Phase I - Part I
1898-1902:  Living in Sevier County, Tenn., Near My Birthplace on a Farm

• A swollen bended knee being baked by holding a red hot iron shovel daily very close for a period of 10 months -- diagnosed as "white's swelling."  The swelling would alternately leave and reappear for about four years.
  
  
• The nightly foot washing during the summer and the regular invigorating Saturday night bath, taken in the wash tub -- usually in the kitchen.
  
  
• Eagerly awaiting being permitted to go barefooted each year on May 10th, regardless of the weather, and the good feeling of shedding the heavy brogan shoes -- fitted to the right foot or left by wearing them.  Soon the feet became toughened after many blisters and stumped toes.
  
  
• Early in life, not too eager to do certain essential chores.  I remember thinking, "not going to kill myself working" - "I've heard of people killing themselves working," etc.  After the "white's swelling" left my knee I became more active and energetic.
  
  
• Oh, the anticipation, the counting of days until Santa would bring square ribbed stick candy, raisins, oranges, juicy apples (having been "holed" and saved from the previous summer), and always chestnuts, with which we would play "hull gull."  All of this would be in long ribbed stockings, hung from the (fireboard) mantel.  Occasionally a small toy or a doll for the girls, and a 150 Barlow knife for the boys.
  
  
• Popping corn, cracking walnuts or hickory nuts, shelling peas and cornfield beans in front of the fireplace after supper on winter nights.  Wall pockets for "lamp lighters" on the wall.
  
  
• Most female's dresses and male's shirts were made from cloth - calico, gingham, muslin, etc., bought or bartered from the country merchant.  A11 scraps left were used in making quilts, lined with strong white cotton cloth, with flat layers of cotton sewed between the lining and top, at quilting parties.  Boys wore skirts until about age 5 - I did.  Then home made shirts and Jean breeches (trousers).
  
  
• It was the accepted custom for male and female to wear long heavy underwear and high top shoes during the winter.  Some "dress" shoes were buttoned.  All ladies' hose were cotton; all dresses came to shoe tops.  Some ladies wore "bonnets" - my mother didn't.
  
  
• The farmer's traditional work clothes were overalls with a bib and "brogan" shoes.  Most farmers had a Sunday blue serge suit of clothes (with a flat, spring steel, oblong shaped, tapered, gadget under his coat collar, to keep his lapels snug) and a Sunday pair of dress shoes (all shoes high top and squeaked), gallouses for trousers - no belts.  "Blacking," shining Sunday shoes.
  
  
• Quite frequently, on special occasions -- harvest time -- corn gathering, etc., men would exchange work and teams.
  
  
• No store bought tooth brushes - only a willow branch (chewed at one end to form a brush) - and soda or salt as the cleaning agent.
  
  
• No barber shops (the housewife usually was the barber) but shoe and blacksmith shops at strategic places; however, every home in the country had a metal (iron) shoe last to fit shoes on for minor repairs - half soling, etc.
  
  
• All during the week longing for the luscious egg custard pie, "sweet cakes" (sugar cookies) and molasses cookies, usually served on weekends.  That longing for sweets hasn't left me.
  
  
• Bare tables?  Never.  Clean white or red-checked oil cloth always on the dining and kitchen tables.
  
  
• No paper napkins or towels.  They were usually made of cloth from flour or feed sacks.
  
  
• Taking sacks of wheat or corn to a water powered mill located on Dumplin Creek, to be ground into flour or meal, and the miller keeping his share as toll for the grinding.  A flume, or trough (a mill race), carried water to turn the mill's wheel.
  
  
• The meal chest for storing flour and meal in every country kitchen or mealroom -- enough ground in summer to last all winter.
  
  
• Feathers or wheat straw enclosed in a strong fabric - ticking - to make a "feather bed" or "straw tick" for the bed mattress.  Usually no metal bed springs, bed coverings, except one sheet - blanket and homemade quilts.
  
  
• Being frightened of lightning and thunderstorms -- and when one approached I always carried in stove wood, then crawled under a "feather bed" until the storm passed.
  
  
• In late summer selected hogs were put in sties, "hog pens," to be fattened by feeding corn for the family's yearly meat, sausage and lard - and cracklings.
  
  
• Hog killing on the first real cold day of fall or winter -- and the good meat thereafter -- tenderloin the first night. occasionally a sheep or calf was slaughtered.
  
  
• All fat trimmings from hams and shoulders were cooked and rendered into lard.  Cracklings were made from the remaining solid portion and used in corn bread.
  
  
• The indispensable earthen floor "smoke house" with hanging, curing hams, shoulders and sides of meat, salted and stacked. Pure hog lard in lard cans and buckets.
  
