Mom's Story
Note: The following was recorded by Mom in the 1990's.
As I Remember
by Gladys Gwendolyn White Reeder
Click On Each Page To See Original Manuscript
Below is the Transcribed Manuscript
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“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart, I appointed you.” Jeremiah 1.5.
I believe God had his hand on my life, and had a special work for me to do, when I was born Gladys Gwendolyn White, March 9th, 1926, to my Mother and Father Leonard Marshall and Madie Miller White. I was born in a red brick hospital in a small town, Henderson, KY. They took me to my home with a nice yard and garage at the back of the lot. My Dad had built our house with his own hands. He was a carpenter by trade and could build anything, even the kitchen cabinets in our kitchen.
I was the first born to my mother, but my father was about 12 years older than my mother, and he had older sons and daughters from a previous marriage. As I remember, his youngest son was living with my mother and father when I was born. He was 10 years older than me and they called him “Cricket”, not his real name, but very suitable to him. I was born on “Crickets’ birthday and he adored me. Mother always told me how he would rock me in the cradle.
I was the first grandchild for my mother’s family. Her only sister, Flora Gwendolyn Miller, was still not married and living at home with her parents, so I came into the world with lots of love and excitement. I may have been a spoiled baby at one time.
Thirteen months later a little sister came into our home, and then fourteen months later a little brother. Mother was very busy with three young children to care for. As a result of this, I began spending a lot of time with my grandparents and Aunt. They loved it and so did I. I remember my mother telling me very fondly how I would cry when they came to take me home with them. My grandmother said I was always begging to go see the “doats” meaning goats, at the farm.
My aunt and grandparents lived on a farm about 12 miles from Henderson where my parents lived. They had a big white farmhouse with a white picket fence around it and a concrete walk that led down to the main road. I have some good memories of these days on this farm. I can remember my grandmother sitting in the swing, on the front porch, in the afternoon and my sister Emma Lou and I would play and run down the walk. Of course there were some skinned knees, but we had fun.
The mail carrier coming in the morning with our newspaper and other mail was very exciting in those days. It never came at the same time, we would watch out the windows for this big time. The mail carrier would drive a horse and buggy made a little special for bringing the mail. My “Mama” as I called my grandmother, started to teach me to by naming the letters in the headlines of the newspaper while I was very young. My grandfather, “Papa” as I called him, taught my to count from 1 to 100, and later by 5’s and then 10’s to 100. So by the time I was 5 I could say my ABC’s and count. I remember this was a very happy time in my childhood.
About this time another little brother was born to my mother and father. This now made four of us under the age of five. By now my sister Emma Lou, was at the farm with us a lot of the time, also. We had a good time together playing house with our dolls in the big old kitchen on the farm. We would go on to the porch in the winter time and knock on the kitchen door and visit and rock our dolls in the little rockers our father had made for us.
Sometime before I was five, my grandparents moved to a smaller house. It had a white picket fence, barn, smoke house and a coalhouse. This house had an upstairs, which is where we slept. In the winter it would be so cold up there without any heat. We would get as warm as we could by the wood fireplace and then race up the stairs to get in bed. The blankets and quilts were so many on our bed to keep us warm we could hardly turn over. Sometimes Aunt Flora would heat blankets by ironing and then wrap them up and put them into bed with us to help generate some warmth when we would first get into bed. We were fast asleep, cozy and warm in just a few minutes. We were all very happy, having the love of so many people around.
Then a very difficult thing happened in my life that would change all of our lives. My father was diagnosed with having tuberculosis and had to be isolated from the family. In those days there was no known cure for this disease. I have no idea how much time he was sick. I do remember the day some of the family came to tell us he had passed away, July 2, 1931. My youngest brother was just a baby. I was 5 years old in March of that year. I remember standing out by the car with mother and seeing tears in her eyes. I remember having a sad feeling and when I went back in the house….I can still see my baby brother sitting in the playpen with big brown eyes, and reddish brown curls. I really remember very little about my father except that he repaired a pair of shoes for me at our home in Henderson. My mother said he was a very handy man. My Dad had one of the first cars, a Ford and I have a special picture of him, standing beside it, that my mother gave to me and I treasure it very much. My grandfather did not have a car, only a horse and buggy, which I remember riding in a lot.
Life became very difficult form my mother and it touched all our family. At this point I need to make a great statement, “I believe the hand of God protected my mother from getting tuberculosis” and all four of us children never came down with it. My mother never told us this, but I am sure for many years she lived thinking some of us would have it too. I count this a miracle of God only. Two of my older half brothers and sister did contact it and died after my father died.
