Life on Sand Mountain
by Ruth Williams Matchett, daughter of Ida Hawes Williams, 1999

I arrived in this world at Fabius, on Sand Mountain, Alabama, January 6, 1912, during a snowstorm. I joined my three brothers and a sister. Russell, the oldest, was eight, Jessie was six, George was four, and Marvin was two. Frank was not yet born. Dr. Gardner, who delivered me, arrived astride a horse as cars were scarce as hens’ teeth way back then. The first car I remember in our neighborhood was owned by Uncle Jerome Houser, Aunt Sweet’s husband. It was called a “touring” car, open on the sides with curtains that could be attached in bad weather. When we kids heard a car coming, we would run and climb the front wooden fence to watch it go by. We lived on an unpaved road between Stevenson and Flat Rock.

Our house was considered “nice” back then. It was a wood frame house with glass windows and was sealed throughout. Some houses did not boast such niceties. We had three bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, and an airy hallway. One of the bedrooms was also used as a sitting room. There was a long porch in front and also a back porch. The house was ell shaped. I remember a sweet smelling lilac bush back of the kitchen and two tall junipers and oak trees out front. The wood used in building our house was cut from our property. Uncle Jerome had a sawmill and cut the logs into lumber. Seems I have heard that he and Papa planed it by hand, though I am not sure about that.

Jessie and I shared a bedroom, the three boys shared one, and my parents used the other one. Papa’s mother lived with us part time, but I don’t remember where she slept. We had a long table in the dining room with a bench on the back side. We also used this table for homework. We had a large wood range in the kitchen, which kept that part of the house warm. We had a fireplace in the front bedroom.

Our property consisted of several hundred acres including two other houses we rented (to the Browns and Ricks). Part of the land was in timber, mostly hardwoods, and the rest was cleared for farming and a garden. We raised cotton for the market, corn and hay for the livestock. The leaves from the corn were pulled while still green, spread on the ground to dry, and then bundled and tied. Sometimes the entire corn stalk was cut, dried, and arranged in tent shaped stacks. We had two mules (Pat and Mike), a mare, cows, hogs, chickens, and guinea fowl. I am not sure how many cows or hogs we had. Although I do not remember it, Frank told me that we had a coal mine on our property, probably on the side of a hill. He said we got some coal from the mine for use in the kitchen range. Much later part of our property was strip-mined for coal.

I am not sure whether Papa ever sold any timber from our property. But I have a very old photograph of him, Uncle Jerome, and Uncle Arthur hauling cross ties. I am not sure where they were cut. I suppose the sale of the produce, the rent from the houses, and perhaps an occasional carpenter job were our only income. Papa had taught school in Tennessee before he and Mama married, but never taught after that.

In our garden we raised most all vegetables: potatoes (both white and sweet), beans (bush and vine), carrots, onions, cabbage, tomatoes, greens, okra, peas (English and field), rutabagas, sweet corn, and parsnips. Sometimes Mama made kraut from the cabbage. This was shredded and packed in salt in large crocks to “ripen.” We had apple, peach, and plum trees, raspberries, gooseberries, strawberries, and rhubarb.

We never ate the field peas green as most people in Florida do. Instead, they were dried, placed in burlap bags, and beaten with a stick to remove the hulls. Then they were winnowed to remove the hulls and trash. We also dried some of the beans, but those we shelled by hand. Usually the dried beans were eaten during the winter months. We butchered hogs in the cold winters, smoked the meat, and salted it down.

So, with our hog meat, chickens, eggs, milk and butter, and sometimes wild meats, and our fresh and canned fruits and vegetables, we did not have to shop for much food. Uncle Jerome and Uncle John Hawes had small stores where we could buy some things we needed. For things they didn’t keep on hand, Papa would make a trip down the mountain, across the valley and the Tennessee River to Stevenson--eight miles away. Flour, sugar, and coffee were three things we bought. Some of our corn was ground at a grist mill for meal. The coffee was unground, but we had a coffee grinder.

I remember one trip Papa made when he bought a box of crayons for me. Coming home he decided to spend the night with friends on the other side of the river. They had a little girl about my age, and she wanted the crayons. Of course she got them.

We had a small house we called the “canner,” where we canned vegetables and fruits, some for our own use and some to sell. It was equipped with cans, a sealer, tubs for washing the produce, and counters for work space. The cans were filled, sealed, and boiled for a certain time in our washpot, then labeled with Papa’s personal labels. Sometimes Papa would load the wagon with the canned goods, sorghum syrup, potatoes, and fresh vegetables, when in season, and take them to Chattanooga. Often he had orders from stores, but he also peddled them from house to house. Chattanooga was 40 miles away, so it took him several days to make the round trip. [I remember my mother saying that produce from Sand Mountain was especially prized in the markets.]

The juice from the sorghum stalks was squeezed with a grinder powered by a gasoline engine. It was then strained and poured into a long, inclined vat, which had cross pieces with moveable gates. A fire was placed under one end. As the juice cooked it was pushed through the gates and finally came out as sorghum syrup at the other end. This syrup was much thicker than that made from sugar cane in Florida.

