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Note: !NOTES #32, 41 !BURIED: Walnut Grove Cemetery
!DIED: Springfield Hospital
!PHOTOS, pg 136: Sim Evans family; home & barn of Sim & Sallie Evans; Sim Evans family--Earl, Sim holding Nellie & Audie, SAllie, Iva, Ersell & Tema; Tema & Lena Evans; Sim & Sallie Evans, Carl Sallee; Jimmy Evans, son of Sall- ie Evans, 1902.
!Pg 139-161: SIM & SALLIE, as they were known by their friends, were both members of the General Baptist Church. SIM was also a minister of the Gos- pel. They were loved & appreciated most for their help & faithfulness to their church. They either walked or rode in a wagon, 1 3/4 miles to their home church which they attended regularly. They have been known to drive 5 to 8 miles at night in a wagon to help other churches. A little hay was thrown in the wagon bed with a quilt over it, it made a good bed for sleepy children. If it was cold, a quilt or 2 was added over them. This was fun that ended all too soon when the wagon pulled up at the front gate. With the cry of "Home Again," every child was trying to find his way to the house, staggering, half asleep, & wandering from side to side up the pathway. Mom would come along behind, helping guide them every stray step, & saw that everyone was tucked in bed. Dad drove on to the barn, un- hitched the horses, & put them in the stall. In was in the Fall of 1927 when Dad drove a herd of sheep to Ava & came home with his 1st car, a 1927 Model T Ford. It cost $300. He took Mom & all we children down to the Vince Kastning place, about 1/2 mile, for our 1st car ride. You didn't have to catch or harness the old Model T, or feed her when you got home, but sometimes she did balk, & didn't want to start, especially if the weather was cold. Then the teakettle had to be put on, to heat some water to boiling point, & pour over the engine to get her warm enough to purr again. There was danger of getting an arm broken while trying to crank, as she could kick like a mule. When it came up a rain shower, you had to stop, get out, & get the plastic curtains from under the seat. Unroll them, put them on iron rods that stuck in the doors, & try to get them up before you got wet. "Or did you?" When you had a flat, the wheel had to be jacked up, the tire was taken off, the innertube was taken out, you found the hole, scrape it with the lid of the patch can until it was rough enough to hold the patch, which was cut large enough to cover the hole, cover the space with glue, peel off the back side of the patch, press firmly over the hole, & wait until it was dry. It was then ready to put back in the tire, & to be pumped up by hand--up & down, up & down-until it contained enought air to equal the other 3 tires. You were then good for another 5 miles. When crossing the creek, sometimes the motor would "drown" out or the wheels would burry down in the gravel (there were few or no bridges.) Then everyone except the driver was privileged to take off their shoes, wade in, & push the Old T out. SIM & SALLIE were also very helpful when sickness struck in their commun- ity. As doctors were few & far between in those days, & there was no fast way of travel, many home remedies were used. SALLIE knew many roots & herbs that were used for medicine. One especially was called Measel Vine. Tea made from the roots of it was used to make one break out with measles. Mother wasn't home when I took the measles--I was given Sycamore Tea instead. One good remedy was to drink all the cold lemonade you wanted or ice cream. But ice cream had to be made in a bucket, by putting the mixture in a syrup buck- et, & turning it back & forth by hand until frozen. This could only be done in the Winter, when we had native ice or snow. When SIM was a young man he played both harp & violin. When he left the life of sin & surrendered his life to God, however, he gave up his music al- so. He still loved to sing Gospel songs. He often gathered his & other children around him & sang humns. He would have family prayer with them,too. SIM was a tiller of the soil. He was a lover of animals, especially horses. He loved to break young horses to work & to ride, both for himself & for other people. They lived & reared their family on a 160 acre farm near Benner (now Toledo), MO, in Ozark Co. He also bought what was known as the FRANK BLANKINSHIP & ABIJAH TRENT farms. He had a blacksmith shop & did much of his own smith work, such as sharpening his plow blades, fitting horsesho- es, etc. He made some of his wagon parts from white oak or hedge timber. He wove chair bottoms from the bark of Hickory trees. I am sure that any of his work would equal that of Silver Dollar City today. The old shoe last had it's place in the home too, for he mended all the children's shoes. Shoestrings were often made from groundhog or squirrel hides which had been put down in wet ashes until all the hair would slip off, then taken out & all the hair was scraped off. The hide was then pulled back & forth over a board or stick of wood until it was soft & pliable. After this process, it was cut into small strips the size of shoestrings. SIM also had a sorghum mill with which he made molasses from can grown on his farm & other neighbors. This molasses was sold from 35-50 cents per gal- lon. They were often stored in gallon buckets, or 50 gallon barrels. In the early 1920's SIM operated a tomato canning factory. SIM did custom bailing when it was done by horsepower. He also threshed wheat in the same way. Later they used steam engines & then to gasoline. Neighbors would swap work when threshing time came. The farmer was notified ahead of time when they would be at his place, he had all hands ready & wait- ing. The machine was set, lined up, the wagons were loaded with bundles of wheat, & hauled to the separator, where they were pitched onto the machine with pitch forks. Another man cut the strings & fed the wheat into the mach- ine, where the wheat was taken from the straw. The