As my children are always asking me about my youth, I will jot down a few items telling of my childhood and later years. I had a somewhat checkered life but maybe no more so than many others.
My father, Alexander Trotter Hand (Trot to his friends) and my mother, Eliza Mary Frances O’Ferrall (Fannie to some and Eliza to other relatives) were married in Enterprise in May 1858. They had three children born before the War between the States and then my father enlisted in the Confederate Army, serving three years, being a sergeant at the end of the war. He had come through without a scratch but he needed all his strength to make a living on a poor Mississippi farm, for a growing family and it was growing, mostly during the reconstruction period when the depression was lowest and the lowest n U. S. history.
Then was when I was born August 18 in 1871 on Archusa Creek, east of Stonewall but we called Enterprise, town, and that was our Post Office. We had a nice comfortable country home not far from the creek and I well remember the main part of the house. Two large rooms, one on each side of a wide hall - all plastered - a large portico on the front where we sat in the cool of the evening. Behind were two large shed rooms used as bed rooms for the children, one of which was connected with Mother’s room where the girls slept. I can remember saying my prayers by the side of the little low beds in that room prompted by Mother or a big sister. Amelia was the special charge of Sallie (the oldest girl) and I was the charge of Ida (the second). Those two had their hands full when the next ones came along - twins.
When I was six years old we moved to a place in Lauderdale County, eight miles northwest of Enterprise where the house was not as comfortable as our old home but the land was better and that was what a farmer needed. My father had studied to be a doctor but before he finished his education he married and he was forced to go to work at what was supposed at the time to be the best living - farming. His father had had an immense estate which was divided among his many children but it dwindled till there is only one farm of that estate left - Mary W. Kramer lives on her Mother’s farm between Enterprise and Stonewall and her Mother was Mary Hand, sister of my father.
Well the new home was not as warm in January (when we moved) as our old home was and it was newly scrubbed, which left it damp and we all took pneumonia or some of us did and I was one. They looked for me to die but I pulled through and got well. In March, soon after that, Uncle Frank O’Ferrall, Aunt Meal and Medora came south from Minnesota to see my mother and her family and they, especially Aunt Meal, wanted to take me home with them and educate me so after much thought they left it up to me and I decided I would go, so I left Mississippi in March 1878 and went to Chatfield, Minnesota. It was with much misgiving that Mother and Father let me go but they had refused some years earlier to let Uncle Frank have his namesake who was four years older than I, and the next year he had diphtheria and died, so right then they said, “If Frank ever wants another child we will let him have the one he wants for if little Frank had been with him maybe he would not have died.” We all can understand such reasoning in times of sorrow.
Well, on such a promise hinged my chance for an education and I unwittingly took the chance. Auntie was delighted and was like a little girl with a new doll. She got me nice new clothes which diverted my attention from the fact that I was leaving home and family and then we got on the train which was something wonderful to me and I was whisked away.
I had been accustomed to spending some days - maybe a week - with Miss Pearl Glazener and her sister in Enterprise and was very fond of them, so I must have been expecting to see them for I cried and said, “I want to see Miss Pearl.” Cousin Mamie O’Ferrall took me to see Cousin Pearl Woolverton but that was not the right Miss Pearl so I had to go to Minnesota without seeing her and of course I soon forgot her. In later years they told me about it. Those little visits to the Glazeners accustomed me to being away from Mother so I got along better with the separation that I otherwise would have.
When we got to Chicago Auntie’s sister, Mrs. Trego, thought she had made a terrible mistake in taking on another child but Auntie had a mind of her own and did not listen to the Tregos. She took me down town, bought me a large wax doll and all the clothes I would need for some time. I was delighted with the doll and with our ride on the horse cars, but I can’t remember much of that trip. I carried the doll and said, “Now I’ve got something to tote” and that amused the Yankees.
When we got to Chatfield they put me in school for the two or three months left in the spring term but I doubt if I learned much. I had already been to school a few months in the South - teacher Miss Mittie Coleman. My teachers were always good to me and I guess I was a good student. Auntie saw to that. I had to always get my lessons before I went to school - she was very ambitious for me to get ahead.
I remember how they would get me up to sing little songs I had learned, when company would come in and Medora would play the piano (a big square piano) - but they were just little ditties any seven year old would sing. In later years they did not think enough of my voice to train it so I guess I was not a genius!
When I was eleven years old Uncle Frank died. He was sick from Christmas till May 31. - had consumption of the liver. I have often wondered if it was not cancer of the liver but the doctors had an autopsy and that was their verdict.