Mother could not stay in her home with four small children without any income. It was during the “Great Depression” days. There was not much money in our family. I can remember hearing some talk about someone advising her to put us in an orphans’ home and I know I didn’t understand exactly what that meant at that time, but again God was taking care of everything, so mother moved us into our Grandparents home. There were seven of us living in this little house. Truly, we had a house full, but our extended family intended to keep us together even though they didn’t know just how.
We were living in a small farm, my grandfather was the only provider but there was not much money. There were many ups and downs but God was always there to see us through it all. My mother rented our home in the small town o Henderson, to try to have some income to take care of us. I can remember the sad times when my Mother and Aunt Flora would drive to Henderson, 12 miles away in a horse and buggy to collect the small rent payment, only to return saying the people didn’t have the money to pay. This would happen for a few weeks, then when they would go to collect the rent, they would have moved away leaving no address or money for the time they lived in the house. Times were very difficult for most everyone. After this happened, many times, the house was auctioned for a small balance my father owed on materials he had bought while building the house and his funeral expenses. There was no money left for us.
The depression was so real to me. I remember being sad, mostly for my mother. I was born a very serious minded child and always thought much deeper than I should have. My sister once said when we were older that at age eleven I was as grown up as I was at age thirty. My sister and brothers remember none of these things, but it had a great impact on my life and their life too, only in a different way.
My grandfather was a very gentle and loving man to us all and was a very hard worker. We were never hungry or cold. He taught us all to work together to raise crops and garden for our livelihood. In the wintertime when he was around the house he would play some of the old time games with us. One was “ I Spy” whom we played with a thimble; another was “one potato, two potato”. He would hide our Easter eggs for us. He had a mischievous grin that we all loved. I never saw him angry. He was the next thing to a father as anyone could have been. He was getting up in years at that time. We had a great Mother, grandmother, grandfather and Aunt. They were all a great team working together to make things work for us to live together.
We had a Christian heritage. My grandmother was the spiritual leader in our home. She was a very learned and Godly lady. Every afternoon she would get us all together and have us sit around her. She would then get down her large black Bible and read to us. She would explain about the Bible characters and stories so we could understand their meaning. Later, as we grew older she had each of us take a turn and read a verse. She would use every opportunity to sit us down for a quite time like this. I learned about God early in my home. I praise God that we all had this teaching in our young life. I began early in life to read God’s word myself. A little New Testament was one of my earliest Christmas gifts. I can’t explain what a great impact this had on my life. I became a spiritual person much like my grandmother.
We didn’t get to go to church on Sunday very much because we lived several miles from our church. There was always a Bible School, however, in the summer for two weeks. Aunt Flora would drive us in the horse and buggy everyday to the Bible school. This was a real treat for us. We would pack our lunch and the children would have their classes our under the trees and eat our lunch there. The church stands today known as the Christadelphian Ecclesia Church on Airline road in Henderson County, Kentucky.
My Mama and Papa Miller had moved to Kentucky from Buncombe County, North Carolina, near Ashville, when my mother and Aunt Flora were very small children. They came to Kentucky because my Grandmothers father was a minister and he had come there earlier to establish the Christadelphian Church. My Grandmother’s only sister and her family moved to Kentucky also about the same time, as well. This was all family of my Grandmother. Papa Miller’s family remained in North Carolina. He had several brothers and sisters, I never new many of my relatives there. Every year Papa and Mama would visit in North Carolina by train or bus, and some of his family did come to see us in Kentucky. Once when I was about eleven, they took me on the trip with them. That was truly a great experience, never having been very far from my home before.
My grandmother was a very intelligent and educated lady, for her day. She and Papa were young during the Civil War. Mama was a great storyteller. She would tell us about their life in the mountains of North Carolina. I still have a mental picture in my mind living in those days. She reminisced about the beautiful springs of running water that kept their milk and butter cool in the warm weather. She had attended music classes when she was a young girl and could read music. She could sing and play the organ. My grandmother had very good taste in things. Although she did not have much, what she did have was very special. She had a beautiful mahogany organ, a Singer treadle sewing machine and a folding bed that I remember as a beautiful piece of furniture when folded up. She was a very fine seamstress having sewed my mother and aunts dresses, by hand, when they were young, before she was able to have the sewing machine. My grandmother told her stories so vividly as she had lived it. She made me feel life was very gracious, easy and charming. She taught us little songs and rhythms.
As I remember back to those days I can see what an important part each one of these family members played in my life.