wheat was sacked & hauled to the grainery, the straw was left in stack for whatever use it might be put to-or fed to cattle. Each summer, immediately after wheat harvest when the wheat was threshed, all the cotton bed ticks were washed & filled with bright, clean straw. This served for a mattress under the feather bed. The feather bed was a tick filled with goose feathers, finer beds could not be found. We arose early every morning, for each one had his own chores to do. My 2 older sisters cooked breakfast. I made beds. My brother fed the horses so after breakfast they were ready to harness & go to the field. After break- fast, the other girls milked. Sometimes they made fun out of their chores, as the younger could play the harp, she would put in feed for the cows, then play the harp while the older one did the milking. I did the dishes, a chore I did with all animosity until I was nearly grown. Later, I would rather clean the kitchen than any other room. SIM operated a rock crusher, where he crushed lime rock into a powder used on the farm to improve the soil. He also owned & operated a well drill. With it, he ended the big chore of carrying water from a nearby spring or creek for many families. SIM did some freighting by wagon from Springfield to Thornfield, MO, to a country store. The merchant at that time was GEORGE PIERCY. It was later owned by JAMES J. KILE. The trip took at least a week, today it would take 4 hours. On 1 of his trips for a load of merchandise, he spent the night in Springfield, putting his horses in a livery barn. That night the barn caught fire & burned 1 of his horses, his wagon, & a load of merchan dise. He put a blanket on the other horse for a saddle & rode home 80 miles. SIM had as a keepsake, a gold nugget stick pin which was given to him for a namesake by his Uncle SIM EVANS from the state of Washington. SALLIE was a firm believer in the motto, "An idle mind is the Devil's work- shop." She was alwasy busy from early morning, until late at night. She, together with the help of her children, seeded her own cotton & made batts from it for padding quilts. She pieced & quilted many quilts by hand. Al- most every quilt pattern I ever knew, she made. SIM & SALLIE raised sheep on their farm, they were shorn by hand. She cleaned the wool, carded it, spun the yarn on the old spinning wheel, colored it, & knit sock, gloves, caps, & sweaters for all the family. She sometimes made her own dye, by using walnut hulls, copperas, & a weed that grew along the creek. SALLIE made her own laundry soap. First from lye made from the old ash hopper, later used boughten lye. 50 or 75 years ago, the old ash hopper was a familiar sight in back yards. During the winter, ashes from the fireplace & cookstove were dumped in the hopper. It was built in a V-shape, larger at top, & sloping to the bottom, with a small trough at the bottom, underwhich sat a stone crock to catch the lye water. Water was poured into the top, after it had seeped through the ashes, it was a very strong lye solution, & would take the hair off anything it touched. My mother had been storing her lye water in a large stone jar in the smoke house, getting ready to make soap once, when I overheard her & another lady exchanging remedies for getting rid of rats. One of them said she had been told to put lye (boughten lye) in their runs & they would get it on their feet, & lick it off, this would kill them. I proceded to hasten the opera- tion, as our smoke house was well undermined with rat holes. So innocent was I when mother began inquiring about what went with her home made lye. Lucki- ly I went unpunished, as she explained that was not the kind of lye to use for rats. She had to make more lye for her soap. The only time I remember taking doctor's medicine before I was married, was when we all had the flu. I took my little red pill & went to the water buck- et to obtain water to swallow the pill. But, it went farther than the water bucket. I took it out to the ash hopper, stuck my finger down in the ashes, making a hole, & buried him alive. It cured the flu. We never had much sickness, other than a few childhood diseases such as measles, chicken pox, whooping cough, & mumps. However, my brother had ty- phoid fever & was bedfast almost all of one summer. When we had the mumps, we took them (5 of us) one at a time. 4 of us children had them with out too much complaint, however when mother (who was a little older) took them, she was much sicker. She did not complain much af- ter all we children gathered around her bed with hymn books, holding a kero- sene lantern for light, & sang her a farewell hymn. She had to laugh in spite of all the pain. I have never wondered why her hair turned gray so soon. That was only 1 of the temptations she had to kill all of us. Mother was afraid of water, but once she got carried out into the creek by 2 of my sisters, where she was unable to wade out, & sat down to make it the best she could. Back to making soap--you saved all the old meat grease & rinds from bacon to be used in the soap. The soap was made in the old black kettle in the back yard. Using about 12 pounds of soap grease, 3 cans of lye, & 9 gallons water, stir until the lye has eaten all the soap grease. A wooden paddle was used to stir, it was made out of a 1" X 4" board, after the soap was cooked it was left in the kettle until cool, then cut into pieces & laid up to dry on a shelf in the smoke house. The lye had more than 1 use. Besides making soap, it was used for making hominy. We took white shelled corn, soaked it in a solution of lye water over night, & the next morning it was cooked in the big iron wash kettle in lye water solution until the skin began to slip on the kernels. It was then taken out of the lye water & rinsed in clear water until all the skins & dark hearts were removed. This took several rinsings, & there was no running water. Then the hominy could be cooked & seasoned to taste. Wednesday was wash