Well, I have dreaded begining my dad's story. It is a sad one, but he was never a sad person. It was the family who could have been so much better off had he been more ambitious. Every week of my life, after I left home at 18 to enter East Carolina University, I wrote a letter to my mother. I don't know if he chose to read them, but I knew she looked for it every week, and I never disappointed her unless I was out of the country with no way to post a letter.
After she died I did not feel obligated to write to him every week. Occasionally I would write, but he never wrote to me. One day I got a letter from my cousin Helen saying that he had asked her to write and tell me that he had cut his finger and couldn't write. I wondered, after all the years, what the other excuses might have been. Emmett Roland Stroud was a very intelligent man. His last year of school was grade 5, when his report card shows scores of 100% in every subject. It looks legitimate, but knowing the reputation held by himself and his three younger brothers, it does make me wonder. I wonder if she (the teacher in the one room school house) was attractive, easily charmed by the future ladies man, or if she was encouraging him to stay in school. I believe that was the last year, and in order to advance he needed to go to a boarding school. His older sister's husband recognized that he had a good brain and offered to finance him, but he wasn't interested. They were building a consolidated school, and my mother was able to go there through seventh grade, but Daddy did very few thing that he did not enjoy. Life was about good times, and sometimes it took a little work
I do know that he was an avid reader all of his life. Aunt Ruth found a subscription receipt from a newspaper he subscribed to when he was only twelve. He was hungry to know the political news. I remember when Roosevelt ran for his second term. Two men came to our house in a Model T Ford. I sat on the running board and listened to them persuade Daddy to vote for the Democrat. He never missed an election, and loved to argue politics. I did not know he had switched politics until Richard Nixon was about to be impeached and he and my husband got in a big argument. Ted was furious, but Daddy just laughed and never got mad. He just stood his ground, and he was well informed, not intimidated at all by the high and mighty university professor, no matter how many times Ted called Nixon a crook.
When Daddy was the youngest going to school, my grandparent's house burned down, and as neighbors always do, they collected clothing to give all the children. There were not perfect matches in every case, so the oldest brother had to wear a girl's coat to school the remainder of the winter. On the long walk to school one morning they heard the rumbling of thunder. Uncle Hubert sarcastically remarked that it was probably another load of girl coats. When they got together at family picnics, I loved to hear the stories of the "old days" when every student took lunch to school in a coffee can. Inside could be anything from fried chicken to salt pork and cold corn bread. Punishment was having to stand behind a screen hung with coats called the cloak room. On the floor was the line of coffee cans. Everyone knew who usually brought the best food, even a slice of cake or pie sometimes. It was worth getting punished to have a chance to exchange your lunch with a better one.
They always told the one about the outdoor toilet and the boy who was fishing in the hole under the toilet seat. I don't think the word "gross" was used back then, but they had some equally repulsive criticism, "Why would you want a coat covered in that filth?" they asked when he said he had dropped it in.
His answer was, "But my lunch is in the pocket!"
My dad's favorite trick was to unsnap every boy's cap which had been hung on a nail over the coat, so that when they ran for their things at the end of the day, and hurridly put them on to go home, every boy's cap came down over his eyes.
The brothers would hide behind bushes when they heard a buggy approaching and jump out to scare the horse. They told about stealing an egg from Grandmammy's hens on the way to school, and as they passed by the store they would have one brother go into the store and trade the egg for penny candy. The storekeeper would take the egg, place it in a big bucket of eggs, turn his back to get the candy, not seeing the boy take the egg back. Then when the same egg was produced from a different pocket, the boy would ask, "Could I get a piece of peppermint with this egg?" And on and on, digging deeper each time, and producing the same egg until he had traded it enough that each of the boys could enjoy a treat.
I can remember taking two eggs wrapped in cotton and going to the country store near my school and trading them for a small spool of thread for my mother. Ah, the country store, with boards that squeeked under your feet, a front window covered with fly specks, Coca Cola and small packs of Planters peanuts which we poured into the bottle to get a mix of nuts with each swig. What a treat! Only when the hens were laying especially well could we afford such a luxury.
I knew men who had much worse habits than my father. They used dirty language or drank openly, smoked, beat their children, slapped their wives, and he did none of those things. We just felt neglected, unimportant. I think perhaps it was good for me to want to do well to gain his attention and respect, but mostly I did my best because I wanted to make my mother feel good about something.
I hated the way she had to ask him for money to buy school clothes for us. One day she asked if he would take us to town before school started. He parked the car and stood on the street corner. We all stood there with him, the sun shining in my mother's face, making her squint. Maybe he had forgotten why she wanted to come to town, because he asked, "Well. what do you want?" She reminded him that she needed money to buy us some shoes. He took out a roll of bills from his pocket and slapped it in her hand as he told her to stop grinning like a monkey. She did not cry on the street, but I did, to see her so humiliated.
We never wore shoes in summer. Daddy joked that when we started back to school at the end of summer, he had to put a little sand in our shoes to get us to wear them. Actually, I took mine off and left them in the school bus. When I got home my feet were always black on the bottom. One day I knew they were taking group pictures, so I wore them all day, and I was the only one in the picture wearing shoes. Some of the little boys only wore bib overalls - no shirts!
One day a neighbor asked if I wanted to make some money. He paid me to thin his corn seedlings by pulling all but the healthiest plant in each hill - easy job, and he paid me a dollar. I was so proud of my earnings. Daddy asked me if I would lend it to him. I ask what he wanted to buy. He asked why it mattered, didn't I think he would pay me back? I told him that if he wanted to spend it for beer, I wouldn't lend it to him. He got so mad, and stalked away. I felt so powerful! I was six or seven at the time.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Mothers day +4
I will try hard to finish the remarkable life of Mama, Mable Robinson Stroud. She will probably creep into most of what I write about myself, because she was the single best influence. She was modest, wanted me to always be proper. I am sure she had few reasons to enjoy my presence when I was a child. She had learned ways to preserve food for the winter. She wanted to be able to can beans and corn, but did not understand that low acid foods needed higher temperatures than she could provide; even if she wrapped the jars in worn old work clothes aand boiled them in the big wash pot all day, they still spoiled. Tomatoes and peaches, with high acid would be preserved. It was a great day when she was able to buy a pressure cooker. With it she could can meats, stews and even seafood. The stove she had cooked with for many years used kerosene, which was a grade above the old wood stove she used in my childhood which required her to get up an hour before anyone else just to heat it up enough to bake biscuits.
