Summer days were so long and summer evenings were soft and balmy. We caught lightning bugs and when we got tired we listened to the adults talk. And listen was all we did. "Children should be seen and not heard" was a way of life at our house. But we never felt structured or hemmed in. We were like wild indians. We learned that if we whined that we had nothing to do my hard working mother found us something to do.

My Mom and my brothers used to go up in the mountains above our house to pick huckleberries. They would be gone the biggest part of the day and come home exhausted. For all this work they sold the berries for 25 cents a gallon.

On Sunday afternoons Mom and Dad would walk up the old road to Worley and Jeanette Dean's to visit. The grownups would sit on the front porch and visit and the kids always went to the creek to play. We waded and looked for minnows, or mud dogs and checked out how far up the creek we could go on the rocks. Muddogs were the ugliest things. If they bit you they would hang on till it thundered. Or so it was said.

We used to walk, a great bunch of us, up to Floyd Kirk's to the stir off. This was where they made molasses. This was in the fall of the year when the sorghum cane was put through a mule drawn mill and the juice was boiled down in a big long shallow pan over a huge pit of fire. I don't know who owned the mill or the pan but it was loaned to whoever needed it. The men took care of the boiling and the stoking of the fire and skimmed the foam off with long handled skimmers. The little kids ran through the ground up stalks, chasing and screaming. The teenagers played London Bridge and Go In and Out the Window because it gave them a chance to steal a kiss. At one stir-off the boys snuck and put water in the juice to make the stir-off last longer. After the molasses was pronounced done (It took a consensus of all the old men) it was dipped into crocks or jars. The pan was tipped so the molasses could be dipped out and the kids with their cane stalks could sop the pan. A lot of burned lips and tongues when we got too eager for a taste.

Our sauerkraut cutter was a pet milk can heated on the stove and knocked against the edge till the top came off the can. The edge was razor sharp. My mother made the kraut in jars. You salted the cut up cabbage and pressed it down in the jars as tight as it would go. Each jar would have a couple of cabbage stalks in it. Then you set the jars aside and let them work for a certain number of days. I regret that I never learned to appreciate kraut until I was older. I did love the pickled cabbage stalks though.

We heated our house for years with two fireplaces back to back before Mom bought the Warm Morning heater. You always warmed whichever side that was closest to the fire and froze the other side. We baked potatoes in the ashes under the grate. In the winter after we ran out of popcorn we would parch corn. About all I can say about parched corn is that it relieved the urge to chew and crunch.

One fall delicacy I loved was apple butter. Our neighbor Alice Cooper always made hers in a big copper kettle. They had an apple peeler and this was the kids' job. There was always a hugh pile of apples...it never seemed to end. Out on the large back porch the yellow jackets would congregate around the peeled apples. Some one always got stung. The kids were rarely allowed to stir the apple butter because the stirring had to be continuous so it wouldn't burn. The stirrer was long handled with a paddle on the end with holes drilled in it. The paddle was braced on each side with a piece of wood going from the handle to the paddle. The apple butter stirrer was kept for years. The fire had to be just right to keep the apple butter from burning.

My brother Paul said he liked the chocolate drops Dad brought home on Friday night. When he paid his bill off at Carl Evans' store, Carl used to give him a bag of chocolate drops "for the kids". This candy had marbles in it. My brother Don used to trade us out of our marbles. He had a big half gallon Karo syrup bucket full of them.

One summer we walked up in Belgium Holler and across the mountain to find a graveyard. We found it and it was the most lonesome place I ever saw. There were quite a few graves there. As you stood in the graveyard and looked down into a swale you could see an old derelict log cabin - the kind with a dog trot. The Dean girls and James Thompson, my cousin, attempted to find this cemetery a couple of years ago and got hopelessly lost. They ended up walking across the mountain and out onto Rt. 421.