Papa built an ash hopper in our back yard. It was built in a vee shape, lower at one end. We put the wood stove and fireplace ashes into the hopper. When it rained the ash water would drain into a container at the lower end of the hopper. Mama would use the liquid to make lye soap. She boiled the liquid with hog lard in our iron wash pot. When it got very thick she pulled the fire from under it and let it cool. Then she cut it into bars for washing our clothes. These were rubbed on a wash board, boiled in the pot, and then rinsed through two tubs of clean water drawn from our well. Detergents and bleaches were unknown, so we used a “blueing” to whiten our linens and white clothes.

Ice boxes weren’t available on the mountain, so Papa erected a small box-like house high off the ground in the shade of oak trees out back. It was completely screened with wire on all sides. There were several shelves where Mama placed her milk, butter, eggs, or any other food that needed to be kept cool.

Mama made her own butter. She skimmed the cream from the milk and placed it in a crock with some milk to sour. Then this was placed in a churn with a dasher. The dasher consisted of a long handle attached to a wooden disk containing several holes. The dasher was inserted through a hole in the lid of the churn and was jogged up and down until butter formed on top of the milk (I can assure you this did not happen quickly!). The butter was removed and the milk worked out by hand. This “buttermilk” was used for drinking and for making biscuits and cornbread.

I do not remember going to church every Sunday, but I do remember attending “protracted” (revival) meetings at the local Baptist and Methodist churches and a Methodist church at Flat Rock. These were always held at night. We went in a wagon, and we kids usually fell asleep on quilts coming home. The road was quite rocky in some places, so we would often be rudely awakened.

We did not have a local school building, but attended classes at the local Methodist church, which was near Uncle Arthur Wheeler’s. I was seven before I started, probably due to my being anemic and sickly in my early years. But I remember walking to school in the snow and building play houses in the woods at recess time. I also remember getting caught talking to a boy behind me in class and being punished by having to sit on the platform up front. The teacher, Mr. Buckner, felt sorry for me and laid his coat down for me to sit on. Papa donated land for a school, which was built after we moved to Florida. This was on the west side of our property, just beyond the house rented to the Browns.

Toys were not plentiful at our house, so Papa constructed a wagon for us. He used four rounds sawed from a log for wheels. These were on axles joined by a wide board. The front axle could turn right or left by a tongue attached to it. There was a steep hill just below the east side of our house where we played with the wagon. There were trees to dodge, which made for an interesting and somewhat dangerous ride. We also liked to roll down a steep hill in our pasture. Not sure how we avoided the “cakes!”

At the bottom of the hill where we played with the wagon was a creek that became quite full and swift after heavy rains. The boys talked about swimming and diving in the creek, so one day Jessie and I decided to try it. I jumped in and was quickly carried downstream. Jessie came to the rescue, and that ended our swim.

I don’t remember when Frank was born, but I do remember when the twins were born. Mama had been looking for a hen’s nest hidden in the woods. She tripped over a log, which resulted in the twin brothers being born prematurely. They only lived a couple of days, and Mama almost died. I remember Jessie rocking the babies, but I was too small to hold them. They were never named, but Dr. Gardner called them “Pete” and “Repeat.”

When the great flu epidemic raged during World War I we all became victims. We had a family of cousins named Ball that lived up the mountain from us. They were the first to have the flu in our area. Papa stayed with them to take care of them. As a result, we all came down with it. Russell was hit hardest. He developed double pneumonia and almost died. Before the flu he and Jessie had attended a singing school and were always singing. After the flu he never sang or whistled another note, but became very quiet and reserved and remained like that as long as he lived. It also affected his walk, causing him to swing his right foot to the side as he walked.

In December 1920, just before my ninth birthday, Papa decided to move to Hampton, Florida. [Hampton is in north Florida, about halfway between Gainesville and Jacksonville.] Uncle Jerome had moved down some time before then and wrote about the big building boom in Florida. The Volney Wheelers moved down soon after, and then we followed. Sometime later, Uncle Arthur Wheeler [Wheelers were Papa’s relatives.] moved his family down. They were all carpenters and wanted to get in on all the building that was going on. I don’t know why the small town of Hampton was selected as the Florida destination.

I am not sure if any of my family was against the move, but for myself I was happy about it. Annie Mae Wheeler (Volney’s daughter) and I had always played together, and I had missed her. Mama never seemed much satisfied with Florida, and Aunt Flora Wheeler hated it. She refused to attend anything (even church) in Hampton. She would sometimes spend the day at our house. The two Wheeler families didn’t stay long in Florida and soon moved back to Sand Mountain.

For the move to Florida, Papa chartered a boxcar on the Seaboard Railway. He made a partition across it, placed our household goods and tools in one end, and the livestock in the other. He had to remain in the car all the way down (which took several days) to feed and water the animals. He brought our two mules, the mare, a cow, and some chickens. Mama and we kids came later on the train. It was our first train ride. I’m sure it was not a very pleasant one for Mama with six kids to look after, although Russell and Jessie were about grown. We spent the first night in Hampton at the hotel that was owned by Uncle Jerome. I had my first bath in a bathtub that night!