At this time, my grandmother did most of the cooking for the family. My mother would keep the housework all well done. She was an immaculate housekeeper. I can see her now, always cleaning the porches every day and sweeping around the doors to keep it neat and clean. She did all the mending for our family by hand. She could patch the neatest of anyone I have ever seen. She had a lot of it to do for all our family. We didn’t have many clothes, mostly hand me downs from Mama’s sisters’ family. She always kept our clothes spotless and neatly folded for us to wear. I remember seeing her sewing a rip in our shoes late at night, and polishing our shoes. She worked so hard to take care of our personal needs. My Aunt Flora always did the shopping. She would drive the horse and buggy to a little country store about four miles away. Mother would give her a grocery list and Papa would give her some money. Our only money crop was tobacco or maybe a veal calf, or some eggs we would have extra to sell. Not many eggs, I am sure, for we always had bacon, eggs, biscuits and jelly for our breakfast. Occasionally we would have hot oatmeal. Sometimes I would ride to the grocery store with Aunt Flora. I can still remember that store so vividly with the big scales to weigh our purchase, large bags of dried beans etc. sitting around, and the shelves on the walls full of can goods. I can remember Aunt Flora buying 50 cents worth of dried beans, 25 cents worth of coffee and a 25-pound bag of flour. We had our own milk and butter from our cows, meat from our chickens and hogs that Papa raised. We had fried chicken, baked chicken, ham and bacon all year round. Each year in December we would have a “hog killing”. I was great fun, some of the neighbors would come in to help Papa, and we would have a big dinner. Then we would have fresh pork sausage, ribs and backbone. Oh it was so good! The men would trim the meat and cut off all the fat from the hams and shoulders. These scraps were cooked in big black kettles outside to make our lard for baking and frying. Then the fresh hams and shoulders were bedded down in a big wooden box in salt to cure. After a few weeks Papa would take the meat out and hang it up with wire to the rafters in the smokehouse. This would have to last us until the next winter. After a few days it was Aunt Flora’s job to smoke the meat. That would give it such a “yummy flavor”. She would take some of us with her and build a small fire in a pit and gently smoke the meat. We would spend 3 to 4 hours a day doing this for a week. We would get some smoke in our eyes, but cracks in this log building would allow some of the smoke to get out. She would draw us pictures, and make letters and number that we would try to copy as we passed time I remember we had a good time with Aunt Flora in the smokehouse. After this, the meat was put in large paper bags and fastened up until we were ready to cut some to fry. Sometimes Mother would bake a big ham with brown sugar a cracker crumbs on it. They were delicious.
Aunt Flora was the one who would take each of us with her to gather in the vegetables and fruits to can. Mother and Mama would prepare them for canning. I can still see the big old black-eyed pea patch as Mama taught us which ones were ready to gather. Then in the fall we would let some dry in the patch and would go out and gather them all and then tie and hang them in the trees to let the wind blow out the hulls. We had a garden, with green beans, lima beans, tomatoes and potatoes to gather for Mama and Mother to can. Then we had to break the beans and hull the butter beans for storage. Papa and the boys would usually dig the potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes and store on the shelves in the smokehouse to dry.
Papa had a big orchard of apple, peach and plum trees. He also had a large grape vineyard. It was Aunt Flora’s job with all of us helping to keep this all gathered so Mother and Mama could can. They would make all kinds of jelly and preserves that we would have to eat throughout the year. I can still remember the half-gallon Mason jars of grape juice that we would open in the winter to drink. It was so good. Aunt Flora would take us about 8:30 in the morning before it was real hot to gather blackberries. We would wear long sleeves, hats or bonnets to protect us from the sun. We would gather berries until about eleven o’clock and then we would head for the house for dinner. We would nearly always have some kind of fruit cobbler for dinner. I think the blackberry cobbler was our favorite. Aunt Flora taught us well because sometimes it was a big decision whether to put the big juicy berries in our bucket or in our mouth.
After picking berries we had to deal with the problem of scratching the chigger bites. When the rhubarb was ripe Mama was always the one to gather this and make a rhubarb pie. She also would like to take me to grapple the sweet potatoes to see if they were ready to eat. Later on in the winter we would have baked sweet potatoes with the skin on and butter, which was one of my very favorite foods. We also had gooseberry vines to gather berries from for pies and jellies. Papa loved to in the orchard and he would graft two different kinks of peach trees together and come up with another variety of peaches.
My Aunt flora loved the outdoors and animals. She taught us all to like the cows and horses. She would always have one horse she would call her own. We spent many hours with her in the barn brushing and currying the horses. She liked to ride horses and she would put one of us on at a time in front of her and take us for a ride. If she found a crippled bird or small animal she would take it home and nurse it back to health. This wasn’t Mother’s favorite thing she didn’t care about having those animals in the house. These two sisters were so different, yet they complimented each other. They were a great team and even though they would have their disagreements, they were always each other’s best friends. Mother and Aunt Flora both had musical talent and Aunt Flora had learned to play the organ by ear. Before I could reach the pedals on the organ, she would take me on her lap, teach me to play and sing. Mother had a nice soprano voice and Aunt Flora would sing alto.
