Memoirs
of
Alfonso Barrs,
Jr.
1939 to 20___
From
To
Jackson
©Copyrighted
by
Al Barrs, Jr.
Updated and
Revised
(NOTE: Dates are approximate
per my recollection, but within a short range of years. Al Barrs)
The Chronological Movement
of Al Barrs, Jr.
Written by aka
A. F. or Al Barrs ©March 11, 2005
1939: I
was born the
second child, but first son of Alfonso Barrs, Sr. and Evia Adetha
Bell-Barrs,
as Mom told it, "...Just as the sun was rising over the fields at
7:30AM
on March 11, 1939..." on the farm of Grandparents Oscar Marion Barrs
and
Bertha Lee Newman-Barrs and about two miles west of Grandparents
Wilford Franklin
Bell and Maude Annie Morgan-Bell in Lafayette County, Florida USA and
just
northeast of Day or Day Town as we called it. Day is located in
Lafayette
County Florida just west of the world famous
Day..."Daytown" as local folks know it, was a
small former cotton gin town located just west of the Suwannee River,
east of
San Pedro Bay and south of Madison Florida, which was about 20 miles
north of
Day. It is situated on the east banks of
I remember, at the end of tobacco harvesting season Dad would give we kids a dollar (one dollar) to spend in the dime store after we had finished the movie. That was a really happy time for we kids and finding just the right toys was a real struggle because we knew that was all we would get and had to stretch that dollar as far as possible. Likewise we would drool over the toys in the annual Sears and Roebuck Christmas catalog. On the other hand, when Dad didn’t need me to work on our tobacco, I would earn $3.00 per day cropping tobacco for relatives and neighbor farmers during the 8 week tobacco season. I was only allowed to spend this hard earned money for my coming year school clothing and shoes.
Sadly
In fact much of what was happening in that region
of
Quite a few of my uncles, aunts and cousins still
live in
and around Day and Lafayette County Florida. I am related to the
families of Barrs,
Bell, Newman, Morgan, Green, Grissman, Folsom, McCall, Strickland,
Driver,
Fielding and other families of Lafayette, Suwannee, Columbia, Madison
and
Taylor Counties of Florida and Brooks, Lowndes and other counties of
Georgia.
Most families in and around Day attended the
I remember the little white painted Baptist church
that
existed in Day during the 1930s and 1940s. I don't know when it was
built. I
recall during the early 1940s first seeing and attending the church
with my
parents when I was quite young. I remember that little church well
because it
was painted white when most other buildings and houses in and around
Day Town
were unpainted, as was our little board-on-baton house that Dad had
built for
his new bride and as was my Grandparents Barrs and Bell’s homes. The little church sat in the edge of the
Brewer Lake Hammock a little way south of the present
I don't remember when the new church was built,
but Dad
helped build the main church building. In fact the blocks were all made
by hand
right in Day too. Grandpa Bell helped
build the
1800s:
To digress
from my memoirs for a moment...many years before I was born in 1939 the Day Town Cotton Gin (See
picture) and a number of supporting businesses sprang up around the
shore
of the
The LOP&G Railroad connected Live Oak, Perry
and the Gulf
of Mexico coastal towns together for the first time since the Salt Road
of the
1850s. And, it connected to other railroads from
The first Barrs relatives to settle in
My
1840s:
What was left
of the Barrs family of Arthur Barrs moved to
Those remaining Barrs family members who we are
aware of
made the decision, after Arthur Barrs’ death, to move
"lock-stock-and-barrel,"
as the old saying goes, to southern
The other two Barrs daughters of G-G-G
Grandparents Arthur
and Nancy Barrs had married men in
John Barrs of Toft was born in 1678 and died in
1746 in Toft
Hamlet. John Barrs of Toft was married to Mary who was born in 1716 and
died in
1736. John Barrs of Toft left his strip farms and other holdings to his
youngest son (which was against English custom of the oldest male
inheriting
the father's holdings. We believe there was a dispute in the church
among the
Barrs family which resulted in the oldest son changed his church
affiliation
and John Barrs (1727) stayed in his parent's church in
John Barrs, Sr. and Sarah Spears had at least
seven
daughters before their first son John Barrs, Jr. was born around 1758
in Dobbs
County North Carolina. To my knowledge all these Barrs sisters married
We believe John Barrs, Sr. and Sarah Spears-Barrs
probably
had other sons and we also believe one or more may have settled in or
near
Orangeburg South
Briefly, John Barrs of Toft's parents were Thomas,
born
1870s:
The North
Carolina Barrs families, scattered out by the 1870s following the War
Between
the States, in south-central
Parmelia, also known as "Amelia" lived until the later 1950s and told her grandchildren that the family had floated their belongings down the Withlacoochee River just east of their home in The Nankin District of Brooks County Georgia to the Suwannee River, down the Suwannee River to the Santa Fe River and up the Santa Fe River to the confines of the Ichetucknee River, then traveled overland by horse and wagon to where Francis Marion and John Wesley Barrs had proceeded them the year before to build a house and clear farmland.
