I, Lillias Mavis Shinn was born on a Sunday morning in August 1914 in Cabarrus County, North Carolina. I was born at home and a "Granny woman" or midwife was in attendance at this birth. Usually a doctor was called in for so important an event, as doctors made house calls then; in fact as I got older I usually expected there would be a new baby if the doctor's buggy came to our house. Of course I was told I was born on Sunday and there was a midwife. I was the fifth child of Manlius Joseph Shinn and Lillias Mae Walter Shinn. We have preserved a written record of their marriage and a favorite story of my growing up was how it snowed on their wedding day, April 21, 1904.
When Mom and Pop first married they lived at a small place about three miles above Grandpa (Alfred Jeremiah Shinn) and Grandma's (Martha Ann Edgison Shinn) house and my siblings Muriel and Buren and a baby sister (who died) were born up there. Pop then bought a strip of land (less than 30 acres) adjoining Grandpa's. Pop and Grandpa had lumber sawed and maybe hired a carpenter and built our new house. As was the custom then neighbors pitched in and helped. It was built on rock stilts and was meant to be a fine house. They moved in before it was finished and two of the upstairs rooms were never finished. It was such a top heavy house that the foundations sank. As I remember it the doors never closed right and the floors were uneven but a lot of living took place in that old house. Elwyn, my brother was the first child born there and I was the second and three (Howard, Harding, and Dulcie) came after me.
A couple hundred yards north of our house was Grandma and Grandpa Shinn's place and as long as I remembered Uncle Pearson (Pearson Stewart Shinn) and Aunt Annie (Annie Misenheimer Shinn) and their family lived there too; at first with Grandma and Grandpa and then in a little house of their own just north of the big house. I can remember having a path from our house to their house and I was usually the emissary to go borrow a cup of sugar or a teaspoon of baking powder when Mama ran out of these.
I remember hearing Grandma say that when she married Grandpa he had a wagon, a team of horses and a gold watch. They had started out as sharecroppers but now owned this place. As I remember it, it must have been almost a self sustaining farm. Still in my minds eye I can see the garden just south of the house with every kind of vegetable and all across one side a grape arbor laden with perfect bunches of different kinds of grapes. Back of the house were huge apple trees and on a hillside back of the barn was a cherry tree orchard. I can remember one harvest when the trees were a picture of red fruit. I think some disease must have gotten into these cherry trees as it seems these trees didn't last long but there were always an abundance of apples and there were also pear, peaches, and Damson plums.
My parents planted all these fruits around their place but they never grew and prospered as Grandpa's did, nonetheless we usually got plenty of apples for drying and canning from up there or from Aunt Annie Sapp (Annie Walter Sapp) who had a similar plantation home.
Grandpa had a cider press and it was always nice to be around on cider making day and drink the apple juice as it came from the press. I could help gather apples and feed them to the press. Some of the juice was jugged for vinegar and some boiled into apple butter and jelly. Usually the butter was made in a big pot in the yard. I suppose some apple wine was made. I know Grandma always made grape wine for medicinal purposes. The little smokehouse just outside Grandma's kitchen was always filled with hams and salt meat and sausages as well as big jars of sour krout and pickles in brine. Grandma could set a bountiful table anytime.
Grandpa was a leader in the community. I can remember him as a tall thin man with black hair and beard. He wore a starched white shirt and black string tie. He had a special place in the "Amen" corner at church and he prayed a forceful prayer as he knelt by the bench on Sundays in church. Grandma was stout but she was also a leader in style as well as an example as a good wife. She and her daughters (Missouria and Cora) had dresses that were sewed to perfection and hats that were the latest. Compared to them our family always seemed slipshod.
Grandpa must have been a good farmer for his fields were clean and his harvest abundant. Looking back, I can't remember that bugs were a problem. I do remember having to help pick potato bugs (and put them in a bucket) off the Irish potatoes in the spring but other than that vegetables and fruit grew without the help of insecticides.