Aunt Flora had a special gift of sewing and being able to look at a picture in an old Sears and Roebuck catalog and she would make us dresses, sometimes out of garments someone had given us. She could do a lot of things with her hands. She would embroider and make little yo-yo pillows from scraps for our beds, which were very decorative. I remember her taking crepe paper and making pretty red, pink and yellow roses from it with green leaves and stems. Mother would take them and arrange them in a little vase and place them in just the right spot to make them look pretty in our front room. Mother was always trying to make an old hat over, trimming the brim and adding a ribbon or some flowers. She also would take old coats and make pillows from them or cover the cushion of a chair.
My Mother, Grandmother and Aunt Flora were all like mothers to us. So it was like having three mothers. Each one was very versatile and had many talents. It was only as I grew older that I realized how much each one of them had given to us all. I don’t remember there being any dull moments around our house. Papa taught us to work out in the field with him very early. I can remember my little hoe he make for me to help him cut weeds out of the corn and garden and the first time he taught me to hoe around a tobacco plant that was beginning to grow. Oh, you had to be so careful not to cut it down. My brothers would cut one down and try to cover it up, Papa, however, had a sharp eye and he would give them a good talking. He was very patient with us however, if the boys needed some discipline he would gladly get down the razor strap.
God was so good to us all. We were very poor but we always had plenty to eat and was warm and loved a lot.
Our youngest half brother, “Cricket” was the only one of my father’s family who came to see us. I can remember how on a Sunday about noon we would see him riding his bicycle twelve miles to stay all day with us. He was about seventeen or eighteen. He would eat Sunday dinner with us and it was a good time for us all. Mother, Mama, Papa and Aunt Flora all loved him a lot. I think he lived with an older brother. His mother had passed away when he was young. We never knew many of our father’s family until we were much older. “Cricket” would always tell us about some of them. We all loved him a lot and he loved us as well. As he grew older he would bring some of the family with him to see us, however, we all lived so far apart we were never close to anyone except “Cricket”. I remember the first time he brought his girl friend over to introduce her to us. She was a sweet young girl and became part of the family as well. I think “Cricket” always felt very close to my Mother, Aunt Flora and grandparents. We may have been the only family he really knew well.
In December we would start early asking Papa when we would go out to cut the Christmas tree. Some of us would go with him and would come back with a nice cedar tree for us to decorate. It would smell so good and you really know it was Christmas time then. Aunt Flora would help us string some popcorn for the tree and crochet some little white angels to hang on it. Of course we always had icicles, plenty of them. We would hang our stockings for Santa to fill. There was always some fruit and candy in them. One of the first things I remember finding in my stocking on Christmas morning was a little China doll and a thimble. I started early learning to sew, about five years of age, with my Aunt Flora teaching me to piece a little quilt. The blocks were about two inches square.
We were all beginning to show a lot of musical talent so we would gather around the organ, with Aunt Flora playing, and sing some Christmas carols. Mama would get here big black Bible and read the Christmas story. I never remember having anyone else come for Christmas dinner except maybe Aunt flora’s beau. We would have some fresh shoulder that Mother would bake and some of the goodies we had canned such as sweet potatoes and yummy raisin pie. Mother would bake many things. We would have fruit salad, oranges and bananas, and upside down pineapple cake. It would taste so very good. I can still see the big oranges that we would have. We would also have some candy that she had stored away for us to have at Christmas. Today when I smell a fresh orange I always think of those Christmas nights when we sat around the fireplace and eat those goodies. We would play dominoes and checkers. We never had a lot of toys but there were always some little surprises. Little tin soldiers and a French harp for the boys. Emma Lou and I would have paper doll books and little scissors. We would get busy cutting out the clothes to dress up our dolls. We all had a very happy childhood and as I look back all our family lived there together. We shared with each other everything we did and had. It’s so unreal to think about the way things were then verses now, in our families. You can hardly believe it happened.
At age seven I started to school. Emma Lou was six. Mother wanted us to start together. We had to walk about a mile very early in the morning to ride the school bus. Every morning Aunt Flora walked with us to the bus stop and eery evening she was there waiting to walk us home. I read a little thought today that said, “It takes a whole lift to learn how to live.” I will admit that only as I have been writing these words down can I rally appreciate the love and dedication that Aunt Flora had for us. We all loved her dearly. She was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed being with her. She spent so much time with us. I think how she could have resented Mother coming back home with four small babies for her to have to help take care of but never did I see anything like that. She took us all under her wing and loved and took care of us.
For now this is all that Mom has written. My hope is that more will come later.
