Experiences of a World War II Veteran

CHAPTER ONE

MY EARLY LIFE

My Early Environment

I was born in a three room house on a frosty morning October 25th, 1914.  My father was a tenant farmer, both my mother and father had large extended families. I had one sister, five years older, and one brother, five years younger.  We had numerous cousins.  My family was one of the poorest in either of the extended families.  Being a tenant family, we moved frequently.

The first home I remember was a three room boxed house of rough sawn lumber.  The outside was rough boards, of varying widths installed vertically.  As the rough, one inch thick planks were installed before seasoning (green lumber), cracks developed between the boards as they seasoned.  Rough strips, three inches wide and half an inch thick, were nailed over the cracks. The floors were of rough boards of varying widths with nothing over the cracks.  Most of the wood was good quality white oak.

The backroom of the “L” shaped house was used as a kitchen –dining area. A six foot wide porch extended the full length of the two front rooms with an outside door into each room.  From the front when facing the house, the room on the right side was used as a combination living room, master bedroom, heated with wood in a cast iron Franklin stove.  The room on the left side was used as a guest bedroom or “front room.”

There was no electricity anywhere in the neighborhood.  Kerosene Lamps were used for lighting the homes. Neither was there any running water, water was obtained from a well with a well bucket about four feet long, and a diameter of about four inches. The water was brought to the house in a three gallon bucket covered either by zinc or enamel.  Naturally, with no running water, there was no toilet in the house.  In fact there was no toilet outside the house either. We usually went in the woods across a dirt road in front of the house or behind the smokehouse located in back.  The smokehouse was a small boxed house used for curing meat from the hogs which Dad raised and butchered at home and for storage.  Mom canned green beans, corn, a variety of fruits, made cucumber and beet pickles, apple butter, and a variety of jellies and preserves.  These were sealed in pint, quart and half gallon glass jars by rubber bands and galvanized, screw on lids.

In the fall, mom made sauerkraut in a four gallon ceramic jar.  One day I went with Mom to the Smokehouse to get enough kraut for a meal.  After a while Mom missed me, and came looking for me and found me head down bent over the side of the jar.  When she touched me, I jumped with a startled movement.  As she touched me, she said, “What are you doing?”  With a four year olds logic I said “Eatin’ Ketchus.” She never let me forget that answer.

We lived on a “hill” about eighty yards above my maternal great grandfather’s home. AS with most early settlers, he lived in a small valley near a spring where grandma obtained the water supply for the family.  Grandpa was a quite man who rarely showed strong emotion. He was a confederate veteran who was captured at Fort Donelson, served as  Prisoner of War in Illinois, where he said they were fed mule meat. He said that he knew this because when serving on KP he opened a hogs-head of meat and a mule’s hoof fell out.

My mother’s father lived across a small valley from us in a nice white weather boarded four room home with an “L” shaped porch.  The boards on the sides of the house were half an inch thick on one side and a quarter of an inch thick on the other. They were installed horizontally with the thin side up overlapped by the thick side of the board above it. The boards had been passed through a planning mill and were smooth and painted white in contrast to the cheaper rough boards, on our house.  The inside walls and ceilings were of three inch wide tongue and groove boards horizontally installed and painted a different color in each room. The floors were also of three inch wide tongue and groove boards.  These were ¾ inch thick in contrast to the ½ inch thick wall and ceiling boards.  None of the houses were insulated in those days.

Granddad’s house was tighter than ours with no cracks in the floor or walls.  It was heated by an open wood burning red brick fireplace in the living room, and a wood burning cast iron cooking stove in the kitchen.  There was no heat in the bedrooms.

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