There was a swing in the oak tree on the eastside of the house when I was small. The tree was later cut down and a new one planted. The peach trees in the yard were always favorites, as well as the fire bush, harvest bells and mom’s beautiful roses. We ran bare-footed all summer long. Our feet got real tough. We stepped on bees a lot, but it never hurt as much as those darn sweat bees!
On the southeast side of the smokehouse was a grove of plum trees. They were so good. We played a lot and made play houses there. It was always cool and shady. We buried plums in old glass jars pretending it was treasure to find or to eat later, who knows? They must still be there today.
Cleo says
Does anyone remember those little pears that were so good and sweet I wish I knew what kind of tree that was.i purchased myself a plum tree from Calvery a few years ago and every year the birds eat the plums just before they turn ripe enough to eat. I wish there was a way to detect glass under the ground. I would like to find those jars that we canned.
Aunt Lolly says
We had so many fruit tree’s to eat from, growing up. The red plum’s were in Lark Park. The Damson plum tree was not far from the red ones. Then there were two pear trees, and some kind of apple tree out by the molasses mill. Later on Daddy planted a very large orchard on the north side of the house, that had peaches, apples, I don’t remember if it had cherry’s. There was a long row of grapes planted through the garden. with ruhbarb planted under them. We ate a lot of sugar growing up! Had jelly for breakfast, dinner, and supper, and jelly sandwiches in out lunch boxes. I can’t stand jelly too this day.!!! We picked gallons of gooseberries from our woods. and always went to Aunt Dora’s to pick wash tubs of blackberries. and would come home with so many chiggers you couldn’t count them. We had a grand life!!!!!
Naomi Vetter says
The little crippled tree out by the molasses mill was a crabapple. They weren’t very good to eat, but I think we did snack on them now and then. The small pears, I think tasted a lot like bosc pears, but the bosc pears in the store are really big, and ours were sweeter.
Cleo says
Elizabeth baby sit for Mary Margaret and Jim Tom Blair. I don’t know why Margie didn’t remember that. I guess I remember it because Mary Margaret was a year ahead of me in school and we were in the same chorus class. When I started school that year she thought I had been to Florida to get my suntan. I didn’t try to explain my suntan to her she wouldn’t know what a tobacco field was.
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Cleo says
7pm Friday Vernon just called and I asked him about the Blair children and Elizabeth. Vernon said that when Elizabeth was taking care of Jim Tom Blair she brought Jim Tom to our house–at Schuberts and they played together and Jim Tom had wood ice cream sticks tied to his thumbs to keep him from sucking his thumb. This is me now- they both died years ago.
Anonymous says
Your brother says the tree the swing was in was a Box Elder. We never had an oak tree in the yard there. When it fell we had got home from picking blackberries at Aunt Doras. Later that night the tornado came through and we heard it coming and went to the cellar. The tree fell on the cellar door. Daddy and Vernon were able to raise the door enough for Vernon to get out and get an axe to cut it off so the door could be opened and we could get out. This same tornado went on down the hill by the second water fall and cut a swath like a right of away and twisted up all that wood. We piled brush and made a brush pile to burn for the tobacco.We burned wood that winter from the rest of it.
Aunt Lolly says
Do you remember what year that was Mahlon When the tornado came through?
Aunt Lolly says
When I worked for Southwestern Bell Telephone as a long distance operator, I got to talk to a lot of important people. Gov. Blair was the most foul mouth person of them all. I think he had a drinking problem. All the other politicians,were nice but immoral.
Aunt Lolly says
I don’t remember getting any help from my brothers and sisters while in high school. They all had family’s of their own to take care of. Between my Jr. and Sr. year, Mother let me go to town and get a job. I stayed with Cleo. She had a nice little apartment on Miller st. I worked at Woolworth dime store that summer. I made between 15 and 20 dollars a week. Of that I paid Cleo 5 dollars for food, and gave Mother 5 dollars, and I bought what I needed and saved the rest. I had enough money when school started to buy my class ring, which was 25 dollars. the rest I bought my prom formal when I was my class queen candidate!
Naomi Vetter says
Yes, Kathy…this is generating a lot of chatter. Lolly, please tell us about when you were your class queen. Tell us about the voting and if I remember correctly, Daddy donated a calf to be auctioned for $ for the class. Tell us all….
Aunt Lolly says
I can’t remember the name of the gov. agency that Mother and Daddy got their loan from to buy the farm, but they had to keep records of a lot of different things. I remember the agent coming to the house and going over a list of what Mother had canned that summer. She had to can a certain number of fruits and vegetables according to how many were in the family. He made sure she had enough canning jars. The reason I remember this is Mother said she had canned 300 jars of something (don’t remember what it was, Probably jelly) I was very impressed with that number. This was a very kind and nice man. He gave them lots of good advice about different things. I think one of the things they had to do was to send their kids to school and high school. That is the reason we were allowed to go to high school. When I was a sophomore in high school, Cleo had left home by then. I was the oldest and had lots more chores to do. I missed the first three weeks of school that year, to help put up the tobacco. We had our acreage and the Goetz acreage to harvest. By the time I got back to school, I had to drop out of algebra because I didn’t know what they were talking about.
Cleo says
That same thing happened to me only I had to drop shorthand and typing they only gave algebra to seniors who knew they were going to college and Mrs Roberts then tutored those people on a individual basis. Those were not the good old date for me.