RichEisbrouch
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Well, it's about to start getting more complicated as the main characters start having kids.
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Thanks. I tried to add a simple family tree, too, but the format I have it in fights with the one on this site. But it's a book with a lot of family members, and often it's hard to remember who's who once the main characters start marrying and having kids and grandchildren.
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Rosalind met Dock at the mill. Dock’s real name was Dillard, and his nickname had nothing to do with going to college or studying medicine. He’d been called that since he was eight. One day, his father came out to the barn and found five or six smaller kids sitting on the ground in front of his youngest son. Dock was drawing on the wall with coal and lecturing them on how baby pigs got born. Dock was smart, and friendly enough for me to see why Rosalind liked him. But he wasn’t
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Again, thanks. Fortunately, there's lots more to come.
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The support for this piece is actually terrific, especially since it's an odd fit for this site. So I'm happy to have the loyal readers who are following along. Again, thanks for being one of them.
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Daddy died a little over a year after Frances, in July 1928. It was almost four months after his seventy-second birthday. He didn’t have an easy death like Mama’s or a slow one like Aunt Evie’s. He mostly fell apart. He worked at the mill until he really wasn’t much good there, and once he stopped, even though he’d been wishing for that to happen, he didn’t know what else to do. Some days, he went to the mill just to talk with his friends during lunch. Other days, he walked around town.
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Unfortunately, treating diseases with fewer effective drugs -- or any drugs at all -- meant a lot more deaths. But people seemed prepared for that and almost to expect it.
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After Mama died, Daddy wanted to quit the mill. He was sixty-eight and had been working almost since he was born, first on his family’s farm, then building furniture, finally in the mills. But we didn’t have any money and didn’t even own the house we lived in. Rosalind was twenty by then and was working in the kindergarten. Charley was twelve, so he was still in school with me. Sonny was a foreman, Dougie and Leon machinists, and Frances, Walter, Virginia, and Ruth were weavers.
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Thanks. Again, that's really appreciated.
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As I seem to be saying every week, thanks for your support. It's especially appreciated because I was concerned about posting this book on this site. As usual, I hope all's well.
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When I think about Mama, I remember how hard she worked. She worked at the mill, and she worked in our house, and she worked at church. In our whole life together, I don’t think I ever saw her do anything just for herself. When she cooked, it was because we needed to be fed. When she sewed, it was because one of us needed clothes or something was ripped or had to be let out. She didn’t grow flowers in our garden, just vegetables. And she didn’t make fancy jams or jellies. She canned fruit. She c
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Well, at some point, I think we all went through a version of this.
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My nephew William wasn’t the first boy I fell in love with, but he was the most serious. “You can’t fall in love with your own nephew,” Rosalind insisted. “Even if he is only a month younger than you are. You don’t feel the same way about Gordon.” “Gordon isn’t as interesting as William. Besides, Gordy always acts like an idiot.” “Well, he is an idiot, so it’s not hard for him to act like one.” Gordon wasn’t really stupid. He just seemed a lot y
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Yep, although in a different place, it sounds your mother grew up in the same life as the people in Bodark Creek. No wonder you're comfortable reading the stories and have no trouble tracking all the relatives.
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Our family got even bigger when my sister Frances moved from Hattiesburg. Frances and her husband Leon had two children. Audrey was the one who’d made me an aunt even before I was born, and William was my age. Frances had another son, too, but he died when he was only a year-and-a-half. “That was really horrible,” Frances said “And a terrible surprise. When I was growing up, I was almost used to babies dying. We lost two of my brothers before they really learned to walk. But I t
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Yep, that's kind of how Addy moves ahead -- along with her awareness of the importance of listening.
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It was only one summer that there were just six of us kids. Soon Walter’s first daughter Cecil was born, and right after that, my oldest brother Sonny brought his family to Bodark Creek. This time, I knew they were coming, but I tried not to ask too many questions. I was beginning to learn that you could find out just as much by listening. “We got them a house almost next door to ours,” Dougie said. “It’s gonna be like old times.” “We’re moving, too,” Walter tol
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The first time I heard about my brother Dougie coming to Bodark Creek was almost the day he got there. And he wasn’t just coming for a visit. He and his family were moving in. “We didn’t want to tell you,” Walter said, “because we knew you’d get too excited.” “And ask too many questions,” Rosalind put in. “Did you know about this?” I asked her. “No,” she insisted, and Walter backed her up. “We didn’t want to tel
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I'm glad you're looking forward because it goes on for a very long time.
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When the war came, the first person to enlist was Walter. But he didn’t do it because he hated the Germans. In fact, that was the most confusing thing about the war. Growing up, almost everyone I knew was German. It was good to be German, and some of the people in our church had even been born in that country. But now they were fighting relatives who they were still writing letters to, and no one could explain to me why. “It’s something we have to do,” Mama said. Walter enlisted
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Yep, I suspect there were lots of places like this at the time and stretching to somewhat later. I guess I first heard of them as a kid, with Tennessee Ernie Ford singing "16 Tons." "I owe my soul to the company store." Except in this case, the cotton mill seemed mainly supportive.
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For Rosalind and me, the best thing about Walter getting married was it gave us another place to go. As Walter said, it wasn’t very big. There was a kitchen, and there was a room with Walter and Stefanie’s bed. But that room didn’t even have a door, and it wasn’t as big as the one Rosalind and I shared with Charley. Their kitchen was smaller than ours, too, with only a stove, a couple of shelves, and a wooden table with four chairs. “It’s bigger than my day bed, anyhow,” Walter
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Yep, small towns -- and the focus of this one, which is only an even smaller section of a small town, maybe several hundred people -- are their own worlds with their own rules, perhaps especially one that's centered around a church and a factory, where all the people go to that church and live in factory housing. In any case, Walter pretty well escaped harm and learned something about taking and accepting responsibility, and that's all that's important. Really sorry to hear about your friend though. That's really hard.
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The pond almost killed Walter, but he didn’t get sucked into the pipes. Though he did lose his clothes. It was after the Fourth of July, because we’d all seen the fireworks. And it was hot, because Rosalind and I were sleeping on the back porch. Charley had stayed in our room, but only because he got to sleep in the big bed. Mama and Daddy were sleeping, too. Walter had gone out, then came home very late. Rosalind and I were telling stories when we heard a noise
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Still, once Walter really started seeing girls, Daddy didn’t like the ones he picked. “Why are you even thinking about getting married?” Daddy asked. Walter grinned. “Guess for the same reason you did.” “Go to Fort Worth,” Daddy said, laughing. “I’ll give you the money.” “For what?” I asked. But they ignored me. “Done that already,” Walter told Daddy. “Well, it didn’t do any good.” Walter shrugg
