Monday, September 17, 2012
Mom's Story Telling
Mom's Story Telling
My Mother had a way of sharing her memories that was simple but mesmerizing, at least it was to me. Don't get me wrong she did not sit around all day telling stories. She had 6 boys to raise and she did in in a hands on way. It was those good and easy times when she would take a few moments and reminisce about her family that captured my attention and still holds a special place in my heart today. Mom lost her mother when she was only 15 years old and being the oldest girl the bulk of the house keeping and child rearing became her responsibility. This was exaggerated by the fact that her father was near blind and she had 3 younger siblings.
1929 was a very bad year for Mom and the Collier family, the oldest son Charles Odell died January 02 and her mother Addie died on August 12, 1929. Of course we all know what about the stock market crashing that same year. I am sure the crash of the stock market was of little interest at the time but as the next few years unfolded it became increasingly hard to find work of any kind in Izard County and like many other families they resorted to working the cotton crops in the 'east bottoms' as they were referred to by many. There was a lot of cotton in Jackson County and I think they moved back and forth between Jackson County and Izard County a few times.
It was in these trying times that Mom grew into womanhood. Please remember I am paraphrasing when I try to retell her stories. I am also working with the handicap of not being the storyteller she was. I do remember her talking about spending a Sunday afternoon with her teenage friends just exploring the area where they lived. She told of going up on one of the highest hills just to see the beautiful country side. She told of building a fire and when it was time to go home some of the boys places large sandstone rocks on the fire and when they were about half way home the rocks would explode, they didn't have TV for entertainment in those days.
She told of being in a school play and waiting for her father to come home from his job hauling freight by wagon and a team of horses. He sometimes spent the night on the road between Melbourne and the river port at Guion in Izard County, Arkansas. That evening she waited until it was almost too late to make the trip into town before the play started. It was very cold and one of the neighbors came by and gave her a lift. She made it just in time for the play but was worried about her father Joseph. It was just not like him to be late any time but this time was special and he had promised her he would be home in time to take her in to town. The play had already started when they heard the familiar sound of a heavily loaded freight wagon coming down the street. The play was halted while the men folks carried her father off the frozen wagon seat and took him in to thaw him out. The had to break the ice off the horses muzzle in order to feed and water them.
Mom talked about her mother Addie ‘Dobbs’ Collier and her love for playing the organ. I would have loved to hear Grandma Addie play, I can imagine a waltz or a good old gospel song from the Presbyterian Hymnal but sadly it was not to be. While I was researching our family genealogy my 2nd cousin Diane Dobbs Wilson found me through my Lane-Collier Web Page and said she had a copy of a daily Journal written by Elizabeth J. Rudolph McSpadden. Elizabeth was aunt to my Grandmother Addie who’s brother William was Diane’s Grandfather. This wonderful lady wrote mundane facts of daily life that may not have seemed that important at the time but when I read it 100 years later I was mesmerized and didn’t want to put it down even to eat or sleep. I was reading along sometimes laughing sometimes with tears in my eye when right there on February 3, 1900 it simply said “Mack Dobbs got them an organ”. This was the organ Mother told all those years later.
Mom also talked about her Grandfather John Ira McMillon Dobbs who was a Civil War Veteran. The Civil War was always interesting to me and actually listening to someone tell true stories about actual events was always a treat. I later found out that John was in Company E, Freeman's Regiment of Cavalry, Confederate States Of America. According to the story he told Mom and she passed on to me was that he was wounded quite severely in the head and was left along with some others to recover near a spring of water. His wound was very serious and somehow word got back to his family and they slipped through Union lines and brought him back home to recover.
When I started researching my family genealogy I was living in Loveland, Colorado and trying to dig up as much as my limited resources would let me. I visited the Arkansas History Center in Little Rock as often as I could get back in the area. There Confederate military records showed where John received a Confederate pension of $25.00 month starting Aug 21, 1901 and increased to $100.00 month Aug, 8, 1910 until his death in 1932. It stated that he had been severely wounded in the head. There was also records that show where Freeman established a headquarters near Mammoth Spring, Arkansas and the Spring River Mill and his area of activity ranged over Northern Arkansas and as far north as Salem and Houston in Southern Missouri. The number of troops in his command ranged from 200 to 1500 men. This was the wound he told Mother about and Mammoth Springs was probably where he was left to recuperate. He did recovered from his wounds at home and returned to his unit to finish out the war.
When Mom talked about her young womanhood it was like she was relating something to you that happen yesterday.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Picking Cotton
Thurman Dwight Lane
 The Author 1950We had a split term school at Hoxie, Arkansas where I spent all my 1st through 12th education. This means we were out of school in the spring for planting and chopping cotton and after a mid-summer term we were out in the fall for picking cotton. With all the misery of chopping cotton and going to school during the hot and humid Arkansas summer then out to break your back picking cotton it should have been called misery-term school. All and all it did give us a chance to add some much needed cash to the household coffers. With 6 growing boys and 2 adults to feed I really don’t know how my parents would have fed us without the extra income.
Some folks could pack 70 or 80 pounds in one of those 9-foot sacks but mine usually had less than that. They also made 12 footers but with my limited skills I had no use for one that big. The last pick sack I saw was at my cousins antique store and it had a metal ring sewn into the bottom corner. Most of us poor folks just put a large green cotton bole in the corner and wrapped a few strands of bailing wire around the outside of the sack to form a ring of sorts. When you weighed the cotton you placed the ring over the hook on the scales and doubled the sack up and wrapped the shoulder strap around the hook. We also found polk salad that had mature red berries and used the them to write our name on the sack.
We were usually in the fields just after sun up so we could get some work done before the hot part of the day. If we were picking a large field they would park the wagon in the middle of the field and we would go to the other end of the row and pick back to the wagon. In the early morning the dew was still on the cotton and we would put our sack in front of us and walk through the thick cotton plants to the other end so we could keep as dry as possible. The cotton in those days was very different than what you see today. Today's cotton has been genetically altered to produce very small stalks but the old cotton would sometimes be shoulder high or in the rich bottom, land over your head. Thus the expression ------- in tall cotton. Speaking of that one of the first things you learned was never pick up a pile of cotton lying in the middle of the row.
When you wore the bottom of your sack out you just cut the strap part off and turned it over and patched the hole. I don't remember what a 9 foot sack cost but we were paid about 3 dollars for picking a hundred lb. of cotton and believe me you knew the value of a dollar. Picking cotton was a very serious thing for most families. A large part of the families cash money for the year was produced in just a just few weeks.