We were living in Swansboro, I had just started in my first job after graduating from college, and with my first paycheck I bought her a gas stove. It used a butane tank in the yard. It did not have a disagreeable smell like the kerosene. She became an expert with the pressure cooker, even made fruit cakes in it.
I cannot say Mama loved to cook. It was always a chore, but she was very resourceful. She made the best fried chicken in the world. Often in summer we had it for breakfast with corn and ripe tomatoes in vinegar. We looked forward to Christmas when she would cook all the good things she could, chicken salad for sandwiches, a ham, several kinds of pie, from pecan on down to sweet potato. On Christmas day we did not cook, only ate, all day long, any time we chose. Before she got a refrigerator, after I left home, she could only make jello in winter when she set it on the back porch to jell. Her jello had fruit cocktail, coconut and nuts in it, with just enough jello to stick it together.
She loved flowers, saved seeds for the next year, fertilized with barnyard manure, hen house droppings and even went into the woods to dig up "woods mold " or rotted leaves to enrich the soil. She could have written a book about home remedies. I wore a mustard plaster to school for a cough, The kids could smell it and laughed at me. The strangest thing I ever wore was a little cloth bag containing wood lice to cure a sore throat hanging from a string around my neck.
She was very superstitous. Bad luck would surely follow sweeping a room after sundown, so if it became necessary to sweep, she swept it behind the door, and waited until the next day to get it up. Washing bed linens between Christmas day and "Old Christmas", which was 12 days later,was bad luck. We were told to be especially clean during that time, as we were used to fresh sheets every Monday night. She was very clean, insisting on washing each of us when we were small before we could go to bed. I have the little three legged skillet she heated the water in the fireplace for our baths. The wash cloth was wet, soaped and returned for rinsing, with the face first and on down as far as possible, After we were old enough to do it ourselves she supervised our washing "possible" in private. She always said, "You might not always have clean clothes to put on, but you can have a clean body.
We all knew how much the church meant to Mama, although she didn't talk about it, She would not ever criticize my dad, even if the missionaries came by when he was sitting in the front room with his friends playing poker and drinking beer. I was in college before we ever had a room just for sitting, My parents always slept in the the front room. I shared a room with my brothers until I was 16.
My dad loved to travel and several times they drove to Utah to see us. When we had been married 13 years was the last time she was able to travel that far in a car. Her arthritis, coupled with a knee injury a year later, when a train hit their car, made it difficult for her to travel.
When they arrived, Mama was so excited. She could hardly wait to tell me that since he did not like to drive on freeways that he had taken her suggestion to drive through Carthage and Nauvoo, IL. At the Carthage jail was a missionary couple The little wife took my dad's hands in hers and asked."Are you a member of the Church, Sir?"
Daddy replied,"No, but my wife is."
She asked. "But you know it's true don't you?"
To which he answered, "Yes, Mam." Then she asked him to promise her that as soon as he got home he would call the missionaries and tell them he was ready to be baptized, and he told her he would. Mama said she would not remind him, just wait to see if he really meant it.
Mama flew out to see us several times, once to spend several weeks and have cataracts removed.
She was excited to go to the first assembly at BYU in the fall. Ted pushed her wheel chair right to the front and she was able to shake President Harold B. Lee's hand, and hear him speak. The next time she was to see him was on the other side. They died within a week of each other.
She was only 62. We did not know the cause of her death, even with an autopsy, but it showed a diseased gall bladder, which we now know can cause failure of any organ. Her kidneys ceased to function after many weeks of terrible pain. I flew to Florida at Thanksgiving to be with her in the hospital. They were worried about ecoli in the blood stream which they did not understand, but never suspected the gall bladder.
A beautiful woman, a life that was a benefit to all who knew her. I still cry sometimes when I think of how I miss her, and hope that she was proud of me.
We were living in Swansboro, I had just started in my first job after graduating from college, and with my first paycheck I bought her a gas stove. It used a butane tank in the yard. It did not have a disagreeable smell like the kerosene. She became an expert with the pressure cooker, even made fruit cakes in it.
I cannot say Mama loved to cook. It was always a chore, but she was very resourceful. She made the best fried chicken in the world. Often in summer we had it for breakfast with corn and ripe tomatoes in vinegar. We looked forward to Christmas when she would cook all the good things she could, chicken salad for sandwiches, a ham, several kinds of pie, from pecan on down to sweet potato. On Christmas day we did not cook, only ate, all day long, any time we chose. Before she got a refrigerator, after I left home, she could only make jello in winter when she set it on the back porch to jell. Her jello had fruit cocktail, coconut and nuts in it, with just enough jello to stick it together.
She loved flowers, saved seeds for the next year, fertilized with barnyard manure, hen house droppings and even went into the woods to dig up "woods mold " or rotted leaves to enrich the soil. She could have written a book about home remedies. I wore a mustard plaster to school for a cough, The kids could smell it and laughed at me. The strangest thing I ever wore was a little cloth bag containing wood lice to cure a sore throat hanging from a string around my neck.
She was very superstitous. Bad luck would surely follow sweeping a room after sundown, so if it became necessary to sweep, she swept it behind the door, and waited until the next day to get it up. Washing bed linens between Christmas day and "Old Christmas", which was 12 days later,was bad luck. We were told to be especially clean during that time, as we were used to fresh sheets every Monday night. She was very clean, insisting on washing each of us when we were small before we could go to bed. I have the little three legged skillet she heated the water in the fireplace for our baths. The wash cloth was wet, soaped and returned for rinsing, with the face first and on down as far as possible, After we were old enough to do it ourselves she supervised our washing "possible" in private. She always said, "You might not always have clean clothes to put on, but you can have a clean body.