He wanted Auntie to send me home then, he had told her before he died, but she was attached to me and I to her so she decided I should stay. The next winter she sent me to Chicago to stay with the Tregos and go to school and also dancing school. I attended the Cottage Grove Grammar School and was in the 7th grade. The dancing school was Bournique’s to which all the upper “crust” sent their children and teenagers. I did not know that then but have heard it since so I suppose we must have belonged or we would not have been there. It was the most perfect dance floor I have ever seen and we were always glad to go. I went twice a week all winter and learned all the round dances and square dances that were in vogue then. We all loved the Grand March and would have it the last thing on Saturdays so that each one could bow (the girls curtsied) to the teacher as we left. I don’t know whether or not the building still stands on 22nd St. but I think it does.
In March of that year Auntie and I made a trip to Mississippi to see my people. Every thing was strange but I can’t remember that I noticed the strangeness. I had a good time with my sisters and I guess I had been missing their companionship and did not know it.
After finishing out the year in school I went back to Chatfield with Auntie and later went to the Commencement exercises at St. Mary’s Hall, Faribault where Medora was graduating. It was a gay week and if I had been older I would have enjoyed it but I was glad to get home.
About the first of July I began feeling bad and even the 4th of July celebration where Frank Kellogg (afterward a national figure) was to make a speech, could not pep me up. It developed into typhoid fever and I was sick the rest of the summer. They hardly expected me to live but I guess the Lord had some work for me to do so I did get well but was not able to go to school until after Christmas. I lost all my hair which had hung below my waist in long plaits and finally they had my hair clipped close to my head.
After Christmas I was sent to St. Mary’s Hall to complete my education. The influence on my life of this splendid Episcopal school was indelible. I was there nearly five years and it was almost home to me. Bishop Whipple’s spirit of love permeated the school atmosphere. I liked the companionship of the girls, had lots of friends and got along pretty well with the teachers. The refinement and friendliness of the teachers, the strict regulations and the religious atmosphere all combined to leave an impression on the girls which would be felt all during their lives.
Faribault was called the Oxford of the west because there were so many schools there, a boys’ military school, Shattuck; the girls’ school, St. Mary’s Hall, Seabury Divinity School, Deaf and Dumb Institute, Blind Institute, Convent, Imbecile Asylum and the regular city public schools.
We had the usual boarding school life with many restrictions which are unknown now but it was good for us. I took piano lessons and art lessons as well as the regular academic course, so my schedule was full and I had little time for mischief. I graduated June 18, 1889 with no special honors except maybe that of playing a piano solo at the recital. My boy friend sent me two beautiful bouquets of roses, one dozen white when I played and one dozen red ones for the dance later - the next night. He also took me to ride behind a dashing pair of horses and he was very proud that he could manage them. We were both tongue-tied but that didn’t seem to bother either of us. We just enjoyed the scenery.
When we all parted there was great weeping and lamentation but when I look back on it we were saying goodbye to a very happy part of our lives and most of those faces I have never seen since. To be sure I went back the next spring and took art lessons but even then there was a great change in the whole place and I never saw my boy friend again.
The next fall, in November 1889, I came south to stay at my father’s house until Auntie and Medora returned from their European trip. They returned to the States in August but spent the winter in Virginia with my grandmother.
All my kinfolk were so glad to see me that I spent only every alternate week with my own people. One week, soon after I arrived in Enterprise, Cousin Stella Dyess (who was a Woolverton) invited me to spend the week with her. I accepted and the first day (Sunday) she invited Mr. Burney Fox to dinner for him to meet her Yankee cousin. I would not be called a Yankee but I was glad to meet the stranger. We went together a lot that winter and became engaged in the spring before I went back up north. He accompanied me as far as Artesia and then we had to part.
During the summer Medora and I were busy making my trousseau except the nicest dresses. Miss Mary Patrick made those after I got back to Enterprise, for we had decided it was better for me to be married down South. Money was scarce in those days and railroad fare beyond the means of most people of the South so Auntie said for us to manage it that way.
We were married in St. Mary's Church in Enterprise February 9, 1991, on one of the rainiest nights I have ever seen. Cousin Lizzie Hand played the wedding marches, my father gave me away, Will Hand was best man and Amelia was Maid of honor. The Reverend Mr. Williams performed the ceremony. He was rector at Macon, and Enterprise was one of his missions.
We took the early morning (2:00 o'clock) train for New Orleans to see the Mardi Gras festivities, got down there about 7:00 o’clock for the train was late. We traveled in the day coach and it was a sleepless night for me and I was dead tired when we arrived. The Mardi Gras parades were wonderful and if I had not been so tired I could have enjoyed them but they were really lost on me. We had lunch down town and then went back to the private home where we had a room and had one good nap so we really enjoyed watching the dancing at Comus’s Ball in the Opera house that evening. No one was allowed to dance unless they were in formal evening dress so that did not include us. We were fortunate to have a nice place to stay and an invitation to the ball through the courtesy of a traveling salesman known well at the Enterprise store of Gaston & Fox. Our room was in the home of a Mrs. Febinger and was a real nice place a block off of St. Charles Avenue out a good ways. The next day we rode all around, saw the sights and went to Church at St. Paul’s for Ash Wednesday service. We went to the Theatre that night and saw “Hamlet” which I thoroughly enjoyed and that was my last chance to see anything good for many many years. The next morning we took the early morning train for Enterprise.
