Don Remembers
“My Daddy was a good man. I still remember him kneeling beside his bed every night and praying. He prayed for all of us; and I remember that he specifically always prayed for the troops during World War II.” He didn’t live a long life. He died of pneumonia at the age of 50. Penicillin was in the research stages and some was flown in to treat him, but it arrived too late. We were young: I was 10, Richard was 11, Martha (Sister) was 12, and Edwin was 16. The loss of Daddy was life-changing.
When the family was very young, we lived in town, in Chester, S.C. But when I was six years old, Daddy and Mama bought a farm out on the Great Falls Highway, and we started farming. We loved being out in the country. Daddy knew all about farming, because he was brought up on a farm in Williston, S.C. He had a job as salesman for Hormel Meat Packing Company and he traveled from store to store selling products wholesale. But he loved farming. Every afternoon when he got off work, and on Saturday, he and all of the children would work in the fields. We grew and canned the extra food which we ate during the winter months. We also kept chickens, and hens for eggs; we milked cows; and pigs were grown for pork. But the bulk of the work was in the fields during growing season. In addition to providing food for the family, we also had to grow enough hay and grain for the animals. Daddy was a hard worker, and he expected the same from all of us.
We used horse-drawn farming equipment, and always kept horses and mules for the farm work. Caring for the horses and mules was a job itself. We had a horse named Beauty who had a tendency to run away, and she could really run! One day, Daddy was plowing with her and came in for lunch, bragging about the fact that Beauty had done so well that morning. He went back to work after lunch to continue his plowing. Beauty obviously didn’t want to work! Suddenly, she broke loose and started running. The ropes from the harness were wrapped around Daddy’s wrists and the horse started dragging him and the plow. She finally hit a stump and his hands jarred loose. She kept going though, and ran through the chicken fences, tearing them down, ran through the fence at the pig pens, ran into the garage and knocked it off its foundation, and when we finally caught up with her, she was calmly standing in her stall chewing on hay. It took us a couple of days to repair the damage she did.
Daddy liked to go back to Williston to visit his brothers and sisters. I particularly liked to visit Uncle Dess and his family. He had lots of children and we all enjoyed being together. He and his family were asparagus farmers, and we were usually there when they had big flat bed wagons loaded down with asparagus. We usually took some home, along with a great big watermelon. His sister, Aunt Eloise, had never married, and she was an elementary teacher in Williston. For years, when I would go to meetings, people would ask me if I knew Miss Eloise. “She taught me,” many would say. All of Daddy’s brothers and sisters lived around Williston. Uncle Dess, Will, Dewitt, and Land were all farmers. Aunt Eloise and Ilma were his sisters.
Uncle Will was Daddy’s oldest brother and often would be in charge of his younger brothers. Daddy told the story about Will and his brothers plowing a field with a mule in the springtime. The mule lay down and wouldn’t move. Uncle Will told his brothers to build a brush fire around the mule and it would get up and move. It didn’t, and they lost a mule!!
Cooking was one of Daddy’s favorite things to do, but he didn’t like the electric stove. We had a big wood stove that he liked to use. He believed that the food was just better if he fired up the wood stove and used it when he cooked. He always cooked breakfast for the family. He would stir crumbled sausage into a big pot of grits, or cook grits, country ham, and red-eye gravy. And everything was always cooked just right.
Daddy followed the troops in World War II religiously. He daily pinpointed Patton’s trek through Europe, marking the progress on a wall map. During this time, our farm and the neighboring farm was used for maneuvers. They practiced full-blown war including the use of howitzers and all kinds of artillery. They dug foxholes all over the fields and woods. The Crain’s farm was called the red army. Our farm was across the highway, and it was the blue army. We grew lots of big watermelons; the red army had none. So Richard and I decided we would take watermelons to the red team. We knew we would be rewarded with candy bars (which were practically impossible to buy during the war) if we made it through the enemy lines. We each got a watermelon and started crawling under kudzu vines to try to get to the red army. We didn’t make it. We were captured by the enemy and kept hostage. Daddy had to come and negotiate with them to get us out of enemy hands.
I also remember that on one occasion, the truck containing the kitchen for the troops was sent to another destination, leaving one company behind without any way to prepare food; so Daddy and Mr. Crain, his good friend, cooked breakfast for 120 of the men. After church every Sunday, Daddy and Mama always took some of the soldiers home for dinner too. Mama always had fried chicken and all of the trimmings for them. They loved it!
One day Daddy was working at clearing some bottom land, and he got too hot. That seemed to be the beginning of his last illness. Mama was in Florida to attend her daddy’s funeral, and Aunt Eloise came to stay with us. Daddy couldn’t seem to recover from working and getting so hot. Then, he and I got the flu. Both of us had a high fever, and Daddy decided to get out of bed to try to help around the house. He became much sicker the next day, was taken to Charlotte to the hospital, and the doctors discovered he had double pneumonia. He died the next day. I didn’t go to the funeral. Betty, Edwin’s girlfriend (later his wife) stayed with me. I was 10 years old.
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