Mom became very ill a few years later and died in 2007, she was never able to write anymore, something she always wanted to do.
Updated: December 10, 2011
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart, I appointed you.” Jeremiah 1.5.
I believe God had his hand on my life, and had a special work for me to do, when I was born Gladys Gwendolyn White, March 9th, 1926, to my Mother and Father Leonard Marshall and Madie Miller White. I was born in a red brick hospital in a small town, Henderson, KY. They took me to my home with a nice yard and garage at the back of the lot. My Dad had built our house with his own hands. He was a carpenter by trade and could build anything, even the kitchen cabinets in our kitchen.
I was the first born to my mother, but my father was about 12 years older than my mother, and he had older sons and daughters from a previous marriage. As I remember, his youngest son was living with my mother and father when I was born. He was 10 years older than me and they called him “Cricket”, not his real name, but very suitable to him. I was born on “Crickets’ birthday and he adored me. Mother always told me how he would rock me in the cradle.
I was the first grandchild for my mother’s family. Her only sister, Flora Gwendolyn Miller, was still not married and living at home with her parents, so I came into the world with lots of love and excitement. I may have been a spoiled baby at one time.
Thirteen months later a little sister came into our home, and then fourteen months later a little brother. Mother was very busy with three young children to care for. As a result of this, I began spending a lot of time with my grandparents and Aunt. They loved it and so did I. I remember my mother telling me very fondly how I would cry when they came to take me home with them. My grandmother said I was always begging to go see the “doats” meaning goats, at the farm.
My aunt and grandparents lived on a farm about 12 miles from Henderson where my parents lived. They had a big white farmhouse with a white picket fence around it and a concrete walk that led down to the main road. I have some good memories of these days on this farm. I can remember my grandmother sitting in the swing, on the front porch, in the afternoon and my sister Emma Lou and I would play and run down the walk. Of course there were some skinned knees, but we had fun.
The mail carrier coming in the morning with our newspaper and other mail was very exciting in those days. It never came at the same time, we would watch out the windows for this big time. The mail carrier would drive a horse and buggy made a little special for bringing the mail. My “Mama” as I called my grandmother, started to teach me to by naming the letters in the headlines of the newspaper while I was very young. My grandfather, “Papa” as I called him, taught my to count from 1 to 100, and later by 5’s and then 10’s to 100. So by the time I was 5 I could say my ABC’s and count. I remember this was a very happy time in my childhood.
About this time another little brother was born to my mother and father. This now made four of us under the age of five. By now my sister Emma Lou, was at the farm with us a lot of the time, also. We had a good time together playing house with our dolls in the big old kitchen on the farm. We would go on to the porch in the winter time and knock on the kitchen door and visit and rock our dolls in the little rockers our father had made for us.
Sometime before I was five, my grandparents moved to a smaller house. It had a white picket fence, barn, smoke house and a coalhouse. This house had an upstairs, which is where we slept. In the winter it would be so cold up there without any heat. We would get as warm as we could by the wood fireplace and then race up the stairs to get in bed. The blankets and quilts were so many on our bed to keep us warm we could hardly turn over. Sometimes Aunt Flora would heat blankets by ironing and then wrap them up and put them into bed with us to help generate some warmth when we would first get into bed. We were fast asleep, cozy and warm in just a few minutes. We were all very happy, having the love of so many people around.
Then a very difficult thing happened in my life that would change all of our lives. My father was diagnosed with having tuberculosis and had to be isolated from the family. In those days there was no known cure for this disease. I have no idea how much time he was sick. I do remember the day some of the family came to tell us he had passed away, July 2, 1931. My youngest brother was just a baby. I was 5 years old in March of that year. I remember standing out by the car with mother and seeing tears in her eyes. I remember having a sad feeling and when I went back in the house….I can still see my baby brother sitting in the playpen with big brown eyes, and reddish brown curls. I really remember very little about my father except that he repaired a pair of shoes for me at our home in Henderson. My mother said he was a very handy man. My Dad had one of the first cars, a Ford and I have a special picture of him, standing beside it, that my mother gave to me and I treasure it very much. My grandfather did not have a car, only a horse and buggy, which I remember riding in a lot.
Life became very difficult form my mother and it touched all our family. At this point I need to make a great statement, “I believe the hand of God protected my mother from getting tuberculosis” and all four of us children never came down with it. My mother never told us this, but I am sure for many years she lived thinking some of us would have it too. I count this a miracle of God only. Two of my older half brothers and sister did contact it and died after my father died.
Mother could not stay in her home with four small children without any income. It was during the “Great Depression” days. There was not much money in our family. I can remember hearing some talk about someone advising her to put us in an orphans’ home and I know I didn’t understand exactly what that meant at that time, but again God was taking care of everything, so mother moved us into our Grandparents home. There were seven of us living in this little house. Truly, we had a house full, but our extended family intended to keep us together even though they didn’t know just how.