When we returned to Enterprise we had a room and board at Will Fox’s home and I had to get acquainted with the in-laws at once. They were all very nice and kind to me so it was not hard for me. I had queer Yankee ways that they had to get used to but I took to Southern ways like a duck to water.
The fall of 1891 was the beginning of a depression that ruined lots of Southern people and your father was out of a job as bookkeeper for Gaston & Fox. It happened that I had been asked to teach music in the public school so my little $30.00 a month came in handy. Our board and room was $25.00 a month and I had clothes enough not to need much so we got along ‘till the next summer, 1892. Grandfather Fox (N. J. Fox) had died in the summer of ‘91 and so we went to Louisville where his widow lived, to try to persuade her to break up housekeeping and live around with her children. We could not persuade her so Brother Will Fox went up there and spoke more firmly than we did and sold the place so your Grandmother broke up housekeeping. We went back to Enterprise by horse and buggy. It is a distance of 150 miles and it took us three days to make the trip. The last day we spent at my Father’s house where we found your Grandmother Hand in bed with a broken hip. She had slipped on the wet slippery ground, satdown and never walked again without crutches. In those days they did not know to put the leg in a cast as they do now, so she just had to endure the pain till she could use the leg a little and then got some crutches.
When we got to Enterprise we heard of a job in State Line, bookkeeping for Cragin and Knobles, so Burney applied and got it and in August we moved to State Line, Mississippi, and kept house for the first time. It was a nice clean little four room house in a nice neighborhood and we were very happy. Little Nathan Jackson was born Oct. 31 which completed our happiness. It was a terrible shock to us when he died Jan 8., for we did not realize he was sick till he was in a dying condition with congestion of the stomach. Auntie came from Minnesota and spent part of that winter with us and helped us buy a piano, the Knabe that Helen has now. All the next year I gave music lessons to the girls in State Line among them Emma Lott. Her mother Cousin Mary, and her mother Aunt Martha Howze were very nice to me while I lived there and did many thoughtful deeds that I can never forget.
In April 1894 Francis was born and as our doctor was away taking a Post Grad. course I had to go to Enterprise where there was a doctor and I staid there about six weeks. I lived with Will and Blanche while there and as she had a houseful of boarders one more did not make much difference. Old Aunt Martha Griffin waited on me and she was a number one nurse. She was a good old darkey. In May I went on the train with the baby to State Line. He cried nearly all the way and I didn’t know what to do with him. He was hungry I know now but did not then. I had a good cook so got along pretty well. The next fall Albert Love came to live with us and go to school. His Mother and Father both spent some time with us but the next spring 1895 they all left. Francis got very sick; Amelia came to help me with him but finally we all got straight again.
One day Emma had the baby out in his buggy and was over at a neighbor house. She rolled the baby, buggy and all off the front porch and he got a terrible fall. She brought him home and we were both scared to death and someone said not to let him go to sleep or he would never wake up so my job was to keep him awake which I did till he looked all right again. He was as pale as a ghost. It never occurred to me to take him to the doctor whose office was a short walk around the corner. Now that would be the first thought.
In 1895 Will Fox was out of a job so we got him a job at Cragin & Knobles as clerk and Blanche moved down with Morie and we lived together and divided expenses but they could not live on the salary he got so after Christmas they moved back to Enterprise. Laura was born in Feb. ‘96 and Blanche came back to help me till she, Laura, was a month old. I also had a good old negro nurse part of the time and a cook. Nurse’s wages $3.00 a week and cook $1.50--that was called good wages.
Cragin & Knobles went into bankruptcy that year and Burney kept books for Jesse Byrd awhile. Then he was offered a job at Yellow Pine, Ala., as bookkeeper and in the Spring of ‘97 we moved down there (just three miles but we moved everything on the train). Grandma Fox was with us and she was delighted to see a new house at Yellow Pine in which we were to live. She said she had always wanted to live in a new house and never had. She staid with us several years and was a great help to me. Our life in Yellow Pine was very happy tho we had many cares and the little ones came fast enough. The twins were born in ‘97 (November) and created quite a stir in the community. It was the year of the yellow fever epidemic in Mobile and a number of refugees were in Yellow Pine. A Mrs. Owen from Mobile offered me some of her baby clothes because she was sure I had not prepared for two babies but I had suspected such an event and was prepared. The doctor was as surprised as anybody but I think he was proud of his job. We had a good old negro nurse who staid with me several weeks and then Grandma Fox and I took charge. She claimed the boy, Burney and I attended to the girl, Helen. There was little done besides nursing and looking after the two older ones. Laura was 1 1/2 years old and as I had two babies she went around with two dolls in her arms all the time. She felt very much alone in the world, having to give up her place to two, but eventually she got all right.