Grandpa grew wheat for flour, corn for corn meal and feed, and oats for horse feed. His granary had bins of grain and one of us children didn't dare use that as a hiding place when we were playing hide and seek. I can't remember him ever punishing us, but we knew better than court his displeasure!
Grandma Shinn's mother, Granny Edgison came to live with Grandma and Grandpa Shinn. Her husband had died in 1895 and she had gone almost completely blind. She sat in her rocker near the fireplace most of the time. I can remember them bringing her meals to her and telling her what each thing was and of her feeding herself mainly with her fingers. In pretty weather she was able to walk to the outside toilet with the help of a cane. I remember her job was to rock the cradle to put the babies to sleep. This was Stewart and Quintine Shinn, my cousins who also lived for a time at Grandma and Grandpa's. Back then they took care of the oldsters, took in the young marrieds, and cared for the sick at home. Three generations might be living in one house.
An amusing incident happened with Great Grandma Edgison that I like to tell my children about. One summer Grandma Shinn had such terrible pains in her head that she would cry out in agony. Ultimately she had to have all her teeth removed. In order to help out while this went on, Mama took Granny for a while. Of course Aunt Annie was up there to do the cooking and care for Grandpa, but Granny Edgison came to stay at our house several days or weeks. Mama put her in the front guest bedroom and put a little lamp on her table. Granny always felt she must keep her lamp burning all night (even though she was blind). Mama couldn't see much sense in this so one night she slipped in and blew out the light. Great Grandma woke up later and called "Someone put out my light and I can't see a thing!" Probably light perception gave her assurance and she missed it.
One of my jobs was to carry out the chamber pots each morning. Granny had a pretty little porcelain one with a side handle that she had brought along. Childlike, when I carried it out I wanted to see if it was breakable. I hit it on a rock and sure enough it was breakable! It was a sad time when I had to tell her it was broken. She never had another she liked as well. It would have been an antique collector's item today. I must have been seven or eight years old at the time it happened. Grandma got better and Granny Edgison never stayed at our house again.. Granny Edgison was almost ninety when she died. I don't know how many years she lived without eyesight or teeth. She had neither when I knew her.
As I'm on the subject, Granny Edgison was a Phillips before she married, but I never knew any Phillips kin. Grandma said some of them had gone west after the war. Grandma and Uncle Jake were the only children in that family. Uncle Jake was sort of "poor kin." He was never ambitious but he did have three wives and I can remember him going to the New Gilead Cemetery to clean off his wives' graves. They were buried side by side there.
Grandpa Shinn may have had some sisters but Uncle Sam Shinn (Samuel Martin Shinn), a half brother, was the only relative of his I can remember. Grandpa Shinn's father, Joseph Carlock Shinn had died when Grandpa was only four years old. His mother, Elizabeth Misenheimer, remarried six years later to a distant cousin, Samuel Elam Shinn. Elam Shinn had two children with Elizabeth: Samuel Martin and Luther. Elam joined the Confederate Army during the war and died of wounds suffered there in 1864 (when Grandpa was 16).
There was always a lot of visiting back and forth. In fact Sundays were spent in going to church and visiting kin. Most of the kinfolk were within a five mile radius. This was a German-Dutch community and Grandma used to tell about some relatives living near the millpond having such a thick accent that one day when she called the cat and it was missing she called "Peether, Peether, some of those devilish boys must have drowned Peether in the mill pond!" Of course she imitated their speech.
I was about 12 years of age when Grandpa died. It was a family crisis as he was the one who was seldom sick but the doctor said he had "leakage of the heart" and his days were numbered. I suppose that was the first time I had ever been around anyone who was dying and it was an awesome experience for me. Of course he was cared for at home and I remember him being propped up in bed so he could breathe and his sheets being fanned up and down to give him air. I sat up most of that night, but I had gone to sleep when the last came.
