~Memories~

MEMORIES OF MY MOTHER
BY CLYDE MAXEY

Before we get started let me set the record staight. Your mother didn't make the best biscuits, the best jelly or do the best needle work--MINE DID --of course I may be a bit biased.

The first memories of my mother are when we lived in the Edgewood community of Roanoke County. I am not sure which is the first memory for I was only about four when we moved away in 1931.
One of the things I remember is that I had diptheria and after I was well Mother was fumigating the house by burning sulpher in a dish placed in each room. For some unknown reason she ran her hand across the top of a door casing and cut her finger(s) on a razor blade that had been left there by someone for some reason. I can still see the blood and remember how scared I was
.
My Father kept a few chickens and sometimeas the hens would fly over the fence and she would catch them and cut the feathers off one wing so they couldn't fly and pitch them back in the lot.
I can see her holding and consoling me after I had accidently dug my playmate in the head with a garden hoe. I remember her holding me still while daddy picked the "snail shell" out of my ear that I had put in there while playing in some creek sand nearby
.
There are a few more memories of her at this place such as walking to Lakeside Amusement Park, riding the street car to Roanoke, giving me slivers ice when the iceman came and telling me that the black man selling watermellons from his wagon wouldn't hurt me.

When we left Edgewood, we moved to Crockett Springs on what was once part of my great grandfathers farm (it is now called Alta-Mons) and that is where my mothers' hard work really began. Daddy worked at the "shops". Although he was home most every night that left my mother to do all of the chores around the house such as getting up early to get his breakfast, milking and feeding the cow, tending to the chickens or anything else that needed doing. Sometimes when Daddy would board with Uncle John Dickerson they would get one of his nieces to stay with mother
.
Mother used to fry onions and make a poultice to put on my chest for the "croup" (or sometimes I think just because she wanted to have something to do.:) I can hardly stand the smell of frying onions to this day. She would put castor oil in milk and trick me into drinking it, a mean trick don't you think.
 Our water was piped into the house from a spring upon the side of the hill and I can see her putting a cloth over the end of the pipe to keep the little spring lizards out of our drinking water.

We left there and moved "upon the mountain" in the summer of 1933. This was on my grandfathers farm. She had it a little easier there for my Daddy was off on sick leave for a couple of years. I don't know what was wrong with him for he could still work the farm such as it was. At least she had help with the milking etc
.
I can see her walking the floor,crying, with bown paper and pepper that had been soaked in  vinegar wrapped around her head while suffering from headaches

. She would make kraut, and can about anything that grew either in the garden or wild. I remember her making soap once. About all of these things that she canned were either raised or picked by her. I have seen her stand at the old wood stove and wipe sweat off her nose to keep it from dripping into what ever she was cooking or canning.I wish I has some of the hog tenderloin or susage that she canned and sealed by pouring lard in the can. It sure was good the next summer with biscuits and gravy.

 When we moved into this house we inherited bed bugs and she would strip the beads, carry the matress and springs outside and using a chicken feather douse all of the coils and seams of the matress with "lamp oil" (kerosene)

We lived there for at least 3 years for I went to school there thru the third grade. Mother walked me to school on the first day but from then on I was on my own. ( I recently measured the distance and it was just a shade over two miles) She taught me to tie my shoes with a bow knot
.
I don't know at what time period it was but daddy worked at the "shops" so she again had the chores to do.Daddy had plowed a patch for potatoes and we had to plant them. We spread the fertlizer and dropped and covered them. My uncle told her that since she hadn't covered the fertlizer the potatoes wouldn't come up. I think she cried but we got busy digging them up and replanting when daddy came in and stopped us. All of the potatoes came up at the same time
.
When we would need sugar,soda etc I would catch a couple of chickens, using a wire with a hook on the end and we would carry them, butter and eggs about two and a half miles to the nearest store where they would be traded for the above items.
That was a long walk for a little 4 year old girl. Once in awhile there would be enough left for a couple sticks of penny candy for me and my sister. We would eat lunch with my Aunt Pearl and head back up the mountain to all the chores that waited.
 
I don't want to paint a picture of gloom because we had fun as we worked and then there were picnics and reunions that must be attended. Also there were Easter egg hunts for eggs that she had boiled and colored. We laughed a lot as well as crying some

Mother made a lot of our clothes, especially my sisters,and did a lot of patching my overalls. She was proud of her stiching which was done by hand.

