Daughters - of a different kind

I belong to a group of daughters (Daughters of the American Revolution) and today was our annual meeting, a brunch at the Charleton House in Enterprise.


I became a member of the DAR when we were living in Winston-Salem, NC in 1980. My sister Christine and I became interested in our Smith ancestors when our cousin Harris Winston from Elba gave me a copy of our Smith family history that was printed in 1905. We were living not too far from Reidsville, NC where our ancestor came and settled on land he received for his bravery in the French and Indian War. We spent several months searching for the old family cemetery and finally we found it. Chris applied for membership in the DAR, using info we were able to obtain about John and Samuel Smith, who were Quakers from PA.


After Chris joined, she encouraged me to apply for membership, using her national number. Since that time, I have belonged to chapters in SC, AL, and GA - wherever we were living.
I am currently a member of the John Coffee DAR Chapter, founded in 1964 by Miss Eunora Farris from Elba. We are a very diverse group in ages, education, hometowns, interests, etc.
I have been a member of this chapter since 1996 and have met so many nice ladies. Most of our members live in Enterprise.


We all have one thing in common - genealogy and interest in our family history. We are a very patriotic group and work to promote patriotism in the schools and our country. Check out this website to learn more about the DAR: http://www.dar.org/


Looking around the room today, I recalled that many of the ladies were from military families and have lived all over the world. This makes for very interesting conversations when we get together. They especially enjoy presenting the ROTC medal every year to an Enterprise High School student.


This year we submitted 2 community service award applications. One has already made its way from local to state, to region, and now to the National Society of Daughters of the American Revolution and just last week we received the medal and a certificate to present to her.


Another set of papers has been submitted for the Just Folk Coffee House and volunteers . We are hoping they will both get a lst, 2nd or 3rd place at each level!!


Several members of our group will travel to Auburn in March to attend the state conference and our district in the SE will have duties to perform. Dress codes have changed over the years; no more hats and gloves and suits and high heels. While the dress code is still conservative and white gloves are worn to a couple of events, it is more contemporary fashion-oriented.


My sister and I attended the National DAR meeting in 1983 in Washington, DC. at the beautiful Constitution Hall. Check out this website for a virtual tour of the DAR Headquarters in Washington, DC.: http://www.dar.org/omni/virtualtours/hq/con_hall.html


I belong to several groups, organizations, clubs, etc. and they are all very different. DAR is one of my favorites. Maybe someday my 5 granddaughters will want to join and they can use my national number for membership, or they can use any of my 9 supplemental numbers for other ancestors I have documented. Actually my sister Christine did all the research for the additional ancestors and I was able to connect to her supplemental numbers. I have the most ancestors  of anyone in my chapter.


On my mother's side (Smith, Mayberry) I have the following Revolutionary patriot ancestors: Samuel Smith, NC; Nathaniel Allen, VA; James Spratling,VA; John Byars, VA; William Cole, VA.
Revolutionary Patriot Ancestors from my father's side (Wilson, Grimes) include these: Felix Frederick, NC; James Grimes,Sr.,NC; John Garrett, VA; James Wilson, GA; Stephen Darden, VA.

My Dream: A Safe Place for Children to Play in Elba

I grew up in a time when we played outdoors all day and occasionally would go to a surrounding town and see swings and a sliding board in a park area. Sometimes we would get to play on them for a short time and then would go home and make our own "park". We would have see-saws by placing a long board across a saw-horse and play for hours, or until the board would break! Our slide was usually a dirt slide down a red clay bank (for which we got into trouble). My favorite place to slide was the big sawdust pile near my dad's sawmill. We would climb the tall mountain of sawdust, get on a piece of cardboard and go flying down the tall hill. I can still smell the pine wood sawdust. Ahhh.. Swings were a big harder to make. Sometimes daddy would let us use one of his cotton ropes he used to attach to the harness of the mule when he plowed the garden. He would attach it to one of the big pecan tree limbs and we had so much fun pushing each other as high as we could, and then run underneath them.

One day a friend and I went to the woods and "sawed down" a big poplar tree to make a "flying Jennie". We had seen one at a friend's house and decided to build our own. After we got the tree to the ground, we couldn't figure out how to drag it about mile to the house so we had to leave it in the woods. So we forgot about that project.