Parmelia Barrs married John Gilley of Suwannee
County Florida
and they are buried in the Santa Fe Baptist Cemetery north just off
US27 in
Hildreth Florida on the Columbia and Suwannee County lines. John Wesley
Barrs,
his wife and a daughter are buried in this old
Barrs farmers in
1880s:
Great
Grandparents Isaac Newton "Newt" and Mary Elizabeth Boyet-Barrs moved
to
By all accounts Grandpa Isaac Newton's General
Store was a
very prosperous venture in
Another pioneer boarding house still stands today, but sadly it is just a shell of its past. (See picture) Last time my wife and I were in Day we took pictures of The old place and it appears the owner is in the process of renovating this old Day landmark. I will print and frame a picture and present it to the owner so it can be displayed inside when we go over this year for the Isaac Newton Family Reunion.
The Day House Hotel, once owned by Great Grandfather Isaac Newton Barrs, was operated by his sister-in-law Elizabeth Boyet-Rogers and Great Grandmother Mary Elizabeth Boyet-Barrs. Elizabeth Boyet-Rogers was an older sister of Mary Elizabeth Boyet-Barrs.
All of Isaac and Elizabeth Barrs children were
born in
NOTE: Great Grandfather Isaac Newton Barrs, in addition to having
built and
operated a General Store in
1940s: Grandpa
Wilford Bell worked for a short time for the railroad. The track ran
between
Grandpa Bell’s farm and Uncle Richard Bell’s farm. Uncle Richard’s son
Doyle
Bell still owns both farms today (2005). As a boy I once rode on the
LOP&G
with Grandma Maude Bell. Grandma Bell and I rode the train when she was
taking
me back home to
My cousins and I spent many Sunday afternoons
playing on the
tracks and trestle across Four Mile Creek since the track ran between
Grandpa
Bell and Uncle Richard Bell's farms. The locomotive was steam in the
early
years and was coal fired. We kids would pick up the lost coal lumps and
take
them home to burn in our fireplace. The tracks also ran along the
eastern
boundaries of Aunt Orlee Morgan-Parker's farm where we lived and farmed
for a
number of years. The old
I remember in the summer time we loaded
watermelons into
boxcars on a rail siding just across the dirt road from the Day Depot
and
across the dirt road from the
1900s:
Grandpa Oscar
Barrs married Bertha Lee Newman (Born 1885 in Suwannee County Florida)
in 1899
according to Mom's family history writings (See document of Adetha
Barrs).
In 1905 Grandpa Oscar Barrs bought 80+ acres of land* in
1930s: As far back and I can remember Dad was called 'Fonso'. Dad had built a small two bedroom (4 rooms) board-on-batten house with a full porch across the front just a couple of hundred yards north of Grandparent's Oscar and Bertha Barrs' large two-story wood frame house, which had been built on the highest hill on Oscar's 80-acre farm (See house layout drawing).
Neither house was ever painted. And, the yards were swept clean of any weeds or grass...only snow white sand was visible along with the many brilliantly flowering plants that Grandma Bertha planted. Mom was never an 'outside' person. She preferred instead to be a housewife. Around each of our homes and courtyards picket fencing stood to keep out free roaming livestock and wild animals. Like every other farmer in those days the Barrs farmed using horses and mules. Their primary cash crop was cigarette tobacco and cotton. Dad finally stopped growing cotton before I was big enough to work in the fields because of the backbreaking choir of hand gathering. Instead he mostly grew cigarette tobacco as our primary 'cash' crop. We also raised chickens, milk cows, hogs and beef cattle as well as Peanuts, Corn and other crops.
See Appendix A for Barrs family tree with dates of births, marriages and deaths.