We all knew how much the church meant to Mama, although she didn't talk about it, She would not ever criticize my dad, even if the missionaries came by when he was sitting in the front room with his friends playing poker and drinking beer. I was in college before we ever had a room just for sitting, My parents always slept in the the front room. I shared a room with my brothers until I was 16.
My dad loved to travel and several times they drove to Utah to see us. When we had been married 13 years was the last time she was able to travel that far in a car. Her arthritis, coupled with a knee injury a year later, when a train hit their car, made it difficult for her to travel.
When they arrived, Mama was so excited. She could hardly wait to tell me that since he did not like to drive on freeways that he had taken her suggestion to drive through Carthage and Nauvoo, IL. At the Carthage jail was a missionary couple The little wife took my dad's hands in hers and asked."Are you a member of the Church, Sir?"
Daddy replied,"No, but my wife is."
She asked. "But you know it's true don't you?"
To which he answered, "Yes, Mam." Then she asked him to promise her that as soon as he got home he would call the missionaries and tell them he was ready to be baptized, and he told her he would. Mama said she would not remind him, just wait to see if he really meant it.
Mama flew out to see us several times, once to spend several weeks and have cataracts removed.
She was excited to go to the first assembly at BYU in the fall. Ted pushed her wheel chair right to the front and she was able to shake President Harold B. Lee's hand, and hear him speak. The next time she was to see him was on the other side. They died within a week of each other.
She was only 62. We did not know the cause of her death, even with an autopsy, but it showed a diseased gall bladder, which we now know can cause failure of any organ. Her kidneys ceased to function after many weeks of terrible pain. I flew to Florida at Thanksgiving to be with her in the hospital. They were worried about ecoli in the blood stream which they did not understand, but never suspected the gall bladder.
A beautiful woman, a life that was a benefit to all who knew her. I still cry sometimes when I think of how I miss her, and hope that she was proud of me.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Mothers day +3
Some women are not"cut out" to be mothers. It was my mother's talent. She had enough patience for a dozen children, and she was lucky to have three. Given our financial circumstances, I don't know how they could have supported more. Given her unique blood type, which was unknown at the time, she could not have had more. Later in her life she was told about the Rh negative factor. Her third child, Bobby, was sickly, but he survived, and he was always her favorite, the cutest little boy you ever saw. He was small and had blond curls. She couldn't bear to cut them, so he became the original Hippie. He was about three when it was cut the first time. Of course she didn't tell anyone he was her favorite, but we could tell. He was sickly and missed a lot of school, but he was very smart, and everybody loved him. He was always closer to her. It hurt her that I was not able to go home often in those lean years of graduate school and getting our feet on the ground. Bobby always knew he was her favorite.
My baby sister was born when Bobby was two, but the jaundice took her life in a few days. It was a terrible time for all of us. She was so beautiful, lots of black hair, and my mother sobbed for weeks at losing her. The next year she had a still born boy, and every year after for several years she had a miscarriage. To preserve her health she had a hysterectomy. It was the only time I remember her being in bed for very long.
Our houses were always so small after we moved from the Civil War house. I guess it must have fallen apart after we moved, I was in second grade when we moved back to Deep Run, the small community about ten miles from Kinston, called Kingstown in the 17th century. It was a very old house, too, without interior walls, or sealing, as we called it, which made it very hard to heat. It had a loft and someone had left a huge old volume of Dickens up there. I read Pickwick papers. The most fascinating thing about the book was a hole eaten all the way through it by a worm. It really was a book worm! The cartoons in the book were fabulous. I will never forget Mr. Pickwick on his donkey holding the reins with one hand and a long stick with the other. On the end of the stick was a bunch of carrots which he held just in front of the donkey's nose to entice him to keep walking. I spent many hours up in the loft with that book. Mama became very aggrivated with my being so absorbed by it when I should have been working.
Bill and I were always fighting. Mama would threaten to go in the woods and never come back if we didn't stop. When Bobby was old enough to take sides with Bill, they were finally able to subdue me, and she had more peace in the home.
Mama had a very soft heart. Traveling salesmen came through our area occasionally. She had little sales resistance, and once she bought a piece of fabric from a Jew. How did she know he was a Jew? We had a bull dog so mean that people would borrow him to catch an escaped pig. Anyone approaching the house had to deal with the dog. When he did not even bark at the little man with the suitcase, Mama knew he was a Jew. After all, they are God's chosen people! If possible, she would not answer the door when a salesman came by our house. She made us sit quietly, because even if he had something we wanted, she usually had no money. Regulars like the Watkins man were planned for, and she always bought vanilla.
Once we were playing at a neighbor's and a man came by selling books. He asked if she knew when the lady next door (Mama) would be home. I said, "She is home. Come on. I'll go with you." She was so mad at me when I took him right in the house where she was sewing. She bought a medical book, rationalizing that as far as we lived from the doctor, we should be able to take care of ourselves with that book.
One night Daddy woke me to say he had to take Mama to the hospital. She was screaming in agony. He said, "Now, don't go back to sleep! Stay awake and listen for your brothers!" The reason he did not want me to go to sleep was because I had become a sleep-walker, and just before that he had heard me walking around, had asked what I was doing, and I said I was looking for matches. They were afraid I would burn the house down. Mama was holding her hand to her ear, saying something had crawled in her ear and they couldn't get it out. When they got to the front door of the hospital where there was a bright light, the bug crawled out and they came home without even going inside.
My baby sister was born when Bobby was two, but the jaundice took her life in a few days. It was a terrible time for all of us. She was so beautiful, lots of black hair, and my mother sobbed for weeks at losing her. The next year she had a still born boy, and every year after for several years she had a miscarriage. To preserve her health she had a hysterectomy. It was the only time I remember her being in bed for very long.