When the twins got old enough we all went to Sunday School every Sunday. I was organist and teacher of the Bible class and we had some well read pupils who made it quite interesting. During one summer the Baptists had their protracted meeting and later the Methodists had theirs and I had to play the organ for both meetings. The people were so grateful for my services that they presented me with a silver syrup pitcher one Sunday. I was so surprised that I could hardly find word to thank them.
Well, time passed. In the winter of 1900 (maybe about February) we all had the measles except “Daddy”, and I was the sickest of all. Emma Lott came to our aid and helped to nurse me back to health. The children were not very sick but we had to keep them in the house for a couple of weeks so some one had to be on the watch.
In May 1900 Dorothy was born. Blanche came to stay with me a month and stayed two. I needed some one tho I had a good nurse too, but with a houseful of other children some one had to be boss. Grandma Fox left the next winter and went to live with Mattie but she later came back after we moved from Yellow Pine.
Estelle came along in December 1901, one of the coldest days of the year. The doctor had left town and I had to send to State Line and get Dr. Boykin. Three miles was a “fur piece” in those days of horse and buggy, and the baby arrived before the doctor did. Dr. Boykin always knew what to do so everything was O. K. and we did not need a doctor any more until Dorothy got sick later that winter and we had to send to State Line again. After that we all had pretty good health but in the net summer Burney lost his job and had to look out for something else. He and Mr. Gunn heard of the virgin forests in Jones Co. (Miss.), where the new railroad M. J. & K. C. was to be built, so they got out the horse and buggy and made a trip through the country to see it. They also went to Jackson to see about buying a sawmill over there but they decided on Jones County so here we landed. He and Mr. Gunn had to spend several months getting ready for their families so in the meantime we staid in Yellow Pine as long as we could as the house we were in was needed for other mill hands and we should have left there long before on that account, but we had no home to go to so we lingered till after Dec. 1st, and then went to Brooksville to spend two weeks with the Glenns. Hallie was always very sweet to us and it took not only a hospitable heart but courage to invite a woman with six children to spend two weeks. We got along all right and then set out for my brother John’s house who had also asked us for a two weeks’ visit. He met us in Kosciusko with a wagon and a buggy. There were supplies of blankets and hot bricks to keep the little folks warm on the fifteen mile trip out into the country to Possum Neck where his farm was. We could not make it in half on hour in those days as we easily do now so some of the children were asleep when we got there. John had about eight or nine kids of his own so the house was full when we got there. We spent Christmas there. I had prepared a few presents before we moved and every one hung up his or her stocking looking for Santa Claus to find them away out there at Possum Neck. Of course, on Xmas Day there was a big turkey dinner with all the cakes and pies that traditionally went with the Christmas season. We also spent some time with Cornelia and her family and then made our way to Hattiesburg on the train. Estelle, who was the baby had the ear ache all the way so we had a bad trip of it. In Hattiesburg the Thompsons and Foxes made the names memorable but we did finally get through the two weeks’ visit there and also a day in Purvis with the Jordans and Hands there. By that time there was a place ready for us at Fox so Papa met us at Ellisville with a wagon and buggy and we set out on the long trek of 20 miles through the piney woods. A negro drove the wagonful of children and I was in dreadful fear that he might kidnap them and not go in the same direction we were going, but old “Lum” was a good old trusty negro as I found out later.