* Legal description of Grandpa
Oscar Barrs'
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1900s:
Grandpa Oscar
Barrs, in addition to farming and running a general store and livery
stable,
also served at least one term as a Lafayette County Commissioner. And,
Great
Grandpa Isaac Barrs was a founding member of the Masonic Lodge in
Most families were essentially self-sufficient in
those days
(Both in
We also used homebuilt chicken wire “traps” to
catch catfish
in the
Apparently annual trips to the
Most families had 'smoke houses' too where pork was cured by slow burning dry Oak wood. "Hog killing" took place like clock work in the early winter when it was cool enough to keep away flies and keep the meat from spoiling until it could be put into the smoke house, made into 'Cracklings' or taken to Mayo and put into a “cold storage” facility.
Sausage would be made from the hog's small intestines...I remember seeing Grandma Maude Bell spend many hours sitting a straight back cane seat chair cleaning the hog intestines over and over with warm water.
During 'hog killing' the adults would trim the fat and cut it into small squares then put it into large cast iron pots over a wood fire to cook down and produce 'Lard' and 'cracklings' that we kids loved to eat...and often got sick from eating to much to late at night. Cracklings were a lot like today's pigskins but more potent. To many would give you dysentery because there was always some grease left in them even when dried on cheesecloth. They were used in cooking Cornbread. Into the smoke house would go link sausage, bacon, ham and shoulders to be smoked over slow burning oak.
Dad and I would go into old farm fields to collect 'Bear Grass' which he used to tie the meat to tobacco sticks that would be hung over the Oak fire in our 'Smoke House.' Bear Grass was an elongated leave that came out of the base of the plant at the ground and was about two feet long by one inch wide. It was really tough and could be torn into half inch widths, slipped through a slot cut into a ham, bacon side or shoulder and tied into a knot to leave a loop that was slipped over a one inch square tobacco stick (made to string green tobacco leaves with twine before hanging in a tobacco barn and curing with flu heat.) Unlike wire, it didn't rust or corrode and unlike string it didn't rot. Link sausage would simply be draped over tobacco sticks to cure. Once cured the meat could hang in the smoke house all year without spoiling, but it would get mould on it. Mom would simply wash it in soapy water before slicing and cooking. I guess that's how we got our Penicillin...
And, it left a distinct but pleasantly different taste in the meat.
We also had 'Cane Grindings' or 'Syrup Making' activities each year when the cane was harvested, run through roller presses to extract the cane juice (sap) and was subsequently “cooked down” into 'Cane Syrup.' A horse, mule, or a small tractor, which its steering wheel had been tied so that it circled the grinder on a long pole, would mechanically operate the cane grinder. During cane grinding season our school bus driver, Uncle T. L. Morgan (Grandma Maude Bell's brother), would stop on the way from school and all we kids would pile out to drink cane juice. I would also get a section of cane to cut into bite size segments using our Barlow pocket knife and chew later.
1940: Mom told me that at age 6-months I contracted "Double Pneumonia and Whooping Cough at the same time." She said that the doctor gave me up for dead. But for some unknown reason God saw to it that I recovered completely and He let me live. And, here I am sixty-five odd years later (2005) healthy and sitting here at my computer, retired on my own farm in Jackson County Florida, looking out over our Pecan orchard and garden while watching the Bluebirds building their nests in the boxes I designed and built some 8 years ago after returning to our farm after I had retired from a long business career. It will be fall again soon and time to determine what I will plant in my fall garden. I have tried to have a spring and fall garden ever since I retired in February of 1997.
Like my Ninth Cousin Once Removed Tony Barrs of
Murthly
My wife, Sue (Priscilla Lee Jones-Barrs) and I bought our farm and in 1982(101-1/2 acres of prime farmland) while I was the Director at the local community college and area vocational school in Marianna Florida.
We bought the farm so that we would have someplace to live when I retired and so that we could stay in shape and extend our lives together and enjoy our children and grand children for as long as God blesses us and allowed us to live.
,I guess you can take the boy out of the farm but never the farm out of the boy as the old saying goes. I always had, for some unknown reason, an urge to own my own farm. Now that I have discovered that our ancestors all owned farms for hundreds of years I guess I know now why I had that feeling.
