Palm Sunday at our church today

Elba United Methodist Church http://www.elbaumc.org/

Today we attended Palm Sunday services, morning and evening, at Elba United Methodist Church were we are members. It was a nice sunny day and flowers are blooming everywhere.

As we stood to sing "Hosanna", the little children started coming down the aisles of the church waving palm branches and placed them at the base of the large cross on the left side of the front of the sancuary. The dark black cross has been in the church since the beginning of lent, and is draped with a bright purple length of cloth. On Easter Sunday, the children will again march down the aisles of the church and place fresh bouquets of flowers at the cross, completely covering the front part of the cross. Easter lilies will be placed along the railing in front of the altar. I am posting a picture for last year of the lilies. We won't be here for Easter this year since we plan to visit Jim's mother in NC on Thurs and Fri, and on to SC to our son Bill's Fri. afternoon for the week-end. We will attend the catholic Easter mass on Sunday with Bill and family.

One of my favorite Easter's was in 1986 when we were living in Haleyville, AL (Winston Co. in north Ala, near the Bankhead Forest). We bought a large house in the country near the forest and there was a small lake on the east side of the house. We had only been there about 4 months. Several of my family came to visit us that Easter. We decided to have an Easter sunrise service near the small lake, under the big oak trees with azaleas and bulbs blooming all around. I invited nearby neighbors (many I had not met) to come share with us and have breakfast. Several showed up, either walking or riding bikes, and some came in cars.

We had met a retired Methodist minister earlier and invited him to come and be our speaker. He was confined to a wheelchair and he and his wife joined us for the service. Rev. Gus Buttram lived in the Bankhead forest and had a camp meeting facility there where people came every summer. His sister lived nearby and helped cook meals there. They became our best friends. Gus had a brother in California that used to play Mr. Haney on Green Acres (Pat Buttram). We never got to meet him.

Back to our sunrise service- my nephews Andrew and Alex, made a cross our of some lumber and planted it in the ground. Andrew insisted that we drape the cross in purple, a royal color. I managed to find some purple cloth for him to use. They gathered fresh flowers and placed at the foot of the cross. We sang some Easter songs and then Mr. Gus read the Bible and talked about Jesus' rising from the dead, etc. What a beautiful service. It was cold and we really appreciated the hot coffee and homemade biscuits with ham and sausage after the service. My sisters prepared the food and we had a table in the garage where we served breakfast. This is a good way to get to know your neighbors.

After lunch we all gathered around the little pond and were soaking up the warm sun and some of the kids fishing and running about. Our neighbor's son passed by on his way to visit his parents (next farm over) and asked his mother about the new neighbors. He said they were lying ourdoors, all over the place. She had been at the breakfast and explained to him that they were visiting the Gilmers, and not all were living there!

Trip to Auburn University

Lucy Luck, Nell Gilmer, Jane Jesson

Today I traveled to Auburn University Conference Center with two of my DAR friends. We attended the National Defense Luncheon at the Alabama State DAR annual conference. I have been going to the Ala. state meetings every year since 1997. It's fun to renew old acquaintances that you only see once a year.

My first visit to Auburn University (it was called Auburn Polytecnic Institute or API back then) was in July 1949 when I went to a 4-H summer conference for county winners. I don't remember why I was selected to go. There were 3 of us 4-H members who rode to Auburn with the Extension Agent for the 3-day event. I had never been on a college campus although Troy State Teachers College was only 36 miles from home. I never had an occasion to visit a college campus. When we arrived at Auburn, we stayed in a dorm on the quadrangle. I remember going to the dining hall and to an auditorium and I really don't remember any other buildings on campus. You can see the clock tower in the picture here, behind the chemistry building. One day we went to a picnic and swimming at Lake Chewacla. I remember thinking that it was rather crowded in the small dorm room with twin beds and small closets. There was no air conditioning and I remember how hot it was in the dorm room at night. I don't remember if there was even a fan.

One evening we walked across the campus to a reception at the home of the college president. I wonder if they still invite students to come to their home?

The college is so big now that it must really be intimidating to incoming Freshmen. Lots of new buildings. But some of the old buildings are still there and are beautiful. One such building is Samford Hall with the big clock tower. This was across the street from the convention center where we were today.

