The Way Things Were
Short Stories of Past Experiences
by
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In Memory of Charlie and Anna Bell Walker
One summer night in 1987 my mother Walker and I were talking about how things were when I was a little boy in Sebring, Florida. She and I laughed and rejoiced in the memories of days gone by of a time that would be no more.
We remembered and spoke of places, people and situations that had faded in history, and would soon be forgotten; a time and type of life that was vastly different from the present.
We spoke of her hometown… Macon, Georgia, where she attended school and later after marriage returned and thereby I was born in Macon.
Mother spoke about how she and my father (Charlie Walker) had met and married. She explained how she and Dad had a vision and how with prayer and faith they set out to accomplish and make that vision a reality.
Mother and I sat up that night talking about Millen, Georgia, and Grandpa and Grandma Walker on my daddy’s side of the family. We talked about “the farm life” and how she made sure that her children (my brother Billy, sister Elaine and I, Bobby) were exposed to the farm by visiting Grandpa every summer after school.
During the summer of 1987 Mother stayed with me for several weeks, therefore we had many opportunities to talk about the way things were in the years gone by…
We talked about rare relationships and how we grew up in Sebring, Florida. It was a highly segregated city with “white town” on the west side of the Seaboard and Atlantic Coastline railroad tracks, which ran north and south, and the “Colored Town” on the east side of the railroad tracks. Colored Town was also called “Coon Town”, “Boot Town”, “Nigger Town”, “Hodgemoore Quarters” or “The Quarters”.
We talked of a time and place and a type of people who enjoyed some good situations, endured some terrible situations, were indifferent to a few situations, and tolerated many situations.
It was a time when Black People were ashamed to be called “Black” disliked being called “Colored” and hated being called a “nigger”. It was a time when Black People gave reverence to GOD, even if some didn’t worship or praise Him. They respected Him and prayer was as common as syrup in every colored person’s home.
It was a time when fifty cents or one dollar an hour was common wages for a “colored man”; when white people didn’t allow colored folks to ride in the front seat, therefore they chauffeured colored folks to and from work in their homes as maids, butlers, baby sitters, cooks, yard workers, etc.
As Mother and I talked into the early hours in the morning, it occurred to me that many of these things and situations we were discussing would be lost to my children, grand children, and great grand children unless I wrote down past occurrences in a diary or book.
The Reverend Robert J. Walker
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About the Book
to My Children and Grandchildren
A special note to my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, my nieces, and nephews, and all of the Walker generations to come!
The Way Things Were is a collection of short stories that I have written in order to help preserve the memory and history of a way of life that once existed in the 1900’s (Twentieth Century). It was a time in the late 1940’s and early l950’s when we, Charles (Billy), Robert (Bobby), and Elaine (Chicken) were children growing up in Sebring, Florida and Millen, Georgia.
I think the Walkers of the 2000’s must have some information regarding the Walker’s of the 1900’s. I also want the future generations to know the principles and what it was like when I was a child: the atmosphere of the 1900’s, the people and racial issues; nature and climate, animal and plant life; the working and living conditions of Black People; the economic and political situations of that time, and of course the conditions on the Home Farm of Grandpa, Alfred Walker, in Millen, Georgia.
Grandpa’s daddy was Willis Walker and his wife’s name was Bessie. Great Grandpa lived in Waynesburg, Georgia. Willis and Bessie had seven children: Alfred, Rosy, Charlie, Aaron, Marian, Sadie and Catherine.
Grandma Louise had twelve brothers and sisters: Bessie, Mary, Sadie, Lillie, Flora, Ella, Willie, Johnny, Sam, Lee, James, and Nathaniel. Modfett was Grandma Louise’s maiden name, and she was born in Waynesburg, Georgia
Grandpa (Alfred Walker), born June 16, 1871 in Waynesburg, Georgia, moved to Millen, Georgia in 1916 when Daddy (Charlie Walker) was five years old. That was the year that Uncle Albert accidentally hit Daddy on the head with an axe while cutting wood.