Dad was the only recent Barrs in my direct family line who never owned his own farm. I have wished many times in the past and wondered why Grandma Bertha Barrs did not give Grandpa Oscar's farm to Dad, since we already lived in the house dad had built on his Dad’s farm. I know Dad would have taken care of Grandma for the rest of her life and I don't know why Grandma made the decision to sell when she did or if she consulted with Dad about selling it. I know Dad built her retirement home and helped her financially until his death in 1960 anyway. It just seems like such a unfortunate act.
Grandpa Oscar Barrs died in 1940 when I was one
year old.
Several years after Grandpa Oscar had died Grandma Bertha Barrs made
her
decision to sell the farm. She sold it
to a Mr. Driver. His family still owns
it today. They still refer to our little
home place, on which today only stands the old barn that Dad built, the
"
She still had Grandpa Oscar Barrs' old "Long Tom" 12-gauge shotgun. It was the longest barrel I had aver seen as a boy...36-inches long and Grandma Bertha would shoot every squirrel that had the nerve to venture out of the Brewer Lake Hammock into her Pecan tree in the back yard. She was only about five feet tall herself. Grandma Bertha loved Squirrel legs and she would cook small freshwater perch to a consistency that you could eat meat bone and tail.
Dad and my first cousin Tommy Fielding, who was (Dad’s older sister) Aunt Ethel Barrs-Fielding's oldest son, tore down the old house and used the materials to build Grandma a new one-story house on the east most lot she owned. The new house was very much like the house Dad had built for us on Grandpa Barrs' farm...board on batten but faced the road differently.
On the west lot Grandma had her chicken pen and
coop. The
property was located on the northwest side of Day,
I helped Dad and Tommy on Grandma's new house best
that I
could but was just a child then. I remember Dad giving me the job of
chipping
cement off the old chimney bricks so Dad and Tommy could re-build
Grandma a smaller
fireplace. Grandma got a job at the
My very first memories were of our little farm,
today called
the "
I am told that Dad went up into
Dad farmed using mules and horses for power during
the day
and drove the school bus for Lafayette County Florida's
I remember our little house well. It was build up off the ground, had a fenced in court yard and white sand yards. The house faced south where a two-lane dirt road ran in front from the west and dead-ended into what is now FL SR53. The road turned south just past our house and ran up to Grandpa and Grandma Barrs' two story wood frame house up on the hill, then it wound to the east through Grandpa’ fields and through the pine and oak woods eventually winding around Grandpa Bell’s farm and then turned north right in front of Grandpa and Grandma Barrs' house toward Four Mile Creek where we later lived. Our little house was a 4-room wooden house with two-bedrooms made of 2x4 studs and had rough board-n-batten siding, which was never painted. There was a large front porch running completely across the south side of the house.
The main entry or “front door” to our little board-on-baton house was on the south side into the living room, which had a fireplace on the east side. From the living room there was a hall in the northwest corner of the living room. On the northeast side of the house was the combination kitchen and dinning room. A turn left out of the living room down the hall would take you to two bedrooms, one on either side of the hallway. The front or southwest side bedroom was Mom and Dad's and the one in the northwest corner of the house was my sister, Evia Loye, and my bedroom. Evia Loye was 18-month older than I and was the oldest child.
The hog-wire fenced courtyard, in addition to our
house, had
a barn situated directly north of the house with two covered stalls on
either
side, one on the west and one on the east. And, since there was no
electricity
in that part of
Dad had done the same thing to Pop's Camp (Family
hunting
and fishing camp) down on the
I don't remember Pop's surname, but he was kin to the family and lived in Mayo. I believe he was a Folsom. He was a very large man and would sit in a chair by his car on a deer stand when we were hunting Deer with dogs with his trusty double barrel 12-gauge shotgun across his lap. As I remember he was a very jovial fellow, respected and liked by everyone.
When Grandma Bertha Barrs sold their farm after
Grandpa
Oscar Barrs' death we also moved to Day Town and rented a house on the
east
side of SR53, which had just been paved, directly across the highway
from Dad's
first cousin Julius Barrs and his family and just north of Julius's
service
station located on the east side of SR-53.
It was at this point that the great World War 2 became obvious
to
me. Evia Loye and I were attending
Dad volunteered for the U. S. Merchant Marines, but was released during basic training when the doctors learned he had a serious medical problem. I never knew what that problem was until he passed away in 1960 at age 43. He had severe Arterial Scleroses or hardening of the arteries, but had never told any of us about his high cholesterol level. However, in those days not much was known about the adverse effects from high cholesterol levels.