Mom started making her flower bed and planting peas in March. We kids were ready to yank off the shoes but she always told us of all the winters we had to go through yet. Sarvis and redbud winter, blackberry winter, etc. I never could keep them straight. We went barefoot all summer. By the time we bought school shoes our feet would have grown at least two sizes. A great source of aggravation to me was my Granny's small feet in comparison to mine.

Red Minor always talked Dad into buying something he didn't want. One year it was an unbroken horse named Trigger. The next year, to my mom's aggravation, it was bunch of ducklings. Every time the back door opened these ducklings came running to get something to eat. Mom quarreled because they kept the yard around the back door a loblolly of mud.

Gearl Lee Dean, Sylvia West and I learned to crochet the same year. We were about 10-12 years old. We were bored stiff and I guess our mothers gave us the crochet hooks and thread out of desperation. Seems to me like the thread used to cost around 29 cents a ball.

In the field above and to the right of our orchard was the grave of a child. There were two pine trees at the site and wild roses abounded. There was a small stream not too far away. It never seemed to be overgrown - just seemed peaceful. We were told that it was a Dean baby buried up there.

We dammed up the creek for our swimming hole and had wonderous good times till the first big rain would wash the dam out. My brother Jimmy was fearless! He would climb up on the rocks above the swimming hole and jump off. My other brothers, Don & Paul did too. Jimmy was real little and did this because the other boys did.

Summer evenings we sat out on the porch in our cane bottomed chairs just listening to the quiet and catching lightning bugs. Then Dad would come home. He'd come walking up the hill and all you could see were his eyes and teeth. When Dad was home or we went visiting he always wore denim dress pants and a white dress shirt. Mom would have a crease ironed in those pants sharp enough to cut.

One summer day we went up to Dean's to play and Jeanette had made lye soap. She had a wooden mold on the shelf in the smoke house and the soap poured into it. Then while it was still warm it was cut into squares. It smelled so clean.

We always kept a cow and had milk and butter. Churning was my job. I hated it till Mom got a new fangled churn that you could turn a wheel instead of an up and down churn dasher.

One of my other jobs was carrying water. We had a spring and ever so often Dad had to dredge it out to get rid of the pollywogs. This went on until the summer my sister, Norma Jean, was born and we had a well drilled. It turned out to be the only artesian well in the county and only 50 feet deep. No one could believe it.

Once when I was about four years old my Aunt Dixie Patrick Hendricks took me to my first movie. It must have been The Great Train Robbery or at least something with a train in it. Some intrepid photographer had stood in front of that train to film and it looked as if it was coming right through the screen at me. I screamed like a banshee and she had to take me out. She was not happy.

For the first five years of my education I spent it in a one room schoolhouse. We had a cloak room and a coal room. The school was heated with a pot bellied stove. We had desks for two and a 50 volume library which we got about my 5th grade year. I loved those books and read everyone of them. I particularly loved one called "The Young Washington". Mrs. Blanche Wolfe was my teacher and she encouraged us in our studies with a well placed paddle. Of course as I was a perfect student I never had to worry about that but my brother Paul assures me he got whacked numerous times. On Friday we had spelling matches. Wilma Cooper and I were often the last ones standing.

We played during recess, usually jump rope but sometimes Red Rover. We didn't have a nice rope; usually someone would go up in the mountains and cut a long length of grapevine. When that thing hit you across the ankles you knew you'd been hit.
Charles Gollihorn was my childhood sweetheart and after him was Jimmy Smallwood. I thought they were pretty. Of course, as young as I was, I didn't know boys weren't pretty.

We never had anything as sophisticated as snow pants. When cold weather started out came the long underwear with the drop seat. They were tucked into thigh high brown socks which were held up by suspender tabs on the side of the underwear. Seems to me the underwear also had long sleeves. If my memory is faulty on minor points it has been many long years!