A few years after the new Curtis school was built and I think I was in the 3rd or 4th grade, we got some playground equipment at the school. I think it included a metal slide and a few swings, and a real see-saw. We had to take turns to use the playground and my favorite thing was the sliding board. It was much nicer than sliding down dirt banks.

Over the years, we would take our children to parks and let them play on the equipment. We always had places for them to play in our yard, including tree houses. They would go outside and spent hours playing. Of course this was before we had TV or there were programs for kids to watch. 

I'm leading up to something very important to me. I have been part of a group who wanted a safe place for children to play in Elba. We raised funds in 2005-2006 to build a very nice playground at the site of the old Elba High School. It was built in one week by many volunteers.

We chose to use expensive plastic wood (made from milk cartons) and it had to be shipped from Minnesota. This increased the cost of the playground by about $50,000. But in the end it was worth it. No maintenance and no splinters as with treated wood, but it looks like wood and is beautiful.

For the past two years we have been seeking a grant to complete Tiger Town Park. Restrooms are needed, a large pavilion (for shade from the hot sun, as well as birthday parties for the little kids) and a concrete amphitheater that will seat 200 kids and will be attached the back of the old high school facade (which will be restored). The grant was approved and now the business of securing bids for a contractor has become a reality!! In the local Elba Clipper today there in the Legal section of the ads, is the advertisement for bids. I was so excited when I read that.

The winner (low bidder) will be announced at the first city council meeting in February and the contractor will have 90 days to complete the project.

So, by May 2009, Tiger Town Park should be completed. It is located downtown, near eating places, city hall, police station, library and the court house - all within walking distance. This will be something our city can be proud of for many years to come.

How to get a bigger closet in the bedroom

When we were looking for a house in Elba in 2003, we bought one that had been moved to a new location and placed in the middle of two town lots. We liked the floor plan and knew it could be adapted for our family - except for one thing. We just weren't sure how we would handle sharing a 2' deep, double closet in our bedroom. I can't remember ever having to share a closet with Jim. And this is definitely not a walk-in with storage. We decided we could use the closet in the guest bedroom for out of season clothing, coats, etc. After one year of doing all the "swapping" from one closet to another, I started wishing for a bigger closet. This started 4 years ago.


When it came time to move summer clothes from the bedroom closet to the guest room closet, I made up my mind to pack everything in a big box that I did not wear that summer and take it to Christian Mission store. Then I slowly brought my winter wardrobe into my side of the double closet. Something happened along the way. My clothes seemed to multiply each time I brought some to the bedroom closet. So..... I started packing another box to take to Christian Mission. Jim began to worry that I wouldn't have anything left to wear.


When you retire, you wear a pair of jeans or old pants and a couple of knit shirts most of the time. Mostly I need dress up clothes only on Sunday. At least my side of the closet isn't so crowded. I even got rid of some of my shoes. Who needs all of those shoes anyway, I thought.


I think Jim began to worry that I might come to his side of the closet and start getting rid of some of his things. I saw him with a ruler measuring the outside wall of the bedroom and going outside and running a line as if getting ready to add on to the house. When I questioned him, he said he was trying to figure out how to add on a room for a big bath area on one side and two walk-in closets on the opposite wall so I could have my own closet. Needless to say, I liked the idea.



Then I remembered the whirlpool tub in my sister's B&B and thought that would be a nice thing to have in our new bath. Just imagine 10 jets putting out warm water onto your aching bones. Ahhhh.... And Jim decided he wanted a step-in shower in one of the corners. This idea came about be cause he was having a problem lifting his left leg due to a sciatic nerve and this made it very difficult to get into our tub to use the shower. We could both justify those two new items for the bath due to our aging bodies. This past Saturday found us shopping and looking at and measuring tubs, showers, vanities, toilets (the high rise ones).


We keep adding square feet to the new room to get things in it that we want. The door will be wide enough between the bedroom and bath for a wheelchair to pass through. We looked at grab bars to install in the shower and tub. Today Jim has been busy making a drawing on graph paper and figuring out where things will go. Hopefully when the builder comes back in a week or two, we will know exactly what we want. The next step is to see how much all of this will cost. I really do want to tell our current bathroom "good bye" and move to a much bigger, better one, and leave the old one for guests.