Dad wasn't one to complain and didn't visit a doctor very often either. At the time of Dad's sudden death in 1960, two days after his 43rd birthday, was the greatest surprise and shock of my entire life. Even Mom's death in 1997 didn't impact me as much as Dad's so sudden death at such an early age. But, life must go on…
After Dad was turned down for military service
because of
medical problems and retuning to the family in
Dad eventually moved the family to
While we were living just off the old St.
Augustine Road I
suffered a severe blow to the forehead from a baseball bat swung by a
neighbor
girl twice my size and age. We were playing ball in the dirt road near
our
house at dusk and I apparently ran behind the girl who was up at bat
when she
took a hard swing at the ball and missed it, but not me.
I wound up in the hospital and either my hard
head protected me or God again let me live for the second time in my
young
life. While I was in bed at home Dad
bought me my first model airplane kit and that set me on a dream to
fly, which
I finally achieved in the 1960s. I also took up kite and model airplane
building at an early age after we moved back to
I also remember, I have loved eating bananas all my life and while living in Tallahassee Dad had loaded his truck with nothing but bananas in the afternoon and stopped at the house to spend the night before making his delivery to a military base. He knew how much I loved to eat bananas, so he took me out to the back of the truck, opened both doors and told me to have at them.
When I looked into the trailer I saw nothing but hanging banana stalks all colors of ripening from green to bright yellow. I ate and ate, and ate until I didn't want another banana...for at least a while. I still love bananas and banana pudding.
I remember Dad owning a blue Chevrolet sedan that I believe was about a 1936 model. He loved that old car. I remember him polishing it at the house on the Old St. Augustine road. I believe it was the first car he had owned.
It was during this period of our lives in
Dad hit the truck's brakes and swerved to the right to miss the stalled car. The truck hit some large rocks or boulders on the shoulder of the highway and the truck and trailer almost turned over. Mom was thrown out the door. I suppose we are luck the trailer was empty. Evia Loye was fortunately not hurt. I was flung against the dashboard as I slept and received a severe cut at the edge of one eye and an injury to my neck. Mom was flung completely out of the truck and was laying unconscious right beside the right back dual-wheel assembly. If the truck had tipped over it would have crushed her to death. In fact Dad said later that when he picked her up he thought she was dead because she was unconscious. A passerby stopped and went to call the highway patrol and an ambulance. While Dad was waiting he said that he got his pistol out of the glove compartment of the truck and went looking for the driver of the car. The highway patrol and sheriffs officers arrived and surrounded the wooded area in which the driver had run into. Later we learned that the driver of the car was drunk and had fled on foot into the nearby woods after the accident. The sheriff and highway patrol surrounding the woods and caught him the next day. A Greyhound bus stopped and the driver gave us first aid until help arrived. Later we learned that I had almost had my neck broken, which lead later to a nervous breakdown when I was 6-years old and in the 1st grade. I was diagnosed with a pinched nerve or spinal cord in my neck and received physical therapy every day for over a year. Because I missed so much school my first year Dad and Mom decided to enroll me in the first grade again the following year and after we had moved back to Lafayette County Florida on the farm of Great Aunt Orilee.
Aunt Orlee was a sister of Grandma Maude Bell. Aunt Orlee's husband was Uncle Fred P. Parker. Uncle Fred had served in the Florida House of Representatives and Senate. He also served as President of the Florida Senate, owned the Oldsmobile Dealership in Mayo and several farms including the one we lived on at Four Mile Creek. It was located on the Four Mile Creek just a couple miles north of Grandpa and Grandma Bell's farm. There were two small cypress ponds on the farm too.
For the third time God had let me live...for what reason I am still wondering. I finally got over my neck injury, but Mom never quite got over her severe back injury. She passed away in February of 1998.
Shortly after we had moved back to
1945: I
began
elementary school in
I remember Dad taking me downtown Tallahassee in I
believe
late 1945 and the latter months of the Second World War to view a
captured
Japanese miniature sub that had been captured and put on a trailer to
raise war
bonds. The military was making a tour
around the
I believe this submarine is probably the one we
occasionally
see on televised documentaries of the
I also remember Dad and Mom taking us to our first
carnival
in
My first brother, Marion LaVern Barrs, was born
while we
lived in
Aunt Orilee was Mom's aunt. Mom's Mother, Anne Maude Morgan-Bell's sister, Orilee Morgan-Parker had been married to Uncle Fred P. Parker until his death in the 1930. Uncle Fred also owned the Oldsmobile Dealership in Mayo. They lived in a big white house in Mayo.