One of my early experiences with picking cotton was the most memorable. I must have been about 6 or 7, I do know it was after we moved into the town of Hoxie. My big brothers, Donald, Bobby and Del and several of our neighbors were picked up by a farmers truck early in the morning and transported to who knows where, at least I didn’t know where we were. I remember later someone talking about Old Walnut Ridge but to me it could have been anywhere, heck I didn’t know much about new Walnut Ridge., only that they sold pop corn on the street and my big brother got to go to the movie there a few times.
I do remember the field and the trip back home quite well. The field was very large there was slight rise to the land and the cotton was tall enough that I couldn’t see too far ahead of me. This was just fine during the day, I could keep a low profile and spend my day checking out bugs and watching for airplanes, we were near the Walnut Ridge military air base. The first time I noticed something might be out of the ordinary was I suddenly noticed that it was getting much cooler and there was no one in sight, I am not sure but I may have gone to sleep, anyway I picked up my cotton sack containing about 4 or 5 lb. of hard work and started for the wagon which was supposed to be just over the rise and in the middle of the field. When I got there I could see the worn places where people had been weighing their hard days work and tire tracks but no wagon, no cotton pickers and no brothers.
I headed for the road and started walking. I would like to say that being a country boy I noted the sun going down in the west and the moss on the trees and deduced that I should head south but the truth is I just started walking and later realized it was the right direction. It seemed like I had been on the road a long time, I still had my sack of cotton when I heard a tractor heading my way. I don’t know who the guy driving the tractor was but he said he was headed to the Rainwater Cotton Gin in Walnut Ridge and being very shy and scared shitless I hitched a ride but I don’t remember talking to him very much. I was perched on top of a very large load of cotton and for some reason I started to feel silly for carrying my little sack of cotton so I donated it to the kind man who gave me a ride. Who knows it may have been just the amount he needed to make out a bale. The ride on the cotton wagon was long and I had plenty of time to worry, I worried about finding my way home but most of all for some reason I thought I would be in big trouble when and if I ever got home.
We were coming into a town but it was nothing I had ever seen or recognized. We finally got to the gin and stopped in a long line of wagons waiting their turn and this was even more scary. The gin was big and the noise almost overwhelming but my tractor driver told me to get down and matter of fact like told me how to get to Hoxie, the town where I lived. It must have been good directions because after walking several blocks I started to see a part of Walnut Ridge that I vaguely recognized. I headed south and about half way between the two towns I saw the old Cotton Compress building, a very big complex of red buildings covering acres and something that was easily recognized. It was about dark, the street lights were on and I saw my Father’s car barreling down the highway looking like he was on a mission. When he saw me he tried to make a u-turn and didn’t quite make it and landed in the ditch in front of me. He jumped out of the car and grabbed me and it was a minute or two before I realized I was not in trouble.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
My friends Billie Williams and Bobby Craig
My friends Billie Williams and Bobby Craig
It was about 1963 or 64 and after working a 12 hour day at Craig’s Grocery store on Front Street in Walnut Ridge we took a short break to go home for a bite to eat and then back to the store to paint the floors. I along with my friends Billie Williams and Bobby Craig, the boss’ son were trying to make a little extra money so we had volunteered for the all nighter painting job.
I can think of a lot of excuses for having the sillies at 3 o’clock at night , the long hours, the paint fumes but I suspect it was the bottle of Tequila I had found under the seat of my dads car. None of us were drinkers of any consequence but we had seen movies where they had salt, a slice of lime and a bottle of the good stuff. We were in a grocery store so the ingredients were handy so why not. I really don’t remember how the floor turned out but I do remember Billie saying that we missed a spot and when he tried to go back down the aisle he slipped in the wet paint and the whole bucket landed in his lap, after that all I remember is hurting from laughing so much. They did tell some stories about me that night but they were not true.
We were young, we were eager and very much alive, I wish it was still so. We lost Pfc Billie Joe Williams, United States Marine Corp on March 21, 1966 in what the Marine Corp called 'Operation Texas' near the village of Phuong Dinh , Quang Ngai Province, South Vietnam.
Bobby Craig died Sept. 22, 2007, a husband, a father and a grand father several times over.
Friday, February 26, 2010
Old Bob and Old Blue
Old Bob and Old Blue
Things have a softer glow when viewed from 50 or 60 years old memories but this is my story. Much like the Dustin Hoffman movie Little Big Man I can recall several facets of my life and sometimes they seem disconnected, even to me. At other times they are very connected and I am still that little boy growing up with a house full of brothers.
Looking back at our time on the farm I have come to the realizations that all our animals were referred to as old, as in old Bob and Blue the work horses, old Rebbie the saddle horse, old Bossy the cow and later on old Shep and old Troubles two of our dogs. The work horses Bob and Blue had been trained to work in the woods, hauling timber. Dad set in to train then to pull the wagon and to till and work the fields. This was much different than working in the woods and row cropping and farm work required much more precise training. In the woods horses were hooked to the logs and pulled with all their might until they got to where they going and turned around and repeated the same thing over and over. Working on the farm meant they had to do many task and do them safely. Pulling the wagon was sometimes done by simple commands like “Gee” and “Haw” for left and right. I remember hand pulling the field corn and voice commands were all that were used so all hands could harvest the corn.
My first memories of Old Bob and Blue was when we moved to the Owl City Community just south of Hoxie. I think it was 1946 or 47 and we moved the horses and farm equipment on a trailer truck. If I remember correctly the farm equipment was loaded at the front of the trailer and a fence was placed between it and the horses. The first order of business was unloading the horses and giving them a rubdown to make sure they were OK and probably to calm them down.
We did use old Bob and Blue and the wagon as transportation for a year or two, this was around 1948-49. I remember going to Walnut Ridge and leaving the team and wagon at a warehouse area next to the railroad while Mom and Dad shopped, Donald went to the movies and we strolled the street and ate popcorn from the street vendor. I also remember going to Duvall Church of Christ Singing and Dinner on the Ground once with the wagon and team. Today the trip would be over in a few minutes but then it was an adventure. I think these trips were nostalgic for Dad because I also remember an A Model Truck. We kept the old iron tired wagon even after we moved to Hoxie. It set in the alley next to our house and we used it to play cowboys and Indians. In those days taking a trip in your mind was almost as good as the real thing. Come to think of it that has never changed. I guess that is why I have a love for reading.
