From the Sand Hills to the City and Back Again

We were blessed with two big brothers who called us their babies. Mom said that they could tell which one was crying. If it was me, my brother J.D. the younger of the two boys, would tell Tee Jr. that it was his baby crying. If it was Dubber, Tee Jr. (Junior as we called him) would tell J. D. his baby was crying. I can remember them pulling us in card board boxes with a rope tied to it that Daddy had fixed for them. They would pull us up and down those dirt roads. We loved them dearly. While we were living in Bennett, FL, our sister Marie was born. Dubber and I were two and a half years old. It’s a good thing we had our big brothers because Marie was not a healthy baby. She took up much of Mama’s time. When she was about a year old, in 1936 we moved to the old Gainer home close to Econfina Creek in Florida. This was much closer to Granddaddy Tom Johns and close to Porter Pond. A lot of times, we walked from our house to Granddaddy’s. Junior and J.D. would still pull us in those card board boxes to Granddaddy Johns’. After a short time, we moved in with Granddaddy until Daddy and his family and friends could get our little house built just north of Granddaddy’s on the land that he had given us. At that time, Daddy was stump working. I can remember when the four of us would walk over those sand hills with Daddy and the two older boys would help him blow up the stumps. My Daddy would tell us little ones when to run. We were like little rabbits in those sand hills, but we made it fun because we thought we were helping him. Mom would always fix us something to eat and put it in gallon syrup buckets. Me, Dubber and Marie would take our lunch boxes down to the pond and wash them. Daddy finely made enough money with the stumps to buy him a little truck. The truck didn’t have any sides, just a flat bed, but it was ideal for what happened next. Daddy started working with Works Progress Administration (known then as the WPA) and walking from where we lived to help build the Vernon/Wausau highway would have been a very long walk. This job lasted about a year. When he finished that job, Daddy, Mama and the two older boys would cut cross ties from the woods behind our house for money. I can remember Daddy dragging them out of the woods, where he would dress them down with a saw and drawing knife. He would haul the cross ties to Chipley where he was paid pretty well. At least it took care of the family of seven at that time. During the time Daddy was cutting cross ties, J.D. got an ox and trained him to do just about anything. One thing I remember most was when the ox, we named Ole Bully, would pull us on Granddaddy’s ground slide up to the Griffin’s Grist Mill to have our corn ground. Daddy would use Ole Bully to get the ties out of the woods when he couldn’t use his truck. As we became school age, the five of us, J.D., Junior, Dubber, Me, and Marie, would walk to Sandy Mountain to school for one year. That walk took us by Uncle Jim and Aunt Patty’s house which we loved to visit on our way back home after lunch time. We always got out early. Uncle Jim had some delicious Alberta peaches. We would stop there because we knew they would give us some. Me and Marie loved to play with Aunt Patty’s hats. She had so many and didn’t mind us playing dress up. I’ll never forget one afternoon when we left Uncle Jim’s, one of us, I can’t remember which one, wore one of Aunt Patty’s hats home. Oh, that was a no no! So, Mama made me and Marie walk all the way back to Aunt Patty’s to take the hat back. By this time, it was dark outside and we were afraid to go. Because “believe me” we knew there were a lot of “boogers” in the woods along those dark roads. It took me and Marie a lot of begging to get Dubber and J.D. to go with us. Anyway, it taught us a lesson we would never forget.