Tomorrow afternoon, we are planning to make templates of the tub, shower base, toilet, vanity, window placement, etc. and draw the design on graph paper. Our plumber friend suggested we do this and he made suggestions about where to put the water lines, etc.


Every time we built a house in the past, we have said "never again" and after awhile you forget all the stress and take on another project. They have always turned out to be just what we wanted because we did a lot of planning before we began.


When we started looking for a smaller home in Elba, it wasn't easy finding what we wanted, and a good neighborhood. To compensate for lack of storage space in the house (we declared we were not going to put things in the attic as it is difficult to get up and down the ladder), we ended up buying a large storage building to put in the back yard. And that has become so crowded even though I am constantly getting rid of things. If only I didn't "save" so many things.


When we were young we built split-level and even a 3-level home, and ran up and down stairs all the time. Not so these days. Today, I want all my clothing in one big closet. I might end up going shopping for some new clothes when I get my big closet. And about the old closet in our bedroom. The folding doors will be taken down and the opening closed. Then our son's closet behind out closet will be enlarged to take in our space and he too will have a walk in closet of 4'. He needs shelves in his closet and a place to put his 200+ hat collection.


You can bet we will be ready for the builder when he comes, and I'll want to know when he can get started. Our plans are "awesome"; I won't have to share a closet anymore. I' m thinking I might put a lock on my closet door so Jim won't be inspecting it to see if my shoes are lined up and hangers all hanging in the same direction.

New Year's Day 2009

In Alabama, you must eat a meal of pork (or hog jowl), black-eyed peas, and greens on New Year’s Day to ensure good luck in the year ahead. Hog jowl symbolizes health (believe it or not, it contains so much fat that is not good for you), black-eyed peas represent good luck, and greens (originally cabbage, but mustard, turnip or collard greens are used also) symbolize money. (Some people substitute ham hocks, ham, or salt pork for hog jowl.) Of course crusty brown cornbread, baked in a big iron skillet, is always on our table.


When I was growing up, Mama Wilson always cooked a hog's head for New Year's * and made hash from the meat, and served it with hot barbecue sauce. I would not eat the meat because it came from the hog's head. I remember that she also cooked the brains, the tongue and pickled the ears(?). I've seen pickled pigs feet in the grocery store but I've never seen any in a cart at the check out! Mama served the hog's head with dirty rice, candied yams (sweet potatoes cut in slices and baked with spices and cane syrup. And of course turnips with roots chopped up, along with the black-eyed peas. For dessert, there were all the left overs from Christmas.


* HOG HEAD CLEANED AND COOKED
4 to 6 white potatoes. Salt as desired Pepper as desired Garlic cloves or Garlic salt as desired
After hog's head has been cleaned take a sharp ax and split head open lengthwise. Remove brains, eyes and tongue. Then chop around the jawbone to remove teeth. Wash well and remove all small bones. You may want to save some for New Year's for your good luck black eye peas. If so cut in small pieces and freeze. Boil the remainder with salt, pepper and garlic, cooking down until most of liquid is gone. Add a few potatoes or make scrapple or hog head cheese.


In later years I have carried on some of these traditions. Especially cooking black-eyed peas. And of course corn bread. I don't remember New Years in Minnesota. We were probably snow bound and didn't get out. I remember looking out the back windows to see if the Burlington Northern train was on time in the afternoon, and if so, then "all's right with the world". Sometimes they had to wait to have the railroad tracks cleared after blizzards.


Over the years we would buy fireworks for the boys to shoot off but so many cities don't allow fireworks anymore. We had fun with fireworks, shooting them out over the lake when we lived on the farm (1996-2004). In fact, my nephew called me a "pyro" because I loved to burn things outside and the bigger the fire the more exciting it was! We usually ended up throwing a pile of small firecrackers on the fire just to have a big bang and get rid of them.



I didn't always wait up to see the New Year come in, especially when the boys were young. For the past several years we have watched the ball drop in NY City, thanks to big screen TV's. I guess you would call that our "celebration" of the new year. After that, we have another hour until midnight here in Alabama. We enjoy watching the fireworks from other countries around the world. Here's a photo of the New Year's ball at Times Square in 2009.