Hog killing time was late fall when the sun was still shining but it was cold enough for you to see your breath. My uncle, David Patrick and his wife, Dorothy would come over early because it was an all day job. First the hog was shot with a .22 and then the throat was cut to bleed it out. The hog was then scalded. Then they used sharp knives to scrape off the bristles. Then it was stung up to a tripod and gutted. We kids got the bladder to use as a kick ball. First the bladder was scraped off and washed off good and then blown up. The Tenderloin was taken out first and that was what we ate for supper. Delicious! The rest of the meat was salted and put in the smoke house. My mother and father worked till late that night grinding the sausage meat and flavoring it. To this day I love the taste of sage. That day was very long.

The cut and paste coloring books were around even in the "olden" days. My granny, Susan Cody Smith Patrick Hagan spent one whole day with me cutting out fairy tale stickers, licking them and putting them on the right outline. The next day, they had all come loose. I told my mom, "Granny's spit just ain't no good!"

My mother sang folk songs while she worked, Wildwood Flower, the Little Mohee, Down in the Valley. Every day was the same routine...get up, make the beds, feed the kids, sweep the house, make dinner, and on Monday, the washing and on Tuesday, the ironing came first. It was a matter of pride to have your wash out soonest and to be the whitest. When we lived up in the holler there was not a blade of grass in our yard. We kids had beat it off. After my mom finished tidying everything in sight, she swept the yard.

I never saw my Dad act meanly toward anyone. He always seemed quiet to me but my brothers tell me he had a reputation as a man you didn't cross. I know when he went to vote he always stuck his gun in his belt under his suit jacket. He had a long barreled .38 special. He voted Republican in a Democrat county and times were touchy. A quarrel over politics could escalate into a fist fight in no time.

When the Union first came into that country the miners were threatened with their jobs if they joined it. Dad joined but didn't lose his job. Our neighbor Tom Cooper didn't join but lost his job anyhow. When FDR got into office he sent a message to the Southwest Va. Miners. The mine owners blocked it. Then Mr. Roosevelt came on the radio and said he'd sent a message to the miners of Southwest VA. but hadn't heard back from them. The next day the message was posted.

My Dad worked hard in the mine. First he worked at Benedict and then Bonnie Blue. He worked for 50 cents a day and some days he didn't make a dime. If there was a seam of rock, they had to load that and get it cleaned up but they weren't paid anything for the rock. Most days he worked as hard as he could and loaded 3 cars. $1.50 for the day. Some days he would come home exhausted and tell about the conditions in the "room" he worked in that day. Ceilings so low you had to load on your knees. Sometimes water to your waist. I would think the total darkness with only the pinpoint of light from your buddy's carbide lamp would be the worst thing.

Dad was always inviting people in to eat. He was always afraid of turning away an angel. We kids would get up for breakfast with him at 4 A. M. and never knew who would be sitting at the table. Once he gave away my brother Don's shoes because a man had worn his out, walking home from a job. (I seem to remember that he was walking to Kentucky) I told this story on a list on the computer and a woman wrote me back. She said she had been crying her eyes out. Her Father had gotten a government job which was several hundreds of miles from home. As often is, with the government when the job was done he had to find his own way home. When he got home he told the story of a family that took him in, fed him, and gave him some shoes because he had none. Coincidence?

Dad kept bees. When he got ready to rob them I would usually be off somewhere with my nose in a book oblivious to my surroundings. Until I got zapped with an angry bee. I had hair to my waist and a handful of them would always get tangled up in it. My Mom always had to comb them out.

Once Dad had a small Chevy coupe. We kids rode in the trunk with the lid propped open with a piece of wood. We never considered that it was rather dangerous riding like that.

We always went on Sunday rides. Dad worked on the car all Sunday morning and then my mother would send one of us kids up to see if he wanted to go for a ride. He would always grumble but then give in.