1946: On
Aunt Orle's
farm had on it a vacated wooden
We didn't have electrical power in the house for
several
years, but eventually the rural electric cooperative was formed and
they put a
power line through our part of
I remember our routine in the winter well...Dad would get up early in the morning, and get a fire going before Mom and we kids got up and ran to the fire to stay warm. Another choir I had was to cut fat-lighter from old pitch laden pine stumps for starting fires and split oak for the fireplace. We kids didn't like leaving our warm beds with their thick homemade quilts stacked on us for the cold wooden floors, but that was life in the 1940 and 50s in rural Lafayette County Florida.
Even in the coldest winters when we would occasionally get a little snow we were happy. In fact we thought we were well off because many sharecrop farming families lived in less comfortable houses. In fact I thought we were well off until someone told me that we were poor. We had everything we needed I thought and that was good enough for me. Still is…
We also had to haul, saw and chop our own kindling and wood for the fireplace. We always had a woodpile out back of the house. We used pitch laden pine stump-wood for kindling, since it contained a high level of sap or turpentine resin and would light easily. Then hardwood, usually Oak, was used to produce the heat for warning the house and us.
Our house (The old Four Mile Creek school house) backed up to the hammock that Four Mile Creek ran through. This gave me and my cousins someplace to explore and play when Dad or Mom didn't have me doing chores or working for a relative on their farm.
We had two sand bottom
I remember the flood of 1948. Dad had to build
Grandma
Bertha a walkway from her front porch to dry ground because the waters
of
I remember SR53 had about 3 to 4-inches of water
over it but
we could drive to the farm. All wasn't bad however. Dad and I went to
the
I would hunt old fallen pine trees and peel the
bark off
with an old screwdriver to find 'Sawyers' (A white grub or larva.) put
them
into a discarded Prince Albert tobacco can, which was made of metal,
for fish
bait. The reason these grubs were called
Sawyers, was that you could hear them inside the tree bark sawing away
with
their front pincers. Barefooted and with
only a pair of denim overalls on I would get my cane pole and head off
to one of
the
How I waded and fished was to put my bait container in my overall bid pocket to keep it out of the water and wade out on the sand bottom lake to about chest deep, hook on a Sawyer and cork and throw out. Once I caught a really large Mudfish. When I got it in I grabbed it and was almost drowned by the splashing water from the fish, but I wouldn't let go. Of course we didn't eat Mudfish. Dumb move, but I had to save my hook and line!
Several miles to the north of our farm ran another
larger
creek called The Mill Creek, which issued from an underground spring,
which we
called Iron Springs, located to the southwest of SR 53. Two branches of
the
Mill Creek ran under
After spending all day in a hot field gathering
tobacco
during the summer months and when we occasionally finished early Dad
would load
the whole crew on our truck and take us up to the Mill Creek "Moonshine
Hole" between SR 53 and the
Mostly we bathed in Mom's rinse water where she had washed and rinsed our clothes, or we would go down to the lake or creek behind our house to bath. Uncle J. P. Morgan, Grandma Bell's brother, stayed with us one year and helped out on the farm. He taught me how to take a wood shingle along to put our soap on so it wouldn't sink. Mostly we used homemade lye soap Mom and Grandma Bell had made during 'Hog Killing' the previous winter.
Uncle J. P. Morgan once bought a bar of Ivory soap that would float and I thought that was really an innovative idea. The homemade lye soap was so strong that it would leave your skin red and it wouldn't float either. Give me Ivory…
We had an outdoor "two-holer" outhouse that backed up to the creek hammock. It was about seventy-five yards from our house. Luckily we received a Sears & Roebuck mail order catalog every year and could recycle the old one by using it for toilet paper. The content pages, which were thin yellow pages, were coveted for their softness. The catalog gave we kids something to look at while doing our business. When the catalog ran out we sometime resorted to Corncobs. I was told a joke about that. Some varieties of Corn have red cobs and some have white. "Why do you have white and red Corn cobs in the outhouse?" Don't know I said? "You use the red ones first and then a white one to see if you need more red ones." Author unknown...thank goodness! In a pinch we used lots of Spanish moss.