day, the 1st thing early in the morning was to draw wat- er & fill the wash kettle, go to the creek bed & find enough drift wook to make a fire & heat the water to wash & boil the clothes. The clothes were 1st sorted by color. The best white things such as bed linens & under cloth- es were washed 1st. They were rubbed until clean on the rubbing board, then put in the kettle with soap & water, & boiled, stirring now & then with a wooden paddle. While these were in the water, the next assortment, such as dish towels, were being rubbed out. The colored pieces & overalls were the last. The 1st ones were taken out of the kettle, put back in a wash tub & rubbed through on the rubbing board again, then put through a rinse water. After being rinsed, they went through a blueing water. All dresses, pillow cases, dresser scarfs, bonnets, curtains, & shirts were put through a starch water. The collars & cuffs of shirts were dipped in an extra stiff starch, twisting & wringing by hand each time. Each assortment followed the same procedure, some times it took all day to do the laundry. After they were washed, they were all hung on the clothes line until dry. They were then taken in & sprinkled down to iron. All of Thursday morning, & somes times longer, was spent ironing. This was done with the old flat irons which were heated on the cook stove. One iron would be used until it was too cool, then it would be exchanged for a hotter one. They must not be too hot, or it would scorch the garment being ironed. Next came the gasoline iron, the electric. It was not uncommon to have two bushel baskets of dampened clothes to iron. SALLIE had a huge garden. Her family was well fed for she canned or dried almost every kind of fruit & vegetable. There were wild blackberries, dew berries, strawberries, which were canned. When picking blackberries, we got about as many chiggers as berries, but we really didn't mind that too bad for we always had the promise of getting to go swimming after we got the berries back to the house. (You don't always have to pay a child to get him to work.) If she ran short of jars, sometimes she canned in syrup buckets & sealed them with sealing wax. I remember one time, & I think the only time, when my brother was taken to the berry patch. We were each given a little bucket, with a promise of a good payoff for the 1 who filled his bucket first. It wasn't long until my brother had his bucket full & was sitting in the shade. When mother found him, knowing he had not picked enought berries to fill it, she looked in the big bucket she had filled & left sitting in the shade while she was filling another 1 & found his evidence. He had taken berries out of her bucket & filled his. We always had apples & pears in the fall. Mother dried peaches & apples. The apples were pared & cut in thin slices, then placed on a scaffold made of pieces of tin roofing laid across a pair of saw horses. Peaches were the free stone type & were cut in halves, freeing them from the pits. They were then turned center side up on the scaffold, & left in the sun until they were dry enough to rattle. They were then put in washed flour sacks, & left to dry some more in the sun. The sacks had to be turned 2 or 3 times a day. Pumpkins were cut in long, thin strips, & hung over a wire or string, usually near a chimney flue, & let to dry. SALLIE was always the 1st to have a mess of wild greens, (salad) for she knew all kinds of weeds that were acceptable, such as dandelion leaves, wild strawberry leaves, thissel, planting, bubby plants, wild lettuce, wild cabb- age, polk, & a few elder berry leaves, (not too many, unless you could stay close to the john.) She usually kept a tin can partly filled with coal oil (kerosene) with 3 or 4 corn cobbs standing on ends in it, which would be soaked full of kerosene to kindle a fire in the cook stove. If there was a fire in the fireplace, a shovel full of live coals would be carried from the fireplace to the stove. A turkey wing, dried & pressed, was used to fan the fire. Nothing tasted better to a bunch of hungry youngsters coming home from school, than a pan of her hot, homemade light bread, a dish of fresh churned butter, & a gallon or 2 of sweet milk cooled in spring water near the house. As there were no refrigerators in those days, a sping was the only means of keeping things cool. There was always a youngster around to run the errand of bringing things from the spring. There was a dipper goard hanging on a nail driven into a tree close by the spring. A drink of cool spring water from a dipper goard was better than Coke, or Seven-up. We never had pop then, however lemonade was a treat on the 4th of July. It was no strange thing to have all the neighboring children come on Sun- day, bring melons from the spring, & feed them all they could eat. Springs were so many & so common, I gave little thought as to how valueable they really were. I took them for granted & just assummed the rest of the world was equally as fortunate. Early settlers made the most of springs, & in many instances were able to locate their log cabin adjacent to one. They sought the spring 1st, & then decided on the house site. Today we choose our house site, then drill a well wherever we want it..In most cases, all that was required was to dig a small spot around the opening, wall up a crude house with stones at hand, provide a roof to keep trash from falling in & a door to keep wild animals out. Some- times only a board fence was needed to keep livestock out. Thus, they had a source of drinking water, a place to keep milk & butter cool, with the over- flow coursing through the adjacent pasture taking care of the chore of water- ing the livestock. I remember 2 springs on my Dad's place that flowed abun- dantly, & the natives drank from them freely. Some towns were even build around a spring. The spring in the street at Reed's Spring, MO, once supplied water for the town. Eureka Springs, Ark, was noted for its