Even though Grandma Shinn had a mind of her own, widowhood was hard for her. She was terrified of living alone and especially of staying alone at night so one of the grandchildren started staying with her. My brothers stayed for a while, but they became tired of the task and I, being the only girl old enough and still at home, became the one. So through most of high school we locked the doors and pulled the shuttered windows at night and enjoyed a cozy time around a little heater that glowed with a warm fire. A kerosene lamp provided our light and I studied or read and we talked. I wish I would have written down some of Grandma's reminiscences. She told me she was about nine years old when the Civil War ended. She remembered standing by the road and watching as the soldiers passed by and also of hiding hams and silverware so they wouldn't be taken. Her father (my great grandfather John W. Edgison) was serving in the war and most of the time was stationed at Salisbury which was 25 or 30 miles from Concord. There was a big arsenal there which was burned by the Federals. Great Grandma Edgison and her young son Jake went on the train and visited him but Grandma stayed at home with relatives. That must have been quite a trip for them.
As I said when I commenced writing, I would write as thoughts came to me so I should get on with telling about my own family living. Pop had gone to boarding school so he was qualified to be a school teacher and it was a good thing for he was a very poor farmer. He liked to work with and around people and was probably a good teacher. He was usually the principal of a two room school and taught the older boys and girls, going to about the eighth grade. Some of the schools were in Rowan County and these schools were so far away that he had to "board" during the week and come home on weekends. I can remember going with him to some of the special days at school and especially for the school closing. That was a big day with speeches by the pupils and dinner on the ground. Schools were only about five months during the year and I doubt that Pop ever earned more than $75 a month. School let out in time for teacher and pupils to farm. Mama must have been the one who had it hard as there was the barn and farm work to be carried on. In fact Pop learned to depend on her so much that when he was there she had to do much of the farm work and she always worked side by side with him in the field. She milked the cows and saw that we children learned to work. My job was to draw water from the well when large enough and carry in firewood even before that. Later we had to go to the fields to chop and pick.
I've told about Pop Shinn's people so now I'll tell about Mama's. I never knew the grandparents on this side of the family for Mama's (Lillias Mae Walter Shinn) father (Martin Van Walter) died when she was about eighteen months old. She had two sisters, Aunt Annie Walter Sapp and Aunt Lora Walter Walter. They were both older than Mama and able to get out on their own pretty early in life. Aunt Annie married Uncle Lee Sapp and they had a big plantation and 13 children in the course of time. Their home was always open to relatives and Mama went there to live when she was about ten years old and lived there off and on until she married. I'm sure she worked hard helping Aunt Annie tend babies and do all the other jobs around but they also saw that she went to school. She even went to Crescent Boarding School two semesters. This was a church school not too far from where they lived. Aunt Annie cooked Mama a nice wedding dinner the day she married.
Mama's mother (Martha Bradford Walter) had remarried a J.R. Whitley and they lived in Charlotte and ran a boarding house. She had another daughter by him, Aunt Ollie Whitley Brown. Mama lived with her Mother and Stepfather some as I imagine there was plenty of work that she could do there too. She was about twelve when her mother died. I don't know the cause of death but she may have died in childbirth as she had several sons who did not live. Grandma Whitley is buried in Charlotte. The cemetery must now be in the heart of town but we used to go over there to see her grave.
Mr. Whitley remarried and lived in Burlington. We used to go there to visit while Aunt Ollie lived there. When she married Uncle Jim Brown, he was a Baptist preacher so we went to visit them wherever they lived. We all loved to visit there as he was an interesting person and there was always music and laughter. They bought the first radio - a big battery powered thing and brought it along when they came to stay a week at our house. We all gathered around and marveled that we could hear someone way off say "This is C-I-N-C-I-N-N-A-T-I".
Another amusing thing happened one time when Aunt Annie's family was having Sunday dinner at our house. We were all at the table and heard an airplane go over. Everyone immediately left the table and went out to see the plane going over. It was a real marvel too!