My mother never used a recipe for biscuits. She had a dishpan full of flour. She made a well in the center and put in her salt, soda and baking powder. Then she would take four fingersfull of lard and start working the flour in. Then she poured in the buttermilk. She worked this dough by hand until it got to be the texture she wanted. Then she would pinch off a quantity of dough, roll it around in her hand till the top was smooth, place it in the pan and pat it down with her knuckles. Her biscuits were large and delicious. We always had cream gravy and biscuits and, as long as it lasted, salt-cured bacon. One day we didn't have any milk. The cow was due to freshen and we were in the "waiting" period. Dad and Mom were talking and Mom said, "Well, it looks like we're having bulldog (water) gravy this morning." My 4 or 5 year old brother Don piped up, "Well, you all can eat old Joe Bill (our dog) if you want to but I ain't eating a bite!"

Sometimes when a hen got to the tough, eggless stage we had chicken and dumplings. They were always simmered on top of the stewed chicken and were prime eating.

My Aunt Laura Smith Thompson, always made my dresses from the feed sacks my Mom would save up. She did the sewing because my mother could barely sew a straight seam. Though my mother did make "tacky" quilts. These are quilts, usually made of wool or other heavy fabric that are tied through the layers of flannel, quilt batting, and the heavy top, then knotted. When you slept under four or five of these you couldn't even turn over.

We didn't have electricity till I was about 10 years old. The TVA came into that part of Va. And everyone signed up. I remember when they first turned on the lights in our tiny house in Belgium House. My mother was embarrassed because she could see dust tags in her house.

One of my jobs was gathering eggs. I never managed to get by without at least one peck from an old broody hen. Another job was going after the cow when my brothers weren't home. I swear that cow could find the most impossible places to hide. I'd get a switch and run her all the way home. When she wouldn't give down her milk and my mom questioned me about whether I'd run her, I'd lie like a dog.

Saturday night my dad ritually gave us a dose of castor oil. First he'd ask us; "How's your bowels"? We were never able to figure out what to tell him. If we said one way we were sick and had to take it. If we said the other way we were constipated and had to take it. When I was very young I had the croup. I remember having a hard time breathing. My father was at his wits end. He finally took a tablespoon of kerosene, added sugar and made me drink it. I guess it was kill or cure time and it cured. I could breathe!

Did you ever sit on your front porch and watch a curtain of rain coming up the valley? And then when it arrived the steady pounding on the tin roof? If you were lucky enough to have it last all night you could sleep so sound and cosy. Sometimes in nice soft summer evenings when the wind was just right you could hear a freight train blowing the crossing five miles away. That has to be the most lonesome sound in the world.

I used to walk about 4 miles with my mother to the store where she swapped eggs for salt and sugar. There was always a bunch of old men sitting around the stove, whittling and spitting in a can. They were always very respectful of my mother. I never ever heard one of them call her by her first name.

I've already talked about our old mean cow but boy! Did cornbread and milk ever hit the spot! Sometimes a big pan of cornbread and a crock of milk was our lunch when we walked home from school. We had to skim off about a half inch (kid's inches) of thick cream before drinking it.

My Dad worked hard in the mines and hard when he came home. He knew no other kind of life. When he couldn't find anything else to do, he built rock walls. Give an Irishman two rocks and he's going to stack them.

Dad cut and "grubbed" out some "new ground" and it was always as high on a hill as he could get. I used to carry my baby sister on my hip and take their lunch up to them. My brother Don said this was when he resolved never to hoe another stalk of corn in his life.

We gathered the black walnuts in the fall and when they dried somewhat we peeled the hulls off and went around with black hands "forever".

Summertime was the best though. We had "jar flies" for sound and "June bugs" to play with and "lightning bugs" to catch in the dusky dark. (Did you know they don't have lightning bugs in England?)

Someone asked a while ago what makes a Southern upbringing so special. I don't know except there were golden days that lasted forever. We had time for everything. People were kind to each other and respected the others' opinions. Even when they discussed everybody's business it wasn't done in a mean way. There was honor between people but there was also an invisible line you didn't step over and there was "horse trading". I really don't know why it was so special. It was an enchanted time.

Submitted by Beverly Baird Kline 
 

Page created 25 June 2001