We did not find a house built for us tho the Gunns had built their house. We were to live in the store they had built for a commissary for the Mill to be. At first there were no partitions in it so our beds were just scattered around in the rear end of the building. The next day they partitioned off two rooms, one to sleep in and one to cook and eat in. Nobody had time to build a third room so it racked on till one wet day in the Spring, all the men were excited over a fox race and had Francis to drag a coon hide all over the wet woods for the dogs to trail. Of course, the dogs got excited and set up a howl on the trail and the men whooped and hollered to make it worse. The longer it lasted the madder I got till when they all came back I met them with, “If you men would get up as much enthusiasm over the building me another room we would not have to live like pigs back there.” Well, the next day building started and it was not long till I had a room for the children to sleep in. A large heater andthe cooking stove kept the rooms warm that winter but the stove did not seem to draw well with the flue we had. The flue was built in the bedroom and we used an elbow joint for the cook stove. That did not work so we moved it into the bedroom directly under the flue. That worked all right but looked funny to cook in the bedroom. The piano in one corner, cook stove in the next and beds in the other two corners. The youngest children slept in one of the beds. Well that’s not all--six months from that time we had Boarders, Will Gunn, his wife and baby. I doubled up by using cots, etc., and gave them a bed and then the meals were not so bad as I already had a crowd to feed and two more did not matter. I was giving music lessons in Ovett at that time too. Papa said I was making more money than anybody on the job. That was during the first year of our life in the woods. Often I would entertain my visitors with music as they always asked me to play for them and one day after I finished playing one woman said, “Now that is the right kind of playing, the girls in Ovett cross their hands.” Well, I did not know what to say so I said nothing and did not play anything that required the hands cross-I might have lost one admirer! We were in the woods one year before the first train ran from Mobile to Laurel but we anticipated a trip to Lyman as soon as it should run. I had to go shopping to Ellisville-14 miles-with horse and buggy before I could get our wardrobe ready for the trip. There was no one to cook dinner in my absence but Laura who was seven years old so I had to leave things prepared for her to cook. She made a good job of it. Francis went with me to Eliisville and we got started early in the morning so as to have plenty of time. We did our shopping, took dinner at Cousin Tom Hand’s, finished up our shopping and left at three o’clock. It was about dark when we got home and everybody was uneasy about us, but old Sam had taken us there and back safe and sound. It took a good three hours to make the trip one way so the most of the day was spent in the road.
We got ready for our trip on the train and it was anything but a pleasant one with six children all excited about getting away from home. We took dinner in Laurel at Cousin John O’Ferrall’s house and they put us on the train for Hattiesburg where Aunt Sallie met us and the boys helped us to get to the other depot to go to Lyman (G&SI). The Gulf and Ship Island is now the Illinois Central. I was glad to get to Lyman and see your Uncle Will and Auntie. They kept us there a month during which time I got a good rest which I needed and the children had a good time. I had some dental work done at Gulfport and then we were due back home again.
We still had no well and the children had to “tote” water from the branch and drinking water had to be brought from Mrs. Gunn’s house up on the hill. We managed to get through the winter 1903-04, which was not severe and in the spring I began to beg for a house. The mill was running (1904) and the hands had to have houses first so I had to wait. The children were troublesome in the store and people would pick on them. One man burned Burney with a cigar and Estelle was hurt too so we just had to get away. While Will Gunn was head carpenter they started our house in the summer. Will lived down in what we called the Brannan house and one night he came up to the store in the middle of the night wanting me to go down there as their baby was sick. I got up and went with him but I had him to go to Ovett for the doctor. He straightened the little fellow in a little while and I went back home (if you could call it that). Well our house was completed in September 1904 and we moved in, principally by hand. We carried many things from the store up to the house. One day the children were telling George Bozenberg what they had carried on their last trip. One carried the dinnerpot, the boys carried the washpot, and Estelle (3 yrs old) piped up and said “I carried some kind of a pot” - it happened to be the chamberpot. Of course that caused a great laugh as they all knew how it had been, so ever afterward they would tease Estelle about carrying some kind of pot.
I forgot to mention that Papa had a hard chill and high fever one day before we left the store and we had to have the doctor for him. He was sick several days and I had to do the cooking out of doors because the stove heated up the house too much for him. We had an old fashioned Dutch oven that I used to cook potatoes or bread in and Mrs. Gunn would bake my biscuit in her stove. Of course frying the bacon was not hard to do on an outside fire so we managed pretty well for a few days. Grandma Fox was with us and she said “You surely must love Burney a lot to do all this.” Well I guess I did--
We had a union Sunday School in Ovett and everyone seemed to take an interest in it. The men of town built the church and then we all undertook to buy an organ. The Gressett Music Co. in Meridian let us have it on credit and we enjoyed singing to the organ accompaniment for some time. Finally in September 1906 we had our Sept. hurricane which was something new to us and it blew down the church, the rain ruining the organ totally. That storm was a landmark on the way as everything dated from the Sept. storm until we had another one ten years later. We stood on the porch and watched the wind blow from one direction awhile laying trees low that had stood there a hundred years or more. Then the wind would veer and blow from the opposite direction and lay a few more trees low. The rains had soaked the ground for hours so that when a tree fell it splashed the water twenty feet or more in the air. It was indeed an awe inspiring sight and we could hardly do anything for watching the storm. That lasted from early morning until the late afternoon. When everything quieted down we reconnoitered to see what harm was done. We expected the 40 or 50 oxen to be killed as they were out in the woods but a little later they all came up to be fed. Instinct told them where to stay—in the little oat thickets where there were no tall trees to fall on them. Many pine trees had fallen and had to be hauled in to the mill to be sawed. Some near by timber belonged to a Northern Syndicate so they sent men down here to see about it. We bought all their fallen timber at a bargain and later bought their standing timber. That was enough to keep the mill busy a long time.
