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Note: 1880 United States Census Search results | Download Previous Individual Next Individual Taluler A. GARRISON Household Female Other Information: Birth Year <1866> Birthplace GA Age 14 Occupation Marital Status S <Single> Race W <White> Head of Household John E. GARRISON Relation Dau <Daughter> Father's Birthplace GA Mother's Birthplace GA Source Information: Census Place District 455, Jackson, Georgia Talula Rouse is buried in the Slade Cemetary, Lamar County, Ms. A Real Pioneer Woman My Grandmother was Talulah Ann Garrison Rouse. She was born 24 February 1866 in Athens, Georgia, and she died in 1955 in Lamar County, Mississippi. I remember my Grandmother this way. When I was eight years old, in the summer of 1941, I was staying with my Grandmother and Granddaddy Chalmers Hezrkiah Rouse on their farm. My first morning there, my Grandmother woke me at three thirty in the morning, and told me that I was to carry the lantern and buckets for her so that she could milk her cows. It was open range in those days. Her cows could wander around looking for the best grass during the day. When evening came the cow would come and stand outside the fence near the house. They would spend the night there. They felt protected at night by being near us humans. If the cows did not start home before night fall, my Grandmother would send me looking for them. Sometimes the cows would find some really good grass and would complain a little about leaving it, but eventually they would mosey on home. The cows did not have or need a barn as the weather was usually good in Mississippi in those days. I would carry the lantern and milk buckets for Grandmother to the back of the farm where Grandmother would milk three of her cows. After the cows were milked, on the way back to the house we would let the chickens out of the chicken coop and scatter a bait of corn from the corn crib around the chicken yard, and collect the eggs. We walked on past the smoke house and the Bee hives to the farmhouse. Grandmother would start the wood stove, and cook her standard breakfast of eggs, pork sidemeat. biscuits, and cornbread with butter. I would have a glass of milk and Grandmother and Granddaddy would have coffee. After breakfast it was my job to churn the butter. The butter was kept in the pantry, which was kept dark all day to preserve the milk and butter, because there was no electricity on the farm for refrigeration. Grandmother Rouse would cook a big noontime meal every day, which we called dinner, and the leftovers for our evening meal, which we called supper. We had plenty of leftovers after our evening meal. My last jobs for the day was to feed the pigs the leftovers. My first experience of me feeding the pigs was a lesson in greed. The big old hog would see me coming and he would push the sows into a corner away from the trough, and then the big old hog would run to the trough, and try to eat as much as he could before the sows could get there. That bothered me, and I told my Grandmother. Her answer to that problem was that you can't stop that Hog with a stick. I would then put the chickens in the chicken coop for the night, and made sure the cows were coming home. I would wash my feet with lye soap on the back porch near the well, and Granmother would tuck me into bed as the sun was setting. We would repeat this every day of the week. Grandmother had a system that was almost self sufficient. She was truly a pioneer woman.
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