curative powers. After the testimony of JUDE SANDERS who was said to be cured of erysipelas, advertising was spread by word of mouth. People came from everywhere to be healed. By 1880, Eureka water from Basin Spring was being bottled & shipped in every direction. Ponce de Leon spring in Berry County, was very famous for in that it was supposed to be the "Foun- tain of Youth". Hodgson runs enough water to operate a buhr mill. The smallest & largest springs in the Ozarks are both in South Missouri. Big Spring in Carter Co, with a flow of 35,000 gallon per hour, rates as the lar- gest, & Dripping Spring in Lawrence Co, with 1 gallon per hour, is the small- est. Big Spring varies with overall wet weather, but Dripping Spring just drips, regardless. Another big spring in Lawrence Co. is located at the Baptist Hill Church Camp. Big Springs is thought to be the largest (single) spring in the US. There is 1 larger in Florida, but it has more than one outlet. Others inclu- ed Bennet Springs & Roaring River. SALLIE hatched chickens in an old fashion incubator several hundred at a time. She also sat hens & raised chickens, mostly Brown Leghorns, as they were less visible to the hawks. The floors in our house were made of white pine, & were cleaned by sprink- ling sand (made by beating a sandstone into powder) on the floor, & then scrubbing with a broom & water. It took lots of water to rinse a floor clean. This was usually done with a homemade broom. My mother made brooms from home grown broom straw. I still would love to have a piece of her buttermilk pie, or some EGG BUTT- ER: In a large iron skillet place 1 cup molasses (Ozark sorghum) let come to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Beat 3 eggs until fluffy, & fold into molasses, stirring very fast. Cook 8 minutes. Lift from the heat & stir in a pinch of soda, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg. Beat well, pour into bowl, & serve with hot biscuits. Not much was wasted at our house, Mom took old worn out clothes, tore them into small strips, tacking the ends together, & rolled them into a large ball. Then she crocheted them into beautiful rugs. She also made willow baskets out of buck brush runners. They 1st had to be gathered, placed in the wash kettle, & boiled until the bark would slip off of them. This was done by taking a piece of cloth (to prevent blisters on your fingers) in 1 hand, holding 1 end of a runner in the other hand, & stripping bark off, as you pulled down the runner. Sometimes Mother would color part of them, making stripes in her baskets. They were beautiful. Sometime in Feb, if she could find a brush pile, or anything to make a brush pile, where Dad had cut a few sprouts, or sapplings, She would burn the brush, then dig up the soil & plant cabbage seed, to have early cabbage plants for her early garden. If she didn't have a brush pile, she planted her seed in a half burried wash tub, in the chimney corner on the south side of the house. I never knew her to buy cabbage plants. Most of her garden seed was saved from the previous year, from year-to-year. "A penny saved, is a penny earned." The old dinner bell still has it's memories. This was a large bell placed on a high pole, & was rung by pulling a wire or a rope attached to the handle on the bell. When the cook had dinner ready, the bell was rung, & the work hands in the field knew it was time to quit, & eat. Believe it or not, we had a horse, that when he heard the dinner bell, he wanted to turn out then, even if it was in the middle of a corn row. In the Fall we picked up black walnuts, hickory nuts & sometimes a few haz- elnuts. We stored these in a dry place, for winter use. Popcorn was popped over a fire in the fireplace in a long-handle screen wire popper or in an iron skillet on the cook stove. We very often made popcorn balls, by cooking molasses to the thread stage, then pour it over the popcorn & formed it into balls. We also made molasses candy. We would cook molasses down low & let it cool enough to handle, then pull & stretch it until it was hard & firm. You could make it into any de- sign, then let it set until it became hard. My best girl friend's father owned a country store. I would take molasses candy to school & trade her for store boughten candy. The hay was cut with a horse drawn mower. It was then left to cure & raked into windrows with a dump rake. Then it was made into shocks, these shocks were pulled by tieing a large rope around them, hooked to a single tree, & dragged to the barn where he hay was pulled up into the barn with a hay fork, pulled by another team of horses form the other end of the barn. Dad sometimes made roofing shingles out of oak timber, using what I believe was called froe. Instead of paying money, which they sometimes didn't have, the men would work on the raod to pay their poll tax. "Tater Pickin'" was lots of work. Dad plowed the potatoes out of the ground with a single stock plow. We children picked them up & carried them to the corn crib, where they wer spread on the floor & coated with lime & left to dry before taking them to the cellar. We always planted at least 200 pounds of seed potatoes. Onions were pulled & tied in bunches, & hung to dry. Kraut was made in large 15 or 20 gallon stone jars. The cabbage was shred- ded by hand on a kraut cutter, pushing the cabbage head back & forth across the cutter. It was then placed in the jar a layer at a time, & salted to taste. Each layer had to be packed down firm with an old fashion churn dash or something similiar. We let it set for about 10 days, then took it out, heated, & sealed it in glass jars. Brown beans were grown by sack-fulls, they were picked when dry, then put in gunny sacks, tied, & laid out on the ground & beat with a wooden paddle until all the beans fell out of the hulls. The hulls were then taken out of the beans. On a windy day, the beans were put in a dish pan, held about head high, & poured on to a blanket on the ground, letting