Our houses were always so small after we moved from the Civil War house. I guess it must have fallen apart after we moved, I was in second grade when we moved back to Deep Run, the small community about ten miles from Kinston, called Kingstown in the 17th century. It was a very old house, too, without interior walls, or sealing, as we called it, which made it very hard to heat. It had a loft and someone had left a huge old volume of Dickens up there. I read Pickwick papers. The most fascinating thing about the book was a hole eaten all the way through it by a worm. It really was a book worm! The cartoons in the book were fabulous. I will never forget Mr. Pickwick on his donkey holding the reins with one hand and a long stick with the other. On the end of the stick was a bunch of carrots which he held just in front of the donkey's nose to entice him to keep walking. I spent many hours up in the loft with that book. Mama became very aggrivated with my being so absorbed by it when I should have been working.
Bill and I were always fighting. Mama would threaten to go in the woods and never come back if we didn't stop. When Bobby was old enough to take sides with Bill, they were finally able to subdue me, and she had more peace in the home.
Mama had a very soft heart. Traveling salesmen came through our area occasionally. She had little sales resistance, and once she bought a piece of fabric from a Jew. How did she know he was a Jew? We had a bull dog so mean that people would borrow him to catch an escaped pig. Anyone approaching the house had to deal with the dog. When he did not even bark at the little man with the suitcase, Mama knew he was a Jew. After all, they are God's chosen people! If possible, she would not answer the door when a salesman came by our house. She made us sit quietly, because even if he had something we wanted, she usually had no money. Regulars like the Watkins man were planned for, and she always bought vanilla.
Once we were playing at a neighbor's and a man came by selling books. He asked if she knew when the lady next door (Mama) would be home. I said, "She is home. Come on. I'll go with you." She was so mad at me when I took him right in the house where she was sewing. She bought a medical book, rationalizing that as far as we lived from the doctor, we should be able to take care of ourselves with that book.
One night Daddy woke me to say he had to take Mama to the hospital. She was screaming in agony. He said, "Now, don't go back to sleep! Stay awake and listen for your brothers!" The reason he did not want me to go to sleep was because I had become a sleep-walker, and just before that he had heard me walking around, had asked what I was doing, and I said I was looking for matches. They were afraid I would burn the house down. Mama was holding her hand to her ear, saying something had crawled in her ear and they couldn't get it out. When they got to the front door of the hospital where there was a bright light, the bug crawled out and they came home without even going inside.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Mother's Day +2
Mama had very little contact with anyone in her family. Her sister, Myrtle, married later than Mama, to a very nice man, Leonard Lee. He was sort of quiet, and I thought he was very handsome. Aunt Myrtle was a character. We saw more of her than we did their brother Durwood, who inherited the farm and house. She lived in town, and it was a big treat to go to her house. I remember the first time she invited me to spend the weekend. I took my first bath in a tub, and made my first phone call - to my favorite teacher. Her daughter was ten years younger then I, and she was pretty, like the Robinsons. I envied that, hated my red hair and freckles.
Uncle Durwood came to visit about once a year. Daddy usually took off somewhere when he came. My mother accepted the fact that she would never get anything for her years of hard work on her father's farm, but Daddy grumbled about it. After Miss Helen died, and Mama could do as she wished with the house, Uncle Durwood asked her if he could do anything for her. I was in college, and I came home one weekend to find Uncle Durwood, a skilled carpenter, tearing out a wall to make Mama a proper living room. She had never had a nice living room with pretty furniture. Miss Helen had insisted on having the entire floor covered with scatter rugs, and they were the first to go. Uncle Durwood didn't charge her a penny.
Before Aunt Myrtle was married she came to visit us in the big old house in Craven County. She brought us a box of ready to eat cereal. I thought I had never eaten anything so good. Corn flakes soon became popular, but they were too expensive for us.
Mama always made a big breakfast, ham, if we had it, grits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and the best biscuits in the world. During the depression we sometimes had no meat or eggs, if the hens were not laying, but we always had biscuits, and she would make Hoover gravy, by browning flour in a dry pan, and adding water to make a thick brown liquid that looked like gravy, but had very little taste. If there were any left over black-eyed peas, we could put some on a split biscuit, and cover the whole thing with the gravy. Not bad!
We always had to take our lunch to school. If we had ham, a piece in a biscuit was good, but the kids whose family had money brought baloney sandwiches made with loaf bread store bought and pre-sliced. Oh, how I wished I could have tasted it. I ate mine in a corner so nobody could see what I had. In cold weather Mama always put a small baked sweet potato in each of my pockets to keep my hands warm. That made a nice treat. When I was in college,I was invited to a wedding reception where they served little biscuits stuffed with sliced ham. I shall never forget how it made me feel to realize I had been eating party food for lunch in grade school!
I always felt that everybody in the class was on a higher social level. They wore store bought clothes. In third grade my winter coat was made of flour sacks dyed orange, (after it was made, as we had no orange thread). Orange was not a popular color. Each weekend she washed it by hand, starched it and ironed it for me to wear on Monday. The sacks were heavy and had a label painted on, but Clorox had been invented, and she was so excited to be able to bleach out the writing. Now a coat like that, in that color, would be high fashion.
One day at school a pretty girl in high school came to me and told me she was Mama's sister. Our school was first through twelfth. She said she had just learned that she was adopted. Mama had never told me about the baby she took to Aunt Mary Harper, who raised her as her own. They were afraid she would be traumatized, if she learned her father had given her away. I suppose they did it very tactfully, because she said she was happy to know she was my aunt, and asked me to tell Mama she wanted to take the school bus to visit her. Mama was so happy to finally be able to recognize her as a sister. She was very beautiful with long black curly hair. We saw her often until she married a Marine stationed at Camp LeJeune, a Polish boy, Ed Tagai, from Wisconsin. She stayed with his family there while he faught in the Pacific, had a girl and boy when he returned, and died young of cancer. I wish I had some contact.