  
• While living in the country -- up to 1903 -- our only "fireworks" (and they only at Christmas) were dried inflated very tough hog bladders.  To burst them, a heated fire shovel was used to strike the bladders, after placing them on something solid.  This was done in the yard, and created quite a sharp loud sound.
  
  
• During the late summer and fall searching for delicious and not too plentiful wild grapes - chinquapins - hackberries - pawpaws - May apples and sweet smelling pomegranates.
  
  
• Going through the woods gathering rich pine knots to be used in the fireplace for warmth and light during the winter nights -- a good piney fragrance, too.
  
  
• During the summer or fall chopping with an axe or cutting wood with a crosscut saw (usually dead trees) for the fireplace, for stove wood for the cooking stove.  Always a very large, slow burning log (and at times the log soaked in water) was saved for the Yule log at Christmas -- somewhat of a vacation during the burning of the Yule log -- with only the very necessary chores done.
  
  
• Frequently, it seemed, came my chore to do the bi-weekly churning, in the cedar wood churn.  But the soft sweet butter on hot biscuits made this chore more acceptable.
  
  
• For a long time I had admired the beauty of the bumble bee, and had an urge to catch one.  Once I slipped up on a big beautiful one - grabbed it in my bare hand.  Closed my fist quickly to prevent its escape.  Yes, can still feel that sting.
  
  
• Boys have been known to take - borrow - steal (take your choice) watermelons at night from a neighbor's patch.  They did seem to taste better, I'm told.
  
  
• Always curious as to why the cutting part (the blade) of a plow is called a "plow share" - and still don't know.
  
  
• Each country home with a vegetable garden, adjoining the yard, enclosed usually by a paling fence to keep out chickens and dogs - an apple and peach orchard near by.
  
  
• A savory delicacy from the garden - stalks of "pie plant" - we knew it as rhubarb much later.
  
  
• A few rows of broom corn (a species of sorghum) in each vegetable garden for making (round) sweeping brooms.
  
  
• No electric equipment in the country at this time. Only spring houses to keep butter and milk cool -- wash tubs -- big iron kettles in which to boil clothes, etc.  Wood burning cooking stoves were more convenient than cooking in or on utensils in the fireplace - as formerly done.
  
  
• Old superstitions - some still exist:  Black-eyed peas, a must for New Year's day, to bring good luck - also the way one acted, or worked, would set the pattern for the year.  Toads causing warts.  To remove warts tie as many knots in a string as there are warts, rub one knot on a wart, throw the string away - when decayed the warts will disappear.  I tried this - it worked!
  
  
• Most planting on the farm was done when the moon sign or phase is right.  (This may be correct?)  Bad luck for a female to come visiting on New Year's day - a black cat to cross the road in front of you - to raise an umbrella in the house - to pass under a ladder or to bring an ax in the house, etc.
  
  
• Preparing apples and peaches to be made into preserves, jelly or butter by cooking in large copper kettles outside in the yard.  Much of it in gallon crocks for the family's use during the winter.  Surplus apples (and potatoes) were stored in cellars dug in the ground.  Also, apples and peaches were peeled and sliced, and dried in the sun to be used in stack cakes and pies, or stewed.  Some times the sliced fresh fruit was sulfured.
  
  
• Watching for snakes while picking blackberries (from waste land) to be made into jam or jelly.  Tapping maple trees for sap - boiling it to make maple syrup or maple candy.
  
  
• A flock of chickens feeding appear to be regimented.  They seem to know which ones have the highest rank or priority - viz, many chicken fights.
  
  
• The ruffled feathered ill-isposed hen when disturbed while on a "setting" of eggs.
  
  
• Large kerosene (coal oil) tanks, with hand pump, kept on the country merchant's porch, or in a back room.  A potato was stuck on the end of the customer's can spout to prevent spilling.
  
  
• Soda crackers - sugar - pickles - sauerkraut, etc., sold from wooden barrels in the larger country stores.
  
  
• The wholesale drummer (salesman) traveled horseback or by buggy and normally spent the night with a merchant or in a nearby private home.  The price for lodging, supper, breakfast and feed for his horse was about $1.00.
  
  
• Riding to the store bare-back to swap butter, eggs or chickens for coffee, sugar or salt, occasionally a stick of candy extra.  All customers waited their turn as the merchant gathered each item wanted.
  
  
• The country store was truly the "news center" - no telephones - no radios no television - only a monthly four-page newspaper (Montgomery's Vindicator) from Sevierville.  Each customer brought news of crop conditions, scandals, new neighbors, etc.  The drummer brought news from distant places, and during winter time - (when farm work allowed for some idle time) - always had eager listeners around the big "pot bellied" stove.
  