the wind blow all the chaff out. This had to be repeated 7 times before the beans were cleaned. We used a cream separater after each milking, separating the milk. It was "no bad chore", but "OH" washing that slimy separater afterwards. Butter was home produced, made in the old up & down, up & down, dash-type churn. I think this was a chore despised by every child. The chore was eas- ed to some extent if 2 did it together, 1 holding the lid & the other working the dash. This reminds me of an incident, once a little friend of mine was spending the night with me & was helping me do the churning. When it came to her time to hold the lid for the 2nd time, she pushed herself back in her chair & held the lid with her feet. About the time she got her geet set to hold, Mom came by-"OH". I thought we had found a great invention when one day mother came home from a sale, with a churn that operated with a crank on either side. We drank tea made from sasafrass roots, usuaslly sweetened with molasses, as sugar was 1 of the store boughten items, & not used as freely as some of the home-grown items. If the wash pan got a hole in it--no need to throw it away, just tie a knot in a string, pull it through the hole, & tie a knot on the other side. This made the pan good for many more washings. Or, you could melt a rubber fruit jar ring, & press it over the hole. Hog Killing Time was a great day at our house, & an all day event. The hogs were raised on our farm & were corn fed. Getting ready for hog killing time was no small job, there were many nec- essary chores to be done. We had to get adequate wood & kindling to build the "log heap" used to heat limestone rock & heavy metal pieces for heating water in the scalding barrel. Also, wood was needed to heat water in the large black iron kettle used in the scalding barrell. We had to build a platform about 4' wide & 8-10' long of heavy 2X8" boards. The base of the platform was 2 or 3 logs slightly longer than the width of the platform. The logs were 10-12" in diameter. The 2 center boards were slightly shorter so as to hold the barrel more firmly. The hogs were placed on the platform to be scraped. We had to place a large, heavy barrel (about 65 gallons) at 1 end of the platform. It was set partly in the ground, & tilted at about a 45 degree an- gle. This barrel, filled about 3/4 full of hot water was used to scald the hogs. We had to build a scaffold, long enough to hold 3 or 4 hogs. They were about 6' high. At either end, 2 poles, each about 6" in diameter, were placed in the ground, crossed & fastened securely about 1' from the top. A similiar size pole was laid across the top & fastened securely with bailing wire, on which to hang the hogs. We had to sharpen the axe on the grindstone, & the butcher knives on whit rock. We had to clean the smoke house, & put it in order. That's where the hams, shoulders, & sides would be smoked. Sometimes the kettle was filled with water, & wood & kindling were laid under the kettle the day before butchering, so as to be ready to light. We had to gather plow points, & similiar pieces of heavy metal, there were tied together in groups of 3 or 4, with several strands of baling wire, about 4' long. These were put in the fire to heat, then put in the barrel to reheat the water, & to keep it hot. They were carried by an iron rod with a hook on the end or by the poking stick from the fireplace. On the big day, all of the household would be up before daylight, do the farm chores, & eat a hearty breakfast. At the crack of dawn, the fires under the logheap, & kettle were lit. Smoke billowed into the sky. By now, there was a bustle of activity going on. When the 1st hog was killed, the jugular vein on the left side of the throat was quickly severed with a knife to allow the blood to drain from the system. The hog was either shot with a 22 rifle, or hit in the head with a large sledge hammer. The hog was then dragged behind a horse, or put on a sled & hauled to the platform. There, 2 men slid it into the barrel of hot water, that was the right temperature to get a good scald. A small amount of wood ashes was added to soften the water & help loosen the hog's hair, & leave the skin smooth & white. Each of the 2 men held a hind leg of the hog. They doused it slowly up & down. The hog was taken out of the barrel. The process was repeated as they held the front end of the hog. By testing, one could easily determine when the hair would slip off easily. It was important to have the temperature of the water just right. Too hot it set the bristles --too cold, & they would not slip at all. After the hog was scalded, & on the platform, 2 men scraped the hair off, using large butcher knives. If it was a good scald, the hair slipped off easily. Extra time & effort was usually required to clean the head & feet. Sometimes, especially in cold weather, it was necessary to cover spots that were difficult to clean with heavy sacks or loose hogs hair & more hot water. Even so, the womenfolk did some final cleaning on the head & feet, after the carcus was cut up. A "Grambrel Stick" was used to hang the hog on the scaffold. It was about 18" long, the size of a man's wrist, & sharpened on each end. Dad made these sticks of white oak or hickory, & kept them from year to year. 2 men lifted the hog to the scaffold, & a 3rd inserted the grambrel stick into a slit be- hind the tendon on the back part of the hog's hind legs, between the hoof & hock. The weight of the hog was born by the stick, centered on the top pole of the scaffold. The head was removed 1st. Then came an operation entrusted to the most skilled & steady hands of the best butcher, usually Dad. With a sharp butch- er knife in hand, he made a long vertical cut in the belly fat, but not into the entrails. The breast bone was cut with an axe. The final operation was achieved by using a left hand to follow just inside the slit, holding back the entrails, & the right hand to wield a buatcher knife. A