It's Fertilizer Weather

Today I spent some time fertilizing 36 trees at the new Elba playground. The man at the nursery told me what to buy; a time release nursery fertilizer: 14,7,7. What he didn't tell me was that the price has almost doubled since the last time I bought it. A small bag is now $15! And I had to buy two to have enough for all the trees.

All my life I've know about the virtues of fertilizer. And all the different kinds, etc. When I was growing up we had organic fertilizer, not the synthetic kind that runs off the soil and poisons lakes and streams.

Daddy used cow manure, horse manure, chicken manure, rotten sawdust, to count a few. They used to make compost heaps, adding lime to layers to make the materials go through a heat. Now I go to the nursery or farm coop store and actually buy cow manure in a yellow bag. I was reluctant to do this a few years ago but found it is a great thing for roses.

Daddy used guano (nitrogen) to put into the soil when he planted peanuts. My job was to open up the big bags and take buckets of fertilizer to dump into the big "hopper" which was in front of the planter. Then when the corn was about knee high, we had to carry bags on our shoulder, hanging in front of us and filled with soda (ammonia sulfate) - tiny white pellets that made the corn grow. It's no wonder we didn't die from over exposure to all those chemicals since we handled them with our hands.

Daddy's vegetable garden thrived on the animal manure spread over the area and turned under with a plow or disk. When we first moved back to the farm, our neighbor gave us a load of chicken house fertilizer and it was fine until it rained and the sun came out and that was the worse odor I've ever smelled - hot ammonia scent filled the air. It finally went away. No more of that!

Jim put too much nitrogen on his pea patch one time and the vines grew like kudzu. I don't think he had many peas; all leaves. And then the Japanese beetles discovered them and had a good meal, eating the leaves and leaving the pea stalks sticking up into the air.

Planting a community flower garden

Yesterday I helped some members of the Magnolia Garden Club in Elba prepare and plant a flower garden in one of the old flower beds left on the site after the old school was demolished in 2006 to make way for the new playground. They chose the smaller flower bed in the background, nearest the playground.


First the flower bed had to be cleaned out and debris and weeds and grass removed from inside the planted to a depth of about 20 inches. After this was completed by volunteers, a load of good topsoil was donated and delivered to the site on March 3, 2008.

Several garden club members met at the site on Friday, March 7 to begin spreading the topsoil and leveling it inside the planter. Then a white Natchez crepe myrtle tree was planted in the center of the flower bed. As a certified Master Gardener, I was the advisor to the group and furnished the tree that I had propagated in the summer of 2006. I also furnished some yellow coreopsis plants to put in the center of the flowerbed underneath the tree. They will plant lantana shrubs in the outer part of the circle and let them casdade over the brick on the outside.   Below is a photo of the new playground and the 36 trees planted.

Mama Wilson, My Mentor

Mama Wilson (Fannie Malissa)

My grandmother Wilson (Fannie Melissa Grimes) taught me so many things. She was the fourth child in a family of 14 brothers and sisters. She was born on Dec. 2, 1883 and was 83 when she died on Jan. 20, 1966. She married James Arthur Wilson on Feb. 9, 1908 at her home in Curtis community. She spent her entire life in the Curtis community as did many of her brothers and sisters. She was only 20 when her father died of typhoid fever in 1903 at age 47. Her mother lived to be 92 and died when I was in high school. I remember her very well and used to visit her often. Someday I will write what I remember about her.


We lived with Mama and Papa Wilson when I was growing up. She taught me how to sew on her old treadle sewing machine. First I had to learn to sew by hand with a needle and thread. I was always loosing my needle (and I still have this problem). I made doll clothes from scraps Mama would give me. Then one day she allowed me to sew on the sewing machine and I felt I was really grown up (around age 7 or 8). Mama was a good seamstress and sewed for ladies in Opp and Elba. This was during WWII and many things were rationed. Mama would take apart men's suits and make the ladies nice suits from the wool fabric. She helped me cut out dresses from chicken feed sacks and then showed me how to sew them. Often she made her own patterns. I was always so proud of my "home made" dresses and wore them with pride.