We left the mountain and moved to near the Town of Floyd in order for my sister and I to have better schools. That was in October of 1936 and the house had three rooms 2 down and one up. The one used for the kitchen didn't have any covering on the  walls so you can imagine how cold it was in the winter. Mother used to set the water bucket on the stove so the ice would thaw and we could get the dipper out
 
Mother would get breakfast, milk the cows etc and then come to the field to hoe corn or what ever else she could do. About eleven she would go to the house to get dinner ready for the rest of us, after dinner she would go back to the field untill milk time and then get supper for us.She always wore a bonnet and dresses with long sleeves while working in the fields. The bonnet wrapped around the sides of her face and she would get extremely hot  All of this was done in addition to washing our clothes and doing the other house work.
 
In the winter time after supper was over and the dishes was washed she would bring out her quilt pieces and piece quilts untill bed time. Also in the winter days she would work on the quilts and patching. After she had enough squares for a quilt they would be joined together and "put in" meaning it was fastened to quiltting frames that most of the time hung from the ceiling so it could be pulled up at night. Most of the time the neighbors were called in for a day of quilting and gossiping.

 After we go a radio she would listen to a couple of Soap Operas. Since the radio was battery operated, she would turn the sound down and sit with her ear close to it to save the battery, so she thought.

When she made biscuits or cornbread she would always mix it with her hands. One time I was playing in the yard and she had taken her pan of corn meal to the spring to get milk she came back u the path saying "I have drowned the miller." I thought she was talking about a moth and went flying down to see what kind it was. She began to laugh because what she meant was she had put too much milk in the pan for the amount of meal so the mixture was real thin. We ate a lot of corn bread and cornmeal mush.

At butchering time, which was usually on Thanksgiving day, because that was the day daddy had off from the shops, she would take the entrails and strip the fat from them for "gut" lard. After the other meat was trimmed of the fat she would put in a big pot and render the lard from it by boiling it untill it was "done" and then dipping out all she could get with the dipper, straining it through a cloth and putting it in a big crock. To get all of the fat out of the cracklins she would squeeze them through a cloth. The skins would be put in the oven and baked untill they were tender therefore getting the grease from them. They were good to eat also. There wasn't much wasted although we didn't eat the chitterlings Some of the craklins would be put in a corn meal mix for "craklin bread". Then there was sausage to be ground, packed down in crocks or canned, souse to be made from the head and don't forget the liver puddin'
Life was not easy but we had love for each other
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I have seen my mother cry because her fingers were so cold from milking the cows or doing other chores in the early winter mornings.

Sometimes she had to be both mother and father to me and my sister because daddy would be working at the "shops" and a lot of the time was just home on the week ends.

About the time I turned 12 I had to be mama's little man. Along with my sister we would help do the morning and evening chores such as getting in the wood for the stoves and or fireplace, gathering the eggs, feeding the stock and making sure they had a warm place for the night.
Iris and I usually ended up in a spat about who was doing the most.
As I grew a little older I would plow the corn and mother and Iris would hoe it for back then corn had to be plowed three times
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I can see her standing at the stove making buckwheat cakes for breakfast. She would bake them three at a time in a long griddle that just fit the eyes of the stove. ( I still have the griddle)

As time went on and I married and had a family of my own she was always there if needed and always wanted to do something for the grandchildren.
After daddy died in 1971 she moved to Roanoke to Melrose Towers where she became involved in the quilting etc.
When Johnnie Criner, Donnie Thomas Melva Jean Dickerson or some one else and I  would go there to sing for the elderly you could see the pride in her eyes as we sang

This is just the tip of the iceberg as far as memories of my mother go because I am like the rest of you,our memories of our mothers would fill a lot of pages.

She had a stroke in 1980 , entered a nursing home and died in 1986.
It just broke my heart to go see her in the nursing home and look at her all slumped over in her chair, about half dressed and her food getting cold.
I was at her bedside when she passed on to be with the Jesus that she talked about so much. I thought she didn't know what she was saying but maybe she knew something I didn't
I just hope I am living a life that will permit me to see her some day.

jist ole clyde