Aunt Annie and Uncle Lee had an abundance of fruit, vegetables, and farm produce. In the fall when the corn was gathered it was hauled in to a large pile and all the neighbors were invited to a corn shucking. After the pile was shucked the people were invited to a supper table laden with every imaginable food: Chicken, ham, pies, cakes, and so forth. That was a real feast
Even though Aunt Annie and Uncle Lee had thirteen children, they always seemed prosperous and guests were always welcome. This must have seemed like home to Mama as we visited often. Her Grandmother Bradford was the closest kin besides Aunt Annie, but she was a widow and lived with her unmarried son Dave about twenty miles from us; that was a days trip in those days and I can remember going there only about once a year. When we went we took a picnic lunch and ate on the way. Later in a car this seemed a very short distance and we had Bradford reunions near where she lived at Uncle Will Bradford's house (near Davidson).
Aunt Annie was a little person and must have had amazing stamina. She milked the cows, worked in the garden, tended her large household, and was a marvelous cook. She lived to be in her nineties and never had a doctor until she was almost 90 and got an infected toe! Uncle Lee seemed like a gentleman planter to me as he directed others on the farm to do the work. He must have been a good supervisor for they always seemed to have plenty despite the large family. Their home was always open to a needy relative. Their son Keller was about 18 or 20 when he took the 1918 flu and died. I can remember going to his funeral. It must have been after all our family had the flu. Grandma and Grandpa passed our food in the door so they wouldn't come in contact with the germs and stacked wood just outside the door so we would have heat. It was a terrible time. Howard was the baby and took pneumonia. They had to call the doctor for him and it was really a miracle that he lived, for he was very sick. We were all grateful when all were well again.
As a child I guess I always looked forward to holidays and on Easter 1977 at age sixty two I boiled four hen eggs and colored them with Easter egg dye. I felt that I must continue the custom, for I had never remembered an Easter without colored eggs. At home when we were children that was a big deal. The religious significance of dyed eggs may be doubtful but to a child they can be a happy symbol that makes the date special.
When I was growing up we had chickens, guineas, bantams and other fowl. Luckily Easter came at the time of year when their egg output was prolific. Each member of the family - at first Mom and Pop - vied to see which one could secret away the most eggs. Pops might lie hidden away in a basket of cotton seed in the granary. Mom might have a special box in the smokehouse where she kept hers. On good Friday they would bring them to the kitchen to see how many eggs we would have to color. I can remember having as many as nine dozen and perhaps more. All the cups with broken handles and shallow glass bowls were brought out. The magic color tablet was dropped in boiling water and the fun began with the boiled eggs. All of us children got in the act. No matter how small we got to color some eggs. If a few were broken it meant we would have a fresh boiled egg to eat then and there. Usually each had to write our names on an egg with crayon. For the most part they were varied pastel colors; no work of art but beautiful to me. The next fun with eggs was playing hide and hunt. We did this over and over again. On Easter morning the Easter Rabbit had made a nest in the front yard and left us some of those same eggs with maybe a few candy ones mixed in. Sunday was special with new clothes or starched old dresses to wear to church and usually special programs in which children had a part We learned the real meaning of Easter and the seriousness of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The eggs seem insignificant in view of the meaning of the day but the promise of new life and the beauty and the fresh Easter morning will always be connected with colored eggs to me.
Thanksgiving was another holiday I fondly remember. I'm sure there were years when the crops were not all gathered and we had field work to do, but I can always remember having a special meal; it was extra special if we had company. Mama would put the starched white cloth on the table and laden it with food. Fresh pork was usually our meat for by then we had our first cold snap and butchering had been done. That meant sausages, scrapple, loin or ham fried to perfection. If it wasn't pork it was an old fat hen and dressing. I can't remember ever having turkey until I was grown and Mama started raising turkeys. (Turkeys are tricky to raise and require a lot of tending). Other things on the table were sweet potatoes, green beans from a jar, cold canned peaches with whipped cream, coconut cake and maybe a pie or two. There was always fresh butter and hot biscuits or a loaf of Mama's homemade bread.