Mama Wilson was a tall lady and large frame. She was bigger than Papa Wilson. She always looked so pretty when she got dressed up and wore makeup - on special days. Mostly I remember how hard she worked on the farm, getting up early in the morning. She was the best cook and I would love to have one of her light biscuits and her bread pudding. Everything she cooked was so good. Her food had a cajun flavor - lots of pepper and tomatoes. When i was young, she would cook smoked link sausage (fry them until they were well done) and make red eye gravy and serve them with hot biscuits and whipped cream! I remember her little blue ceramic crock pot (bowl) she always made the whipped cream in, using a rotary beater.


We wanted a goat real bad to pull our little wagon. Daddy gave in and we got a billy goat from a neighbor. (Later learned they gave it to us because he was so mean.) He kept getting out of the pen and we would have to chase him and put him back inside. One day Mama Wilson was outside in the yard, bending over doing something and our Billy goat spotted her and ran to her and butted her with his horns. That was the end of our Billy. He moved on someplace else.


I didn't see Mama Wilson very often after I left home for college at age 17. She was close to 69 years old by this time, and seemed very old to me. Most of my memories of her are when she was much younger. I remember when she always baked sweet potatoes and opossum for her brothers and other neighbors to enjoy once a year in the fall. She lost her sense of smell and taste when she aged. I remember when she rubbed Watkin's vanilla flavoring on my brother and cousin when they were little boys and got stung by honey bees at one of our bee hives. She thought she was using Watkins linament. I guess they both had alcohol in them and soothed the skin where they were stung.


I always smile when I think about Mama Wilson. She had the sweetest smile and twinkling eyes. And I loved her so much.

James Lawrence Wilson - my dad when he was 3

I love this photo of our dad when he was a little boy, 3 years old. It must have been taken in the spring or summer since he is barefoot and there are leaves on the bush behind him. Notice the clean-swept yard. And it was probably Sunday since he has on a "dressy" white shirt.


James Lawrence Wilson was born November 23, 1914. His parents were James Arthur Wilson and Fannie Melissa Grimes. He was 4 years old when his sister, Mattie Lena was born. She was named for her Aunt Mattie Wilson Danley (Papa Wilson's sister) and Aunt Lena (Uncle Frank Wilson's wife). I guess daddy was named for Papa Wilson (James) but I don't know anybody in the family that was named Lawrence. Maybe they just liked that name. In olden days children were usually named after someone.


My daddy could do anything he set his mind to do. He was a first class "shade tree" mechanic. He continued to work on cars until he died at age 67 from cancer. He was a farmer, carpenter, mechanic, and pretty good cook after our mother died at age 48 in 1963. He married again to Frances Mock Watson from Opp in the summer of 1967.


Daddy could make delicious peanut brittle, using an old iron skillet. He was pretty good at making jelly, jam, and preserves. And of course frying fish outdoors in a big fryer. I don't remember him ever cooking when I was living at home. I do remember that he would buy a burlap (croker) sack of fresh oysters and shuck them for us to eat with crackers. We would sit outside under the big pecan tree and he would open the oysters with his pocket knife and place them on a board near the ground. Chris, Sue and I would "lap them up". I couldn't swallow one of those slimy things now, even if I was starving!


On Sunday mornings I remember trudging to Pond Creekin the "back 40" with him, before daylight sometimes, to check his "trot lines" to see if he had caught any mudcats. And usually he would have several of those ugly, dark slimy fish with whiskers. We would bring them back home and he would skin them and we'd have them for breakfast. All of this took place before time to get dressed to go to Sunday School at 10 a.m. Other times we would get salt fish from a truck that would stop by selling them. You had to soak them first to remove some of the pickling salt before you fried them. I would love to have some salt fish again and my favorite, even to this day, the strong, dark meat mullet from the gulf or bay. Maybe it's time to go to Ft Walton, FL and eat some good mullet (which Jim does NOT like).


Other Sat. or Sun. mornings, he would shoot the squirrels in the pecan trees (stealing our pecans) and skin them and Mama Wilson would fry them (like chicken) and make gravy and biscuits to eat with them. I remember that we would eat anything that our daddy ate. I don't remember mother eating squirrels and oysters.


