Blount and Beyond Online Magazine - Magazine - Page 12
Over the years Daddy drifted in and out of Mother9s life and I don9t believe she ever stopped loving him. He
finally joined the Army and fought in World War II. After the Army he never came back to this part of the
country, preferring to travel around from place to place. He died in Saginaw, Michigan in 1957 was buried in a
Veteran9s Cemetery there.
LIVING IN THE MOUNTAINS
I don9t remember very much about our house in Little Greenbrier. It was the typical mountain house, maybe a
little better than most. I remember the bee hives and I remember the springhouse. Mountain people tried to build
their homes near a spring. The spring was always very clean and usually people would build a wall around the
spring. Everybody had a gourd dipper hanging near the spring so anyone passing by could get a cold drink of
water. There was no electricity in those days so the springhouse was the refrigeration system. It was built over
the spring branch. It was a small log structure with no floor, so the women kept the milk and butter in the icy
cold water and kept it cold. Grandma kept her milk, buttermilk, kraut, butter and eggs in the springhouse. She
used a big crock container. Sometimes she put jam and jelly in there too. Our springhouse had shelves on each
side for that purpose. It was always a good place to cool off and hide on a hot summer day.
In the country everybody works. If you9re not old enough to work outside, you have to work in the house. There
was always dusting to be done, stove wood to carry in, and younger children to take care of.
SCHOOLING
The Little Greenbrier Schoolhouse was about a mile or two from our house. It was a one room school with
homemade desks inside. Eight grades were taught in this one room, by one teacher. The smaller children were
placed in the front rows and so on until the 8th grade was placed in the back near the door. The only subjects
taught were reading, writing, spelling and arithmetic with a little geography thrown in to let us know there was
life outside the mountains.
The school year was shorter then. School started when the crops were laid by, fodder was cut and the hay
stacked for the winter. Then in the spring when days started to get warmer, the boys were needed at home to
help with the spring planting, to clear new ground and do the plowing, school was let out for summer. Survival
was more important than education.
The teacher usually came from outside the mountains and families took turns boarding them. I started school in
the fall before I turned five. That was the year Miss Myrtle was the teacher. She was Momma9s cousin. Her
mother was Aunt Alice, Grandma Walker9s sister, who was married to George Brewer, a preacher of sorts. Miss
Myrtle wanted to be a nurse like Aunt Evelyn, another one of Grandma9s sisters who worked and lived in
Washington, DC., but Uncle George would not hear of it. He believed that the only respectable occupation for a
woman outside the home was schoolteacher. Miss Myrtle wasn9t married and it looked like she never would be;
she was already classified as an