The men usually went rabbit hunting. We ate a lot of rabbit when I was growing up but my brothers usually set trap boxes instead of shooting them. Smoot Lyles, our cousin liked to come out from town to hunt. I remember Papa letting me try to shoot his big gun. It was the only time I ever tried to shoot a gun. That was the men and boys thing to do - not for girls. I remember one year Smoot brought his young wife and baby along but they wouldn't eat with us and Mama felt that she was snooty in doing this.
I can't remember any one Thanksgiving but I can still picture the table laden with food and the men going hunting. There were times in the fall when we took long walks in the woods to hunt for hickory nuts, scaly-barks, persimmons and wild grapes. Some of these walks may have been on Thanksgiving. If it was cold and there had been a frost the persimmons were good. We usually gathered some for a pudding unless the cows had found the trees before us and eaten all that were on the ground. Puddings were made by squeezing the seed out and then mixing eggs, milk, sugar, and spice with the "gooey" persimmons and then baking.
One Christmas I remember is when we all had the measles. I must have been about fourteen at the time. We were all so sick that our gifts were put in a basket and opening of them was postponed until we started to convalesce. I know we all must have been very sick for this to happen, as we always celebrated Christmas in a big way. A big tree was set up and decorated in the parlor. Looking back the decorations were meager but the tree always looked fine to us.
Hog killing was done when the weather had turned biting cold. There was no radio or television to give a weather report so the farmer had to depend on his instincts to know when the weather was just right. Since he had no refrigerator or freezer he had to depend on natural cold for preserving his meat, at least until it could be salted away and cured.
They had been feeding the pigs all year and some of them were fat and weighed several hundred pounds. Pigs and hogs were a matter of pride and when we had company usually the menfolks would go to the pig pen to see how the "pork on hoof" was progressing. Farmers prided themselves on nice hogs - the bigger the better. Our pig pen was certainly no show place. It was always filthy as the hogs had to wallow in mud and we fed them "slop" from the kitchen dishwashing. (Lye soap used in dishwashing was supposed to be good for them).
On the "just right" morning everybody was up early. I can remember the fire under the big black pot in the yard showing before good daylight. Plenty of scalding hot water must be ready before the hog was killed. A tripod had been set up with a big metal drum near it so the hog could be hung up. A rifle shot rang out and we heard the final squeal and we knew the hog was ready for a sharp knife to be thrust into his throat and he would bleed just right.
I was spared seeing all this. I didn't think I could. Usually a neighbor who was a good butcher was present and also nearby kin came over. People had a reputation for such work but try as I might I can't remember who usually helped. I can remember them sharpening knives and being ready to go to work scraping the hair off the carcass. Pretty soon that mud lover would have all the hair off and be snowy clean. If the hot water was applied just right, the hair scraped off fairly easily. The insides were taken out and the womenfolk were ready to start work. When I got big enough to do this I enjoyed it. The liver, lipe, kidneys, and sweetbreads were soon put into a big pot to boil (some of the liver was retained for frying and to be made into pudding mush or scrapple). The skin must be cut from the intestines for soap lard and always we children hoped the bladder would be saved intact. This we filled with air and tied so that we had us a basketball. This was played with until it got old and dirty.
When I finished high school (Winecoff High School, 1932), I was president of the Senior Class and Valedictorian. I had worked hard for these honors but looking back I don't know how I got them except for the fact that I studied hard. There were sixteen in our class. After graduating I started looking for a job.