Uncle Durwood came to visit about once a year. Daddy usually took off somewhere when he came. My mother accepted the fact that she would never get anything for her years of hard work on her father's farm, but Daddy grumbled about it. After Miss Helen died, and Mama could do as she wished with the house, Uncle Durwood asked her if he could do anything for her. I was in college, and I came home one weekend to find Uncle Durwood, a skilled carpenter, tearing out a wall to make Mama a proper living room. She had never had a nice living room with pretty furniture. Miss Helen had insisted on having the entire floor covered with scatter rugs, and they were the first to go. Uncle Durwood didn't charge her a penny.
Before Aunt Myrtle was married she came to visit us in the big old house in Craven County. She brought us a box of ready to eat cereal. I thought I had never eaten anything so good. Corn flakes soon became popular, but they were too expensive for us.
Mama always made a big breakfast, ham, if we had it, grits and gravy, scrambled eggs, and the best biscuits in the world. During the depression we sometimes had no meat or eggs, if the hens were not laying, but we always had biscuits, and she would make Hoover gravy, by browning flour in a dry pan, and adding water to make a thick brown liquid that looked like gravy, but had very little taste. If there were any left over black-eyed peas, we could put some on a split biscuit, and cover the whole thing with the gravy. Not bad!
We always had to take our lunch to school. If we had ham, a piece in a biscuit was good, but the kids whose family had money brought baloney sandwiches made with loaf bread store bought and pre-sliced. Oh, how I wished I could have tasted it. I ate mine in a corner so nobody could see what I had. In cold weather Mama always put a small baked sweet potato in each of my pockets to keep my hands warm. That made a nice treat. When I was in college,I was invited to a wedding reception where they served little biscuits stuffed with sliced ham. I shall never forget how it made me feel to realize I had been eating party food for lunch in grade school!
I always felt that everybody in the class was on a higher social level. They wore store bought clothes. In third grade my winter coat was made of flour sacks dyed orange, (after it was made, as we had no orange thread). Orange was not a popular color. Each weekend she washed it by hand, starched it and ironed it for me to wear on Monday. The sacks were heavy and had a label painted on, but Clorox had been invented, and she was so excited to be able to bleach out the writing. Now a coat like that, in that color, would be high fashion.
One day at school a pretty girl in high school came to me and told me she was Mama's sister. Our school was first through twelfth. She said she had just learned that she was adopted. Mama had never told me about the baby she took to Aunt Mary Harper, who raised her as her own. They were afraid she would be traumatized, if she learned her father had given her away. I suppose they did it very tactfully, because she said she was happy to know she was my aunt, and asked me to tell Mama she wanted to take the school bus to visit her. Mama was so happy to finally be able to recognize her as a sister. She was very beautiful with long black curly hair. We saw her often until she married a Marine stationed at Camp LeJeune, a Polish boy, Ed Tagai, from Wisconsin. She stayed with his family there while he faught in the Pacific, had a girl and boy when he returned, and died young of cancer. I wish I had some contact.
Monday, May 11, 2009
MOTHERS DAY + 1
I find it impossible to do a tribute to my mother in one sitting, so this is Mable Robinson Week. Each night I will add to her story, a life of selflessness, sacrifice and hope. However bad her circumstances, she hid it with a ready smile. If my dad saved any money from his year "on the water", it was gone by the time my brother Bill was born. I was 2 1/2, and I remember it so well, because my uncles were digging a well, their clothes covered with yellow mud. They pretended to try picking me up, but I ran, screaming. I always tried to stay clean. My dad came in saying he had something to show me, a pink little boy in my mother's arms. They farmed that year, and I began to care for my brother. He was asleep on a quilt on the floor when he was a few weeks old. I was told to watch him, and go to the barn as soon as he woke. It was awfully boring, and after a few minutes I decided to go to a neighbor's house. My dad must have seen me leave the house, because he caught up with me before I got there, and with a switch he had cut on his way he hit my legs as I ran all the way home.
We were to spend the next 16 years share cropping, borrowing money for everything we bought, paying it back when the tobacco sold, and starting the new crop with borrowed money. Before I was three we had moved to the dilapidated Civil War mansion in Craven County. When winter came my little brother had no warm coat, so Mama took a very worn wool blanket which was threadbare except around the sides, and sewed him a little coat by hand. It was large pink and brown checks, and I must have had a fashion sense, even then, because I thought it was the silliest thing for a little boy with bright red hair!
During those depression years we were never on welfare, because we could grow things, and Mama sewed our clothes by hand. She could make the tiny stitches look just like a sewing machine had sewn it, by back stitching each one. Daddy was able to supplement their income
through some homemade brew operation he had going in the woods. Prohibition had given many people in the south a clear conscience, and he always had connections, law officers he paid off, but his partner was caught, and sent to prison for a year. The family were our best friends, and they had no income while their father was away. They were invited to live with us that year, in the upper floor which had two nice rooms and a fireplace in each. Miss Emmy cooked for her two daughters in the fireplace. I thought it was fascinating. My mother loved having them there, because normally she had nobody to talk with except me. I wore her out, she said, because I asked so many questions. It was during those years that stock car racing started in North Carolina, in the sand hills of Rockingham, near Charlotte, or so the story goes, with bootleggers in their old jalopies, trying to outrun the "revenuers".
Daddy enjoyed living on the edge. Gambling was another vice which worried my mother. One of the few times I saw her cry was the year he got in a poker game with all the money he had brought home from selling the tobacco crop. He lost every cent and could not pay the debts for the previous year. I am sure he spent a lot of time in the woods the next year in order to catch up. Most evenings he spent at the country store gambling, not for high stakes, but with small wrapped candies. It was wonderful when he won. I especially loved the peanut butter ones.
The store was warm. Our house was cold. He hated cutting wood. During the winter days my mother stayed in bed most of the time. She would take a "tow sack" made of burlap and scour the woods for fat pine so she could have a fire in the heater when we got home from school. As soon as we ate we went to bed with a hot brick at our feet. Some of the later houses were very difficult to heat. You could see through the walls in places. Mama decided, when I was about ten, to get a job in town at the new shirt factory. She loved the companionship of the other women who worked there. We loved the variety of food she began to bring home. Of course when the weather warmed up she had to quit and help work the farm.
