and rabbits. It wasn’t necessary to go to town as much with the peddler coming by. There was a store in town called the Racket Store, where you could buy almost anything you needed.
Back in those days the streets of Beebe were alive with people, mostly just seeing and being seen. It was the only place to go to see anybody.
At school, we played basketball on an outdoor court. Was not too pleasant in cold, bad weather. Grandpa Parks, Mom’s dad, had a car that looked like a black box, don’t know what kind it was, but the windows rolled up & down. I went with Grandpa, Grandma, and Hazel over to Bugscuffle one Sunday to eat dinner with Aunt Icy’s family, Mama’s sister. Hardly ever went to their house. Her husband, John Fields, was a grouchy old man. He died and Aunt Icy married another old man. Grandpa, grandma and Hazel moved to Ward after living at Opal on the L. B. Harvey farm they owned at that time, they had moved from there from beside the Opal store so all grandpaís kids could live by themselves as Grandpa had married a wife with several kids and they didn’t get along.
Daddy and Loyal would play French harp for dances in the neighborhood. Loyal never wanted to play for anyone to hear him. He had to be forced to. He could really play well. Dad could, too. In fact, we all played harp, except Elbridge and Mama. Nelson was playing a tune by the time he was four years old. Daddy always gave us his old harps when a note went bad. That’s how we all learned to play. At one time, Daddy was to go with someone to try out for the Grand Ole Opry, playing the “Fox Chase”, but he came down with measles, was very sick for quite a while, and never got to do this. (Loyal had the measles first then me, Marlene, Nelson and Daddy. Mom and Granny had them previously. Mrs Harvey helped take care of us.) He was probably the best on the “Fox Chase”. Others said no one did as well. Eunice, aunt Nells daughter said he was supposed to go to Keote, Iowa where they lived, and give a radio performance of the “Fox Chase” but Elbredge was sick and he could not make it.
About 1929, Daddy let Billy Edwards, who was selling radios for someone, bring us a radio to try out. They were not around much yet. The neighbors came in on Saturday night to listen to “Grand Ole Opry”, but reception was so poor – so much static that Daddy didn’t buy the radio. The radio sat on a table and a big horn sat on another table. It wasn’t much to listen to at that time. A little later on, they got better, and we got one. We loved the soap operas, “Ma Perkins”, “The Guiding Light”, “Stella Dallas” and “Pepper Young’s Family”. We also liked Lum-N-Abner, Fibber McGee & Molly, and the Kingfish.
Saturday was bread making day. Mama made eight or ten loaves of bread, which would last us most of the week. We would make sandwiches with it for school lunch, and just eat it. She would also make cinnamon rolls that were delicious. Mama made cheese every so often. She would buy yellow tablets that were called Rennet tablets, and that’s what made the cheese yellow. It took lots of milk for the process. When she got them made, she poured the cheese into a dish pan to firm up, and she had a big, round hoop of cheese. Daddy ate more of it than anyone else. It got better with age, but never lasted long enough to get much age on it. Just about everything we ate on the farm, we raised. We didn’t buy much at the grocery store, other than staples, but we had about everything. We had a five gallon can under the table, with a wooden bread board laying on top of it with flour in. Twenty five pounds of flour at a time would be emptied into this. I think it lasted about a month.
Didn’t mention that Daddy and Loyal played French harp for school closings and dances. Schools always had a school closing program the night of the last day of school. I remember a car from Ward came and took us all over there for Daddy and Loyal to play French harp on school closing program. After the depression came, about 1931, we didn’t drive the car anymore no money for gas and it was only about 25 cents a gallon. When we went anywhere, we went in the wagon. If was cold weather, heated rocks to put our feet on to keep them warm.
