I Was Pregnant with Our Third Child When I Was Lightened Struck

Life, Cont’d

I was pregnant with our third child when I was lightened struck. Eight months later, February 2, 1922 Reeder J.C. was born. Reeder was always crying. I carried him in my arms to cook and washed clothes on the rub board with him in one arm. I even nursed him in my lap. I slept with him on my chest, patting his back to get a few naps. I was so tired. Everyone told me it was the seven-month colic.

Jeff had another rambling fit, we moved to DeKalb on the river where Cooper and his mother lived. Coopers wife Alice, said, “Donia, that baby is hungry.” She said, “I have worlds of milk.” She was nursing Lottie Bell. Alice took him and let him nurse her and he went to sleep and slept all evening. She got a breast pump and said, “I want to see it your breast milk is blue.” It was blue so we put him on a bottle and he stopped crying. He started gaining weight but soon had a large carbuncle (boil) come on his head and his spine. Once the Doctor got him over that he was okay.

Mary Fay was born August 16, 1924 while we were living on the Leash place on Lennox Hill. I was in bad health all the year before she was born. I stayed pretty close to home. I picked blackberries for Louisa and return she gave me her 50-pound flour sacks. I used the four sacks for diapers. A friend gave me some very nice baby clothes her children had outgrown. Much nicer than anything I could have afforded. I made do with these things until we gather the crop and sold the cotton.

Sanford and Ella Mae would draw the water from the well for me to wash Mary’s diapers. Mattie sent Ada over to do one washing for me. The third day, I set up and washed my baby. Ella Mae was trying to cook supper and burned her hand. I remember going to her so weak I could hardly walk. One day Mary was crying, Reeder was small but he would shake the bed and say, “Well done little fiddle stick.” Then, he would say, “No, No, I fiddle stick.” He was comical at times and at times very quite. He gave us very little trouble growing up. Mary was a doll, she and I were always palls.

Hiram Junior, (Junior is a middle name) was born January 15, 1927 at Lennox Hill, near DeKalb. He was my ox; he weighed nine pounds, the largest of all the babies. He was such a joy to be around.

As a child he never forced his wishes on his other sisters and brothers. He was very quite and obedient. He quit school in the ninth grade to go to work. He would not tell us he needed to buy books that we could not afford. He would do without books so Boyce could eat lunch. He is a son any mother would proud to have.

While we were living in the Jim Cosper house Boyce was born, January 20, 1933. I was really sick the last month before he was born. I coughed so hard. I did not have a Doctor. Mattie Wallington, Jeff’s sister, was a midwife. She was a nervous wreck after Boyce was born. Mattie said, “Don’t ever call on me again to deliver a baby.” Boyce and I took pneumonia. Mattie and Mrs. Martin stood by us, helping with things we needed. After what seemed always, we pulled through.

Boyce was a fine baby but was one year old before he cut any teeth. I was worried sick. I took him to Dr. Crew. Dr Crew said, “He will have a mouth full of teeth all at one time.” That is exactly what happened. He was very sick cutting all these teeth. I had to take him to the Doctor for treatments. By the age of two he was doing great. Boyce was no trouble growing up and proved to be a real blessing to us when our twins were born.

On October 8, 1938 I had a little girl stillborn, Lonia Elizabeth. She was buried October 9, 1938 in Old Salem cemetery near DeKalb. I grieved for her, she was a full term pregnancy. She had long black hair, so pretty. I wanted a girl and now she was gone. Jeff had gone into town for the Doctor when my labor began. I gave birth to Lonia while alone. I breathed into her little mouth trying to get her to breath. I put her in warm water and then cold trying to get her to catch her breath. By the time Jeff got home it was to late.

Six years later March 22, 1943 Bobby and Barbara were born. We were living on Charlie Cox’s place near Fouke. Jeff was working a cotton farm in the Red River Bottoms. During the pregnancy I also had a tumor.

Dr. Smith of Fouke, Arkansas told me I would have to go to the hospital to deliver the baby. Dr. Smith was planning on the delivery of one baby. We had paid for the delivery. My labor began and he was called out to our home.

