|
a.
|
Note:
A visit to grandmother Alice was like stepping back in time.
Getting there was no fun. From DeQueen you had a bumpy ride over a gravel road.
They lived up a hill on 9 acres by the cemetery on the edge of Dierks.
No indoors plumbing. You went to the outhouse. No running water, they had a cistern that your drew water from with a bucket.
No electric lights, Coal Oil lamps dimly lit the house. No central heat, you backed up to a wood stove. No range in the kitchen, Alice cooked every meal on a wood stove.
No washing machine, everything was washed in a big black pot that was heated by a wood fire and stirred with a big stick. Followed by rubbing on a scrub board, rinsed and hung on a closes line to dry.
Of course no television or radio. No supermarket. Chickens provided eggs and a rooster for Sunday dinner. An old milk cow roamed the 9 acres.
A big garden was harvested every fall and canned and stored in the storm cellar.
It was a big operation for the family, everyone dug potatoes, picked beans, etc. Then it all had to be shucked, shelled and pealed, etc. After that it was cooked and canned in glass jars using a big pressure cooker over that hot wood stove.It was all stored in the underground storm cellar where it was cool. Butter was made with a churn. So very little was bought from the grocery store. Mostly flower, salt and condiments.
She used to make us boys shirts from the flour and feed sacks. In those days the sacks were made from colorful cloth.
She made most of her own clothes with material bought from money she got selling eggs.
I am afraid, she led a hard life. Surviving on that 9 acres took a long days work.
Hauling in firewood and cooking over a hot wood stove was no fun. She would cook us huge breakfasts with big buttermilk biscuits. On Sundays, it was always fried chicken and fix'ens.
Those fried chicken dinners, started with selecting a rooster and chopping his head off. Followed by plucking, butchering and cooking. I used to beg grandma to let me chop off the chicken's head and one day she let me have stab at it. I missed and was horrified when the chicken took off across the yard with it head half off.
The gizzards and livers were always prized and then there was the pulling of the wishbone.
In the summer evenings the grownups would sit on the front porch, listen to the whippoorwills and talk, while we kids played. The boys on that hill all wore coveralls with no shirt and ran barefoot. When it got dark, the coal oil lamps were lit long enough to get ready for bed.
Alice was a tall gaunt woman, wore no makeup, combed her hair back in a bun, dipped snuff, and had very little to laugh about, but sometimes did.
I don't think she got to go to church but she was a strong Methodist and raised mother that way.
During the early 1950's a tornado hit the hill, killing 9 people and destroyed my grandparents house. They survived in the storm shelter. They had no insurance.
Of course my mother headed to Arkansas right away. When we got there the destruction was terrible. Even at my age it looked like a supernatural force had done its work.
IThe country responed generously. People from all over sent clothes, furniture and household items. The Red Cross even built them a new house for free. It was smaller but for the first time in their life they had electricity and plumbing.
Her later life was happier after George's death. She was able to travel to Texas some visit her children. The first time she had ever been outside of Arkansas.
|