Mr. Gunn had already sold his interest in the mill to Burney so it all belonged to us then. The railroad gave our place the name “Fox” and it has remained that ever since. The dissolving of the partnership was a source of great worry to us because we did not have money enough to pay out. I thought of ways that I could get it, borrow or beg it but finally B. went to Mr. Ellsworth and he was the life saver. That was the beginning of our dealings with the M&M Bank and our friendship with the Ellsworths.
This chronicle would not be complete without some mention of the school the children attended in Ovett. I took them in the buggy the first day of school which was held in the Baptist Church back of the main street where the stores were. All went well till I went to leave when there was a weeping wailing especially Burney Boy. I told them I would go over to the store and get them some pencils and tablets which quieted them so when I went back with the tablets I told the teacher I would not come in for they might go to howling again. The did not all howl but they shed a few tears. They got so they did not mind the school except for the long walk on a cold frosty morning. Then they would have been glad to give up their struggle for an education.
When the house that we lived in was under construction Francis was much interested in the work and being at the inquisitive age he had to investigate everything. One day he picked up the chisel and in some way let it drop on his ankle and cut the artery there sending the blood spurting clear across the floor. We were afraid he would bleed to death and did everything anyone told us to do from putting spider webs on it to plastering it with ashes. Finally I sent to Ovett for the doctor and he had to wash all the ashes off before he could sew up the gash on the child’s leg. The doctor must have thought we were nitwits. Francis was around all right the next day. He was always into some trouble. When he was about thirteen he and Burney were at the branch trying to shoot fish. He had the gun resting on his foot when B. called “there’s one!” and grabbing it quickly (and it already cocked) the gun went off too soon and shot the end of his shoe off and one toe with it. Burney brought the shoe to the house to show me and I thought the boy must have torn the whole end of his foot off from the looks of the shoe. Well, we got the only available doctor, Dr. Shepard from Crottstown and he did a good job with the foot. I had to continue to dress it for a month on account of the powder burn but it was some job to keep him in the bed till it got well.
Then there was the episode of the car on a wooden track down in the woods. He and Burney had built a railroad on a hillside in the woods between the house and the branch and had made a car to run on it so everybody had to ride on it. Francis was the engineer and conductor and one day his train was getting away from him and he stuck his foot out to stop it and sprained his ankle. he suffered from that a long time and it might have been a break instead of a sprain. We did not have a doctor but did little things to relieve his suffering. The treatment now would be to put it in a cast.
The children went to school in Ovett for six months every winter but forgot what they learned in the six months of vacation and that worried me. One year we had a governess for our children and Claude Parker’s children. A girl from Laurel was recommended to us, Corinne Moore, so we sent for her and she taught school in one of our empty tenant houses. I know now that it was not a very desirable job as the boys were bad. As they were having whooping cough they felt that we would be easy on them so they did not try to be good. This school broke up the first of June and the next year the Ovett school had better teachers and a longer term so the children finished the eight grades over there - at least the older ones did. Then we began to think of where to send them after that. Laura and Elsie Hull thought they wanted to go to Columbus and they had to have a little Latin so we studied Latin that summer.
Aunt Clara spent her vacation with us and I think persuaded Burney that we should move to Laurel and put the children in school there. When September arrived one Saturday he asked me if I could be ready to go to Laurel on the ten o’clock train. After the shock subsided I got ready, leaving Laura in charge of the dinner and the two little boys, Lester and William. When we got to Laurel we went house hunting, to buy, not to rent. We finally decided on the White’s house on Seventh Avenue. They were moving to California as soon as possible and were glad to sell the house so we bought it. It as a much better looking house than our house at the mill but not nearly as well built so in the winter that followed the north wind would blow through the cracks and rattle the paper on the walls and freeze the water pipes. However, we enjoyed living there and made many friends. It was near the schools, church and town so that we could walk anywhere we wanted to go.
The preparations to move had to be made in less than a week and as there were no trucks in those days the household goods had to go on the railroad by freight. At the Laurel end of the trip Mr. Flowers took charge of the moving and with his dray and two horses had many things in the house by the time we got there on the morning train. We set to work arranging furniture and Mrs. Beatty invited the whole family to her house on 5th Street to dinner. It looked like an imposition to accept but on her insistence we went and enjoyed a good dinner though the only thing I remember eating was some delicious canned peaches. I can remember that I hated for her to go to that expense for our mob. She was a very thoughtful person and I appreciated her kindness.