  
• When store bought "light bread" was a novelty, and not nearly so good as those good home baked biscuits soaked in ham "red eye" gravy.
  
  
• A hand-urned coffee mill (grinder) in every home, as Arbuckle's coffee was sold only in the bean, for about 15 cents per pound.
  
  
• Females only rode horses side-saddle, rather than a-stride as males.  Only one stirrup but both legs on same side, left leg in the stirrup, the other resting on a special support.  An "upping block" outside the yard gate.  A hitching post near by.  A hitching block placed in each buggy.
  
  
• Doctors in the country were many times paid with fresh meat, chickens, vegetables, etc.  I rode with an uncle (country doctor) on many night calls - horse and buggy - no automobiles.
  
  
• Common remedies for minor illnesses:  Sulfur and molasses.  Sassafras or wintergreen tea as a spring tonic.  Quinine for chills (think I used a bushel).  Asafetida - a small ball enclosed in cloth around the neck for sore throat (awful smelling) - prepared from plants of the parsley family.  Flannel cloth saturated in mutton tallow for clogged head or sore throat.  Few drops of turpentine in sugar for coughs, etc.
  
  
• The time when a two-horse Studebaker farm wagon was the ultimate and a twohorse Babcock buggy educed as much prestige as a Cadillac today.
  
  
• Quite a sensation - riding on top a wagon load of loose hay - going to the barn (on sloping ground) - wagon turned over, and the slick hay carried me many yards, down the hill - no injury - no hay knife needed on this load.
  
  
• Before the McCormick reaper, strong men swung scythes (with 5 prong cradle attached) when cutting wheat, oats or barley.  Hay was cut with horse drawn mowing machines.  There were no tractors at this time in our section of the country.
  
  
• The corn crib, separated from the barn, and the hay loft in each barn for storing winter feed for the animals.
  
  
• Moulding lead bullets for use in the long barrel "hog rifle," also reloading shells for the 12-gauge shot gun.
  
  
• At wheat threshing time the wood-burning steam thresher with four or five men would come on a specified date.  The farmer's wife always prepared an elaborate noontime dinner - chicken - country ham - many vegetables and two or three desserts - coffee - milk and buttermilk to drink.
  
  
• The clean fragrance of wood smoke as one approached a home in the country.  If stopping, one would call out "hello," at the gate or edge of the yard and await an answer before entering the yard.  When leaving if one received "come when you can" they were welcome to return any time.
  
  
• Hot biscuits often three times daily, breakfast, dinner (noon) and supper.  Frequently for supper corn meal mush, or hot thick corn bread was substituted; on special occasions a real delicacy - "thickened milk," made by cooking small rolls of flour in whole milk then sweetened.
  
  
• Winter time, in prolonged periods of severe weather cutting holes in ice in the frozen over creek.  The watering trough (rain water from the barn's roof) frozen, too.
  
  
• Riding to Knoxville (with Dad and Carlos) from Sevier County in a wagon, loaded with potatoes (taters) to sell, and smelling of noxious coal smoke.  About 6 miles before reaching the city limits, our horses always frightened of trains and were hard to hold.
  
  
• Farmers coming to Knoxville usually slept in their wagons in stables where they stayed and boarded their horses.  Many available, some were livery stables, that had equipment and horses for hire.  We stayed with relatives.
  
  
• Complete meals (all one could eat) for 15 cents - later advanced to 25 cents, at many boarding or "eating" houses in Knoxville.
  
  
• A period when a man's word could be, and was, believed as the truth - a liar was notorious.  A period, too, when it was a privilege to work and earn anything desired.  This was impressed on me by my parents.
  
  
• Thankful for an honorable God-loving father and mother, who reared their 6 children to be honest, hard working, and taught us to always do the right (Christian) thing in all our activities.  I strayed at times, which brought many switchings.  The "rod" was not spared.
  
  
• All the family dressing around warm wood burning cook stove in the kitchen on winter mornings, while breakfast was being prepared.
  
  
• An accepted method to pull a loose tooth was to tie one end of a string to the tooth, the other to an open door knob - then slam the door; it works.
  
  
• Carrying in my pockets small balls or rolls of string - colored preferable - and a Russell Barlow knife.  Wish I had saved a few of the 15 cent and 25 cent Barlows - a good one now several dollars.
  
  
• Writing materials - slates for school - rough tablet paper for 1 cent - lead pencils.  Smooth tablet paper for ink.  A quill pen (normally made from the end of a large feather).  In absence of store bought ink, a substitute was made from polkberries.  Store bought ink pens were available.  Postage stamps - letters 2 cents - postal cards 14.  We had R. F. D. delivery.
  
  
• Roasting, for school, an ear of "roasting ears" corn, unshucked, and a long red sweet potato in hot ashes, covered with red hot coals -- country ham sandwiches common.  Peanut butter, No.
  