We did ride old Bob and Blue but they were not saddle horses, far from it. Being little changes your prospective on things and my memory may be a little exaggerated but these were very large horses. My big brothers made a burlap saddle out of several layers of burlap bags tied on with a rope around their bellies. It helped a little but setting on top of them was like setting on an elephant. I remember Bobby sliding off of old Bob and landing on his back with the horse standing on his pant leg just below his crouch. It was a good thing he was skinny and the pants were large. I think it was Delbert who finally got the nerves to back the horse up so Bobby could move out of the way of those big hooves. The horses were so big that if you fell or got off in the field you had to find a tree stump or fence to climb up on and remount. I don't think Bobby was looking for a stump that day he made a bee line to the house on foot.
I think our days growing up on our little farm gave me one of life's greatest gifts, the ability to keep things in prospective. Last year we had a really bad ice storm and lost power for a few days. After the initial frustration I begin to think of the old days when we didn't have electric power or natural gas. We lived in a perpetual state of what now is called a disaster we just called it living on the farm.
Things have a softer glow when viewed from 50 or 60 years old memories but this is my story. Much like the Dustin Hoffman movie Little Big Man I can recall several facets of my life and sometimes they seem disconnected, even to me. At other times they are very connected and I am still that little boy growing up with a house full of brothers.
Looking back at our time on the farm I have come to the realizations that all our animals were referred to as old, as in old Bob and Blue the work horses, old Rebbie the saddle horse, old Bossy the cow and later on old Shep and old Troubles two of our dogs. The work horses Bob and Blue had been trained to work in the woods, hauling timber. Dad set in to train then to pull the wagon and to till and work the fields. This was much different than working in the woods and row cropping and farm work required much more precise training. In the woods horses were hooked to the logs and pulled with all their might until they got to where they going and turned around and repeated the same thing over and over. Working on the farm meant they had to do many task and do them safely. Pulling the wagon was sometimes done by simple commands like “Gee” and “Haw” for left and right. I remember hand pulling the field corn and voice commands were all that were used so all hands could harvest the corn.
My first memories of Old Bob and Blue was when we moved to the Owl City Community just south of Hoxie. I think it was 1946 or 47 and we moved the horses and farm equipment on a trailer truck. If I remember correctly the farm equipment was loaded at the front of the trailer and a fence was placed between it and the horses. The first order of business was unloading the horses and giving them a rubdown to make sure they were OK and probably to calm them down.
We did use old Bob and Blue and the wagon as transportation for a year or two, this was around 1948-49. I remember going to Walnut Ridge and leaving the team and wagon at a warehouse area next to the railroad while Mom and Dad shopped, Donald went to the movies and we strolled the street and ate popcorn from the street vendor. I also remember going to Duvall Church of Christ Singing and Dinner on the Ground once with the wagon and team. Today the trip would be over in a few minutes but then it was an adventure. I think these trips were nostalgic for Dad because I also remember an A Model Truck. We kept the old iron tired wagon even after we moved to Hoxie. It set in the alley next to our house and we used it to play cowboys and Indians. In those days taking a trip in your mind was almost as good as the real thing. Come to think of it that has never changed. I guess that is why I have a love for reading.
We did ride old Bob and Blue but they were not saddle horses, far from it. Being little changes your prospective on things and my memory may be a little exaggerated but these were very large horses. My big brothers made a burlap saddle out of several layers of burlap bags tied on with a rope around their bellies. It helped a little but setting on top of them was like setting on an elephant. I remember Bobby sliding off of old Bob and landing on his back with the horse standing on his pant leg just below his crouch. It was a good thing he was skinny and the pants were large. I think it was Delbert who finally got the nerves to back the horse up so Bobby could move out of the way of those big hooves. The horses were so big that if you fell or got off in the field you had to find a tree stump or fence to climb up on and remount. I don't think Bobby was looking for a stump that day he made a bee line to the house on foot.
I think our days growing up on our little farm gave me one of life's greatest gifts, the ability to keep things in prospective. Last year we had a really bad ice storm and lost power for a few days. After the initial frustration I begin to think of the old days when we didn't have electric power or natural gas. We lived in a perpetual state of what now is called a disaster we just called it living on the farm.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Hog Killing and Lard Making
by Thurman Dwight Lane
One of the things your ancestors did when the weather turned cold.
( This was originally published this on my genealogy web page, Lane-Collier Cousins but the web host went belly up and all was lost.)
=================================
You may ask, what has killing hogs and making lard got to do with genealogy? Well, I'm glad you ask. Genealogy is about the past and my past and my genealogy for many generations was in the rural areas of the southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia to name a few. Making do with what you had at hand was not by choice but a necessity. With the relatively small farms and the profusion of trees, grass land was not plentiful enough in most cases to raise herds of cattle, except for milking and oxen for working. Hogs on the other hand could live quite well in the woods and thickets. These hogs along with a few chickens and hunting wild game provided the protein and fats needed for survival. I would venture to say that every man, woman and child in the genealogy section of my family had some knowledge of how to set a hen, skin a rabbit, hitch a mule, and butcher a hog. It was a way of life.
FREE RANGE
I grew up in Lawrence County, Arkansas and I have traced several lines and generations of my family. Most lived in Lawrence, Sharp, Izard and Independence Counties in Arkansas. They settled there in the 1840s and 50s and continued a way of life their forefathers had live. In most places the law of the land favored open range, and families had a brand or ear mark for their animals that was known to everyone. You let your hogs free range and checked on them occasionally to keep up with their condition and location. If my memory serves me correctly, hogs fattened on acorns tended to have a bitter tasting meat and did not produce bright white lard. For this reason most hogs to be slaughtered were rounded up and fattened on corn for a month or longer. A day or two before the slaughter the hogs were taken of all their food and just given water.
A bit of Advice:
The first thing I would point out is the danger of slaughtering and preparing your own meat, of any kind. The need for clean working areas and tools along with the difficulty of keeping proper temperature makes it almost impossible to do this in a manner that is without risk. My advise is just don't do it, leave it to the professionals. If your response is that it has been done for centuries then just remember the life span was much shorter back then. The purpose of this accounting is to acquaint you with a chapter of family life that I only had a brief glimpse. I was born in 1943 in rural Arkansas where electricity was a thing still hoped for and the old way of life was quite common. In many ways life was about the same as it had been for generations.
{ The people who think their meat comes wrapped in plastic at the local Safeway may want to stop reading about here. }
The time of year to butcher hogs depended on the weather, it had to be cold enough to keep the meat from spoiling but not cold enough to freeze the carcass. Utensils, knifes, buckets, straining cloths and barrels were gathered. The wood for the fires was cut and neighbors and friends were waiting. Butchering day started before daylight, a fire was built just to keep warm and one was started under the scalding barrel and iron kettle. The scalding barrel we used was just a 55 gallon oil drum that had been burned out and cleaned. The kettle was used to keep fresh hot water to replenish what slouched out of the barrel and to heat water to clean.