Grandpa (Alfred Walker) had ten children by two wives, Mary and Louise: Ezekiel, Hattie, Nellie, James and Lila; Johnny, Albert, Charlie, Willis, and Louise. (Charlie, my daddy, was born May 16, 1911.)
In 1926-27 Grandpa Alfred bought the Walker’s farmland in Millen, Georgia, where he grew cotton on fifty-seven acres of land. Cotton was the money-producing crop at that time.
Grandpa Alfred had three mules, two horses, several carriages, seventeen milk cows with calves, four bulls, hundreds of hogs and pigs, chickens and ducks.
Grandpa Alfred and his wives, Mary and Louise, and much later Susie, also grew gardens to produce their vegetables: beans, peas, collards and mustard greens, carrots, etc. Fruit trees were all over the property, such as pecans, apples, pears, plums, walnuts, peaches, grapes and blue and black berries, pumpkins, watermelons and peanuts.
Grandpa and his wives actually lived off the land and their own farm animals. The cows provided milk from which Grandma would make butter, and cream; and from the cows came steaks and all the parts of the beef meat family. The hogs provided all the pork meat family, such as sausages, chitterlings, bacon, and pork chops just to name a few.
Grandma would make syrup and sugar from the cane crop and from the fruits she would make jelly’s, jams, and wine.
The smoke or cold house was the place for storing meats, milk, jellies, jams, wine or any foods that were to be kept for a period of time. The smoke house was a cellar dug into the ground or up against a red clay mound. The red clay kept the temperature in the room at a constant coolness…60 to 68 degrees.
Just about any medicine could be found in the nearby woods and fields if not actually growing on the farm, therefore very few people went to a doctor.
Both Grandpa Alfred and Grandma Susie used plants, roots and certain tree leaves as medicine. They knew which plants to dig up or leaves to pull or cut off a tree, boil, cook or use raw. They knew when, how much and how to apply these plants as medicine. Unfortunately, these secret techniques have gone to the grave with them.
Grandpa had a water well which was fed by a spring that never ran dry. That spring continues to run through the property in Millen, Georgia today, 2000…and it’s the freshest, sweetest, water I have ever tasted.
Grandpa, Alfred Walker, outlived three wives. He farmed and worked until he was well into his nineties. Grandpa moved to Sebring, Florida to live with Daddy, Charlie Walker, in 1968. He died in his sleep after a healthy meal and evening walk around the neighborhood. He was ninety-nine at his death in 1970.
The information and history of Grandpa, Alfred Walker, and Charlie and Anna bell Walker is much too valuable to be lost and forgotten by the passing of time and the passing of those few relatives who lived in those wonderful, precious years when The Way Things Were was so different.
The Reverend Robert J. Walker
About the Author
The Reverend Robert Walker
Sebring, Florida
Born August 7, 1938 in Macon, Georgia, Walker attended E. O. Douglas School in Sebring and spent two years in the Air Force.
In Tuskegee University, he received a BS degree in Administration and a MS degree from Springfield University in Massachusetts and was certified in YMCA work.
He was an ordained minister in the Greater Bethel Primitive Baptist Church and is a certified counselor.
He was employed by the Florida Department of Corrections, was a prison superintendent and the Department of Juvenile Justice in Lantana, Florida.
Walker was ordained in 1996 in the Non-Denominational Redemption Life Fellowship by Harold Ray and is presently associated with the Bountiful Blessing Church of God in Sebring with Bishop Timothy McGahee.
He is currently serving as president of the Highlands County Minority Economic Development Council, Inc.
Walker is married to the former Beatrice Penny Fitzpatrick
and has four sons. He retired in 1998 to Sebring to be with his elderly father.
At the prompting of his mother in 1987, Walker began writing a series of short
stories about growing up in Sebring, Florida.