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Note: jesse sawyers lowe was born january 16,1840. the son of robert n. lowe and lucretia sawyers lowe.
robert lowe was a school teacher,also taught vocal music. he taught school till he was old.
jesse lowe was married to elizabeth walters,the daughter of
richard walters and rebecca rice walters. elizabeth was born may 26,1850
in patrick county,virginia. to this union was born 9 children; 8 girls and 1 boy.
jesse bought a farm of 217 acres in surry county,NC.,near the stoney creek
church.he gave the land to build the church on. he never joined any church
because he didn,t know which was right.
he built a house near the road out of the best of heart pine lumber, obtained
from the trees in the forest on the farm. it is standing yet in good condition. it has recently been painted. it is most a hundred years old.
he was a farmer,growed tobacco but it sold cheap in those days.
we didn,t have much money,but raised most of our living on the farm.
he raised large crops of corn and most wheat,enough for bread, and some
rye and oats to feed farm stock.raised cattle,milk cows and beef cattle.
raised hogs and furnished most enough meat for the family
year around.
he made a cane crop every year and bought a cane mill and evaperater,
made syrup for ourselves and the neighbers,too. we had plenty and sold
some.he kept bees and had honey for the family the year around. i can
remember in the summertime the bees would swarm, a new family going
out to theirselves most every day near twelve o,clock. he would go out
and hive them and hardly ever get a sting.
he kept a tenant farmer to help tend the land. my mother raised
large flocks of chickens, some guineas and some ducks, all fed from the
grain raised on the farm.
he planted a good sized family orchard near the house and when all
the trees were in bloom it was a beautiful sight. i remember my sister
and i playing in the orchard at twilight and hearing the whippoorwills
calling from one tree to another. when the apples got ripe, my father
would carry a load to mount airy to sell every few days.
he had a nephew that lived there and his little boy and his friends
would meet him and help him sell them. he always gave them all the apples
they wanted.
he also had a grape vineyard. we had all the grapes we wanted
and sold some. i remember when relatives came he gave them boxes full to
carry home with them.
in autumn when the late apples would get ripe, we would pick them off
the trees and store them in the barn for winter use. some times we would
have apples the year around.
we had a large keifer pear tree that bore abundantly. we picked them
and stored them. sometimes my mother would bring them out to all the
family seated around the old fashioned fire place of blazing logs and
pine knots we also raised popcorn. we would sit around the fire and pop corn
and eat it until bedtime.
my father made a large round turn table. he had seen one to
patternize. the top part would turn; the food was placed on it and
everyone helped himself.
it was the custon in most homes to have the kitchen built a few
steps away from the dwelling house. we had a good sized cabin house and
an attic that had a winding staircase. this building was used only to
cook and eat in. we had a cellar underneath it.
we raised lots of irish potatoes and sweet potatoes and stored them
in the celler for winter use. we most always kept enough for the family
and seed,s to plant in the springtime.
my youngest sister and i were the same size and most every stranger
that saw us thought we were twins. i remember one time when my father
came from the store with a turn of new shoes for us children. he gave
the others their shoes and just to tease me and della, he gave us one a
piece. we fretted and rebelled about that. he said we could wear one of
the old ones. when he finally gave us the others, one of us had
both shoes for the right feet and the other one had both for the left.
mother told him to straighten it out with us. she had laughed till she
had tears runing down her cheeks.
then when we were getting ready one time for a last day of school
program, we wanted new slippers and they got us new dresses instead.
we tried them on and he said we could go bare-footed to school. it was
warm weather and so we fretted about it for awhile. then he gave us the
new slippers he had bought. we were happy then and he had some fun
teasing us.
we had our sorrows as well as our joys. my father had asthma for
several years and one of my sisters had some kind of heart trouble for
a long time. she was confined to her bed and wheel chair. she taught
us many lessons from school books and read bible stories to us.
my father died february 13, 1911. my mother died march 7, 1911.
then after they died, the farm was divided up among the heirs and all
have sold their shares and moved away but myself, and jim, my brother.
there are 16 homes and 2 stores built along the road that runs
through what used to be my father,s farm. since then the first hard
surface road was built in this country. before this hard surface road
was built, we used to see large herds of cattle, hogs, and sheep pass
the road going north to market. it was thrilling to hear them coming;
the riders hellering with the dogs barking to keep them together. some
times there would be hogs near a hundred or more. we would sit on
the porch and pick out what we thought was the prettiest. sometimes
they would come near the house and the riders would come and herd them
back to the road. then sometimes there would come droves of cows, seem
like there were several hundred lowing, the drivers and dogs driving them
along. the prettiest sight was a drove of sheep. it seemed there were
thousands of them walking along. they walked along slowly bleating.
Written by Bertha Lowe Hiatt June 1962.
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