Killing the hog was usually done with a single 22 caliber long or long rifle bullet between the eyes. A larger caliber was too destructive. Draw an imaginary line from the right ear to the left eye and a line from the left ear to the right eye. Where these lines crossed is where you placed the shot. This job was usually given to an expert hand and for good reasons. There is a lot of “good eating” on the hogs head. One delicacy is the pig brains. I have had this a few times and as a butcher have sold many, many pounds over the years. One way to eat them is with scrambled eggs. It was important to place the shot where it would not splinter the bone and ruin the brain. Another reason was a misplaced shot could just injure the animal and a 180 to 240 pound hog can be very dangerous. Immediately after the hog was shot , it was bled. This was accomplished in more than one way. One way was to insert a knife about three inches behind the jaw on the left side of the neck and cut the jugular vein. Another way was to lay the animal on its back and find the breast bone . Insert a long, 6 inches or more, knife pointing to the rear and parallel to the back bone, with an upward thrust sever the carotid artery. The important thing was to bleed the animal within about two minutes of shooting it. If you waited too long the animals blood pressure could increase and a condition some called blood splash” could occur, It didn’t ruin the meat but it did give the meat an unpleasing look.
After the hog was bled an incision was cut in the hind legs just above and back of the foot. The gambrel tendons in the back of the leg were stretched out and the hooks from a “single tree” {used to hook a horses harness to the wagon or plow} were inserted and hooked to a hoist. In this way the hog could be lowered and raised in the barrel as needed. . The water in the scalding barrel needed to be heated from about 165 degrees to "just to the point of boiling". If it was too hot it would set the hair and make it almost impossible to remove and if too cold the hair would not slip and could not be scraped. I have been told it helped the scalding water to add just a little wood ash, to soften the water and loosen the hair.
You judged the time by raising the hog and scraping a small section to see if it slip or remove easily. It was important not to let the hog stay in the water too long or the hair would set and was almost impossible to remove. Small places of hair was removed by pouring hot water on it and scraping. It was important not use a scraping knife that was not too sharp. The idea was to scrape it and remove it, roots and all, not shave it. After the scraping a very sharp knife was used just in case any hair escaped the scraping. Today some people use propane torches to burn the hard to reach hair. Just be careful and don't burn the skin.
I have seen several methods used to hoist the hog up and keep him off the ground. One way was to build a tri-pod out of poles and hang the animal, I have used a pole hung between two trees and I have seen Y-Poles stuck into the ground and a pole placed between them. I have also just hung them from a convenient tree limb. I remember one time when some friends of mine were butchering a calf for a celebration in Memphis, Tennessee and hung it from a tree limb. The limb was not strong enough and broke, and the calf fell to the ground. A short time later the local police arrived and said they had a call that some people had shot a calf out of a tree. In that case I think it is a good idea to invite your neighbors over so you can keep an eye on them.
Gutting, it was important to have your tubs ready for this operation. This was also the time you appreciated the withholding of food for the last day or two. The idea was to open the entire gut cavity without puncturing the gut. It was done by carefully separating the outer skin and the membrane that holds the gut. A cut was made from the crouch to the chin. With this done and the tubs ready the large intestine was cut loose at the anus and tied off with a string and the entire mass was allowed to slide into the tub. When this was done the liver was removed and the gall bladder was carefully removed. Some of the liver was most times eat that day for supper or used to make liver sausage. [recipe later] Here is where you find people differed in their eating habits. Almost all the hog could be used for some purpose or another. The lungs, heart and were almost always used and the stomach and small intestines were considered a delicacy by some. I have eaten chitterlings only once but as a butcher I have sold them in 10 lb. buckets by the truckloads.
Removing the head was next and this was done simply by cutting around the neck at the base of the head until the entire neck bone was rounded. It was finished by a quick and firm twist and set aside for later use.
When the carcass was cleaned inside and out it was time to cut it into usable pieces. This was usually done with the equipment at hand. Butcher knife and an chopping ax. At the same time a sausage making operation was started and the lard pot was going. The lean trimmings went into the sausage mill and the fat went into the lard pot. The lard pot was started while the hog was still hanging with the fat from the inside cavity around the intestines or leaf fat . This is also where you get cracklin’s and if you ain’t had cracklin cornbread, I just don’t know what to say. The ax was used to cut the hog down the middle into halves. In the old days they just cut down the back bone on each side staying as close as they could. you got some good meaty backbones and a nice thick piece of fatback. Nowadays it is cut in half using a saw and the loins are removed whole.
The hams and shoulders are removed at the joints and you have the middling or side meat left. Separate the ribs from the side meat.
Making lard was in some ways the most important chore of the day and required careful attention to detail. This was an art that you could become know for and your expertise was in demand on hog killing day. In fact, messing this job up could make you known also. The lard bucket could get vary rancid before the winter was over, if you didn’t do the job right.
As mentioned before, the lard pot was started early in the operation. We used a large iron kettle or pot. A slow fire was built out of small sticks of wood so the temperature could be controlled. The first thing into the pot was a small amount of leaf fat from the gut cavity. This was the most pure fat and the easiest to render. As the leaf fat begins to render, the other fat was added slowly and the fire was increased until a slow boil was achieved. Cooking the lard took a couple of hours or more and was stirred constantly with a large wooden paddle. If you were a kid, this was a good time to be somewhere else or you would be put to work. If you ask my brothers, I am sure they will tell you that, being somewhere else, was something I was good at. The art of looking busy and just hiding came in handy.
The temperature of the fat should be kept at about 212 degrees. As the water evaporates the temperature will rise but it should be controlled. This is where the small sticks of wood came into play. They could be added as needed or could be raked away from the pot if it became too hot.
You knew the rendering process was complete when the cracklings turned brown and floated to the top. When the pot quit boiling and the water had evaporated out of the fat, it was time to strain the liquid through several layers of cheesecloth into your lard bucket or pails. As the lard set, it was stirred until it became creamy and if you had not left too much lean on the trimmings or scorched it while cooking, you had supply of pure lard that would meet your cooking needs, hopefully until next winter at “Hog Killin” time.
Hog lard has been given a bad ‘rap’ the last several years and I am sure that if my kin folks had lived in a region of the country where olives were grown, I would be writing this about olive oil, but they didn’t and if you ever had a young farm raised chicken fried to a golden brown in hog lard, I won’t have to say anything about biscuits made with lard and Martha White Flour.