Bobby weighed seven and one-fourth pounds. Dr. Smith was cleaning me up about 15 minutes later and he said, “Ole man there is another baby in here.” They thought he was kidding. He said, “Get over here and help me.” Barbara was born breach. I was completely used up.

We told him we did not have money to pay him for a second baby. He noticed a bushed basket of sweet potatoes sitting in the hallway. He said, “I will take the potatoes.” He called the twins his little “cooters”; and, would drop by to visit when making his calls.

It was twelve days before I could stand on my feet. The first day on my feet the tumor busted and drained. The Doctor said, “Thank God, you have saved yourself an operation.”

Bobby and Barbara came 6 weeks too soon. Bobby slept like any normal baby. Barbara would moan as she slept and her fingernails were tissue paper thin. After 6 weeks she did good. She weighed seven and one half pounds. I had carried nearly 15 pounds of baby flesh plus the tumor. I was so big I could not sit down. I would lean into the cow to milk her.

After they were born, Boyce showed his great love by helping me take care of them. He would come home from school, draw water from the well and wash their baby clothes. Mary was also at home with a baby that was one year older. There would be fourty five diapers each day to be washed. Every day Boyce did the washing and Mary took care of the twins, her baby and me. Mary did our cooking. Delbert(Mary’s husband) was away in the service.

Boyce’s friends would come by and invite him to ball games and other places. He would say, “I can’t leave Mama, she needs me to rock the twins and help with the bottle feeding during the day.” It would be three months before I would be able to do my work again. I still appreciate the help my Boyce Dail gave to us.

Now our family is all grown up. God gave us fine children to brighten our life along our way. I have one regret, I was so busy trying to make their clothes, cook, canning, working in the fields and nursing the sick ones to do justice with their spiritual training.

I would gather them together and walk about two miles to church when it wasn’t raining or to cold or one of them was sick. I am afraid I did not do enough teaching of God’s Holy Word.

Staying home, doing things a Mother should do for her husband and children, I feel I did my very best. I put them first and if anything was left I took it, if not, I did without.

I sold eggs to buy cloth for the children’s clothes. I would make dresses and shirts from cow feed sacks. They had such pretty print fabric. All the housewives would save their feed sacks for clothing. I made our under wear from white flour sacks. I would dye fertilizer sacks for my dresses. I would dye them green and put red buttons on the dresses. These were my work dresses. They looked nice, you had to dry them in the shade or the sun would soon fade the color.

I saved the rank meat, cracklings, and grease (lard) to make lye soap. I used “Mary War” lye. When the soap had set, I would cut them into squares.

Another thing I loved doing was making hominy. Taking the corn, soaking it in lye and soda. Dipping the corn out of the lye water, rinse it good, rubbing the eyes and husk off on the rub board. Cleaning out the wash pot, putting the corn back in and cooking until tender. Then I would put it in a skillet with bacon or ham drippings. I always made enough to share with me neighbors. (This would be mature dry corn.)

When times were really hard, I would take duck cloth cotton sacks, boil them in lye until they were bleached. I would cut and sew them to make hand towels. I remember making a dress for cotton picking. The cotton burs would tare my cotton dresses.

I also used bleached cotton sacks for sheets. I used fertilizer sacks to make sheets and linings for the quilts I made.

I would piece quilt tops on the halves to get tops. I would piece a top for enough material to make myself a top. We used flour, tobacco, fertilizer, and cow feed sacks pieced together for linings. We would trade with each other for different patterns and prints. At last counting (1977) I have given over fifty quilts away to my children, grandchildren and no telling how many I have worn out with use. I would take a quilt to the fields for babies to lie on and one to make shade to keep the sun off of them.

I remember a time I had place Ella Mae and Sanford on a quilt in a fence corner so I could make shade above with another quilt. A sow pig had been eating near by and the sow got a corner of the quilt. It pulled the quilt out from under them. They screamed so loud. I ran so hard I nearly fell out to get to them. They had climbed the rail fence to get my quilt from the sow. All was well.