Still she sewed all of our clothes by hand. She could only afford to buy black and white thread. I remember a skirt she made for me from a remnant she found on sale. It was peach color, and she determined it would look tacky sewn with white thread, so she pulled raveled threads out and wound them together to top stitch all the pleats in peach thread. She was always busy. I cannot ever remember seeing her resting. Daddy seemed to always be resting, usually reading Wild West magazines. After working all day in the factory she would come home, cook a meal and before going to bed she made a small tub of hot water and washed his feet!
We were to spend the next 16 years share cropping, borrowing money for everything we bought, paying it back when the tobacco sold, and starting the new crop with borrowed money. Before I was three we had moved to the dilapidated Civil War mansion in Craven County. When winter came my little brother had no warm coat, so Mama took a very worn wool blanket which was threadbare except around the sides, and sewed him a little coat by hand. It was large pink and brown checks, and I must have had a fashion sense, even then, because I thought it was the silliest thing for a little boy with bright red hair!
During those depression years we were never on welfare, because we could grow things, and Mama sewed our clothes by hand. She could make the tiny stitches look just like a sewing machine had sewn it, by back stitching each one. Daddy was able to supplement their income
through some homemade brew operation he had going in the woods. Prohibition had given many people in the south a clear conscience, and he always had connections, law officers he paid off, but his partner was caught, and sent to prison for a year. The family were our best friends, and they had no income while their father was away. They were invited to live with us that year, in the upper floor which had two nice rooms and a fireplace in each. Miss Emmy cooked for her two daughters in the fireplace. I thought it was fascinating. My mother loved having them there, because normally she had nobody to talk with except me. I wore her out, she said, because I asked so many questions. It was during those years that stock car racing started in North Carolina, in the sand hills of Rockingham, near Charlotte, or so the story goes, with bootleggers in their old jalopies, trying to outrun the "revenuers".
Daddy enjoyed living on the edge. Gambling was another vice which worried my mother. One of the few times I saw her cry was the year he got in a poker game with all the money he had brought home from selling the tobacco crop. He lost every cent and could not pay the debts for the previous year. I am sure he spent a lot of time in the woods the next year in order to catch up. Most evenings he spent at the country store gambling, not for high stakes, but with small wrapped candies. It was wonderful when he won. I especially loved the peanut butter ones.
The store was warm. Our house was cold. He hated cutting wood. During the winter days my mother stayed in bed most of the time. She would take a "tow sack" made of burlap and scour the woods for fat pine so she could have a fire in the heater when we got home from school. As soon as we ate we went to bed with a hot brick at our feet. Some of the later houses were very difficult to heat. You could see through the walls in places. Mama decided, when I was about ten, to get a job in town at the new shirt factory. She loved the companionship of the other women who worked there. We loved the variety of food she began to bring home. Of course when the weather warmed up she had to quit and help work the farm.
Still she sewed all of our clothes by hand. She could only afford to buy black and white thread. I remember a skirt she made for me from a remnant she found on sale. It was peach color, and she determined it would look tacky sewn with white thread, so she pulled raveled threads out and wound them together to top stitch all the pleats in peach thread. She was always busy. I cannot ever remember seeing her resting. Daddy seemed to always be resting, usually reading Wild West magazines. After working all day in the factory she would come home, cook a meal and before going to bed she made a small tub of hot water and washed his feet!
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Mothers Day
My grand daughters, Sara Jayne and Maren, cooked a dinner for me today. There were nine of us here. I talked to all my daughters, took a nap, and had a great Mother's Day. In honor of the best mother in the world I want to write a tribute to her.
When my mother was 16 years old the first Mormon missionaries came to the area and her whole family was baptized. There was not much time to learn about the Gospel before she was
married at 17. My dad was not interested in church, and there was not a branch near enough for her to attend. My first awareness of her being different from the Baptists and Pentacostal members came when I was too young to go to school. We were living in the big antebellum house back in the woods. One day we saw two young men in dark suits and fedora hats walking into the clearing. They introduced themselves as Mormon missionaries. Mama was so excited. ''I'm a Mormon! '' she announced. They looked startled, in disbelief. There were so few members in the state, and none in our area. The mission included Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tenn., Virginia, and West Virginia, and I don't know how many more. The mission headquarters was in Kentucky, and Charles Callas was president. Mama jumped up and went for her trunk, which held everything important, and said she would show them her baptism certificate. She went through everything, but couldn't find it. They left, and she sat down and and cried, saying, "They didn't believe me!" When she died, Daddy gave me her little trunk. I can't remember what motivated me to turn the upper tray upside down, but stuck to the bottom was her baptism certificate.
I remember having company at our house and hearing them comment on her religion, "Mable won't eat. She's a Mormon, and she's fasting." We went to whatever church we lived near. In second grade we moved near Holiness, a Penticost faith, and Mama and I were the only ones in attendance who were not saved. We sat in the back. I wanted to join everyone at the altar to be saved, but she said it was not the right church. A neighbor told us, after we had missed a meeting, that the preacher had commented, " We can have a good time tonight. The old devil isn't here!" She was sure he meant my mother. She just laughed. We never put any money in the plate, and some thought we were heathens. Mama thought it was better to go to any church than stay home, so on Sunday she would hitch up the mule to the Hoover cart, and leave him tied to a pine tree while we went to the meetings. I loved the Bible stories and children's songs I learned.
I was in high school before we moved near enough to a chapel to drive there, but there was a war, gas shortage, and other than taking a school bus to my cousin's house, I still had no chance to attend my mother's church, and discover why it was so important to her. I loved the weekends I could spend with my cousin Helen, five years older than I. Finally, when I was a junior, we were able to attend regularly. Meetings were held twice each Sunday. I remember the day we heard a sermon on the word of wisdom, a principle which had not been emphasized in the twenties. Mama was very surprised to know that she should not have been drinking tea nor coffee. We were not big coffee drinkers, but iced tea was our salvation summer and winter. I was not sure I could give it up, and determined that I would be baptized if I could go a year without it. Mama never drank a drop of either from the time she heard the talk.