Sausage, now here is where everyone is an expert and a critic. There are as many “old family recipes” as there are old families. I will start with just the basics. Good pork sausage is made by grinding and seasoning lean pork trimmings from the bellies, hams, and shoulders. Sausage should contain from 20 to 30 percent fat. If more fat is included, the sausage may be too greasy and shrink too much in cooking. If entire shoulders of hams are used, it may be necessary to add some fat.
Good sausage should start with good ingredients. Great care should be given to the selection of meat to be ground and since sausage is usually made on the farm in somewhat large amounts it is wise to make even batches, say 10 to 15 lbs. at a time. The spices should be added sparingly, just remember, in this case it is easier to add than subtract, and a test batch should be fried up and enjoyed by all, before you proceed to making the whole batch. Just remember that spices shorten the freezer life of the meat and fresh sausage can be kept safely frozen for about 1 or 2 months. If you have more trimmings than you need it would be wise to freeze the trimmings and later thaw and grind them into sausage.
MILD SAUSAGE
10 lbs. GROUND PORK
6 TABLESPOONS SALT
4 TEASPOONS SAGE
3 TEASPOONS BLACK PEPPER
white pepper can be substituted
for the black
MODERATELY SPICY SAUSAGE
10 lbs. ground pork
5 tablespoons salt
3 teaspoons black pepper
4 teaspoons ground red pepper
5 tablespoons sage
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons ground cloves
Add 2 to 3 teaspoons Cayenne pepper if you like it HOT.
Get your hands in and mix.
I have used several ingredients to liven up the taste of pork sausage but a really well made sausage does not need much.
Add a quart of buttermilk to about 20 lbs. of sausage and hand mix well, after it sits over night it is indeed a wonderful flavor. I do not know how this will freeze, I have never had any left over long enough to try it.
Cayenne will give it a hot flaming taste.
Honey will sweeten it.
Thyme is a good addition.
I am not going to tell you how to make sausage gravy to go with the hog lard and Martha White Flour biscuits. You will be knocking on my door every morning for breakfast.
It may be best when making large batches to just stick to the tried and true recipes you know and love. If you want to experiment try small batches at first and when you reach perfection, go for it.
Hog Head Cheese or Souse
Here is another place the iron pot or kettle was used. After cleaning the hog head and removing all the hair it was cut into quarters and soaked in cold water overnight. It was given a thorough rinsing in cold water and put into the pot along with other scraps like skin, bones, tongue and heart. This was simmered until the meat slipped from the bone and the skin was easily pierced with your finger. The skins were cooled and ground through the fine plate, about 1/8 th inch holes, on the meat grinder and the meat was picked from the bone and ground through the large plate, about 1/2 inch holes. This was mixed together with broth to the consistency of cake batter. you then added the spices.
FOR 1 HOGS HEAD
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
dash red pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
dash of marjoram
dash of savory
Bring this mixture to a boil and remove from heat. Pour into loaf pans and chill. This will setup into loafs and can be refrigerated for a few days and frozen for a month or two. A head cheese press is sometimes used. It can range from a press designed for the job to a heavy weight set on top of the loaf pan. The hogs head usually produces enough gelatin to set the loaf without a press.
Break out the crackers!
by Thurman Dwight Lane
One of the things your ancestors did when the weather turned cold.
( This was originally published this on my genealogy web page, Lane-Collier Cousins but the web host went belly up and all was lost.)
=================================
You may ask, what has killing hogs and making lard got to do with genealogy? Well, I'm glad you ask. Genealogy is about the past and my past and my genealogy for many generations was in the rural areas of the southern states of Arkansas, Tennessee, South Carolina, Virginia to name a few. Making do with what you had at hand was not by choice but a necessity. With the relatively small farms and the profusion of trees, grass land was not plentiful enough in most cases to raise herds of cattle, except for milking and oxen for working. Hogs on the other hand could live quite well in the woods and thickets. These hogs along with a few chickens and hunting wild game provided the protein and fats needed for survival. I would venture to say that every man, woman and child in the genealogy section of my family had some knowledge of how to set a hen, skin a rabbit, hitch a mule, and butcher a hog. It was a way of life.
FREE RANGE
I grew up in Lawrence County, Arkansas and I have traced several lines and generations of my family. Most lived in Lawrence, Sharp, Izard and Independence Counties in Arkansas. They settled there in the 1840s and 50s and continued a way of life their forefathers had live. In most places the law of the land favored open range, and families had a brand or ear mark for their animals that was known to everyone. You let your hogs free range and checked on them occasionally to keep up with their condition and location. If my memory serves me correctly, hogs fattened on acorns tended to have a bitter tasting meat and did not produce bright white lard. For this reason most hogs to be slaughtered were rounded up and fattened on corn for a month or longer. A day or two before the slaughter the hogs were taken of all their food and just given water.
A bit of Advice:
The first thing I would point out is the danger of slaughtering and preparing your own meat, of any kind. The need for clean working areas and tools along with the difficulty of keeping proper temperature makes it almost impossible to do this in a manner that is without risk. My advise is just don't do it, leave it to the professionals. If your response is that it has been done for centuries then just remember the life span was much shorter back then. The purpose of this accounting is to acquaint you with a chapter of family life that I only had a brief glimpse. I was born in 1943 in rural Arkansas where electricity was a thing still hoped for and the old way of life was quite common. In many ways life was about the same as it had been for generations.
{ The people who think their meat comes wrapped in plastic at the local Safeway may want to stop reading about here. }
The time of year to butcher hogs depended on the weather, it had to be cold enough to keep the meat from spoiling but not cold enough to freeze the carcass. Utensils, knifes, buckets, straining cloths and barrels were gathered. The wood for the fires was cut and neighbors and friends were waiting. Butchering day started before daylight, a fire was built just to keep warm and one was started under the scalding barrel and iron kettle. The scalding barrel we used was just a 55 gallon oil drum that had been burned out and cleaned. The kettle was used to keep fresh hot water to replenish what slouched out of the barrel and to heat water to clean.
Killing the hog was usually done with a single 22 caliber long or long rifle bullet between the eyes. A larger caliber was too destructive. Draw an imaginary line from the right ear to the left eye and a line from the left ear to the right eye. Where these lines crossed is where you placed the shot. This job was usually given to an expert hand and for good reasons. There is a lot of “good eating” on the hogs head. One delicacy is the pig brains. I have had this a few times and as a butcher have sold many, many pounds over the years. One way to eat them is with scrambled eggs. It was important to place the shot where it would not splinter the bone and ruin the brain. Another reason was a misplaced shot could just injure the animal and a 180 to 240 pound hog can be very dangerous. Immediately after the hog was shot , it was bled. This was accomplished in more than one way. One way was to insert a knife about three inches behind the jaw on the left side of the neck and cut the jugular vein. Another way was to lay the animal on its back and find the breast bone . Insert a long, 6 inches or more, knife pointing to the rear and parallel to the back bone, with an upward thrust sever the carotid artery. The important thing was to bleed the animal within about two minutes of shooting it. If you waited too long the animals blood pressure could increase and a condition some called blood splash” could occur, It didn’t ruin the meat but it did give the meat an unpleasing look.