I always loved my garden. It was a joy to see it grow. Jeff would keep it plowed and after supper was over I would hoe my garden. I would work until I ran out of daylight. I would gather vegetables in the rain and can. When the weather was dry I would go back into the fields.

After Boyce left home and joined the Air Force I really had it hard. I would help Jeff cut woods, pull up peanuts, put hay in the barn. He would throw up one fork full on one side of the barn and me the other. I looked at him, we were sweating our faces were caked with dust. I laughed so hard at him. He said, “You should see your own face.” It was so hot, I would have to go out for fresh air. I only wish I was able to do it all over again.

There was a time when I really needed a garden. I had the four oldest children. Our landlord, Rob Martin, would not let us have a garden. My poor kids had to eat pinto beans, potatoes, polk, and a few turnips and greens.

The boss’ wife would give us a bucket of sour milk and I would mix water with it so the kid could drink it. Our breakfast would be sogram syrup, fat back meat, gravie, biscuits and coffee. There were no ice boxes. We drank a lot of water and milk at meals. We would pick berries and I would make a berry or vinigar pie. I would make potatoes and dumplings.

In the fall I would pick up pecans. I would sell them to buy fruit for Christmas. The children would cut a cedar tree and make a stand. The kids would pick red haw berries. They would pop corn and string the berries and corn. They also cut strips of red and green construction paper and glued them together to make chain links. They would put these decorations on the tree at Christmas. We would place our Christmas cards on the limbs. It was plain but we had the joy of making our own pretty things.

We cut a star from card- board and wrapped tin foil around it for a tree topper. One Christmas, while they were asleep I traced their little hand and made them each a pair of mittens out of some wool pants and put cuffs on them from an old sweater. They were so proud of their mittens. I made Mary’s old doll new dresses. I was so glad when we finally left Rob Martin’s farm.

We moved to Dr. Crew’s farm and we had a good garden. I canned a lot of food and the children could go to church.

Jeff’s mother lived with us and was going blind. I could not leave her to go to church. She would help me quilt if I threaded the needle for her. She put her needle down one day and said, My quilting days are over, I can’t see well enough. She would shell peas and snap beans for me. If I was not well she would wash dishes for me.

This was the year that Lonia was born. Mary had typhoid fever, and Alice, Cooper’s wife died. Alice was a diabetic and it caused her death. Lottie Bell was 14 years old at the time. We took her and Cooper Jeans into our home for awhile. Lottie would not listen to me. Jeff asked Cooper to find another place her ways were going to lead to trouble.

I saw my first television set in 1941. It was at the State Line Bus Station in Texarkana. I was on my way back to DeKalb. I had been to Texarkana to see Elouise, Sanford’s first wife. She was about to lose her first child. The T.V. was something I could not understand. I remember thinking only the very rich could ever afford to own one. Certainly I was to poor to ever own such a thing.

It was on Rob Martin’s place that I saw my first radio. This was in 1932 before Boyce was born. Mrs. Martin had me come over to hear a man preach. I thought, how wonderful but never dreamed I would ever own one. I suppose our first radio was bought in 1942.

I loved to sing while I worked. I think I could work harder. I sang quite a bit while hoeing cotton. It seemed to lighten the job to sing whether in the home, garden or field. I had felt left out as a child. I thought I did not have any talent because my father could play the guitar, violin and harmonica. My grandfather could play the organ and violin.

We had our first electricity in our home in 1951. We had our first bathroom in 1953. I remember Wilma and Bill brought us a used washing machine. The washing machine broke and I had to go back to the rub board. Bea Green’s sister loaned us our first refrigerator while on Sid Eason’s farm at Bight Star.

We sold our farm implements and moved to Marshall. Texas. We moved into the home of Betty and Sanford. I would keep the house and children while they both worked. We moved from there to Nash, Texas in 1953. I had my first coal oil heater and cook stove, which I never learned to like. Sanford and Betty bought me my first electric coffee pot in 1952.