We would have two months summer school while crops were laid by and before cotton picking time, then let out school for two months to get the cotton picked. School would begin November 1st. We would go July and August. In evenings in winter time, we would pop popcorn, make popcorn balls, roast peanuts to eat and, sometimes Daddy would parch field corn and we would eat it. It was like what you call beer nuts now, I think. Mildred and Vernon Harvey lived by us most of the time, after they married they would come to our house a lot at night. They were scared of storms. This was after Mildred and Vernon married. Harveys, (parents of Vernon and other kids) who lived neighbors to us, had the first Victrola I ever saw. We would go to their house to play the Victrola. They would play records by Jimmy Rogers, one I remember was “All Around the Water Tank”. You had to crank it up so it would play. When we grew up, there was no such thing as snacks, such as chips, dips, etc. There were candy bars, which was our deligt, which cost only a nickel and they were about three times as big as they are now. We had gum and bubble gum came into existence somewhere in later years on the farm. We had Baby Ruth, Butterfinger, Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Snickers and a few others. Piece candy was bought loose, not in a package. A penny for one piece. When Dad went to town, he always brought us a sack of candy. Didn’t go to town much – maybe every three or four weeks. If only dad went, sometimes he would come home drunk. He never was mean to us though. There was always a bootlegger in town. We all went maybe two or three times a year. We were not allowed to cuss or say ugly words even though dad did it any time.
We always had five, six, or seven cows to milk for milk and butter. I never learned to milk. Marlene and Nelson did. They helped Mama milk. I didn’t like being around the cows. Marlene and Nelson did. At supper when others were doing chores I worked at getting supper ready, lots of nights I made “Flaps Jacks” for bread, fried them. The milk was run through a separator and the cream was separated from the milk. We sold cream sometimes to a place in town that bought it. Before we had the cream separator, Mama would put the milk in crock bowls and let it set for a certain period of time, and the cream would come to the top, and she would skim it off. Had a milk shelf. We had lots of clabber milk to throw out to the dogs or whatever. Mom churned our butter, or rather, we kids had to churn the butter. Butter would finally come to the top and gather together and Mom would dip it out and work it around for a while, until all the milk worked out of it, then we had buttermilk left in the churn. To keep butter cool an milk also, in summer, it was put into a bucket and lowered into the well where it would stay cool. It would be melted in the hot summer if this wasnít done. It was a luxury in summertime. At times someone would run an ice route, maybe on weekend, and we would buy a 25 lb. block of ice and wrap it real good in burlap bags and an old quilt, then we could have iced tea until we used it all and it melted. Maybe, if we were making ice cream for some occasion, we would buy two 25 lb. blocks. The ice house was in town and people in town bought and used more ice than in the country. It would be melted by the time you could get it out there. Our water that came out of a well was always cool and refreshing. In winter when it was cold with lots of ice, we would make homemade ice cream. Sometimes when it was freezing at night, Marlene of I would raise a window and set out milk sugar mixture and eat it in the morning like ice cream.
We only had outdoor toilets, outhouses. No toilet tissue in them. Usually Sears, Roebuck catalogs for toilet tissue. Out of date ones, of course. We had our baths by heating water on the wood stove, in tea kettles and pots. We used a No. 3 washtub to put water in, and that’s what we bathed in. When one finished, we carried it out and emptied it , then refilled it for the next one. If one had to go “potty” during the night, Mama kept a “slop jar’, she called it, under her bed. I think bed chamber was the name of it, a white pot with lid on it. It was carried out and emptied first thing in the morning. That was the last job in the evening, bringing in the “slop jar”.