On occasion a
I don't remember them calling during the day but at night, in their travels searching for a mate, they would make calls that sounded a lot like a woman's scream. Of course we kids didn't want to go outside at night when we could hear them calling.
And, after a while the "Panthers" didn't deter my
cousin, Charles Bell, who I called 'Bubba,' and I from camping out at
night in
the hammock behind the house or down by one of the ponds.
Of course we always had a .22 rifle or
12-gauge shotgun so we could shoot rabbits, dove and squirrel for camp
food. We had lots of fun camping and
searching for arrowheads too. Many Native Americans or Indians lived
and hunted
up and down the
We did like to go out into our white sand yard and catch fire-flies during the summer nights though. I would also sneak up on “Mosquito Hawks” and catch them by the tail.
It was while living at Four Mile Creek that Dad
and a
next-door farmer neighbor went over to Uncle T. L. Morgan's (Another
brother of
Grandma Bell and a brother of Uncle J. P. Morgan.) place during a light
rain
and caught a 14-3/4 lb. Black Bass in
Late in the school year Dad would come to school
in his car
and pick me up so I could hoe crops and do other farm chores before
nightfall
came. The Morgan family still own and live on their Dad's old farm, but
sadly
It was while living on Four Mile Creek Farm that I first learned to ride a bicycle. I picked up 'trash' tobacco and Dad sold it in Live Oak along with our cash tobacco crop. We took the money we received from the trash tobacco and went to the Western Auto Store in Live Oak that same day and bough a Western Flyer bicycle. I believe it was a red one.
I learned to ride on the sand road running on the north and east side of our house and boy was it tough riding, but probably fortunate because of the tumbles I took trying to keep my balance. Eventually I learned how to ride and would ride the bike into the woods every day looking for our milk cows.
In those days
I would take off walking each afternoon, if I didn't ride my bike, after I got home from school searching for our milk cows and calves in the woods between our farm and Grandpa Bell's farm, and Grandpa Barrs' old farm place. Usually they would feed southwest of our farm between our place and Grand pa and Grandma Bell's farm and Grandpa Barrs' old place. Many times I would only faintly hear the bell tingling around the old lead cow's neck just before dusk.
Often by the time I found them it would be getting
late and
I would be completely lost. However,
once I circled them and got them moving they would head right back
toward the
farm and the pen. I guess the same
routine every day had trained and conditioned them to go home when I
found
them. I, being the oldest son, got the honor of milking one or two cows
every
morning before the school bus arrived to pick us up.
Mostly we had
Summer milking wasn't to bad, but those cold winter mornings were impressive. During the cow's foray through the woods and fields they would pick up 'cockleburs' in their tail hairs. During the early morning the cow's tail hairs would become wet from the frost and dew on the plants. The dew would also become wet and cold, and sometime frozen. The old milk cows had a habit of flicking away flies with their tail and if you got in the way you got clobbered with that cold wet tail loaded with cockleburs. Ouch!
I never did get the hang of milking with two hands thought. I had to hold the container, which was usually a metal pot with a handle, with my left hand and milk with my right hand. But, the fresh milk and thick rich cream was worth the trouble. Homemade cane syrup, fresh biscuits or 'Hoecakes,' fresh cream, smoked bacon or ham out of our smokehouse and fresh milk from Mom’s chickens was a typical farm breakfast. If not syrup and biscuits we had fresh eggs, grits and smoked ham or sausage.
Another first cousin, Tommy Fielding, and I build numerous bike paths though the Oak ridges around our farm so we could ride our bikes someplace hard instead of on the soft sand roads motor vehicles used.
Occasionally our bike tire would skid on leaves or pine straw and send us tumbling through the Oaks trees...luckily we were never hurt badly, which is something I can't say for the bicycle. It seems I was constantly repairing or overhauling my bike.
Working on my bike and our farm tractors and farming implements was where I first learned that I had some pretty good mechanical skills and ability. I would take things apart to just see how they worked and put them back together again for the fun of it.