We were living in a small farm, my grandfather was the only provider but there was not much money. There were many ups and downs but God was always there to see us through it all. My mother rented our home in the small town o Henderson, to try to have some income to take care of us. I can remember the sad times when my Mother and Aunt Flora would drive to Henderson, 12 miles away in a horse and buggy to collect the small rent payment, only to return saying the people didn’t have the money to pay. This would happen for a few weeks, then when they would go to collect the rent, they would have moved away leaving no address or money for the time they lived in the house. Times were very difficult for most everyone. After this happened, many times, the house was auctioned for a small balance my father owed on materials he had bought while building the house and his funeral expenses. There was no money left for us.
The depression was so real to me. I remember being sad, mostly for my mother. I was born a very serious minded child and always thought much deeper than I should have. My sister once said when we were older that at age eleven I was as grown up as I was at age thirty. My sister and brothers remember none of these things, but it had a great impact on my life and their life too, only in a different way.
My grandfather was a very gentle and loving man to us all and was a very hard worker. We were never hungry or cold. He taught us all to work together to raise crops and garden for our livelihood. In the wintertime when he was around the house he would play some of the old time games with us. One was “ I Spy” whom we played with a thimble; another was “one potato, two potato”. He would hide our Easter eggs for us. He had a mischievous grin that we all loved. I never saw him angry. He was the next thing to a father as anyone could have been. He was getting up in years at that time. We had a great Mother, grandmother, grandfather and Aunt. They were all a great team working together to make things work for us to live together.
We had a Christian heritage. My grandmother was the spiritual leader in our home. She was a very learned and Godly lady. Every afternoon she would get us all together and have us sit around her. She would then get down her large black Bible and read to us. She would explain about the Bible characters and stories so we could understand their meaning. Later, as we grew older she had each of us take a turn and read a verse. She would use every opportunity to sit us down for a quite time like this. I learned about God early in my home. I praise God that we all had this teaching in our young life. I began early in life to read God’s word myself. A little New Testament was one of my earliest Christmas gifts. I can’t explain what a great impact this had on my life. I became a spiritual person much like my grandmother.
We didn’t get to go to church on Sunday very much because we lived several miles from our church. There was always a Bible School, however, in the summer for two weeks. Aunt Flora would drive us in the horse and buggy everyday to the Bible school. This was a real treat for us. We would pack our lunch and the children would have their classes our under the trees and eat our lunch there. The church stands today known as the Christadelphian Ecclesia Church on Airline road in Henderson County, Kentucky.
My Mama and Papa Miller had moved to Kentucky from Buncombe County, North Carolina, near Ashville, when my mother and Aunt Flora were very small children. They came to Kentucky because my Grandmothers father was a minister and he had come there earlier to establish the Christadelphian Church. My Grandmother’s only sister and her family moved to Kentucky also about the same time, as well. This was all family of my Grandmother. Papa Miller’s family remained in North Carolina. He had several brothers and sisters, I never new many of my relatives there. Every year Papa and Mama would visit in North Carolina by train or bus, and some of his family did come to see us in Kentucky. Once when I was about eleven, they took me on the trip with them. That was truly a great experience, never having been very far from my home before.
My grandmother was a very intelligent and educated lady, for her day. She and Papa were young during the Civil War. Mama was a great storyteller. She would tell us about their life in the mountains of North Carolina. I still have a mental picture in my mind living in those days. She reminisced about the beautiful springs of running water that kept their milk and butter cool in the warm weather. She had attended music classes when she was a young girl and could read music. She could sing and play the organ. My grandmother had very good taste in things. Although she did not have much, what she did have was very special. She had a beautiful mahogany organ, a Singer treadle sewing machine and a folding bed that I remember as a beautiful piece of furniture when folded up. She was a very fine seamstress having sewed my mother and aunts dresses, by hand, when they were young, before she was able to have the sewing machine. My grandmother told her stories so vividly as she had lived it. She made me feel life was very gracious, easy and charming. She taught us little songs and rhythms.
As I remember back to those days I can see what an important part each one of these family members played in my life.