In September of 1946 I was baptized in the dark brown water of Tull's mill pond, wearing a pair of overalls and a work shirt. I was the only member in my senior class.
My younger brothers also wanted to be baptized, and I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life by convincing my mother that she should make them wait until they were older. I thought I knew everything. My philosophy was that it would be worse to commit the sins I was so sure they would. I could see they were poking fun of church. Sitting on the wooden benches my 14 year old brother was amused at how often one Brother Potter said, "My dear brothers and sisters". During a sermon one Sunday he said it some twenty times, and to keep count, Bill cut a notch in the bench each time he said it. I was so embarrased. I had a crush on one of the Harper boys who was on his way to BYU the next fall, and I wanted to make a good impression.
Had the boys been members I am sure they would have done the rowdy things, but their wives would have agreed to go with them to our church. That is just how wives were in our part of the country.
Mama was the hardest worker, the least critical person and most pleasant to be around. She was truly a missionary to my father, and eventually to my brother who is now a member. Other stories for another time.
When my mother was 16 years old the first Mormon missionaries came to the area and her whole family was baptized. There was not much time to learn about the Gospel before she was
married at 17. My dad was not interested in church, and there was not a branch near enough for her to attend. My first awareness of her being different from the Baptists and Pentacostal members came when I was too young to go to school. We were living in the big antebellum house back in the woods. One day we saw two young men in dark suits and fedora hats walking into the clearing. They introduced themselves as Mormon missionaries. Mama was so excited. ''I'm a Mormon! '' she announced. They looked startled, in disbelief. There were so few members in the state, and none in our area. The mission included Kentucky, North and South Carolina, Tenn., Virginia, and West Virginia, and I don't know how many more. The mission headquarters was in Kentucky, and Charles Callas was president. Mama jumped up and went for her trunk, which held everything important, and said she would show them her baptism certificate. She went through everything, but couldn't find it. They left, and she sat down and and cried, saying, "They didn't believe me!" When she died, Daddy gave me her little trunk. I can't remember what motivated me to turn the upper tray upside down, but stuck to the bottom was her baptism certificate.
I remember having company at our house and hearing them comment on her religion, "Mable won't eat. She's a Mormon, and she's fasting." We went to whatever church we lived near. In second grade we moved near Holiness, a Penticost faith, and Mama and I were the only ones in attendance who were not saved. We sat in the back. I wanted to join everyone at the altar to be saved, but she said it was not the right church. A neighbor told us, after we had missed a meeting, that the preacher had commented, " We can have a good time tonight. The old devil isn't here!" She was sure he meant my mother. She just laughed. We never put any money in the plate, and some thought we were heathens. Mama thought it was better to go to any church than stay home, so on Sunday she would hitch up the mule to the Hoover cart, and leave him tied to a pine tree while we went to the meetings. I loved the Bible stories and children's songs I learned.
I was in high school before we moved near enough to a chapel to drive there, but there was a war, gas shortage, and other than taking a school bus to my cousin's house, I still had no chance to attend my mother's church, and discover why it was so important to her. I loved the weekends I could spend with my cousin Helen, five years older than I. Finally, when I was a junior, we were able to attend regularly. Meetings were held twice each Sunday. I remember the day we heard a sermon on the word of wisdom, a principle which had not been emphasized in the twenties. Mama was very surprised to know that she should not have been drinking tea nor coffee. We were not big coffee drinkers, but iced tea was our salvation summer and winter. I was not sure I could give it up, and determined that I would be baptized if I could go a year without it. Mama never drank a drop of either from the time she heard the talk.
In September of 1946 I was baptized in the dark brown water of Tull's mill pond, wearing a pair of overalls and a work shirt. I was the only member in my senior class.
My younger brothers also wanted to be baptized, and I made one of the biggest mistakes of my life by convincing my mother that she should make them wait until they were older. I thought I knew everything. My philosophy was that it would be worse to commit the sins I was so sure they would. I could see they were poking fun of church. Sitting on the wooden benches my 14 year old brother was amused at how often one Brother Potter said, "My dear brothers and sisters". During a sermon one Sunday he said it some twenty times, and to keep count, Bill cut a notch in the bench each time he said it. I was so embarrased. I had a crush on one of the Harper boys who was on his way to BYU the next fall, and I wanted to make a good impression.
Had the boys been members I am sure they would have done the rowdy things, but their wives would have agreed to go with them to our church. That is just how wives were in our part of the country.
Mama was the hardest worker, the least critical person and most pleasant to be around. She was truly a missionary to my father, and eventually to my brother who is now a member. Other stories for another time.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
1929
Most people remember it as the year the stock market crashed, but the first month was not bad for my family. In fact it was probably the happiest time my mother had ever known. Not long after she was married my dad found a job working for a dredging company on the coast. The result of the project was called The Inland Waterway, and today it is a well traveled route for small sea craft from all over the world. With minimum sailing experience you can take a boat from the Florida Keys to Maine by just following the buoys marking the current, and never seeing the ocean. My mother spent most of the year boarding with a family in Swansboro, a quaint fishing village below New Bern. She remained friends with the people on the street the rest of her life. In her father's home she had been very unhappy.
In 1918 my mother was barely 8 years old when she found herself caring for both her four younger siblings and her parents. She took Mamie, the new baby, to her aunt's house and cared for the two year old, Naomi, until she died. It was the beginning of the flu epidemic. Her father survived, but Mama remembered standing at the foot of the bed watching her mother die, her father being too sick to be aware.
They lived in a beautiful log cabin with two bedrooms in the loft. The only son in the family, Uncle Durwood, inherited everything- the rule of primogeniture-and I remember visiting him there when I was very small, thinking what a wonderful, cosy house with gardenia bushes all around and pink roses climbing on the walls. Her mother, Lydia McArthur Robinson, was petite with jet black hair and eyes, and her work ethic affected my mother, and eventually me and my brother. I wish I could have known her.
