CottonMillMemories

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Cotton Mill Hill
Memories
written by James Stancil White

BOYHOOD MEMORIES OF JAMES STANCIL WHITE
  Born March 29, 1931 in Rockingham, North Carolina

               COTTON MILL HILL MEMORIES

Mill hill is a literal term since most of the houses were built on
the side of a hill. The first house I can remember had only two
steps out the back door and about fifteen steps to go out the front
door. The houses were all wood and the outside had german
siding which was also a type of wood. All of the roofs were
covered with wooden singles. So, in those days the inexpensive
houses had the wooden singles and the better houses had
composition. Of course today that has reversed. We eventually
moved to house number 220 which was catercornered from the
back of the house we lived in. The layout was the very same.
Four rooms with a hall down the middle and there was a
fireplace in one room which was Mom and Dad's bedroom. With
eight kids that meant three bedrooms and a kitchen . In the hall
we had an ice box and usually we had ice once a week. I can
remember running out when the ice man came around to buy a
dimes worth of ice. Mom had two cook stoves, one kerosene and
one wood stove. I often ran to Garrets Store on top of the hill to
buy a gallon of kerosene. The houses had no underpinning so
they stood on brick pillars and there was plenty of room to play
under the house on rainy days and there were many of those.
That one fireplace was all the heat we had in the winter and we
burned coal. The coal was kept under the edge of the front
porch. I remember going out many a dark night to get a bucket
of coal. It didn't take me long because I remember how scary it
looked under the dark house.

One time there was a blazing fire going and some sparks fell on
the roof and caught our house on fire. The neighbor next door,
Mrs. Stacy, saw it and came over to tell my Mom. At that time
the Crenshaw's lived behind us and had house full of boys,
James,Dewey, Elliot, Woody, Pat, and Tommy. They also had
one girl named Alley. Mom called them and they immediately
created a bucket brigade and put the fire out. People were
neighborly in those days and would even loan you a cup of sugar
and never expected you to pay it back. The cotton mill company
owned all the houses so rent and utilities were very cheap. All of
the houses had a front and back porch. The toilet was on the
back porch which consisted of one self flushing commode. When
you sat down on the commode lid it would pop up and flush as
you exited so exit fast. I don't ever remember charmin toilet
tissue but I do remember Sears catalogs and news paper. The
only water in the house was at the kitchen sink and we had no
hot water. Most of the time we would maybe wash our feet at
night and usually take baths on Saturday in a galvanized tub
whether we needed it or not and we did need it. The houses were
very cold in the winter time and we had no heat in the house over
night. Before going to bed we would warm by the fireplace until
you could smell scorched cloth and then run to the bed.
Sometime if Mom was home she would warm a cloth and wrap
our feet after we were in bed.

Our lighting system consisted of an electric cord dangling from
the ceiling with a light bulb which was dim and hardly suitable
for reading. I doubt if the house was hardly a thousand square
feet and with ten living souls it was quiet crowded but it was all
we knew so it did not matter. I do not remember any rooms
having closets so everything hung on nails on the doors or on the
walls. There was always a pile of ironing to do which Mom did
on the weekend while she sung "In the Sweet By and By."

Phyllis was the first born and passed away in the 80's. Mom was
living here in Clovis when she passed away so went to North
Carolina together to attend the funeral. Mary Lee was the second
born and died as an infant I think with pneumonia. I was
number three, next came Lillian, Silver, David, Doug, Ted and
Susie. No two of us live in the same town. None remain in
Rockingham but it will always be our hometown.