Since hosiery mills were big industries in Concord, Mama went with me to look for a job. We finally persuaded Hugh Gray Hosiery Mill that I could learn if they would let me try. Pop had to drive me to work until I learned how to drive our Model A Ford. The only work I had done away from home was a few days around Christmas in Charles Store (a ten cent store). I worked at night in the hosiery mill from six to six, starting off as a learner at $5.00 per week. I was learning to loop which is a tedious job of sewing the toes in hosiery. There is a special machine on which the tiny treads are looped and are sewed as they go around. After I learned, we were paid according to the number of dozen of hose we did. I think after I was there I made as much as $36 per week. When President Roosevelt made the NRA, our hours were cut to 40 per week and eight hours per night. There were a lot of hard working women there and I learned a lot about life from them over the three years. I didn't spend much money. We wore blue and white uniforms to work and that was a saving. I started saving pennies for college. By the end of three years I felt I had enough saved to get into Brevard College which had just opened as a Church Junior College and our Minister's daughter was going there. It cost about $200 per year. I was a proud person as I gathered my wardrobe and started off to school. I loved Brevard College in the mountains on North Carolina. It was a good place to make a transition from home. I was 21.
Brevard College gave me a chance to be with other young people and to know dedicated Christian teachers. We had wonderful experiences climbing mountains with chaperones. We also worked in country churches with other pre-ministerial students. At the end of two years I was ready to select a college for my last two years towards a degree. I worked during the summers at the hosiery mill and somehow my money stretched to pay all my expenses, so I wrote to Scarritt College in Nashville, Tennessee. This was a Methodist college that trained laymen for missionary work. This proved a good choice for I came in contact with people who had been missionaries as well as nationals from other countries studying there. It was a small school and we had a spirit of fellowship.
I came to realize that my best talents probably were as a rural worker in the United States, so I majored in Social Work and Religious Education. At the end of two years I graduated and asked for an appointment in the Methodist Church. At first I was to go to a Negro settlement in Chattanooga but then there was a need for a Rural Worker in North Mississippi, so I was scheduled to start work there in September 1, 1939.
I rode to Atlanta on the train and visited with my college roommate, Elizabeth Thompson who lived in Decatur, Georgia. I then went on to Memphis and down to Clarksdale on the bus. I was met at the station in Clarksdale by Mrs Ratliff, who was president of the North Mississippi Women's Society of Christian Service (WSCS). She took me to her home at Sherard and we had lunch. Later she drove me to Cleveland to meet Marjorie Jacks and there I picked up the car I was to use and she led the way to Sunflower Plantation where I was to work. I stayed in the home of Mr. And Mrs. Gwin Cox. This was on a government resettlement project. Each family had a new houses and about 40 acres of land.
Coming to the Mississippi Delta in 1939 was like coming to a foreign land. The flat land was entirely new to me as I had always lived in hills or mountains. Every turnrow looked the same and I got lost the first time I tried to find my way back to the Coxes. Farming in the Delta was on a bigger scale and different from what I had known. There was a distinction between planter and sharecropper that was new. In North Carolina most of the farmers were small land owners whose family did the farm work. Here I was introduced to the Old South where the Civil War wounds were still painful and the Negro-White relationship still carried some of the slave-master traits. Sunflower Plantation was all white though, and it was with these people that we tried to start a church and work with the young people. Looking back I see how God provided and led and protected me. I made some good friends on the Plantation but it was the Baptists who later came in and started a permanent church.
During the spring and summer of 1940 I worked with Bible schools across the North Mississippi conference and then in the fall came to Malvina to work at a newly opened community center. There I lived with Mr. And Mrs. Joe Dick Dorroh. Mrs Dorroh and Mrs. Fannie Moore had fixed up the old school building there for the more than 100 families who did not have a church. We started church services each Sunday and had the community center open for other activities during the week.