Left with three children to raise, her father did his best. All of the children worked on the farm, and my mother did the cooking. After five or six years, her dad married a girl only a year older than Mama. Sally Taylor took over my mother's life. She was sent out to work on other farms, and turned over all her earnings to her stepmother. My grandfather bought one of the first cars in the county, taught his new wife to drive, but Mama did not ride in it very much. There were not many rules in the house, and 'Sook' as they called her, put an end to many things like eating between meals. She even put a lock on the pie safe where the left overs were kept. The only person my mother truly disliked was Sook. I only saw her once. Mama pointed her out in a doctor's office full of people. She looked like a skeleton to me, with parchment thin skin, and she did not recognize us.
I was delivered by a real doctor, unlike my other siblings who were delivered at home by a midwife. I don't think my dad was there, but I don't know. A few days before he was at a New Years Eve company party in Delaware. He brought his party hat for my first gift. I had until I was married.
When Daddy came home, he moved Mama and me two houses down the street where we rented an upstairs bedroom from a sea captain and his wife, Earnest and Helen Wessel. Cpt. Earnest was at sea most of the time. Miss Helen, from Pascagoula, Miss, the beautiful girl who fell in love with the German captain who had left his homeland rather than fight in WW l, went to sea with him until one day, in a storm, she fell overboard. She never left shore again.
Miss Helen spoiled me, always thought of me as her baby. Mama watched Miss Helen enter an affair with Mr. Bill Toler next door. Mrs. Toler developed pneumonia, was recovering, but suddenly died. Helen and Bill took off together as soon as he could sell his home, bought a house boat and lived moored by the city dump for sixteen years.
We visited them several times as I was growing up. Miss Helen worked in a laundry to support them, because Bill was disabled most of those years. A woman who had been pampered by her capitan and given every luxury became a drudge, looked terrible. When Bill died she returned to Swansboro, and he took her back. Cpt. Earnest only lived a year.
One day when I was a senior in high school we got a letter from Miss Helen, telling us the whole story. Eventually, during my first semester in college, she talked my dad into moving to Swansboro, and moving in with her. She gave us the house, but over the next nine years she nearly drove my mother crazy. My dad had remained friends with the dredging company and
had gone back to work for them, so they had left her alone, and were living in Washington, D.C. when my brother checked on her and found her dead in bed. There were only five people at her funeral,
The capitan's house is on the state register. Miss Helen's ghost has been heard by many people, climbing up and down the enclosed staircase, with her customary glass of iced tea, the ice cubes tinkling against the glass.
In 1918 my mother was barely 8 years old when she found herself caring for both her four younger siblings and her parents. She took Mamie, the new baby, to her aunt's house and cared for the two year old, Naomi, until she died. It was the beginning of the flu epidemic. Her father survived, but Mama remembered standing at the foot of the bed watching her mother die, her father being too sick to be aware.
They lived in a beautiful log cabin with two bedrooms in the loft. The only son in the family, Uncle Durwood, inherited everything- the rule of primogeniture-and I remember visiting him there when I was very small, thinking what a wonderful, cosy house with gardenia bushes all around and pink roses climbing on the walls. Her mother, Lydia McArthur Robinson, was petite with jet black hair and eyes, and her work ethic affected my mother, and eventually me and my brother. I wish I could have known her.
Left with three children to raise, her father did his best. All of the children worked on the farm, and my mother did the cooking. After five or six years, her dad married a girl only a year older than Mama. Sally Taylor took over my mother's life. She was sent out to work on other farms, and turned over all her earnings to her stepmother. My grandfather bought one of the first cars in the county, taught his new wife to drive, but Mama did not ride in it very much. There were not many rules in the house, and 'Sook' as they called her, put an end to many things like eating between meals. She even put a lock on the pie safe where the left overs were kept. The only person my mother truly disliked was Sook. I only saw her once. Mama pointed her out in a doctor's office full of people. She looked like a skeleton to me, with parchment thin skin, and she did not recognize us.
I was delivered by a real doctor, unlike my other siblings who were delivered at home by a midwife. I don't think my dad was there, but I don't know. A few days before he was at a New Years Eve company party in Delaware. He brought his party hat for my first gift. I had until I was married.
When Daddy came home, he moved Mama and me two houses down the street where we rented an upstairs bedroom from a sea captain and his wife, Earnest and Helen Wessel. Cpt. Earnest was at sea most of the time. Miss Helen, from Pascagoula, Miss, the beautiful girl who fell in love with the German captain who had left his homeland rather than fight in WW l, went to sea with him until one day, in a storm, she fell overboard. She never left shore again.
Miss Helen spoiled me, always thought of me as her baby. Mama watched Miss Helen enter an affair with Mr. Bill Toler next door. Mrs. Toler developed pneumonia, was recovering, but suddenly died. Helen and Bill took off together as soon as he could sell his home, bought a house boat and lived moored by the city dump for sixteen years.
We visited them several times as I was growing up. Miss Helen worked in a laundry to support them, because Bill was disabled most of those years. A woman who had been pampered by her capitan and given every luxury became a drudge, looked terrible. When Bill died she returned to Swansboro, and he took her back. Cpt. Earnest only lived a year.
One day when I was a senior in high school we got a letter from Miss Helen, telling us the whole story. Eventually, during my first semester in college, she talked my dad into moving to Swansboro, and moving in with her. She gave us the house, but over the next nine years she nearly drove my mother crazy. My dad had remained friends with the dredging company and
had gone back to work for them, so they had left her alone, and were living in Washington, D.C. when my brother checked on her and found her dead in bed. There were only five people at her funeral,
The capitan's house is on the state register. Miss Helen's ghost has been heard by many people, climbing up and down the enclosed staircase, with her customary glass of iced tea, the ice cubes tinkling against the glass.
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