Mom and Dad worked at the Hannah Pickett Cotton mill. Mom
and Dad both worked in a cotton mill for over thirty years. Mom
was a weaver and Dad was also a weaver for many years but
eventually became what they called a warp hand. A warp was the
large spool of thread on the backside of a loom about the size of
a fifty five gallon barrel.His pay was determined by the number
of warps he installed in an eight hour period. So he worked fast
and furious for eight hours soak and wet with sweat because it
was hot and dirty in those weave rooms. Mom was assigned a
certain number of looms to keep running. Each loom had what
they called a tick clock. The cloth each loom produced was
measured by ticks. So, the more ticks the more money. When a
thread would break the loom would stop and it was her job to
keep the looms running. I quit school in the ninth grade and also
started working in the weave room taking off cloth. It was hard ,
hot and dirty. I also worked eight hours wet with sweat. At the
drinking fountain there was a salt pill dispencer and we had to
take a pill every time we would get a drink of water to replace
the salt in our body. Dad always worked the first shift from 6
A.M. until 2 P.M. Mom worked from 2 P.M. until 10 P.M .
During the week they would see each other as they crossed paths.
The boiler room at the mill would blow a loud steam whistle five
minutes before the shift changes and another on the hour of shift
change. The mill noise was loud and the week-ends seemed
deathly quiet when the mill would shut down. Mom had it
rougher because she would have to get up early and get all of us
kids off to school. She had to wash clothes in galvanized tubs
with octagon soap and wash board. I remember when she finally
was able to buy a wringer washer, that was high tech in those
days. She would work at home right up to the time to go to work.
She would run down a path between mill houses under hickory
nut trees trying to make it to the mill before the last whistle
would blow. I think she got more rest at work than she did at
home. As I said the noise was loud in the weave room especially.
If you talked with someone they would have to speak in your ear
no more than three or four inches away in order to hear.

The mill company owned the grocery store, the cafe, and the
theatre. They were connected buildings across the street in front
of the mill. The grocery store was dark and dingy with wood
floors and they were black. As you entered the grocery store right
to your left there was a cage like an old fashion bank cage and
that is where James Stutts sat and he would issue you a book of
stamps of what ever amount you requested. One dollar on up and
it could be spent in the grocery store or cafe but not at the
theatre. The books were called "dookey books." I have a book
entitled "Millhill Cowboys" that aunt Avo gave me and it had an
article about the "dookey books." He did some research on the
books trying to find how that name came about, but, could not
find where it originated so he assumed it was called "dookey
book" because it was not worth a "crap" anywhere else. It's
probably where the song "I Owe My Soul to the Company Store"
came from. I went with my Dad to the company store often to
buy groceries. This was before supermarkets . Everything was
behind the counter. So you would tell the clerk how much of each
item you wanted, number of cans, etc. I remember Duff Gore
was Dad's favorite clerk. It was also a dry good store so you
could very easily spend your entire paycheck in that store and
many did, including Dad. We had no car so Duff Gore would
also deliver the groceries. We would be home before the
groceries came. They would walk right in the house right to the
kitchen take the groceries right out of the box and place them on
the table and take the box with them. If you bought a chicken it
was't already cut up and ready for frying. The chicken was
outside the store in a chicken coup. You would take the chicken
home alive, wring his neck, let it flop around until deceased. You
would then put it in hot water and pluck his feathers. I can still
smell it - after that you would light a kerosene burner to burn the
pin feathers off. Now you are were ready to cut it up. Thank the
Lord you don't have to do that today.

Workers got paid in cash at the mill. The boss man was called a
Second Hand and he would come around every Friday with little
brown envelopes. It stated on the outside how many hours you
had worked and how much you got paid. I usually made about
$32 and I would give Dad $10 to help with the groceries. On
some paydays everyone was paid in silver dollars. Since no one
owned a car at our house Mom and Dad would have to catch a
taxi for a ride to town. If I remember correctly it cost ten cents
each way. Coming back you would go to a taxi lot and sit in a
taxi until he got a load before he would leave. You had to walk
down to the main road going to town to catch a cab and on your
return that is where you also were dropped off.