Living about two miles north of this center was a young farmer, Ruel Turner who had a farm south of Malvina and sometimes stopped at the small store near the community center for a "Coke" on his way from farm to farm. He had been introduced to me by Mrs. Dorroh when he came to her house for the Sunday paper on Sunday morning (her boys sold the paper). On one momentous occasion when he stopped for a coke he asked me to go to the movies with him. We had our first date on March 13, 1941 which was his 30th birthday. We went to Cleveland to the Ellis Theater. I can't remember the name of the film but I can remember new Highway 8 was under construction. That was the beginning of much togetherness. In fact I don't know how he ever got his crop in that year, but he did and made a good one. Anyway in July we had to make a decision. I was to be moved to a new work in the coal fields of West Virginia after my vacation in August. I was working under the auspices of the Women's Missionary Society and appointments were made at the conference. Ruel went to North Carolina with me when my vacation started and met my folks. We decided to get married in September and I resigned by job.
"God moves in mysterious ways" is certainly true of marriage. I had prayed for a husband for I wanted to be part of a family but never in my wildest dreams had I envisioned anyone as marvelous as Ruel. He was handsome, caring, ambitious and just a wonderful husband and father.
Ruel and a friend, Ray Mitchell came to North Carolina for the wedding. We were married before a full house ate the same church my parents were married in on September 27, 1941, a little over six months after we met. After the wedding we went south for a honeymoon to Charleston, Jacksonville, Marietta, Florida, Biloxi Mississippi then on home. Cotton harvest was in full swing and the fields were all white.
Perhaps I should back up and tell how Ruel happened to be in the Delta. His father had been a farmer in Calhoun County, Mississippi. When Ruel was about 13 they moved from the farm to Calhoun City where he opened a hardware store. One of the reasons for the move was so the children could have a better chance at an education and possibly so Mr. Turner would have less strenuous work. He was 40 years old when he married.
In the depression he lost the store and in the spring of 1931 they moved to the Delta to become sharecroppers. The Delta had more promise as farming land, but also he was thinking that Cleveland showed promise for the children's education. Ruel was a senior in high school that year and he stayed in Calhoun City to finish school when the family moved. They lived first on the bayou north of Cleveland, but later moved to Rosedale and Malvina where they were living in 1941. Their father had died in 1936 so the farming fell on Ruel and Hiram. They had started to buy a piece of land south of Malvina which they worked with the rented land where they lived. Farm work was still done mostly with mules and hand labor. Work was from dawn to dark, and keeping people on the job wasn't easy. Ruel was a good farmer though, and he knew if he didn't make a good crop not only his family but many others would suffer.
Ruel always regretted not having gone to college. I'm sure if he would have gone to college he would have become a coach, for he loved football. Anyway he came along at a time when money was scarce and also at a time when his family needed him to carry the load. He said he and a friend hitch-hiked to Moorhead to see about getting in at the small Junior College but they didn't have the few dollars to enroll. Ruel's role as head of the family I'm sure affected him in many ways. It made him mature before his time and also caused him to miss some things young people need in growing up.
The definite break he knew he must make when we got married wasn't easy. His family couldn't see his need to live his own life apart from them, but he knew at age 30 the time had come. Their dependency on him for 10 years had become ingrained. They felt he was thoughtless and not caring. It caused hard feelings the rest of his life, but he told me it was something he knew he must do. He had been a father person when he should have still been a son and brother.
We stayed in the Turner home from September to December and by then we had a house started on Dry Bayou, the name our farm took from a nearby creek. The house was finished and we moved in near the end of February, 1942. This house cost $3600 and was finished just before the war shortage affected prices and materials, for World War II had started December 7, 1941 with the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Just after we moved in the house I found I was pregnant and the threat of Ruel being drafted into military service became a danger, increasing as the year wore on. After the 1942 crop was gathered his brother Hiram had to go but Ruel was deferred as a farmer - at least temporarily. We didn't know what would happen next.
John Shinn Turner was born November 6, 1942. He was a beautiful baby but he cried a lot. We took him to a specialist in Greenwood when he was three months old and were told he was hungry. We weren't feeding him enough. I had thought I knew everything about being a parent and found out I knew nothing. We gave him all our attention and he did grow and develop despite my bumbling job of motherhood.