After the hog was bled an incision was cut in the hind legs just above and back of the foot. The gambrel tendons in the back of the leg were stretched out and the hooks from a “single tree” {used to hook a horses harness to the wagon or plow} were inserted and hooked to a hoist. In this way the hog could be lowered and raised in the barrel as needed. . The water in the scalding barrel needed to be heated from about 165 degrees to "just to the point of boiling". If it was too hot it would set the hair and make it almost impossible to remove and if too cold the hair would not slip and could not be scraped. I have been told it helped the scalding water to add just a little wood ash, to soften the water and loosen the hair.
You judged the time by raising the hog and scraping a small section to see if it slip or remove easily. It was important not to let the hog stay in the water too long or the hair would set and was almost impossible to remove. Small places of hair was removed by pouring hot water on it and scraping. It was important not use a scraping knife that was not too sharp. The idea was to scrape it and remove it, roots and all, not shave it. After the scraping a very sharp knife was used just in case any hair escaped the scraping. Today some people use propane torches to burn the hard to reach hair. Just be careful and don't burn the skin.
I have seen several methods used to hoist the hog up and keep him off the ground. One way was to build a tri-pod out of poles and hang the animal, I have used a pole hung between two trees and I have seen Y-Poles stuck into the ground and a pole placed between them. I have also just hung them from a convenient tree limb. I remember one time when some friends of mine were butchering a calf for a celebration in Memphis, Tennessee and hung it from a tree limb. The limb was not strong enough and broke, and the calf fell to the ground. A short time later the local police arrived and said they had a call that some people had shot a calf out of a tree. In that case I think it is a good idea to invite your neighbors over so you can keep an eye on them.
Gutting, it was important to have your tubs ready for this operation. This was also the time you appreciated the withholding of food for the last day or two. The idea was to open the entire gut cavity without puncturing the gut. It was done by carefully separating the outer skin and the membrane that holds the gut. A cut was made from the crouch to the chin. With this done and the tubs ready the large intestine was cut loose at the anus and tied off with a string and the entire mass was allowed to slide into the tub. When this was done the liver was removed and the gall bladder was carefully removed. Some of the liver was most times eat that day for supper or used to make liver sausage. [recipe later] Here is where you find people differed in their eating habits. Almost all the hog could be used for some purpose or another. The lungs, heart and were almost always used and the stomach and small intestines were considered a delicacy by some. I have eaten chitterlings only once but as a butcher I have sold them in 10 lb. buckets by the truckloads.
Removing the head was next and this was done simply by cutting around the neck at the base of the head until the entire neck bone was rounded. It was finished by a quick and firm twist and set aside for later use.
When the carcass was cleaned inside and out it was time to cut it into usable pieces. This was usually done with the equipment at hand. Butcher knife and an chopping ax. At the same time a sausage making operation was started and the lard pot was going. The lean trimmings went into the sausage mill and the fat went into the lard pot. The lard pot was started while the hog was still hanging with the fat from the inside cavity around the intestines or leaf fat . This is also where you get cracklin’s and if you ain’t had cracklin cornbread, I just don’t know what to say. The ax was used to cut the hog down the middle into halves. In the old days they just cut down the back bone on each side staying as close as they could. you got some good meaty backbones and a nice thick piece of fatback. Nowadays it is cut in half using a saw and the loins are removed whole.
The hams and shoulders are removed at the joints and you have the middling or side meat left. Separate the ribs from the side meat.
Making lard was in some ways the most important chore of the day and required careful attention to detail. This was an art that you could become know for and your expertise was in demand on hog killing day. In fact, messing this job up could make you known also. The lard bucket could get vary rancid before the winter was over, if you didn’t do the job right.
As mentioned before, the lard pot was started early in the operation. We used a large iron kettle or pot. A slow fire was built out of small sticks of wood so the temperature could be controlled. The first thing into the pot was a small amount of leaf fat from the gut cavity. This was the most pure fat and the easiest to render. As the leaf fat begins to render, the other fat was added slowly and the fire was increased until a slow boil was achieved. Cooking the lard took a couple of hours or more and was stirred constantly with a large wooden paddle. If you were a kid, this was a good time to be somewhere else or you would be put to work. If you ask my brothers, I am sure they will tell you that, being somewhere else, was something I was good at. The art of looking busy and just hiding came in handy.
The temperature of the fat should be kept at about 212 degrees. As the water evaporates the temperature will rise but it should be controlled. This is where the small sticks of wood came into play. They could be added as needed or could be raked away from the pot if it became too hot.
You knew the rendering process was complete when the cracklings turned brown and floated to the top. When the pot quit boiling and the water had evaporated out of the fat, it was time to strain the liquid through several layers of cheesecloth into your lard bucket or pails. As the lard set, it was stirred until it became creamy and if you had not left too much lean on the trimmings or scorched it while cooking, you had supply of pure lard that would meet your cooking needs, hopefully until next winter at “Hog Killin” time.
Hog lard has been given a bad ‘rap’ the last several years and I am sure that if my kin folks had lived in a region of the country where olives were grown, I would be writing this about olive oil, but they didn’t and if you ever had a young farm raised chicken fried to a golden brown in hog lard, I won’t have to say anything about biscuits made with lard and Martha White Flour.
Sausage, now here is where everyone is an expert and a critic. There are as many “old family recipes” as there are old families. I will start with just the basics. Good pork sausage is made by grinding and seasoning lean pork trimmings from the bellies, hams, and shoulders. Sausage should contain from 20 to 30 percent fat. If more fat is included, the sausage may be too greasy and shrink too much in cooking. If entire shoulders of hams are used, it may be necessary to add some fat.
Good sausage should start with good ingredients. Great care should be given to the selection of meat to be ground and since sausage is usually made on the farm in somewhat large amounts it is wise to make even batches, say 10 to 15 lbs. at a time. The spices should be added sparingly, just remember, in this case it is easier to add than subtract, and a test batch should be fried up and enjoyed by all, before you proceed to making the whole batch. Just remember that spices shorten the freezer life of the meat and fresh sausage can be kept safely frozen for about 1 or 2 months. If you have more trimmings than you need it would be wise to freeze the trimmings and later thaw and grind them into sausage.