That being Saturday I got everybody’s clothes ready to go to Sunday School the next morning before I went to bed that night and on Sunday morning everybody went to Sunday School. There we met Mr. Phil Gardiner and as we were 30 minutes ahead of time we had plenty of time to introduce ourselves. He was delighted to see the addition of 8 children to the Sunday School so we got a warm welcome. However Bill and I did not return the next Sunday as they had no adult class or kindergarten. That was the little church before it was moved back and enlarged for a parish house. We would all go to Church but Bill was too noisy to suit the fussy ones and I always left him at home with one of the girls to keep him out of mischief.
The next day, Monday, was the first day of school so off they all went in time for enrollment. There was the usual stir and bustle, no one got put up as far as he thought he ought to go except Laura but there was no changing Mr. Watkins after he had made up his mind so Francis was put a year behind Laura when he should have been with her. Mr. W. thought he was younger than L.
Mrs. Tuller wanted the girls to take music lessons from her so she visited us the day we were moving in and asked for them but I was doing that job myself and could hardly see that we could afford it and anyway I was up to my neck in moving and had not time to collect my wits and tell her it was no time to talk music.
We were well settled by Thanksgiving time had a cow and calf in the lot as well as a flock of chickens which may have bothered my neighbors but my children had to have milk and eggs and that was my way of having those luxuries. By Dec. 20th which was Estelle’s birthday we were all well enough acquainted for her to have a party. I made a cake with icing and ten candles which looked pretty to the little girls but I was worried because Elizabeth Wisner would eat none of the cake - wondered if she did not like the idea of the candles being stuck in the icing instead of in a candy rose on a pin (which was something new to me). Well no one else bothered about her not having any cake so the party passed off all right.
Burney Sr. would spend several nights a week with us going back and forth on the train which left Laurel very early in the morning. I would prepare him a little bacon, eggs, coffee and toast on an electric plate and off he would go.
After Christmas, along in February, Burney Jr. had bronchial pneumonia and was in bed a week or more. Dr. C. M. Davis was our physician but we had no penicillin in those days so they were anxious day. But the doctor knew what to do to relieve the patient and cure the disease. I thought I would help with my flannel cloths saturated with turpentine and mutton suet so I kept them warming by the fire as one would cool on the patient. The doctor said there was no need for it but I felt better doing it and he did not object so I kept it up day and night as long as he was suffering. It did no harm and I believed it did good.
Burney got well but the next year the whole brood except Dorothy had mumps. That was a great time but I am glad it cannot be repeated. Burney took cold and had to go to the doctor but he recovered all right.
When summer came we wanted to go back to Fox so we got some one to take the house for the summer as it was, and we took the cow (the boys drove her the whole 16 miles) and spent the summer in the country. It was home to us and we really enjoyed the summer but were glad to get back to Laurel in Sept. I did not much like the way the lady had kept house for me as dust and dirt were in evidence everywhere and she had rusted my favorite skillet with making rose bread all summer, but all that is past and should be forgotten now.
The girls took music lessons from Mrs. Beers and Lester started to kindergarten. Inez came to live with us and go to school and she was put back to the 7th grade which she did not like much but there was not anything she could do about it. On that account she was till 1918 getting through high school. She got sick that fall and we called in Dr. Davis who soon got her better but she was still in bed. One day I made her some what I thought was nice chicken soup and took it to her and she would not eat it and said, “I don’t eat chicken soup when I’m well!” I didn’t know what to fix for her so asked her what she wanted to eat and she said, “Some turnip greens.” Well we all had a big laugh over that but I cooked the greens for her the next day and she got well.
Burney Jr. was always saying funny things and some of them became bywords in the family. One day I sent him to the grocery store to get some Shredded Wheat biscuit which we had never happened to eat as we had so many other cereals. He brought the pkg. into the living room where I had company, opened it and said, “For the love of mules, what’s this?” I was much embarrassed and had to make excuses for him, but we never forgot the incident.
Christmas came and went as usual with all the usual fireworks and visit from Santa Claus. I think Medora came from Minnesota and spent a month with us but she slept at a house on 7th Street where I rented a room for her. Part of the time she spent in Hattiesburg with the Thompsons and had a great time which they still remember. She loved to bring in candy and other sweets and get the children together after lessons were done and enjoy them together.
The third year we were in Laurel Emma Lott came and spent the winter with us and gave the girls music lessons. She made friends readily, joined the music club and enjoyed life in Laurel. Lester was getting along well at school and was in the first grade going into the second at midterm.
That was probably the year I joined the DAR. I already belonged to the Progress Club which was a literary club that disbanded later in 1917. I felt that I needed refreshing along educational lines and mixing with people. It did me much good and I made many lasting friendships which I would not otherwise have made. I was still half country for I would milk the cow so that my family could have that luxury without having to buy it. We also had a garden which Francis well remembers attending to every spring. It was good for a little city garden and we had fresh vegetables. We had another garden out at Fox for summer use and there we went in June when school was out. That was the summer of 1914 when the war in Europe started but the U. S. did not get into it till 1917.