It was always a happy day when we got a new linoleum for the
kitchen floor. The old one would be completely worn out before
we would get a new one. The new linoleum was real slick so we
had fun sliding on it and we also played with the long cardboard
tube that it came in. Simple things like that was a treat for us. I
find that kids today still like to play in cardboard boxes.

At Christmas time the mill would just shut down so the
employees could have a week off. The mill company did give all
the employees a bonus and the amount would depend upon how
much you had earned the past year. Almost everyone did all of
their Christmas shopping in Rockingham because not very many
people had cars to go anywhere else. It was always a thrilling
time just as it is today. On Christmas day everyone would go to
Grandma and Grandpa's house for the big dinner and in those
days we would always get fireworks so at nightfall we would
shoot skyrockets, roman candles , cherry bombs and many other
special things. This was at my Dad's Mom and Dad's house.
Their names were Ernest and Sallie White. Let me back up just a
little and tell about our Christmas tree at home. We would go to
Grandpa's and go to the woods to find a cedar tree . It was
usually a small simple tree but it was a beauty to me. The tree
was set up at the foot of Mom and Dad's bed in the room where
we had a fire place. We did have a mantle so we always put up
long socks or stockings so we would have some goodies
Christmas morning. Our stocking would have some nuts and
candy in them. With eight kids each of us knew where our toys
were. It had to be a chore for Mom and Dad to provide toys for
all of us but they did. I never remember a Christmas that we did
not have plenty of toys and food. Before we would go to the
country to Grandma's house Uncle Arch would always make his
annual visit. He was Dad's Uncle and he lived up town in a large
two story house. He ran a store on the street behind his house
and got a lot of business from High School kids. Johnsie
remembers going there for lunch. At Christmas time Dad would
always buy a raw ham and he would cook it in a black wash pot
out in the back yard. Mom would always cook a couple of cakes
and did not have any help from Betty Crocker. We ate good at
Christmas. Meanwhile back to the country at Grandma's it was
crowded. There was Uncle Ed, Archie , and Bernie. Aunt Lillian
and her husband Max, Aunt Avo, Blondie and Annie Belle. I
think we were the only kids at this time and that was just me and
Phyllis my other brothers and sisters were just molecules at this
stage of the game because this was about 1937 and I was only
six. Mom's Dad was living at this time but he never came up
from Darlington, South Carolina. I can vaguely remember going
there once when I was very small and only because I had to sleep
on a pool table. Don't tell anyone but he owned a pool hall. Mom
told me that he married a very young girl and and later took his
own life. That's all I can remember about him.

I can remember when my Grandpa White passed away at the age
of 65. I believe that he was a diabetic. In those days the body was
brought back to the home and some of the relatives would sit up
all night. It is the first family member I can remember passing
away. Grandpa's house was a nice two story structure and there
was no indooor water or bathroom. The house is still standing
today but of course has been remodeled with up to date facilities.
Shortly after Grandpa passed away Grandma sold off the farm
place with all its memories for I believe a sum total of $3000.
That was quite a bit of money for 1938.

When I was in the first grade I came home one day very sick and
throwing up profusely. Dr. Long came to the house and treated
me for several days and I was not getting any better so Dr.
Hatcher was called in and he immediately recognized that I had
ruptured appendix. He put me in his car and rushed me to the
Hamlet hospital. Dr. James Sr. was the surgeon and I was
immediately prepared for surgery. I was put to sleep with ether,
a very smelly anesthetic. I remember waking up and being very
thirsty. My Mom and Dad had already been told that my chances
of survival was slim. I was calling for water so Dad told them I
should not have to die of thrist so they would wet a gauze cloth
and place it over my lips so I could suck all the moisture from it.
Well, obviously I lived and my stay in the hospital was nine
weeks. I was on the fourth floor and my room was at the top of
the stairs so for pass time I would throw marbles out my door
and listen to them roll down the wooden stair steps. It was not
looked upon very favorably by the hospital personnel. By the way
the nine week hospital bill was a whooping $300.

