|
a.
|
Note: 1. According to Susie Denes, Alice Embree Davis was the "manager" of the family and ran a tight ship financially. Before her marriage she had owned a millinary shop in Hannibal, MO. In fact, she was setting up a window when Frank Davis sauntered by, went in the store and met her. She kept a washtub under her bed full of silver dollars which she earned with her egg money, and later cream. She made her own lard for biscuits and pie crust. Every summer she made apple butter outside in a copper-lined iron pot. Her granddaughter, Fay Davis, remembers getting a silver dollar each year in her stocking for Christmas. She also remembers the damson plum preserves (which, when Fay told this story, she said she could still taste those plum preserves). Alice had a huge Bible where she had recorded all she knew about the family. Unfortunately, Frank and Alice had a terrible fire, and just barely escaped with their lives -- and there went the Bible. The original house was one story, painted with white, with a veranda across the front. There were three bedrooms and a large living room, only used when company came, a large dining room which also contained a folding bed in an oak casing, the iron heating stove for winter, and the telephone. There was a screened in porch on one side of the house next to the kitchen, and that's where they ate in the summer time. The kitchen had the cookstove with a reservoir for hot water, and the cream separator. They had no electricity -- just coal oil lamps. There was a large pantry off the kitchen which had the cupboard which had two large deep drawers under it with metal curved bottoms that held the 100# of flour and sugar. Alice sold the cream and the eggs at Middle Grove Market nearby and bought supplies such as canned salmon, canned oysters and coffee. With the insurance for the house, Alice and Frank built a modern five room brick house with a nice basement, which they lived in while the house was being built. They never moved upstairs. Fay Davis, their granddaughter was born in the old white farm house on the dining room table. Frank delivered her. Frank was very slender and Alice was very fat. 2. She died of stomach cancer.
SOURCES INCLUDE: Correspondence (Mar., 2000) with Susan Denes (rdenes@comcast.net).
|