That was the year that the Laurel Lumber Company failed and it hurt us a lot. The business was managed by Arthur Corey and he did not follow Burney’s instructions and got the business in the red. Mildred George was working in the office and so was Francis during the summer months and they could see that things were not going right but could not do much about it but finally it all came out and we had to shoulder most of the settlement.
The next school year was Laura’s senior year in High School and Francis’s last year there. Before school began we moved from 7th Ave. to a new home on the boulevard. It was a 2 story house with ten rooms besides 2 bath rooms 2 large pantries and a large sleeping porch and halls. That gave us plenty of room for our large family and we bought it at a bargain from Mr. C. C. Ferrill who had lived in Ellisville but had built this beautiful home and then disliked it and sold it. We found out afterwards that the cellar filled with water when the winter rains started so that it was almost impossible to keep a fire in the furnace which heated the whole house and that was what almost drove the old man crazy. There were 8 acres in the block with the house so we could almost farm and still be in town. The street car ran by the house every hour and that was the only way we had to get to town except to walk and we were a mile out. We had to buy some furniture for the little we had would not go far in such a big house. I loved the house with its wide porches and with its soft gray walls and beautiful floors. The stair-case was beautiful with a newel post topped with a bronze cupid holding up a large globe in which was the hall light. The banisters were white with mahogany painted hand rail and steps. The walls were gray with white painted woodwork - (door and window facings). The doors were painted mahogany. We bought the rugs and window shades as they were in the house also some of the furniture so that the downstairs was partly furnished then. Our dining room suite, piano, victorla, etc. made the rooms livable but little Burney thought it was too bad to take our “junk” into that pretty house.
We were very happy there for many years. The children could have their parties, invite their friends to visit them and there was always room for everybody. There was never a wedding or reception in that house but it was well arranged for either. There was a long walk for the school children but it was good for them and now they can boast of having to walk 1 1/2 miles to school every day while the children of this day have to ride 6 blocks. Times have changed.
Laura finished high school and went to MSCW the next fall. Francis went to Auburn Alabama at the same time. That made the family smaller but I missed them. Inez came on to finish high school. Housekeeping was still a chore as the family was still a good size. William was in the 1st grade, having made the kindergarten the year before. Lester was doing well in school having reached the 4th grade but after this I did not want him to skip any more grades.
I was not too busy to do some outside club work such as the Boulevard Garden Club, Mothers Club at Silas Gardiner School, Progress Club and the Woman’s Auxiliary of St. John’s. I was resident of the Auxiliary a term, went to the Councils as delegate a number of times (was always glad to be going somewhere) to Columbus, Natchez, Vicksburg, Hattiesburg, Grenada and Greenville. I found the meetings inspiring and made some new friends. I think every Church woman ought to have that experience once anyway.
Many little things happened along in those days such as the day Bill followed the circus trucks out to the place where they were putting up the big tent out on what is now highway 84 east. He was sick in school so the teacher gave him 5c to come home on the street car. She phoned me about it so I was on the lookout for him. Well, he did not come so of course, I was worried and walked to town to hunt him. I asked everyone I knew if they had seen him but no one had. Finally someone told me he was in Wallace’s Drug Store so over I went through the crown gathered in town for the circus. I found him eating ice cream at the counter, bought with the nickel the teacher had given him for street care fare. I took him out, leaving the ice cream which he did not need (being sick), and after questioning him found out he had walked all the way out to the circus tent and how he got back to town I never knew. He never got sick at school any more. I think we all went to the circus later for we seldom missed one. One time I brought all the children up from Fox to see Gentry’s Dog and Pony show which was really better than a circus.
The next summer we spent the summer at Fox and had several Laurel girls to go with us, Ruby Crawford, Celeste Tisdale and Jessie Nall Rogers. And they had a time they probably remember till now. They kept old Sam (the horse) busy carrying them around through the Piney Woods. He would carry all the small children on his back till he got tired of them, then he would walk under a limb and rake them off. He would stand perfectly still till they all got on again, and away they would ride again. We thought he had been trained in circus but did not know. However, we always felt that the little one were safe on Old Sam.
***************
These reminiscences were written by Helen Hand Fox (our mother), during the late 1950s, at Dry Bayou Plantation in Bolivar County, Miss. At odd moments, when she grew tired of reading and crocheting she would write a few lines of whatever came to mind. However, she grew tired of it, or we confused her by asking that she include happenings that maybe she had forgotten. At any rate, she did not bring her “memoirs” up to date - just quit. And we could not prevail on her to finish. She died Feb. 12, 1962. This was typed by her daughters, Helen and Estelle in 1968.