The Strouds

The Strouds were once nobles in England, but during the civil war their house was brought down, their ancestors' carcasses removed from the honored burial places like Westminster Abbey, and many were forced to leave the city which still bears their name, in Glouchestershire. You can still find the old manor house, and the grounds are still beautiful, but there is nary a Stroud to be found there. When we told my dad we had hunted in vain for kin, he said we should have visited the jail. We did hear of an old guy who was in his eighties, spent most of his time on the sea, scubba diving. but we did not have time to look for him.

The book about the Strouds in the family history libraries thinks most of us came from a pair of brothers who came over before the Revolution, just kids cared for by an immigrant family. Their descendants settled in Stroudsburg, PA, and later members migrated to Virginia, the Carolinas and eventually Oklahoma, where you can find a small town by that name today.

Evidently none of the ones who populated the slave states ever became prosperous enough to own land or slaves, since we have never seen a black person with our name. Although they were as poor as church mice, as the saying went, they had great pride in their work, and in their habits and tried to get as much education as they thought they needed; to be able to read the Bible and do a little "figuring". The little one room school houses were everywhere. Usually the only teacher lived in the homes of her pupils, taking turns, a week here, and the next at another home where she would usually be given a pallet (quilts on the floor) next to the fireplace. My grandmother said all the little kids wanted to bring their bedding and sleep next to her.

The cabins were very small, and most of the children slept in a loft accessable with a ladder. Food was cooked over an open fire until the Franklin stove became popular. It conserved wood and heated a larger area. Most of the heat from a fireplace went up the chimney, and when I was small it was a relief to go to bed with a hot brick wrapped in a an old blanket rather than sit in front of the fireplace with my back freezing and the fronts of my legs barbecued. The vein pattern stood out on the fronts of my legs all winter.

Gatsy Susan Gray married a Waters (some spelled it Warters), and it was her oldest daughter who married a Stroud. Her name was Eva Waters and she married Drewry Stroud. Her youngest sister Hattie also married a Stroud, so there were many in our county. Drew had been married before, to Ida Davis, who had died with her infant daughter in childbirth. My grandpa
never seemed to get over losing Ida. I remember hearing him tell how beautiful she was and that she was a perfect wife. My grandmother heard it all the time, she said.

Grandaddy did not have a home of his own, but lodged with different sons. When I was just a couple of years old he came to live with us and for a while during the winter I had to sleep with him. My mother was so afraid I would catch the "itch" he had on his legs. I don't know if it was scabies, but she insisted that he go to a doctor and get treated. There was a half bottle of the lotion he used left on our shelf when he moved on to my uncle's. My mother did not throw anything away, so years later I developed a rash under my arms and on my chest, probably by too many blankets when we had a warm spell at Christmas time. She was so sure I had something contageous. She grabbed the bottle, now separated into clots of pinkish milk. Shaking it thoroughly, she dabbed it all over my rash. Within an hour I was one big watery blister and it burned for three days. A benefit was that no hair ever grew under my arms!

My grandaddy was a strict disciplinarian. None of his children ever had feelings of afffection for him, only fear. He and "Grandmammy Eva" had 12 children. When their little boy Felix was still in diapers, just beginning to talk, he was seen by his father climbing into the new body of a wagon placed on the ground for the paint to dry. He yelled to the baby, "Are you in my new wagon?"

The child, trembling with fear, denied his obvious guilt by saying, "No, sir!", whereupon he was jerked up and beaten unmercifully with a board, not for a misdead, but for LYING!

My grandmother said she held the child on her lap and put ointment on the open skin while he cried all night.

That was not the last straw, however. It came some years later shortly after she delivered number 12. She went into labor on a warm Sunday afternoon in April. My grandpa was a Mason and his regular Sunday afternoon activity was to hitch up his pony to the buggy and go to visit one of his Masonic Lodge friends. He was thus engaged in deep conversation on his friend's front porch when my uncle came running up to say, "Ma says it's time to get the midwife." He wasn't finished with his conversation, and after an hour or so he brought the midwife - after she had delivered the baby herself with the help of her oldest son. She was one mad woman. His stuff was moved to the barn where he slept on the hay until cold weather when one day he came to the kitchen with a bundle of his clothes to announce that he was leaving.

I think he was gone for three years, just bumming around from one job to another. Nobody ever expected to see him again until he showed up suddenly telling everyone he had got religion, and he wanted to beg the forgiveness of his wife and all his children. She forgave him, but asked him to never speak to her again. "And," she asked him."how is little Felix, who was almost beaten to death, to forgive you. He died last year of a brain tumor, and I had no money to pay the doctor."

We were a close family. At family reunions I always thought it was funny that my grandparents were both there, but never spoke to each other. My mother's family was not close, and I only saw my maternal grandfather once. He didn't speak to me, only looked at me when someone told him I was his granddaughter. I was eighteen. Maybe that is why I have always wanted to be a good grandparent. Everybody deserves to have one.