Later, after I married and had children my three daughters (Debbie Lee, Susan Elaine and Terri Ann) thought I could fix anything of theirs that stopped working and most of the time I could and did. Tommy Fielding was the best innovative cousin I had. He could take an old car engine and transmission apart and use the gears and scrap boards to make toy cars and trucks that we would tie tobacco string to and play in the woods where we would clear out a maze of roads. We would make roads all over the woods for these homemade cars, trucks and tractors. Many hours were spent playing with Tommy and his spare parts vehicles.
I also learned how to take an old bicycle rim and roll it along with a stick. I also wore out many old discarded tires by rolling them down the road and around the farm. It was during this time that I also learned how to make really large high fly kites. Our next-door farm neighbor's son was an accountant or bookkeeper at a nearby state correctional institution. They took a parolee in to live with them and work on their farm. He taught we kids how to make a really great kite using 3 sticks, some paper, flour glue and tobacco string. Luckily for me a friend of Dad's who had stayed with our family for a while and who owned a soft drink bottling plant in Mayo had lots of large metal signs made. Between each sign was a large sheet of heavy waxed paper about 4-ft by 6-ft.
Using this heavy waxed paper I was able to make really large kites from 'Dogfinel' and one sheet of waxed paper. I would use tobacco string and flour glue to construct my kites, make tails of old rags and fly them so high they were barely visible. I realized that once you get them way up in the sky you could tie the string to a fence post and let it fly over night. When they finally came down there would be a mile or more of tobacco string strung out across the fields.
And, I would have to roll all that tobacco twine up on a stick. I also got into building model airplanes during this period of my life.
Since I worked on our farm and kin folks farms during the summer my parents expected me to buy my own cloths and shoes for school. That took most of my summer earnings. From the first grade onward I bought all of my own clothes and shoes. Dad didn't pay us for working on our farm, but kinfolk and neighbors did...usually about $3.00 a day to crop tobacco. During the school year I would look for other ways to earn money since there was no tobacco to be harvested until the summer months. I became a little entrepreneur.
I became what I would learn later...a young
entrepreneurial.
First, I found several advertisements in comic (we called them 'funny
books')
books for selling vegetable and flower seed to win gifts or better I
thought, a
percentage of the money from sales.
Then, I found an advertisement for the 'Grit Newspaper.' Since the only newspaper in the county, the
Mayo Free Press only came out once a week the 'Grit Newspaper' business
could
became a pretty lucrative business for a young entrepreneur. The 'Grit' only came out once a month. I would sell many by placing them in the few
stores in
Using this income source I began ordering model airplane kits and gasoline engines. Mom was really patient with me. She wouldn't complain when I took over the dinner table to lay out the plans, cut out the balsa wood parts and glue them together. I started out making hand controlled models but soon got into free-flight models. Having no radio control in those days, I would offset the rudder so that the airplanes would climb in a large circle over the pastures and glide back down when the fuel ran out.
Many days I would lie in the grass in a field watching my creations soar upward and back to earth wondering what it would be like to be up there flying myself. During the 1950s I also watched as the large U. S. Air Force B-36 Super Fortress bombers flew high over overhead making contrails in the blue sky. Eventually I got into building wire controlled model airplanes. It was at this time that I decided that I wanted to fly real airplanes.
These control-line model airplanes would fly
around in
circles using two wires attached to a handle so you could maneuver the
airplane. Eventually and after I married I lost interest in airplane
modeling
after getting a job building models for a display company in DeLand
1952: Share cropping being what it always had been...not very rewarding financially... Dad eventually looked for employment off the farm. We always had plenty to eat and other essentials of life while on the farm, but that was about all. Nothing was ever left over after harvest to put into a savings account or buy something that was just nice to have. Farm life was basic living at best.
Aunt Orilee eventually sold her farm to a Mr.
Goolsby of
Later Mr. Goolsby traded his C-170 in for a Cessna 195, which had a radial engine. My first flight was in the Cessna 170. Mr. Goolsby took several of us up after a day of cropping tobacco. I remember the day well. That first airplane ride was something I remember well and will never forget. It was an overcast day and we flew just below the clouds. I remember my amazement that the clouds were so low and even more amazed that everything on the ground looked like toys.
There were low cumulus clouds and we flew just
under them
and through several smaller ones. I
couldn't get over how everything on the ground looked so small and how
orderly
all the fields looked from the sky. Everything comes to an end though.
Mr.
Goolsby sold his farms in
Eventually Dad took a job with Mr. Hutch Gibson's
timber
company and saw mill in Perry Florida and was eventually asked to move
to
central