Other things we ate were quail, rabbits, opossums (a yearly ritual for Mama Wilson to cook for her brothers) and I don't remember what else. Once I grew up and left home, I never had these "delicious meals" again.


When I grew up and got married and moved away, it was always so special to come home and eat "good food". Daddy planted things late in the summer to have at Thanksgiving, i.e., peas and tomatoes. He always planted too much so he could share with his neighbors, even picking the vegetables for them and taking them to friends and neighbors.


I miss his pear and fig preserves which he cooked until they were dark and almost candied and his peanut brittle made with cane syrup. And his watermelons and sweet corn. And corn bread made from extra fine cornmeal, water and salt and cooked in pones in a black skillet with lots of hot oil, until there was a crust around the bread and soft inside. Sometimes we would eat the cornbread with buttermilk for supper at night.

Remembering a great lady

Mrs. Jimmie Lou Cowen was laid to rest yesterday, Feb. 29, at New Ebenezer (Curtis) cemetery between Elba and Opp, AL, in the area where she was born and spent all of her 89 years. Our family and her family grew up together. Her oldest daughter Janice and I were the same age and the oldest child in each family. Her 10 children and the 7 children in my family are like one big family. She had 6 girls and 4 boys and all are living except one daughter Corinne who died of cancer a few years ago. Miss Jimmie Lou never got over her death. Her husband, Enoch Cowen died in 1984. They were married 54 years.


The funeral was held at New Ebenezer Baptist church where she was a member all her life and the current pastor and a past pastor talked about the life she led and so many personal things that they wanted to share. One was that they never heard say anything bad about anybody, ever.

Picture here with her are son Jeff and his wife Sharon and Mary, who is sitting next to her mother.


Miss Jimmie Lou's house was always open for people to stop by to visit and eat some of her delicious teacakes or 7 layer chocolate cake which she always had on hand to share. She was a great cook.


When we moved to our farm in 1996, it was like coming home again after being away for 42 years and living by her again. She and my mother had been best friends and mother had died in 1963 and I like to think that I filled the void when I came back. Miss Jimmie Lou and I saw each other almost every day and talked on the phone. When I had my knee replaced in 1997, she would cook food and bring to us and then when I had to go to the hospital for therapy, she took me there for about 4 weeks, until I could drive again. We would always call each other before going to town (8 miles one way) and see if we needed anything, and usually we did.


She shared news of her children and grandchildren and showed me pictures of the new babies, etc. She had 27 grandchildren and 41 great grandchildren and 5 great great grandchildren, including twins born to Ed's son Eddie and his wife about 3 weeks ago.


When I was growing up, I remember that on Sat. afternoons she would become the beauty operator and rolled hair for some of the ladies (Dot Donaldson and Maggie Donaldson). At other times she would give home permanents to ladies in the community. She sewed and made her daughters dresses and clothes for others sometimes. She had a big freezer and it was always full of things she kept there to cook delicious meals for her children when they would come to visit. The things I remember most were her tea cakes and 7 layer chocolate cakes. I have her recipe for making the thin chocolate icing she made for her cakes. I could never duplicate her dumplings.


I helped the WMU ladies at the church put together a family cookbook a few years ago and it contains many of Miss Jimmie Lou's recipes. Her dishes were always sought out at the pot luck dinners at church and reunions. I especially remember her delicious chicken and dressing. In the picture below, only Sara Donaldson and Dot Daniels are still living. Dot is around 89.

Miss Jimmie Lou was a beautiful lady and loved pretty clothes. Until just the past few weeks, she went to the beauty shop every Wed. to get her hair shampooed and styled. She wanted to look nice; and she did.


She is pictured here on the right, along with Lucille Foley.

I will miss her telephone calls, asking about my sisters who live far away. Or to tell me that one of her children would be coming for a visit (that lived away from this area). She used to bake things to send to her son Charles in Tennessee. She looked after her 4 boys, and they were attentive to their mother. In later years the girls all took turns looking after their mother and the last few months took turns staying with her.


Curtis community will not be the same anymore with Miss Jimmie Lou gone. She has joined others who were still living when we retired and came back to Elba area. These include Dot Donaldson, Jessie Lee Donaldson, Lena Grimes, Bernice Grimes, and others.