MILD SAUSAGE
10 lbs. GROUND PORK
6 TABLESPOONS SALT
4 TEASPOONS SAGE
3 TEASPOONS BLACK PEPPER
white pepper can be substituted
for the black
MODERATELY SPICY SAUSAGE
10 lbs. ground pork
5 tablespoons salt
3 teaspoons black pepper
4 teaspoons ground red pepper
5 tablespoons sage
2 teaspoons dry mustard
2 teaspoons ground cloves
Add 2 to 3 teaspoons Cayenne pepper if you like it HOT.
Get your hands in and mix.
I have used several ingredients to liven up the taste of pork sausage but a really well made sausage does not need much.
Add a quart of buttermilk to about 20 lbs. of sausage and hand mix well, after it sits over night it is indeed a wonderful flavor. I do not know how this will freeze, I have never had any left over long enough to try it.
Cayenne will give it a hot flaming taste.
Honey will sweeten it.
Thyme is a good addition.
I am not going to tell you how to make sausage gravy to go with the hog lard and Martha White Flour biscuits. You will be knocking on my door every morning for breakfast.
It may be best when making large batches to just stick to the tried and true recipes you know and love. If you want to experiment try small batches at first and when you reach perfection, go for it.
Hog Head Cheese or Souse
Here is another place the iron pot or kettle was used. After cleaning the hog head and removing all the hair it was cut into quarters and soaked in cold water overnight. It was given a thorough rinsing in cold water and put into the pot along with other scraps like skin, bones, tongue and heart. This was simmered until the meat slipped from the bone and the skin was easily pierced with your finger. The skins were cooled and ground through the fine plate, about 1/8 th inch holes, on the meat grinder and the meat was picked from the bone and ground through the large plate, about 1/2 inch holes. This was mixed together with broth to the consistency of cake batter. you then added the spices.
FOR 1 HOGS HEAD
2 tablespoons salt
1 tablespoon black pepper
dash red pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon onion powder
dash of marjoram
dash of savory
Bring this mixture to a boil and remove from heat. Pour into loaf pans and chill. This will setup into loafs and can be refrigerated for a few days and frozen for a month or two. A head cheese press is sometimes used. It can range from a press designed for the job to a heavy weight set on top of the loaf pan. The hogs head usually produces enough gelatin to set the loaf without a press.
Break out the crackers!
Monday, November 23, 2009
My Forrest Genealogy
FORREST
I first visited the Forrest United Methodist Chapel and Cemetery, Izard County, Arkansas in the 70s with my mother and father. Mother said the Forrest buried there were her grandmother’s kin. I was there a couple of times later but did not know how these people fit into my family, only that they were kin-folks. After I retired and started looking into my family genealogy in a serious way, one of the first places I looked was Forrest Chapel near Violet Hill, Izard County, Arkansas. I had lots of Collier and Forrest names from my trips to the area court house along with information from grave markers, census records and land records but I was not able get a clear picture of the Forrest Family until I met other Forrest family researchers, namely Andy and Julie Forrest from Washington state, Ted Hill from Oklahoma and Kenneth and Mary Good also from Oklahoma. With information from my records and that so freely shared by these family members, I slowly began to assemble a reasonable representation of my Forrest family heritage.
Washington Thomas [W.T.] Forrest was born July 14, 1815 in Tennessee {grave marker}. According to Ted Hill, from Broken Arrow, OK. His parents appear almost certain to be Thomas and Elizabeth Forrest, who were residents of McNairy County, Tennessee in 1840 and 1850 also family tradition, as retold by the late Otis Forrest [ grandson of W.T. Forrest] of Izard County, Arkansas, tells us that W.T. was married three times and was the father of fourteen children.
The first wife probably died before W.T. moved from Tennessee. In 1840 he is listed as head of household in McNairy County, Tennessee. He and his wife are in the age 20 to 30 category, there are two children under five years of age in the home.
According to Otis Forrest [born 1889], the second wife was the mother of only two of the children, James Larkin and Jane Edwards. { Edwards probably married name }. James Larkin Forrest’s obituary gave his mother’s name as Sarah. It seems very probably, they married while still in Tennessee and that she died in Mississippi.
The 1945 Mississippi State Census list W.T. Forest as head of household and married with 3 males and 3 females in the house. Family tradition and history indicates James Larkin Forrest was born in Tishomingo County , Mississippi, Feb., 1847.
I find W.T. Forrest next on the 1850 Tishomingo County Mississippi Federal Census , along with ( Milica ?, can't read 2nd name) sons William and John and daughters Mary and Jane and youngest son James. These names and dates agree with tradition and family history. Another interesting observation is the next door neighbor in Tishomingo County, Mississippi was J. Burton, wife Rebecca and children John and Sarah. J. Burton was born in North Carolina and wife Rebecca was born in Tennessee. Nothing is proven here but it is another connection to the Burton name.
Arkansas Land Records say he owned 40 acres in Craighead County, Arkansas in 1859. One record indicates the land was in Poinsett County, Arkansas. The records also say W.T. Forrest’s oldest son William H. Forrest had two parcels of land totaling 120 acres in Craighead County, Arkansas in 1860.
The third wife Nancy J. Cook married W.T. about 1850 in Arkansas. This is the mother of Sarah Francis Forrest and my great-great grandmother. Nancy J. was born Sept 25, 1828 and died May 23, 1901 and is buried at Forrest Chapel Chapel and Cemetery, in Izard County, Arkansas.
Otis Forrest said that after coming to Arkansas, W.T. Forrest first lived near Jonesboro, Craighead County, Arkansas. He later moved to a larger farm called “Ponders Farm” near Walnut Ridge, in Lawrence County, Arkansas. By 1870 he was a resident of Izard County, in the Conway Township. In 1880, his residence was Lacrosse Township. {1870 and 1880 census } This change of Townships was a reorganization of Izard county and boundary changes for the townships, and not an actual move.
W.T. was a leader in his community. He was instrumental in organizing a Sunday School in 1876 and the organization was named Forrest Chapel in his honor. A permanent building was constructed in the summer of 1879. The original building was moved and a new church built just north and east on the same property. Forrest Chapel Methodist Church and Cemetery are very much in use today.
Now back to Washington T. Forrest Tennessee connections. He leaves McNairy County, Tennessee and is next found in the Tishomingo County, Mississippi. [1845 State Census.] This is not a big move, as McNairy County, Tennessee is just across the line from Tishomingo County, Mississippi.
