Looking Back

Looking Back

It was October 1927.  I was four years old.  The early fall chill in the air had not warmed up very much at ten in the morning.  My Uncle, Tommy Holden, and my brother-in-law, John Ramer, (my sister Lucy’s husband), had arrived at our house in Giles County, Tennessee.  They came in an open bed truck. Probably a ton-and-a half-size bed because a small truck was all that was needed to haul my mother, her furniture, and me and my six brothers and sisters to move us to my grandfather’s farm in North Alabama. Mother was leaving my father because she had just learned that he had a small son born to another woman.

I was too young to understand my mother’s pain and what she felt toward my father.  All I was able to understand was that from what she was saying to the older children, I would not see my father again as an everyday father coming and going as he had always done during my short life.  Mother was a hard working, strong-willed, independent person.  Once she made up her mind about something she was slow to change her mind. So, I’m sure all of my brothers and sisters believed she was leaving and would never come back, and I was heartbroken.

I climbed onto the seat of my father’s wagon and curled up to cry.  I was not wearing a coat and the shirt I was wearing was thin and was soon penetrated by the chill in the air.  I quickly became cold as I lay listening to the sad whispering sound of the wind passing through the bare branches of the hickory trees above me.  As I listened, it seemed to me that somehow the wind was saying what I felt in my mind.  I wondered if trees became sad when they lost their beautiful leaves.  Perhaps they were crying with me as I cried because my family was telling me I was losing my daddy.  I loved my daddy and I could not understand the need for my mother to leave my daddy.

What could she do with seven of her children still living at home, and with no money, knowing only how to farm and owning no equipment or mules to farm with.  She had only a milk cow and a few yard chickens.  All she could take with her was her children, a few pieces of furniture, the cow, the chickens, her determination, and her faith in God.

While we waited for the arrival of the truck to take us away from our home in Tennessee, before I went outside and climbed upon my daddy’s wagon seat, one of my older sisters asked mother how she expected to make a living.  Mother had answered, “Papa has plenty of land, he has mules and farming equipment and he has houses, and he told my brother Tommy that we can move onto the Higgins farm where we can grow all of the crops me and you kids are able to grow and I know God will provide”.  Then she closed the door to that one’s questions by saying, “Anything will be better than living with a man who has another family down the road.”  When I heard my mother talk like that, I knew her mind was made up, and her face was set toward Lauderdale County in North Alabama.

My sister Lilly, a twin to my bother Samuel (Sam to us) continued her persistent questioning, asking mother how she expected to make a living farming without dad.  Mother’s response was, “We have been farming for the past twenty years with little help from your daddy, me and you kids have done the farming, your daddy has always been off building a chimney or digging a well while we worked in the fields.”  My brother Sam spoke up and said, “But Mom, dad brought his pay home for all of us.”  Mother said, “Yes, but it was not all that much. And don’t you worry, we will do alright.  Charlie is twenty-one years old and he is a good farmer and he is still single. We also have you and Lilly and we all know a lot about farming. And we have  Pearlie and Gene. They are big enough to work and Henry is big enough to look after Jack while I work.  So, don’t worry about us.  We will get by.”  I soon learned what mother meant when she said, “We’ll get by”.

Now, curled up on my daddy’s wagon seat, I cried myself into a shivering sleep before mother woke me saying, “Come on son; it’s time to go.”  My Uncle Tommy, mother’s youngest brother, and my brother-in-law, John Ramer, had been there to help, and the truck was loaded with all mother owned except her milk cow.  Uncle Tommy lifted me high in the air, and my brother Sam caught me by the arms and lifted me up onto the top of a featherbed on the truck.  Shaking with the cold of the afternoon October chill, and with a broken heart, I tried to bury myself into the featherbed, as if I could lose myself to what was happening in my family.  My mother, Uncle Tommy, and John Ramer squeezed into the cab of the truck, with two-year old Jack on mother’s lap.  The rest of the children, except Charlie, had joined me on top of the furniture.  The plan was for Charlie to stay in Tennessee until the n