I mentioned Daddy growing peanuts and, of course, we roasted and ate them all winter in the evenings. Also, he grew our own popcorn, which we popped and ate all winter for snacks. We made lots of popcorn balls and that was our snacks – no such thing as potato chips, dips, and all the various snacks nowadays. We thought popcorn and peanuts were great. Daddy would sometime send Uncle Howard’s & Aunt Nell’s family in Iowa a bushel of peanuts for eating in the winter. They really liked to get them. They couldn’t grow them up North. They would send us bushel of apples, which we really thought was great. Granny Stamps would catch train and go to Iowa once in a while in the summer and visit Aunt Nell’s family in Iowa, (her daughter) for a month and once Daddy was driving her to the depot in our Model-T, and I was along. As we drove along the road, a shoe box flew out of the back seat of the car as Daddy was driving along pretty fast (abut 30 miles an hour). He asked Granny what was in the box and she said somethig that didn’t amount to anything, so we kept going. Then a little later, she said her dentures were in the box. She seldom wore them anyway, and we didn’t have time to go back, so Granny never had teeth anymore. She didn’t want to bother with getting any more, as she didn’t wear them much. Think in those days, your dentures didn’t fit very well. On the way back home, Daddy found the box. It had been run over and the teeth were broken up. He took them on home and showed them to Marlene, Nelson, and the others, and teased them and told them Granny got run over by a train, and that was all there was left. We really missed Granny when she went to Iowa to visit. We couldn’t wait for her to get back. Elbridge, our brother, who was less than two years older than I, died when he was fourteen with a brain tumor. He was always teasing and aggravating Granny, and she would chase him out of the house with a stick of wood. He would run out and laugh and wait a while to come back in. Marlene teased Granny a lot, too, nd Granny would chase her around. Loyal and I didn’t do her that way. I liked to sit and listen to her tell stories of things that happened, like the one she told about the Indians coming to their house one day when the men folks were gone. Her mother took the children up in the attic. There was a ladder to climb up on and the Indians attempted to climb up the ladder, and my great grandmother had her hatchet with her, so she chopped their fingers when they tried to get to the top, so they left without harming them.
We had a saddle horse we called Rex that we all liked to ride. If we wanted to go somewhere, we would saddle Rex up and go to the Opal store, or see someone, or just ride. He was really a good horse to ride. Ruby and John (our cousin Ruby & husband) lived on West Seventh Street at one time in Little Rock and ran a grocery store. The had a little black boy called “Humpy” that hung around all the time, and they would pay him. They thought a lot of him, and he helped his family out a lot with the money and groceries they paid him. He came up with Ruby and John and spent the night with us a couple of times, and he would have the best time. He was close to Nelson’s age, and they would play together. Nelson acquired the nickname “Humpy” from all the community. Don’t know what people thought about a black spending the night with us at that time – guess it wasn’t done much. We thought nothing of it, and Ruby and John didn’t either, and I never heard of anyone around us saying anything critical. Guess there was’t much prejudice in the community against blacks like there was in lots of places. Later years Humpy came to visit Mom with his family, they lived in Chicago.
Sometimes it would be so hot in the summertime, Daddy and some would sleep on the front porch where it was a little cooler. Mama would sometimes sprinkle our beds with water to cool them off. We never locked a door at night or never locked one when we left home.
One day we were away from home, came back and discovered all the cured hams and shoulders were gone from the smokehouse. Daddy began his “detective” work (which he was good at) and tracked the person to his place. He found the meat and had the man arrested. He served time, and, strange as it sounds, a few years later, the man spent the night with Daddy & Mama. He and Daddy were hunting together. Daddy laughed, said he slept with one eye open.
I got this pretty, big, crying doll for Christmas (didn’t see many of those in those days). They thought I would take care of it and keep it. They thought Marlene would probably tear one up and not take care of it. Marlene took my doll out one day in the spring to play with it, forgot it, and left it on a fence post. It came a rain that night and my doll’s face color all melted off and the hair melted off its head. So there was nothing left but the crier, and we took it out to see how it worked.
Mama always kept a big pink pill called Raymonds Pills. Guess it was an all-purpose pill, as far as I can remember, but one day I opened a box of them and thought how good and pretty they looked (like candy), so I took one and sucked the pink coating off – And what a horrible taste, so I never bothered the Raymonds Pills again. Mama would brew up some “senna leaf tea” for us to drink for constipation. It was awful. I would go out on the front porch with mine and when she wasn’t looking, I would pour it out. It almost kept me from liking iced tea when iced tea came into existence.