At this time, my grandmother did most of the cooking for the family. My mother would keep the housework all well done. She was an immaculate housekeeper. I can see her now, always cleaning the porches every day and sweeping around the doors to keep it neat and clean. She did all the mending for our family by hand. She could patch the neatest of anyone I have ever seen. She had a lot of it to do for all our family. We didn’t have many clothes, mostly hand me downs from Mama’s sisters’ family. She always kept our clothes spotless and neatly folded for us to wear. I remember seeing her sewing a rip in our shoes late at night, and polishing our shoes. She worked so hard to take care of our personal needs. My Aunt Flora always did the shopping. She would drive the horse and buggy to a little country store about four miles away. Mother would give her a grocery list and Papa would give her some money. Our only money crop was tobacco or maybe a veal calf, or some eggs we would have extra to sell. Not many eggs, I am sure, for we always had bacon, eggs, biscuits and jelly for our breakfast. Occasionally we would have hot oatmeal. Sometimes I would ride to the grocery store with Aunt Flora. I can still remember that store so vividly with the big scales to weigh our purchase, large bags of dried beans etc. sitting around, and the shelves on the walls full of can goods. I can remember Aunt Flora buying 50 cents worth of dried beans, 25 cents worth of coffee and a 25-pound bag of flour. We had our own milk and butter from our cows, meat from our chickens and hogs that Papa raised. We had fried chicken, baked chicken, ham and bacon all year round. Each year in December we would have a “hog killing”. I was great fun, some of the neighbors would come in to help Papa, and we would have a big dinner. Then we would have fresh pork sausage, ribs and backbone. Oh it was so good! The men would trim the meat and cut off all the fat from the hams and shoulders. These scraps were cooked in big black kettles outside to make our lard for baking and frying. Then the fresh hams and shoulders were bedded down in a big wooden box in salt to cure. After a few weeks Papa would take the meat out and hang it up with wire to the rafters in the smokehouse. This would have to last us until the next winter. After a few days it was Aunt Flora’s job to smoke the meat. That would give it such a “yummy flavor”. She would take some of us with her and build a small fire in a pit and gently smoke the meat. We would spend 3 to 4 hours a day doing this for a week. We would get some smoke in our eyes, but cracks in this log building would allow some of the smoke to get out. She would draw us pictures, and make letters and number that we would try to copy as we passed time I remember we had a good time with Aunt Flora in the smokehouse. After this, the meat was put in large paper bags and fastened up until we were ready to cut some to fry. Sometimes Mother would bake a big ham with brown sugar a cracker crumbs on it. They were delicious.
Aunt Flora was the one who would take each of us with her to gather in the vegetables and fruits to can. Mother and Mama would prepare them for canning. I can still see the big old black-eyed pea patch as Mama taught us which ones were ready to gather. Then in the fall we would let some dry in the patch and would go out and gather them all and then tie and hang them in the trees to let the wind blow out the hulls. We had a garden, with green beans, lima beans, tomatoes and potatoes to gather for Mama and Mother to can. Then we had to break the beans and hull the butter beans for storage. Papa and the boys would usually dig the potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes and store on the shelves in the smokehouse to dry.
Papa had a big orchard of apple, peach and plum trees. He also had a large grape vineyard. It was Aunt Flora’s job with all of us helping to keep this all gathered so Mother and Mama could can. They would make all kinds of jelly and preserves that we would have to eat throughout the year. I can still remember the half-gallon Mason jars of grape juice that we would open in the winter to drink. It was so good. Aunt Flora would take us about 8:30 in the morning before it was real hot to gather blackberries. We would wear long sleeves, hats or bonnets to protect us from the sun. We would gather berries until about eleven o’clock and then we would head for the house for dinner. We would nearly always have some kind of fruit cobbler for dinner. I think the blackberry cobbler was our favorite. Aunt Flora taught us well because sometimes it was a big decision whether to put the big juicy berries in our bucket or in our mouth.
After picking berries we had to deal with the problem of scratching the chigger bites. When the rhubarb was ripe Mama was always the one to gather this and make a rhubarb pie. She also would like to take me to grapple the sweet potatoes to see if they were ready to eat. Later on in the winter we would have baked sweet potatoes with the skin on and butter, which was one of my very favorite foods. We also had gooseberry vines to gather berries from for pies and jellies. Papa loved to in the orchard and he would graft two different kinks of peach trees together and come up with another variety of peaches.
My Aunt flora loved the outdoors and animals. She taught us all to like the cows and horses. She would always have one horse she would call her own. We spent many hours with her in the barn brushing and currying the horses. She liked to ride horses and she would put one of us on at a time in front of her and take us for a ride. If she found a crippled bird or small animal she would take it home and nurse it back to health. This wasn’t Mother’s favorite thing she didn’t care about having those animals in the house. These two sisters were so different, yet they complimented each other. They were a great team and even though they would have their disagreements, they were always each other’s best friends. Mother and Aunt Flora both had musical talent and Aunt Flora had learned to play the organ by ear. Before I could reach the pedals on the organ, she would take me on her lap, teach me to play and sing. Mother had a nice soprano voice and Aunt Flora would sing alto.