Okay, we had black-eyed peas cooked with a ham bone, steamed cabbage, left-over pork tenderloin, deviled eggs, and fresh baked skillet cornbread with butter. Nobody wanted a dessert after all of this. Does this special meal guarantee that we will have Good Luck in 2009? We'll have to believe that we will have good luck, and forge into the new year with lots of fortitude and optimism. And for old folks like us, we especially pray for good health in the new year.

My 74th Christmas has come and gone

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We had a nice visit with our youngest son and his 3 daughters for the past 3 days.


Nerissa, a Clemson college sophmore, said the best thing was getting to stay up late, sleep late, and not going to classes. She was excited about making all A's the fall semester. We're equally proud of our granddaughter Katie who is a high school senior and made all A's which exempts her from having to take finals when school starts back in January. Our 7th grade granddaughter said it didn't seem like Christmas since it was so warm and humid while they were here from S.C. And to think we spent a lot of time gathering kindling and firewood so we could use our big fireplace at Christmas. We had to turn on the air conditioner instead.


Christmas Day was a lot of fun. We all gathered in the living around the tree at 9 A.M., before breakfast to open presents. There were lots of presents from our older son and his family in Austin, TX. He is recovering from surgery on his nose and they couldn't be with us this year. We will go to visit him in the spring when bluebonnets are blooming.

Some of our gifts were a bit unusual - like the new iron and ironing board I asked for. I would never go out and buy a Rowenta iron with a platinum sole plate, so I asked for one for Christmas and Santa brought me one. My old ironing board has been around about 35 years and it was time for a new one that didn't rock when you tried to iron on it. I dislike ironing (don't do too much anymore) but with my new iron I might even start creasing our pants and ironing the entire shirt or blouse, not just the collars!


 James makes a list each year and mails it to Santa. He wants pretty much the same thing every year. For about 20 years, he has wanted a Red Flyer wagon and we never get him one. This year his brother and his wife from TX sent him a wagon and it is his favorite present. They thought it was time he got what he wanted!




We all had so much fun opening our gifts and trying them out. I wasn't sure what some of the electronic items were for; for instance, an Ipod Touch. But granddaughter Caroline was so thrilled to get one of these from Santa. Then there were Ipod music cards, blu-Ray DVD's, and some other things I didn't know anything about. 


Katie finally got a North Face jacket.
Nerissa got bathroom shelves and an indoor-outdoor thermometer that were on her list.


We had a late breakfast and our Christmas Day meal was mid afternoon when we had spiral cut ham, along with veggies and salad, and praline cheesecake and Corsicana, TX fruitcake.


Friday was a "lazy" day. Jim and Bill played golf and the girls and I enjoyed watching movies, looking at our gifts, with the girls all playing games on our computers or sending messages to friends. Friday evening we had a family night at a movie in Enterprise. Jim stayed home with our son James (who is afraid of the dark in the theater and doesn't like to go). I saw Benjamin Buttons with the 3 girls while our son Bill went to Valkrie, alone. He said the girls love to go to movies but it is so expensive to go as a family - sometimes around $75 if they don't grab the matinee and if they buy popcorn and drinks.


Today they left here at 7:30 A.M. heading back to Florence, SC and the SUV was really loaded with 4 people and all their Christmas gifts, suitcases, etc. A call later this afternoon was to let us know they made it back safe and sound, and good weather. Now they have a week at home before school starts back Jan. 5th.


Christmas is so much fun when you are with family. Last year we were alone and after we opened our gifts, Christmas was over! It was much more fun this year.


I think we're the only people on the street with outdoor decoratations still up and lights burning. I try to make it last 2 or 3 days after Christmas. As you can see, I LOVE Christmas.

Christmas Eve 2008

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8 A. M. Well, it's finally here - Christmas Eve. And James is patiently waiting beside the tree. Why does it come so fast when you get older? When I was growing up, it was a very long time from Thanksgiving to Christmas. Now it seems that you barely get over one holiday before another one comes along. Of course the media and stores start celebrating Christmas long before. This year they were filling the stores with Christmas "stuff" before Halloween was over - 3 months before Christmas. That's just too long.


I don't start decorating or put up a tree before the 1st Sunday in December. We usually try to have our tree up for James' birthday on Dec. 8. The tree and the nativity are the first 2 things to appear. James brought home the white ceramic figures for this manger scene when he was attending the "little white school house" in Paris, TX in the 1970's. I bought the wooden manger when we lived in Winston-Salem, NC in 1980's. I turn the small light on and it burns day and night until I pack everything up and put it back on the tallest shelf in our storage building.