Saturday was bread baking day. Mama made about six loaves. Some for eating & others wrapped for making our lunch for school. It would begin to dry out before the end of the week – there was no such thing as wax paper or Saran to wrap it in. Most didn’t have homemade bread, biscuits, or cornbread. Some people only had cornbread and sorghum molasses for breakfast – some kids had a slice of fried sweet potato on biscuit for school lunch. We didn’t eat that – I couldn’t stand sweet potatoes.
After we got that Model T. Ford car daddy came home drove it in our old car shed and that nite daddy was laying on the floor and called Nelson over and whispered something to him and I heard there was a sack of candy in the back seat so I ran out first and Nelson right on my tail so in the car I went and right out the other side. I went to the house crying cause Nelson had got the sack of candy, as unusual. Mom would make him give us some. The kind he didn’t like is what we got.
I didn’t mention we all loved peanuts and mom would make peanut butter by the gallons. Also cakes and pies from peanuts.
Now corn was my favorite food so when it came in mom would boil a big pot on the cob and some cut off. She would cook 5 or 6 dozen ears and they were big ears, field corn, no sweet corn in those days. When the corn would get dry mom would make and can the hominy. The rest of the field corn was picked and used as food for the stock. Peanut bushes was used for stock food, after we got the peanuts off, so you see we didn’t ever waist a thing. Hogs eat corn cobs after we eat the corn off. So when the hogs got big, we had a hog killing day. Wow that was a great day fresh meat. Mom and Dad would stay up half of the nite making sausage and packing it in sacks it was hung up and smoked in our smoke house, oh so good. Daddy would cure our ham’s packed in salt boxes then, hickory smoked, also mom would can sausage and other parts. So you see we had meat of some kind the year round. Dad would go out into the woods and gather mushrooms bring them home and mom would cook them, daddy said they taste like meat, als mom would cook dry peas and make pea sausage. I use to go out into the fields and on the ground was these big balls I’d kick them and yellow powder would fly everywhere that was called Devil Snuff, not good for anything. When Halloween rolled around we would try to think of some tricks to pull on some one. So one day I went over into a man field, at cotton picking time and hid his scales he weighed his cotton with. The man said he knew Marlene didn’t do it, so I told him I would help look for them and guess what I found them. He knew all time I was the one.
Did I mention we didn’t have mattress for our beds. Dad would pack straw and mom would sew it up, then feather beds on top. Mom always had lots quilts. I remember the first mattress I saw. Government furnished materials and woman would go and sew them up.
We didn’t have give away programs. No Social Security. so if you couldn’t make on the farm you went to the old folk home. there where you would die and state would put you away.
I started to school in a one room school house. All grades there. My brother would take his lunch to school in a big jelly bucket beans corn bread, onion sometimes a piece of fat meat. We wore patched clothes to school but always clean. Mom would start sewing cotton sacks before the cotton was ready to pick. We all had our own sack, kids sacks not so big. When we would pick them full of cotton we would take it up to the wagon and daddy would weigh it and pour it into the wagon. When the wagon was full daddy would take it to a Cotton Gin and seeds took out and put it into a bale. Daddy would go into town and sell the bales. That was another way we had making money.
I have to tell this about my granny she would make her own yeast for bread so one nite something got into the yeast. A few days later she saw this huge rat in the front yard. well he was swelled up from eating her yeast and couldn’t walk as you guessed granny got him.
We had a big storm cellar and my dad was afraid of storms so when one came in daddy got us all ready to go in. He would say get hats coats and shoes on. One nite we were all ready to go in and I couldnít find a hat and the only thing I could find was Neva new white hat so I put it on and went out and the wind got it. next day I went out looking for it and would you know it was on the fence post, and it was black, well had to tell Neva and she would have killed me if she could have caught me. I didn’t like storm cellars, snakes would get in it and daddy would go out and kill them.
We had an old dog name Trailor and when a big snow would come daddy would sneak him in the house behind the stove. he would sleep there all nite. Mom didn’t like dogs in the house.
Special thanks to Derrell Harrison for compiling and publishing this article.