Aunt Flora had a special gift of sewing and being able to look at a picture in an old Sears and Roebuck catalog and she would make us dresses, sometimes out of garments someone had given us. She could do a lot of things with her hands. She would embroider and make little yo-yo pillows from scraps for our beds, which were very decorative. I remember her taking crepe paper and making pretty red, pink and yellow roses from it with green leaves and stems. Mother would take them and arrange them in a little vase and place them in just the right spot to make them look pretty in our front room. Mother was always trying to make an old hat over, trimming the brim and adding a ribbon or some flowers. She also would take old coats and make pillows from them or cover the cushion of a chair.
My Mother, Grandmother and Aunt Flora were all like mothers to us. So it was like having three mothers. Each one was very versatile and had many talents. It was only as I grew older that I realized how much each one of them had given to us all. I don’t remember there being any dull moments around our house. Papa taught us to work out in the field with him very early. I can remember my little hoe he make for me to help him cut weeds out of the corn and garden and the first time he taught me to hoe around a tobacco plant that was beginning to grow. Oh, you had to be so careful not to cut it down. My brothers would cut one down and try to cover it up, Papa, however, had a sharp eye and he would give them a good talking. He was very patient with us however, if the boys needed some discipline he would gladly get down the razor strap.
God was so good to us all. We were very poor but we always had plenty to eat and was warm and loved a lot.
Our youngest half brother, “Cricket” was the only one of my father’s family who came to see us. I can remember how on a Sunday about noon we would see him riding his bicycle twelve miles to stay all day with us. He was about seventeen or eighteen. He would eat Sunday dinner with us and it was a good time for us all. Mother, Mama, Papa and Aunt Flora all loved him a lot. I think he lived with an older brother. His mother had passed away when he was young. We never knew many of our father’s family until we were much older. “Cricket” would always tell us about some of them. We all loved him a lot and he loved us as well. As he grew older he would bring some of the family with him to see us, however, we all lived so far apart we were never close to anyone except “Cricket”. I remember the first time he brought his girl friend over to introduce her to us. She was a sweet young girl and became part of the family as well. I think “Cricket” always felt very close to my Mother, Aunt Flora and grandparents. We may have been the only family he really knew well.
In December we would start early asking Papa when we would go out to cut the Christmas tree. Some of us would go with him and would come back with a nice cedar tree for us to decorate. It would smell so good and you really know it was Christmas time then. Aunt Flora would help us string some popcorn for the tree and crochet some little white angels to hang on it. Of course we always had icicles, plenty of them. We would hang our stockings for Santa to fill. There was always some fruit and candy in them. One of the first things I remember finding in my stocking on Christmas morning was a little China doll and a thimble. I started early learning to sew, about five years of age, with my Aunt Flora teaching me to piece a little quilt. The blocks were about two inches square.
We were all beginning to show a lot of musical talent so we would gather around the organ, with Aunt Flora playing, and sing some Christmas carols. Mama would get here big black Bible and read the Christmas story. I never remember having anyone else come for Christmas dinner except maybe Aunt flora’s beau. We would have some fresh shoulder that Mother would bake and some of the goodies we had canned such as sweet potatoes and yummy raisin pie. Mother would bake many things. We would have fruit salad, oranges and bananas, and upside down pineapple cake. It would taste so very good. I can still see the big oranges that we would have. We would also have some candy that she had stored away for us to have at Christmas. Today when I smell a fresh orange I always think of those Christmas nights when we sat around the fireplace and eat those goodies. We would play dominoes and checkers. We never had a lot of toys but there were always some little surprises. Little tin soldiers and a French harp for the boys. Emma Lou and I would have paper doll books and little scissors. We would get busy cutting out the clothes to dress up our dolls. We all had a very happy childhood and as I look back all our family lived there together. We shared with each other everything we did and had. It’s so unreal to think about the way things were then verses now, in our families. You can hardly believe it happened.
At age seven I started to school. Emma Lou was six. Mother wanted us to start together. We had to walk about a mile very early in the morning to ride the school bus. Every morning Aunt Flora walked with us to the bus stop and eery evening she was there waiting to walk us home. I read a little thought today that said, “It takes a whole lift to learn how to live.” I will admit that only as I have been writing these words down can I rally appreciate the love and dedication that Aunt Flora had for us. We all loved her dearly. She was a lot of fun and we all enjoyed being with her. She spent so much time with us. I think how she could have resented Mother coming back home with four small babies for her to have to help take care of but never did I see anything like that. She took us all under her wing and loved and took care of us.
For now this is all that Mom has written. My hope is that more will come later.
Mom became very ill a few years later and died in 2007, she was never able to write anymore, something she always wanted to do.
Updated: December 10, 2011