tub caught the entrails as they were removed. They were thrown away after the fat was re- moved. The heart & liver were next. Then the leaf fat-almost pure lard-ex- cept for the moisture. The leaf fat is a thin layer of pure fat right a- gainst the ribs. The carcus was rinsed with cold water. By the time this process was completed, the next hog had been killed & brought to the platform to go through the same routine. There was a constant job of putting more wood on the fires around the kettle & on the log heap, keeping the kettle full of water, reheating the heavy metal pieces, & replenishing hot water in the scalding barrel. When the barrel was not being used for scalding, a heavy cover was kept over the open top, to hold in the heat. At the end of the day the neighbors who helped us were given generous amounts of fresh port to take home. This was a token of appreciation for their help. Late in the day, the "cooled out" carcasses were moved on a table, usually made by laying some boards across 2 saw horses, to be cut up. When this was done, an ax was used to cut the carcasses down the middle on either side of the back bone & finished with a butcher knife. Then the ribs were removed with a butcher knife. The hogs feet were cut off at the 1st, or knee joint. It took experience & skill to hit the joint in exactly the right place. The hams & shoulders were cut off next. All the while, 2 containers weree kept handy, 1 to put the lean meat cut or trimmed for sausage, the other to hold the fat trimmed for lard. The hams, shoulders, sides (middlin's), & jowels were salted on a large bench in the smoke house. This cured, preserved, & flavored the meat. In later years, prepared mixtures (smoke salt) were used to flavor the meat. In about a month or 2 after the salt "took", they were hung to the joist of the smoke house, where they could be smoked. Hickory wood was used to smoke the meat. The secret was to keep the blaze down to get the maximum benefit of the smoke. The smoking took several days. One of our chores was to go to the smoke house frequently to check on the fire. We kept the blaze down by pulling the wood apart to lessen the blaze, or by sprinkling water on it. A bucket of water & a dipper were kept nearby. The old smokehouse was not sealed too tightly, so some smoke escaped, especially on windy days. We ground the sausage with a large sausage mill fastened to a board about 4 or 5' long. This board was laid with each end in a chair, being held down by a person on either end, 1 to feed the mill with strips of lean meat that had been cut & trimmed small enough to go through the mill. The other person turned the mill. Jobs were exchanged at intervals. The sausage was seasoned to taste with salt, home grown sage, & red pepper. Some we put down in stone crocks & jars. This we ate soon after butchering time. Some of it was fried on top of the stove, or browned in a large bread pan in the wood stove oven, put into glass jars, covered with lard & sealed. Sometimes mother sewed a long strip of white material together, about the size & resemblance of a long stocking (hose), stuffed it full of sausage, then covered the outside with melted parafin. There were no pressure cookers or deep freezers then, not even refrigerators. A patty of sausage on a bis- cuit was often part of out lunch at school. The jowls (jaws) of the hog were cut off, sliced & eaten as bacon. The balance of the head, with ears & feet were cooked in a large kettle on the stove until the meat fell off the bones. This meat was used to make head cheeese, or "souse". It was put in stone crocks. When cold, it was sliced to put on the table. Cured (smoked) hog sides, commonly called middlins' were cut for bacon. The rind (skin) was cut off & saved until enough was collected to make a pan full. They were then cut into slices about an inch or 2 square. These were placed in a bread pan, & baked in the oven to a golden brown. The grease was used for seasoning. Most farm work was done either by horse, mule or ox teams. Plowing was done with a turning plow, turning only one furrow at a time, the farm hand walked (all day) behind, guiding team & plow. Corn ground was turned, then gone over with a drag. It was laid off in squares with a single stock plow. First making straight lines through the field 1 way, then going across the field in the other direction, making the rows about 40" apart. Corn was planted with hand planter, one hill at a time, exactly in the cross mark. Seed corn was carried in a pail in front, tied around your waist as an apron. Corn was dropped, 2 grains at a time (one to push & 1 to pull) into the planter, & jabbed into the ground a the cross mark. We hoped for enough rain to produce a good crop. The funeral expenses were some-what different than todays. No one was ever embalmed. If a person died 1 day, he was usually buried the next day. If it were a child, or female, some lady, or ladies of the community made the bury- ing clothes. Men's clothes were usually boughten & put on the deceased. A nature carpenter made the casket of walnut lumber (if possible) or oak, dona- ting his labor. The total cost of the casket was ususally the fabric to cov- er it, the handles, & the knobs, for the lumber was most always donated by some friend, which had kept it on hand for this purpose. The men folk volun- tarly dug the grave with pick & shovel, which was made 6" smaller all the way around in the bottom of the grave. A wooden box fit into that. The casket was lowered into the grave by ropes or check lines off of a harness. Then boards, which were cut to fit, were placed crosswise of the casket & box to make the vault. The dirt was then placed carefully & gently 1 shovel full at a time on the box, until the grave was filled & rounded to a small mound a- bove the ground. The only flowers were natural, home grown, or a few bunches made of crepe paper, arranged with wild ferns. All the neighbors were will- ing & eager to lend a helping