Chapter 1

I was born to Albert and Nettie Elder Strickland in a log house in what we called “in the mountains”, at the foot of Horseblock Mountain, right even with the highest point on Mt. Cheaha.  And as a child those mountains and what lay west were as much a mystery to me as the countries on the other side of the ocean are today.  Although I had been as far south as Lineville and Pyriton, about nine or ten miles, east to Liberty in Randolph County, and north to Oxford and Anniston, fifteen to twenty miles, I had little knowledge of the country beyond Macedonia on the north, McClintock’s Mill, Grandpa Strickland’s old place, and the lower bridge on the Kichemedogee Creek east, and upper bridge south—length of five or six miles and breadth of maybe four miles.

The part of this valley I was most familiar with was the Union community, so-called for the school.  The community centered around a little village about a quarter mile north of the upper bridge on Kichemedogee.

I know the village only as “Town”, or “Mt. Zion”.  There had been a post office there in former years, named “Dempsey”, and one on Swan Branch called “Buckeye”.  They had been discontinued and mail delivered on rural routes.  The village consisted of seven residences, one general store, selling everything from groceries and dry-goods to buggies and wagons, a grocery store, drug store, blacksmith shop and Church of Christ building, called Mt. Zion.  Across a little valley west were a Baptist church house, cemetery and school.  This was all called Union.

Uncle Jube Elder, Mama’s brother, owned and operated the general store.  Later he sold it and his home to Mr. Jim Fuller, and moved to Oxford and ran a business there.  Little Joe Smith ran the grocery store, Dr. Mackey the drug store, and Mr. Tom Elliot was the blacksmith.

The big road (public road) came through town from Lineville, running over Gray Hill (a large hill that joined the mountains) meandering around the foothills of the mountain for four miles, crossing High Falls Branch, Pretty Branch, and Swan Branch, and passing eighteen houses to Macedonia school and church house—Elderite Christian, so-called because my great grandfather, Wych Elder, established it, then on to Oxford.

The people in the valley were comparatively poor and ignorant of the ways of the world.  Most of the older ones owned their homes, and some were very well fixed, but none wealthy—that is, in silver and gold or worldly goods.  They were rich in the spirit of cheerfulness and good will and other things that really count for wholesome living and happiness.

Only those who owned their homes remained in one place for long at a time.  Many rented land and moved most every year from place to place in the valley.  We were among the last, so we lived in many different places.

The land was rather poor, much of it hilly, but with terracing around the hills and enriching with fertilizer, good crops could be raised.  It didn’t take much to live on for no one demanded a very high standard of living.

I suppose there were some in the valley who didn’t seem to care whether or not they had anything, nor how their homes and surroundings looked.  Most of them did.

Life at its best was crude as compared to today, but it was adequate; shelter, the warmth of fire, clothing, blankets and quilts, food to stay hunger and cool water to quench thirst.

There were no indoor plumbing facilities, nor running water or electricity, no air-conditioning or central heat, or even circulating heaters, but big fireplaces in nearly every room.  Everyone’s diet was not perfect, and there were no vitamins, only sassafras tea in the spring, and, for some, sulphur and molasses.  Modern people would consider it very primitive, and so it was, but in those days it was at least comfortable.

Almost everyone had orchards and gardens, and some had vineyards, so they raised their own fruit and vegetables—beans, peas, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, and corn for bread.  Cane was raised, and they made, or had made, their syrup.  Most had one or more cows, some hogs and chickens, geese or ducks.  So there was milk and butter, meat and eggs, feathers for beds and pillows, and some owned sheep that furnished wool for clothing and meat for the table.

In the early days, most furniture was handmade—bedsteads, tables and chairs, and some were quite beautiful.  I remember seeing a homemade four-poster bed with a mat of splits for the mattress to lie on, and we had some beautiful chairs and a table Uncle John Strickland made.  Wagons were also made, candles were molded and even bullets were made.