  
• Any time a boy or girl was to be punished by a whipping, at our one room school, the offender would be sent outside to bring the teacher a switch.  If not a good one he, or she, was sent back until a good one was brought.  Any time a funeral was passing (the casket in a wagon or hack), the school bell would toll.
  
  
• Picking up pieces of sandstone from the road bank (as my brother, Carlos, and I returned from the one room school), which was easily broken into granules, and used for scouring our board floors at home.  A "mop" of hickory splints was used for scrubbing.  It worked, -- the floors were kept quite clean.
  
  
• A stick or two of candy or a small present at the close of each school year, for every student, from the teacher.  Normally a 4 or 6 month free school.  There were some "paid" schools.  "Books" meant school in session.  Most schools had a recitation bench at the front.
  
  
• Wrapped heated bricks on cold nights as foot warmers.  No heat in bed room.
  
  
• The family washing done by hand on wash boards, and boiled in large iron kettles outside, and dried in the sun on clothes lines.  No fragrance to equal sun dried sheets, blankets, etc.  Bluing used to counteract yellowing.  No detergents - only lye or Octagon soap.
  
  
• The always convenient chamber pot under the bed, for night use as the outside privy was usually located many feet from the house.  No inside plumbing.
  
  
• Distinctive sounds heard in the country, (no reference to the above).  The crow of roosters - hens cackling after laying an egg - doves' lonesome coo - the bobwhite's musical whistle - the harsh caw of crows - barking of squirrels - mocking birds' melodious sow - the woodpeckers' pecking - hee-haw the braying sound of donkeys - bees buzzing - frogs croaking - crickets chirping - the screech owls' hoot or wail - and the whip-poor-will's nocturnal cue - the braying of mules - the neigh of horses - and, yes, the restful sound of falling rain, and the rustling of wind through the forest's leaves.
  
  
• Home lighting in the country was by kerosene (coal oil) lamps, with a woven thick cloth wick, or a substitute in emergencies -- sheep tallow candles.  Later there were improvements, using compressed air in lamps.
  
  
• Much convenience for washing dishes, etc., after a hot water tank was added to the kitchen stove.
  
  
• Horse powered grinders for squeezing the juice from sweet sorghum cane when making molasses.  The proper cooking is an art - and very important.  Often a piece of the cane saved for chewing by children, watching.
  
  
• All roads in the country were graded by horse drawn scrapers, and were built to conform to the contour of the land for easier travel by loaded wagons.
  
  
• Each male adult was required to work on his portion of the country road a certain number of days (I think 5) each year -- in lieu of taxes.  If children were used each two days counted as one.  Extra allowance for the use of a horse.
  
  
• Slow moving oxen - with a wooden double yoke - pulling logs to a saw mill.
  
  
• Apprehension about the severe sting of "pack saddles" when gathering corn.  I've had that awful experience.
  
  
• Making wooden traps to catch rabbits, then tracking the rabbits in the snow and placing the traps near their nest or den.
  
  
• When hand wound victrolas (graphophones) with cylinder records were the only "talking machines" in use -- truly a unique novelty.  We had one.
  
  
• Storing wood ashes in closed wooden "ash hopper" for making strong lye soap, used in the family wash.  After bleaching by pouring soft rain water, from the cistern or rain barrel, over the ashes, this liquid was then boiled in large iron kettles, mixed with hog fat.  The alkali in the ashes and fat are the principal ingredients.
  
  
• Making hominy in large iron kettles, in the yard.  Hickory king corn boiled in lye or wood ashe solution.  When fully cooked washed thoroughly 6 to 10 times to remove the lye.  A full day's work.
  
  
• Selecting solid cabbage heads for making sour kraut - shredding, packing tightly in crocks. or jars - salting - adding boiling water, then keep in dark three or four weeks to "work" or "cure."
  
  
• The anticipation of visiting "sociables" viz: box suppers - singings - spelling bees - church meetings, with "dinner on the ground."  Baptizings in a big creek or the river always attracted large crowds.
  
  
• All barns and most homes were weather-boarded or logs - a few made with "home made" brick.  Most covered with wooden shingles, split by a froe.  A very few barns or porches covered with tin.
  
  
• Lightning rods on most homes and barns in the country.
  
  
• Water to drink from cisterns or wells, except those homes near a spring, (usually a long handle gourd for drinking).  Water for horses and cattle from ponds or a creek or a watering trough.
  
  
• Listening to the Southern Railway's train whistle from Strawberry Plains - 4 or 5 miles away - constantly reminded me that I wanted to be a railway mail clerk when I became an adult (later on this desire changed to a county agricultural agent).