hand. The dead were all put away with the greatest of respect, but no expense. They were not soon forgotten as most are today. In my years of growing up in Ozark County, I never thought of being weal- thy, but I had Christian parents, & that was worth more than silver & gold. I thank God I was born in a Christian home. I never knew I was poor until I was told. I guess that is what you call blissful ignorance. It was our custom to get along with what we had, or to create desirables with the material at hand. When other children came to visit, we furnished our own entertainment. We never knew much about boughten toys, most of what we had was created with our own hands. If we could find a certain kind of red clay mud, we made small animals which were rolled & molded & shaped to imitate whatever animal we held in our imagination. We then let it set until it dried to a hard substance, they might be a little deformed by the time they were dry, however. Pop guns were made from Elderberry stalk, this was done by punching all the pith out of the stalk, replace it with a wooden rod that would fit the hollow in the Elderberry stalk, place a paper wad or a wild haw in the barrel, & let go with the wooden rod. We could have a good party with music made with corn stalk fiddles, but it was more common to church services with singing, preaching, & some times an alter service. We also made furniture out of corn stalks, such as chairs, tables, etc. "Bean Flippers" were made with a Y-shaped fork of a limb, ususally hickory, cut 2 strings of rubber from an old innertube, tie one on each side of the Y fork, with a pocket for the stones made from the tongue of an old worn out shoe. "Creepers" were made with an empty spool, a rubber band, & a match stem. You could catch a June bug, tie a sting on one leg, turn him loose to fly, & hold the string, letting him fly in circles around your head. If we did not have a rope for playig jump the rope, we would cut a long slender grape vine. It served the purpose very well, unless you were hit in the head with it. All balls were home made. We would save all the twine, or some times we would ravel out an old sock top, that the foot was worn out too much to be of any value (of course mother had knitted it to begin with). We would take a small pebble or anything hard, & put in the center, then wrap the thread around it until it became the size desired. To prevent it from unwinding, it was sewn with a darning needle & twine. Now it was ready for a game of "Two eye cat & me at Bat". I had a few boughten dolls, but they were not played with much. The ones I played with the most were rag dolls. My most favorite was "Gordie". Her head was made of a dipper gourd covered with white material. Her eyes & nose & mouth were embroidered on her face. Her hair was made of yarn. A hole was bored through the handle of the gourd, & a strong string ran through it to make her arms & to help hold the body, which was stuffed with cotton. We drew names at school 1 year for Christmas Gifts. I received a little doll about 4 or 5" tall, with a china head & real red hair. That night I was adoring my special Christmas gift before the fireplace, the only light in the room. Somehow she slipped out of my hands & onto the hearth. Her head went in many pieces. I think I would have cried, except for the fact that another member of my family came in about that time. I can remember sitting in front of the fireplace, in a tomato crate for a wagon, playing with my dolls. It took a lot of getting in & out of the wagon to take care of all the dolls. The playhouse was an area marked off with sticks & rocks, using large flat rocks for furniture & shelves. Dishes were small pieces of broken china. To make a more up-to-date piece of furniture, it would be covered with moss col- lected from around tree roots, mostly in cool, damp places. The dirt floor was swept with buck brush brooms. To fancy-up our mud pies, we would press a cuckle burr, or wild cotton burr into the tops of them. We gathered beans from red bud trees for vegetables & narrowdock seed for coffee. Buchbrush berries were blackberries, & put into glass bottles for fruit jars. "Tetter Totter" was made by placing a long board over a large rock, or something in the center. A child on each end trying to balance the other in the air. If you were larger, you might hold him in the air but if you hap- pened to be smaller, you might get a hard jolt when your end came to the ground. If we could find a resin weed we would break it over, go back the next day, & get the resin which had oozed out of the stalk, to use for chewing gum. In winter times, we made snow ice cream. Take a dish of snow, a little milk, vanilla flavoring & sugar. Sometimes we placed an ice cream mixture in a gallon syrup bucket with a lid, in a pan of snow, or native ice. We would take the bucket by the bail, giving it a turn halfway around, then back the other way, repeating the process until it was frozen. On special occasions, when we wanted to tidy up a bit, mother would put our hair up in pigtail curls. Made by 1st wrapping the hair around a strip of cloth about 1 1/2" wide, then go back up the curl, wrapping it with the cloth, thus forming a tight curl. It was left up until the hair dried, then taken down & combed in curl. We had long hair & had never heard of a perman- ent. My sister & I cut sprouts off of a 5 or 6 acre field to get to cut our hair when "Bobbed" hair first came in style. When it rained, & the creek became muddy, my brother & I would dig a few worms & head for the fishing hole. We never caught more than the limit. Maybe a few perch or horney hole. I'll never forget catching my first fish. Aunt ADA TURNER was with me. I don't know who got the bigger thrill, She or I. Our fishing poles were long slender sticks, usually sycamore, which we cut along the creek, tied a twine string to it long enough to reach the bott- om of the creek, using a small boughten hook & sinker, or