Doesn't matter that one of the shepherd's has a broken neck held together with scotch tape, or the back side of one of the camels has a big hole where it is broken, or the little lamb is missing a leg. Baby Jesus used to disappear from the manger where he lay on some straw and we would have to locate him and place him back in the manger. Usually we would find him in James' pants or coat pocket. I'm sure that when I'm gone, all of this will be considered "old" and placed in the dump! But for now it is one of my fondest memories of Christmas.

3 P.M. - Bill and his 3 daughters arrived from Florence, SC. We were so glad they arrived safe and that they got here before dark. They arrived with their packages and there really wasn't room for any more packages under the tree. We kept putting them in layers. James spent a lot of time today looking for his name on presents and he kept an eye on the tree so that nobody would open a gift!


We went to communion at our church at 5:15 P.M. and then rode around looking at Christmas lights. Then we came back home and I made a delicious Christmas Eve dinner. We had smoked turkey breast, pork loin, rice, veggies, Christmas strawberry jello salad and praline cheese cake.

Christmas Pageants - then and now

When I was growing up in the 40's, the highlight of our little country church every Christmas was the Christmas pageant, usually the Sunday before Christmas. We didn't have a lot of people in the audience since most of us were in the pageant, which always took place at night. The same costumes were used over and over except for the shepherd's robes, which were always borrowed from some of the older men.


A couple of years ago, Phillip Mixon, son of one of the ladies in the church, discovered some boxes in the attic storage of his mother's home when the house was being torn down to make way for the new highway. In those boxes were the costumes (folded away neatly) that were used in the Christmas pageants for many, many years. "Miss Viletia" was the only director that I can remember and she took care of the costumes over the years until her death in the 1990's.


More about the pageant. Angels were my favorite. Maybe that's because that was always my part. I wanted to be Mary but the older girls always got that part. Angel wings were made from coat hangers, covered with white crepe paper and outlined with shiny silver tinsel. They were pinned with large safety pins to the back of the white robes. They were always getting off center. Shepherds had to wear sandals and this was a time when men didn't wear sandals. The director made sandals using rope and cardboard for the soles of the shoes. She was very, very creative. I remember that the 3 wise men were always older members of the church, and their gifts were so shiny and pretty. I remember we used macaroni to glue to the boxes and then they were sprayed gold. I always wondered what frankinsence and myhr looked like. Of course we didn't have computers and google to do searches back then to look up things.


What I remember most about Christmas at our old wooden church was how cold it was. The two big wood heaters would start putting our heat and turn red about time to go home. Then the fire had to be put out before we left.


In the 1970s the church we attended in Paris, TX had a production of "Amahl and the Night Visitors". It was fantastic. I had never heard of Amahl and I love the story. The next year and succeeding years the choir presented the Messiah at Christmas. There were visiting opera singers from colleges singing with the choir, and a small orchestra. I remember thinking that this was a far cry from our little Christmas pageant.

Then a few years ago I was brought back to the days of our church pageant when I read the funniest book, "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" by Barbara Robinson. It reminded me so much of my childhood Christmas plays. I learned that a movie had been made from the book and I checked the video out of our library. I think I will see if that movie is still in the library, and just maybe I'll check it out to show the granddaughters on Christmas eve. I know I'll enjoy it but I'm not sure they can identify with the story, never having been in a Christmas pageant.

The children in our church always have a little play a couple of Sunday nights before Christmas and the families crowd into the fellowship hall to see the play. It is always a modern story - no Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus lying in a manger. Gathering with families afterwards for food and fellowship is a great tradition for our members.


Our church has a living nativity scene a few nights before Christmas, in front of the church by a busy street. There is a wooden stable with 3 sides and open to street so that you can drive by and see Mary and Joseph and the baby. 


Sitting or standing around the Holy family are wise men, shepherds, angels, etc. Sometimes they have live animals. Last year we signed up to be there for an hour (and nearly froze to death). There was recorded music that could be heard when cars passed by and slowed down to view the nativity scene. This year I'm going to be one of the "onlookers" and let younger people take my place. Maybe I'll take them some hot chocolate!!