Being the tenth of twelve children, life was better for me because of my older brothers and sisters. They seen to it that we had nice clothes and things we needed. ‘My older sisters made or bought us beautiful dresses, and the older boys worked hard to make the farm successful. When they left home one by one, it was up to Cleo, Naomi, Lloyd and I to carry on. We got up at 5:00 AM everyday and milked the cows. The milkman came at 6:30 AM. Then we had to wash and get ready for school. We walked 1/2 mile to catch the school bus at 7:15AM. If we.found time, we ate breakfast and made some school lunch. If we were running late, we did without.
We milked Jersey cows and raised tobacco for a living. We had a large garden. We raised chickens, sheep and pigs. We used -horses to farm and had a mule named “Ole Bert”. When I was about 14 years old, we got a brand new Allis-Chalmers tractor. We were up at 5 AM each morning and didn’t get to bed before 10 PM. Our lives were work, school, church & 4-H club. I had many wonderful experiences in 4-H.
I enjoyed these memories so much. Lolly, do you remember anything about Black Beauty and Sally that you could write about? I think I remember you and I falling off of one of them one time. Do you remember that?
I think it was black beauty that we were riding. Mahlon had bought her out to the barn yard for us to get a ride. Then when he put us on the horse. He yelled at her and made her go galloping around the barn yard as fast as he could make her go. We screamed for him to stop. and he didn’t so on our next turn around we couldn’t hold on anymore and we both just slid off the horses back on to the ground. We were so lucky we didn’t get stepped on by her. I was so mad at Mahlon. I loved horses so much and was really looking forward to riding her. It turned out to be a bad experiance. That’s a big brother for you!!!ha ha He enjoyed it very much !!! The only thing I remember about Sally and Black Beauty is Sally was red, and Black Beauty, black. When Mahlon bought them home from the field he always took them down to the spring for water, sometimes he let me ride on one of their backs. I have to start infushion on Ralph twice a day now. In the morning at 8am and evening at 8pm. They are hoping this will help to bring his numbers up to where they want them.