sometimes a top off a bolt for a sinker, it was enough to scare all the fish, but spent the hours there. Between our home & the cow pasture gate were some hard maple trees. We took the axe & chopped a slanting trench in the trees, set a tin can at the foot of the tree & caught the sap in a hose made of a hollow honey suckle vine which emptied into the can. The next morning, when we took the cows to the pasture, we drank what sap had collected in the can. What extra spending money we had, was usually obtained from catching rabb- its or opossums. Children were paid no allowance then. We set traps & rabb- it gums. A rabbit gum was either a square oblong box made of boards, or a hollow log, the back end was sealed by nailing a board over it & a trip door for the front. A trigger was fixed so when the rabbit went in & touched the trigger, the door fell behind him. In an old field, or near a brier patch, we would find a path, set a gum, & bait it with an apple core (after we had eaten the apple) or shelled corn. We ran the traps early in the morning, before daylight. We carried a kerosene lantern until it was light enough to see. If we had a big frost, we felt sure we would catch a rabbit in the gums, for on cold frosty nights, Mr. Cotton Tail would be looking for a warm place to crawl into, & that meant 5 or 10 cents, the price at that time. The rabbits' insides were taken out, but were kept with the pelt on, in the smoke house or any cool place until we went to the store where they were sold. They were there piled in the side room of the store, sometimes 6 to 10 deep, for a week, before being shipped to market. I recall my best bargain in the rabbit business. My cousin & I had caught a rabbit, & my aunt, who was visiting us, suggested we let her eat it, de- claring she was very fond of rabbit. But we were unwilling until she offered to pay for it. She paid us 10 cents for the rabbit & we helped eat it. If we caught an oppossum, it was skinned & stretched on a board that was cut to fit, & let to dry until a fur buyer came along to buy it. It might bring 25 to 50 cents. At Halloween we made jack-o-lanterns out of pumpkins. This was done by cutting a circle out of the top of the pumpkin, taking the seeds out, then cutting holes for eyes, nose & mouth. A lighted candle was put inside, which was made by twisting a string very tight, folding it in the center, & letting it wind itself together again. This string was soaked in beef tallow (suet) laying the lighted candle in a small pan or dish inside the pumpkin. In the dark, it looked pretty "spooky" to a 6 or 8-year-old. After a big rain, when the creeks had been up, we would find a fresh clean sand bar. We would soon have a whole farm made. The buildings were made by piling sand over both feet, held about 4 or 5" apart, packing the sand down firm, then slipping the feet out, & leaving holes, these were rooms in the house, or sheds or stalls in the barn. A cellar was made with just 1 foot. Hands were used as scoops to bring sand in from each direction, forming a ridge roll for fences around all buildings & fields, & cross fences. A dug well was always a necessity on a farm, usually finding water from 1 to 2' down in the sand if it was close to the creek. My little neighbor friend, & my brother were usually the horses, & myself the farmer. They were rather hard to handle sometimes, especially when I tried to hitch them to mothers little garden plow. Sometimes they got spooked, & tried to run away. When we were going to Otter Creek School, FLOYD & CLIFFORD TRENT brought tobacco sacks (small cloth sacks.) We used them for flour & meal sacks to take sand to the mill to be ground. The sacks were filled with grain & taken to the mill. Their daddy was the only 1 who used that kind of tobacco. As I watch the children across the street climb aboard the big yellow bus, headed for a modern school of learning, I think how different it is than when I walked over a mile, & some children walked as much as 3 miles to school, "Come rain or shine". At the 1 room school house where I received my 1st 8 grades, there were be- tween 80 & 100 students & 1 teacher. There was no gym or play equipment. We didn't know we needed such to play ante-over, drop the handkerchief, miller boy, hide & go seek, kick the picket, sheep in my pen, dare base, or base- ball. In the winter, or on real cold days or rainy days, we played blind fold in the house, or tic-tac-toe on the black board. On real cold days, in times of studying, some of the longer seats were moved in a circle around the box wood burning stove located in the center of the room. We would sit by the fire until we were warm enough to return to our regular seats. The house was cold. Insulation was unheard of. The water bucket sat on top of a bench at the back of the room. Sometimes the water bucket would be passed by each seat, & every child drank from the same dipper, otherwise each child went to the bucket to drink at his or her own free will, with permission from the teacher. If you wanted permission from the teacher for something, you held up your hand with 1 finger to whis- per to someone else, 2 fingers to get a drink, 3 fingers to leave the room. Thus, the teacher knew what you wanted to do, & he would nod his head yes or no without disturbing the rest of the school. Later, water fountains were purchased & each child had his own drinking cup. These all hung in rows on the wall by the water fountain. Water was carried from a spring just off the edge of the school grounds. This was done of free will by students, usually 2 at a time. There was early rising on the 1st day of school, we got there early to choose the seat of our liking, which was sometimes interrupted by the teach- er, & have our books selected before study time began. The little boys, & the big ones too, dressed in bib overalls, girls in calico dresses, hair in braids with ribbons. (Con't #111--wife)
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