The 1850 Tishomingo County, Mississippi Federal Census, shows W.T.Forrest age 34 born Tenn. and family; wife [Milica? can’t read name] 18 born Alabama, son William 14, born in Tenn, son John 11, born in Tenn, daughter Mary 9, born in Tenn, daughter Jane 6, born in Mississippi and son James 3, born in Mississippi. This leads me to believe Washington T. moved his family from McNairy County, Tennessee to Tishomingo County, Mississippi sometime near 1841 to 1844.
His parents Thomas b. 1786 and Elizabeth b. 1788 both in North Carolina, were still residents of Tennessee. In the household were Sally age 23, James age 15, and Charles Thomas age 6 { grandson ? } . In Caswell County, North Carolina there is a marriage record for Thomas Forrest and Betsy Burton, December 2, 1809. Betsey is the recognized diminutive of the name Elizabeth and the ages would be reasonable, it may be assumed with a fair amount of certainty, that the McNairy County, Thomas and Elizabeth and Caswell County’s Thomas and Betsey are the same couple. Thomas appears on the 1810 Caswell County Census but not the 1820 and Washington T. was born in 1815, suggesting the family migrated from North Carolina to Tennessee between 1810 and 1815.
The 1812 list of free taxable inhabitants in Humphrey County, Tennessee include Thomas and William Forrest. In the 1820 Perry County Census is Thomas Forrest. {Perry County is just south of Humphrey County, both border the east side of Tennessee River In 1830, Thomas was living in Henderson County { On the west side of the Tennessee River and Perry County}. 1840 and 1850 found then in McNairy County, just west of the Tennessee River and bordering Mississippi. In a period Thomas appeared to have move 4 times. This could have been as new land opened in Indian territory.
THE GENERAL
Old Rumors, stories, folklore and tales exist in all families and the Forrest family is no exception. There exist a persistent and probably accurate family tradition that Washington T. Forrest and Brig. General Nathan Bedford Forrest were cousins of some degree. As most all Tennessee Forrest who had North Carolina roots were possibly related in some manner, this is probably true. How is the question.
In 1790 and 1800 , there was a William Forrest in Caswell County, North Carolina. He was probably the father of Thomas.
In August 1777 in neighboring Orange County, William Forrest wrote his will. His wife’s name was Lavinia and he named his sons: Shadrack, Gresham, Joel, William and Jesse. This son Shadrack appears to be the same man who is named as great grandfathr of The General, Nathan Bedford. ASSUMING that the son, William, is the Caswell County William and father of Thomas, we have our connection. Washington T. and brother James would have been second cousins once removed of the General. Sarah Frances would have been third cousin, Joseph F. Collier would have been fourth cousin and Sarah Willyne Collier would have been fifth cousin and Thurman Dwight Lane would have been sixth cousin to The General.
If these connections can be proven, a considerable amount of Forrest history from Colonial times can also be provable.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Take the boy out of the country
My Home Town
We sold our small farm and moved into the town of Hoxie about 1950. Living in town changed a lot of things for us, most of them for the better. We had electricity, gas heat and were one of the few families in the neighborhood who had a telephone. I think the first number was Turner 34, it later became Turner 3434.
It was common for neighbors to receive calls at our house, especially from their children and kinfolk up north. Good paying jobs were scarce in Hoxie and going north to work was about the only choice available. In the spring there were a few farm jobs, chopping cotton or driving a tractor and in the fall of the year you could pick cotton. These jobs would put food on the table for part of the year but were not permanent.
Dad worked at Combs Service Station and things were looking up for our family. Keeping 6 boys busy in town was going to take a bit of thinking but that was Mother's specialty. Many were the times Mother would come home from church with a list of jobs for us. I don't know if the farmers approached her or vice versa but come Monday morning they were there bright and early to pick us up. We were known as a hard working family and finding farm-work was not hard. We chopped and picked cotton for the same farmers most years. They would drive up and down the streets of Hoxie picking up workers until they had their quota filled. We would go as a group to one field and when it was picked we moved to another farm. Most of these farms were relatively small, not over 200 to 300 acres with only part of the farm planted in cotton. We spent a few days at each farm, however long it took to pick over his field. The first picking was the best and it took the longest. The second picking was several days or weeks later after more of the green cotton bolls had matured and opened in the hot sun. There was usually a third trip to the fields but it was very late in the season and it was called pulling bolls. This was done to get the last of the cotton out of the field and it was just what it was called. We stripped the bolls from the stalk by grabbing the cotton stalk at its base and stripping it to the top. This was usually done after winter had set in and sometimes we would wait until the muddy fields froze so we could work in them. Pulling bolls was cold, hard work that would ruin your hands even with gloves. It did not pay as much per pound as picking but it did get Christmas money many years.
We sold our small farm and moved into the town of Hoxie about 1950. Living in town changed a lot of things for us, most of them for the better. We had electricity, gas heat and were one of the few families in the neighborhood who had a telephone. I think the first number was Turner 34, it later became Turner 3434.
It was common for neighbors to receive calls at our house, especially from their children and kinfolk up north. Good paying jobs were scarce in Hoxie and going north to work was about the only choice available. In the spring there were a few farm jobs, chopping cotton or driving a tractor and in the fall of the year you could pick cotton. These jobs would put food on the table for part of the year but were not permanent.
Dad worked at Combs Service Station and things were looking up for our family. Keeping 6 boys busy in town was going to take a bit of thinking but that was Mother's specialty. Many were the times Mother would come home from church with a list of jobs for us. I don't know if the farmers approached her or vice versa but come Monday morning they were there bright and early to pick us up. We were known as a hard working family and finding farm-work was not hard. We chopped and picked cotton for the same farmers most years. They would drive up and down the streets of Hoxie picking up workers until they had their quota filled. We would go as a group to one field and when it was picked we moved to another farm. Most of these farms were relatively small, not over 200 to 300 acres with only part of the farm planted in cotton. We spent a few days at each farm, however long it took to pick over his field. The first picking was the best and it took the longest. The second picking was several days or weeks later after more of the green cotton bolls had matured and opened in the hot sun. There was usually a third trip to the fields but it was very late in the season and it was called pulling bolls. This was done to get the last of the cotton out of the field and it was just what it was called. We stripped the bolls from the stalk by grabbing the cotton stalk at its base and stripping it to the top. This was usually done after winter had set in and sometimes we would wait until the muddy fields froze so we could work in them. Pulling bolls was cold, hard work that would ruin your hands even with gloves. It did not pay as much per pound as picking but it did get Christmas money many years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)