For so long there was no stock law, so the stock ran loose in the hills and mountains.  The fields were patches fenced with zigzag rail fencing like rickrack.  Bells were put on the lead cows and sheep, and each person knew the sound of his own bell.  If the stock failed to come home at night, a search was made for them.  The ears of the cattle, sheep and hogs were notched before they were turned out, each man with his own mark, so if they ran wild in the woods as they often did, especially hogs, they could go and hunt them down and know their own when found.  There were deer and wild turkeys in the woods just for the taking, and an abundance of wild fruit and nuts.

For a long time the sheep were sheared in the spring and the wool carried to the scouring plant where it was washed, and then taken to the mill for carding into rolls.  It was then read to be spun into thread and woven into cloth for garments, which was done by the women of the valley.  Later, they began selling their wool and buying cloth, and most of them sold their sheep.

My mother wove when she was very young.  We had a spinning wheel and I can remember seeing her card and spin thread for knitting.  Ours was a large model walking wheel that required a standing operator, as were most of them in the valley.  Mrs. Phillips and Miss Bell Backus had a small one and they could sit down and spin.  I can remember seeing Grandpa Elder’s loom, and also his candle molds, but they were in the smokehouse.  I never saw them in use.

When Papa and Mama were very young they had log rollings, house raisings, quilting and candy pullings.  If someone wanted to build a house, logs were cut, the neighbors came in, and soon the house was built.  Not all the old houses in the valley were made of logs; however, many of them were made of plank.  If a man wanted to put some new land into cultivation, the timber was cut off and there was a log rolling and soon had a “newground” ready to farm.  This was a lot of hard work for both the men and the women, but they enjoyed it.  I have heard Papa tell how they sang and whooped it up as they rolled logs, and Mama tell of baking stacks and stacks of “half-moon” pies, peach and apple, for the log rollings and how those hungry men ate them.

The quiltings and corn shuckings sounded like great fun.  The men and boys went to them and the boys held lights for the girls to quilt by and kept their needles threaded.  There were always big suppers at these affairs and the candy pullings had to be sweet and enjoyable.

About 1903, a stock law as passed.  Stock were not allowed to run loose any longer, so the people tore down their field fences and built zigzag rail fences around some land for pasture.  Most of the lots were of rails.  The horse and mules were kept in stables at nigh, which were sometimes built into the barn, but often were little log buildings rowed up across the lot.  They had lofts where fodder was kept.  Most of the horse and cow troughs were hollow logs sawed open with legs attached and many had hay racks made of slats in the middle of their lots from which the horses and mules ate hay.  Most of the yards were fenced with picket, or palings, but many were torn down after the stock law came into effect.

Much of the farming was done by hand, without any machinery, only a walking plow and hoe.  Cornstalks were cut wit a hoe and cotton stalks knocked with a stick and burned early in the spring.  A familiar sight in spring nights was the sky lit up with bright lights from rows of stalks across the fields blazing and the men and boys silhouetted against the lights running from row to row with pine torches lighting them.  The air was filled with the scent of smoke and I loved it.

Planting and cultivating were next, after fertilizing.  Some people used guano horns to strew the guano—a long metal tube with a top like a funnel.  This guano horn was held with one hand and with the other the guano was taken from a bag at the side which hung from a strap over the shoulder.  Some corn and cotton seed were dropped by hand.  Not all farming was done this way.  Papa had a guano distributor and a cotton and corn planter, both horse drawn, though he had to walk.  He had a riding cultivator and raked stalks with a horse drawn rake on which he rode.

Some had hay mowers, but much of the wheat and oats were cut with a scythe or cradle, tied into bundles by hand and put into the barn or stable loft ready for the mules and horses.  The cows were fed cotton seed and fodder or hay.  In the old days, many people worked oxen, but the only oxen I ever saw plowing were Hayes Smith’s two big red ones.