The war years were austere. There were some inconveniences like rationed gas and sugar and baby food. Really we were so bury that we couldn't travel anyway. I made a trip to North Carolina by train when Johnny was six months old. He took a bad cold from the change in climate and ran a high temperature but with Mama Shinn's nursing he got all right. Then I had to have an operation before I could come back to Mississippi. The trains and buses were so crowded that seats were non-existent, but we traveled first class and had a berth for the night which was reserved.
Harding, my brother, was in the Air Force and was learning to fly. He and a friend flew to Greenville Air Base and we drove down to pick them up. It rained so hard while they were on Dry Bayou that the roads were flooded and they couldn't get back to Greenville so they had to stay and extra day.
Mama Shinn got sick after hog killing in November 1951 and she never recovered. She died of pneumonia on February 24, 1952. I wrote down my thoughts on that day and I share them here.
The choir in the country church is singing "Precious Memories, How They Linger", then the preacher reads a scripture and says a few words about the good mother, the good woman who is being laid to rest. With a sob of pain, we realize that the time has come to rise from our seat and follow the body across the road to the cemetery. The mother that is being eulogized is my mother. The mother of my four brothers and two sisters. This is the first time death has come into our family circle.
There is a pause at the door as we button our coats and pull on our gloves. Outside it is cold and the snow is coming down in a blinding furry as it has been doing all day. The world outside is wrapped in a blanket of white. The beautiful flowers that are laid on the mound of fresh dirt stand out in sharp contrast to the surrounding blanket of white. After a few handshakes of sympathy, we get in the car with the rest of the family and return home to a home with something forever missing, a home that will be forever in our memories. We are all tearful, absorbed in our grief as we file back into the house.
Mother, a memory now and yet how precious a memory. It suddenly came to us if "Mom" was here now she would say "You children go get the snow and we'll have some snow cream". That was one of the first things our family thought about when there was a fresh snow.
So as the menfolk went out to get wood and stir up a fire, my sisters and I went to get the snow and stir up some milk, sugar, and vanilla to make snow cream.
Tomorrow the family would be scattered again. One brother to Atlanta, one to Washington, DC, me back to my family in Mississippi, and the ones who lived nearby to their homes. But now we were all together. I think Mama would like it for us to be eating snow ice cream around the fire and feeling again the family unity we had when we were growing up and we were her little boys and girls. She would like it that we were trying to comfort "Pop" and make the parting less painful for him.
But from this snow scene, I will take you back to another snow scene which marked the beginning of this family. I never tired of hearing about it when I was a little girl, and I often pestered Mama to tell me about the wedding.
It was April 20, 1904; usually spring in that section of North Carolina. The dogwood trees were in bloom and the church had been lavishly decorated with dogwood blossoms and greenery. The heater had been pushed aside for the decorations. Yet about noon on the wedding day it turned suddenly cold and started to snow. At the last minute the stove had to be uncovered and a fire made to heat the church. By five o'clock, the time of the wedding, the world was covered with a blanket of snow, but the wedding came off as planned. There is a write up of this wedding and a letter to her sister in Washington State (Aunt Lora Walter) that describes the wedding.
Mama was left an orphan at the age of fourteen when her mother died. Her father had died when she was about one and a half. Her mother was Martha Bradford and her father was Van Walter. Her mother had remarried John R. Whitley and she had a half sister (Ollie Whitley), but when her mother died she went to live with her sister, Aunt Annie Sapp and stayed with her until she married at age twenty one.
Mama had a deep Christian faith and a belief in hard work. This was the foundation upon which she built her life and home. Papa was an enterprising school teacher and making $25 a month when they married. He had saved enough to start buying a small farm and home into which they moved on the day they married.
Of course I wasn't born until later, being the fifth in a line of eight children. When I came along the family had moved to a place near Pop's parents. It was here that we grew up. It was here we were eating the snow cream. Here was the place of many memories.