The roads were kept up by the people.  An overseer was appointed by the people and at certain times he would summon the men to come to a road working.  They would meet at a certain place, bringing their mules, plows, axes, hoes, picks and shovels.  They would cut the necessary trees and bushes, plow down the banks, fill and clean out ditches and do whatever was required.  The roads were narrow.  Even the “big road” (public road) was just wide enough for two wagons to pass, with deep ditches on either side most of the way, and high banks on the hills.  The side roads were kept up by those who lived along them.

The first time Papa visited there after moving to Texas, someone to him, “Ab, I guess you can see we have better roads than when you left here.” Papa said he had just been wondering what had happened to the roads.  They had shrunk to mere cow trails.  He couldn’t imagine them every having been worse.

Everybody worked hard through the spring and early summer, planting and cultivating crops and harvesting grain.  When the last sheaf of grain was hauled in, the last furrow plowed, and the last row hoed, everyone shouted with loud whoops of sheer joy.  Now they were able to rest and enjoy themselves for a season.  If you hard someone in the field in the early summer shouting at the top of his voice in a joyous tone, you would know that his crop was laid by.

Common interests and short distances created a closeness.  Everybody knew everybody else and was interested in their welfare.  If there was sickness, the neighbors were there to help in any way possible.  If an emergency arose and someone was needed at once, you just took a hunting horn and gave three long blasts and soon help was on the way, often, a crowd.  If a doctor was needed, someone mounted a horse and galloped off in a hurry.

There were three doctors at Delta, Drs. Stevens, Jenkins and Garrett. Prior to that Dr. Harris and Dr. McClintock were there.  The last few years we were there, Dr. Mackey lived in our village, and Dr. Campbell was at Campbell’s Cross Roads, and they all practiced in our community.

Uncle Joe Carter studied to be a doctor, but the Civil War or something had interfered.  He knew a lot about medicine and was of great help in case of illness in the community, always welcomed in the homes.

The people enjoyed visiting and often took their families and went to spend the night with each other.  They did a lot of walking, especially the young folks.  When Mama was a girl, she thought of walking to Macedonia to church and back on Sunday morning, then to Mt. Zion or Union to a singing in the afternoon, eight miles or more in all.

Many rode in wagons, some in “steer wagons”.  I can remember riding in Uncle Tom Strickland’s Steer wagon, the steer or ox traveling so slow we could barely tell we were moving.  Some had buggies.  Mr. Jeff Davis and family rode in a surrey with fringe on top.

We owned a two-horse wagon and a one-horse wagon, both with spring seats and two buggies, one a new top buggy with rubber tires, and the other a little “run-about” open top buggy, which was given to Papa by the church at Liberty in Randolph County while he was preaching there.

Our mule was big black mules named Jim, which Mama would hitch to the one-horse wagon, and pile us in and go places.  Chester, my brother, could hitch him up and drive him alone when he was only nine years old.  We had a young mule named Nell, and two horses, Gray Maude, a big beautiful iron gray mare, and Black Maude, a smaller black mare.  These two Maudes were the fastest horses in the country.  Papa could hitch either of them to the buggy and they would out-trot anything near or far.  Black Maude was a little faster, and both trotted and paced.  How proud Papa was of these horses and how we all enjoyed them.

I can remember riding Gray Maude behind Papa from our farm down the big creek to the Singleton field, which joined Grandpa Strickland’s place south of the mill pond which Papa had rented and worked in addition to our farm.  I kept the big black powder cans filled with guano and cottonseed ready for the distributor.  To spend the day out in the field, eating lunch with Papa at the Singleton spring and riding horseback two miles to and from home was like a picnic to me.

Gray Maude was easily frightened, and seemed to delight in running away.  One day Papa was plowing her and a heel fly got after her.  She broke loose from the plow and ran out into the middle of the field, stood on her hind legs, turned around and around like a show horse, and headed straight for where I was playing on a ditch bank.  I rolled into the ditch and she jumped right over my head and ran out across the road and stopped as if nothing had happened.  Another time when the top buggy was brand new, one Sunday morning Papa hitched her to it.  He decided to use a different bridle, with its blinds off and she saw that top standing up behind her, she was off like the wind.  She ran out into the road and started down it when the buggy turned over in the ditch.  The harness broke and she left the buggy lying on its top with the wheels in the air, spinning.  She ran a little distance and stopped and looked back and started grazing.  We just knew our beautiful new buggy was ruined, but it wasn’t hurt.

After Uncle Campbell Carter and Cousin Zolemma Smith died, Aunt Lula Carter and Cousin Andy Smith married each other.  One day they were driving Gray Maude in a buggy.  Mr. Wilf’s little dog, Son, came running after them, barking.  Uncle Andy hit at the dog with the buggy whip and Maude ran away, turning the buggy over and breaking several of Aunt Lula’s ribs.  That was a short time before we can to Texas, and Uncle Andy owned her.

The first wedding I recall was Aunt Prudie Elder’s.  We walked from up in the mountains to Grandpa’s.  Mama had made Elsie and me some capes to wear to the wedding—beautiful blue and white plaid on one side and red and white plaid on the other.  On the way, we were running and playing and I fell down in a clump of daisies by the roadside and got leaves and pine needles all over my cape.

When Uncle Malie Strickland married Ola Newsome, he came and borrowed our buggy to go to the wedding so he could bring her home with him.  He drove off whistling “Some love coffee, some love tea.  I love a pretty girl and she loves me." We were at the wedding, and also at the infair dinner at Grandpa’s the next day.  Papa married them.  He also married Rufus Moore and Dona Newsome.  I remember that wedding.  Mr. Bud McClintock, Aunt Signey’s brother, was there from Texas and the men went out behind the lot and had a shooting match.

The first couple Papa married was Tom Roberts and Josie Smith.  He said when he got to the home of the bride that evening, the place was covered with horses and carriages, and the house was full of people.  He almost panicked, thinking, “All these people came here to see me make a fool of myself”.  But everything went well and they were all happy.

People enjoyed playing pranks on each other, and sometimes it proved dangerous.  One night when Papa was a young man, he was walking home from a “play party”, so called to distinguish them from dances.  The moon was shining as he walked along with his hands in his pockets, whistling, when suddenly a pistol snapped right even with him.  He stopped.  Again it snapped.  Glancing around he caught sight of someone in the shadows on the road bank.  Without thinking, he made a lunge for the figure, grabbing a pair of legs and jerked the owner of them into a ditch and piled on top of him, beating him with his fists.  “What’s the matter, Ab?  I was just playing.  I won’t do it again!”  Papa said he was scared to death, but he told him, “Don’t you ever do that again or I’ll beat the fire out of you.”  It was another boy of the community, Gaz Mitchell, who left the party early, knowing that Albert Strickland would be walking down that road alone, and he would have some fun.  They were the best of friends from then on.

Our last night there, Halloween night, Joseph and Barney Strickland, and Hubert and Ocoa Garner, thought up a plan to have some fun.  They made a mud doll, got some foxfire from the woods and made eyes for it—eyes that would shine in the dark.  They put the doll on a base so they could carry it easily.  When darkness came, they set out for Mr. Johnson’s.  Reaching the house, they set the doll on the top doorstep, then all the boys but one ran and hid behind some stacks of shingles in the yard.  The other boy knocked on the door and ran around the corner of the house.  Mr. Johnson opened the door, saw the eyes shining in the dark and slammed the door shut.  He got a shotgun, raised the window and shot out at it.  Shot sprinkled all around the boys who were behind the shingle stacks.  They came out yelling, “Don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”  They never tried that trick again at night.  Barney Strickland and Foster Burt did bring a doll similar to that one to our house on Sunday afternoon, setting it on the doorstep and rapping and hiding.  Of course, when we went to the door we could see what it was and it was fun.  They then took it to Grandpa Elder’s, and Grandpa and Grandma got fun out of it.

A farmer’s union was organized, meeting in the upper story of Smith’s mill house.  Papa was a charter member of it.  It must have been something of a secret order then, at least in that locale, with member initiations.  Papa didn’t tell us what they did for initiation, he said it was a secret but he told us enough that we thought it must be fun.

There was a Farmer’s Union supper one Saturday evening at Mt. Zion church house, with all kinds of good things to eat.  Everybody in the community must have been there, for the place was covered with people.

Then, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) organized in the Union church hose and everyone came that day.  Those who wished to join when into the house and the others stayed outside visiting and having a picnic until a cloud and quick rain.  The church house doors were locked so no one could get in.  Some ran to the school house, others got under trees, wagons, or anything for shelter, and some became very angry because they couldn’t get into the church house.

The men had a baseball team that played surrounding communities.  Union had one of the best teams around.  Mr. Jesse Dempsey was one of the best players.

When Papa and Mama were young, there was a lot of whiskey made, bootlegged and drunk in the valley.  Papa drank some with the other boys though he was never drunk.  Though there were stills around, he was never at one.  One year, soon after he and Mama were married, they could see a light every night at a still about a half mile away.  He knew what it was, but never went to it.  One man in the community even dug a basement and well under his house and made whiskey down there.  That was at what I knew as the Singleton place, south of the mill pond on Kichemedogee.  He had a large family of girls and they helped him make and sell the whiskey.

There was lawbreaking in other ways.  For instance, if a man thought someone had, or was going to report him to the law, or perhaps someone didn’t suit him, he got a group of men who called themselves “White Caps” together and took him into the woods and whipped him, calling it “white capping”.  One night some men took a man and his wife, who was an invalid, and whipped them unmercifully.  Some of the men went to prison for that and others ran away to Texas.

Papa said he saw one man arrested on the doorsteps of the Union Church as he was going inside for services one Sunday morning.  He was placed in a buggy and taken off to jail.  This stopped the whiskey-making and bootlegging, and most of the drinking.  However, some few men still drank but not in public in the Union community.

Once, while living in the mountains, we went down Pretty Branch instead of out by Lee Carter’s on our way to church Sunday morning.  About the only time I recall going that road which was very little traveled, it was spring.  As we rode along in the wagon, the air was spicy and sweet.  As we rounded the hill where there was a steep bank on the upper side of the road, there was a man lying in the road.  An umbrella was over him, a bottle, partially full of whiskey lay by his side, and a horse stood by, his bridle reins trailing the ground.  It was “Black” Jim Carter.  He was asleep.  We drove out of the road, which was difficult, and around him – we didn’t go back that way on the way home.  He was Uncle Joe Carter’s son-in-law, no relation otherwise.  Uncle Joe had sons named Jim (Red Jim) and Bill.

I remember one Christmas Eve, Elsie and I were going to the store, when we came to the edge of the woods; we heard some loud talking and hollering up the road just around the bend.  We slipped up to the bend in the road, hid in the bushes and watched.  Jim Fuller, John Carter and Lias Spear were drinking out of a jug in a clearing by the side of the road.  One would take a drink and throw the jug on the ground with a loud whoop, another would run and grab it up and take a drink and slam it on the ground again.  This they did continually until they had enough and hid the jug under a pile of bushes.  We waited until they were gone and proceeded on to the store.  On the way home, we got the jug, took it down the road and hid it under some sweet gum sprouts on the other side of the road by the fence.  It was still there the last time we looked which was quite some time later.

Someone asked Papa once in Alabama if Texas wasn’t a land of outlaws and renegades.  He told them, “No, that he supposed those outlaws came to Texas and straightened up and flew right for Texas was a land of honesty and uprightness, more so than the part of Alabama that he knew.”