March was kite season and kids in those days had to make their
own. I do not remember ever having a store bought kite. We
would gather two dried out sticks and tie them together in the
shape of a cross and then put a string around the border of the
sticks, lay the kite frame on news paper and cut it out about two
inches outside the border. For glue we would mix flour and
water. We would smear the mixture on the outside border and
fold it over the border thread to dry. We would then get some
strips of old cloth and make a kite tail. Scrounge up some sewing
thread and fly a kite. All homemade.

We also had a way of inflating a balloon that would float. We
would get a pop bottle, water, red devil lye, and a small piece of
aluminum. Put the water, red devil, and aluminum in a pop
bottle and it would begin to fizz . We would then put a balloon on
the bottle to be inflated and good as helium, off it would float.

We made our own wagons to ride down the hill, we made rubber
guns and played war. There was no television so we stayed
outdoors and played. We knew all of our neighbors and every kid
on the block. I won't say that was the good ole days but they did
have some merit that has been lost in the high tech fast society of
today.

There was an old lady that covered the neighborhood almost
every day. She wore long dresses, a bonnet, and usually carried a
cloth bag over her shoulder and she had very few teeth. Her
name was Hattie Ricket and she was a harmless soul. If you
asked her to pray for you she would kneel down right In the
middle of the street, a dirt street, and pray for what ever you
requested. She probably had more sense than people thought she
did. She thought nothing about walking right in your house and
asking for a bisquit. She did have a home and a family so she
was not a homeless street lady.

When it came to refrigeration we had an ice box in the hallway of
our house. I remember many times Dad giving me a dime to run
out to the street when the ice man came around to purchase a
piece of ice . The iceman would get his icepick and chip us a
piece of ice and bring it right into the house. He would usually let
us kids get a piece of the ice off the truck to eat, that was a
simple treat. Life was simple.

A thrill never to be forgotten was our first bicycle. I remember
that it had a horn, and a battery light. Phyllis and I had to share
it. So we would ride it until dark and still some more after dark
so we could use our battery light. In later years when I was a
teen I purchased a Whizzer bike. It had a one cylinder engine
strapped under the cross bars. It had a windshield and
saddlebags. The spark plug was powered by a magneto, like the
old T-models. It had a tiny generator that I could lay on the
flywheel at night and it would power my headlight and tail light.
A lot of teens had them and they would go about thirty or thirty
five miles an hour. It had a one gallon gas tank strapped on top
of the crossbars. One summer night several of us decided to ride
them to Carolina Beach. That was almost 100 miles. It was a
dumb thing to do because it took all night. On some of those
country roads the dogs would get after us and we could not out
run them but we could outlast them. We had to put our feet on
the handle bars until the dogs gave up.

Now back to the earlier days. On summer nights the big thing
was hide and seek under the street light at the Lineburgers house
down the street. He was the chief electrician for the cotton mill.
Most boys had slingshots in those days. We would find some
good prongs usually in a dogwood tree in the woods. We would
cut rubber strips from an old inner tube. That was before
tubeless radials. Get a small strip of leather, usually from an old
shoe, so there you have a genuine slingshot. Prongs, rubber strips
and a leather pocket.

Playing marbles was a big sport in my boyhood days. It was
actually mini-gambling. Several of us boys would make a circle
and each of us would put the same amount of marbles in the
circle. All the marbles we shot out of the circle with our "toy"
(that's what we called the marble we shot with) became ours.
Lose some, win some. We could even use a steel roller bearing
for a "toy" or a large marble we called a "bomb".

We made our own wagons by rounding up two axles, four
wheels, and a few boards. Actually, we came up with some pretty
nice vehicles that we would ride down the hill next to the
boarding house. It was much more appreciated than one given to
you from the dime store.

We would go to the hog pens and dig up a can of red worms and
fish at what was then known as New Park. We would catch
goggle-eyed perch and brim. Sometimes we would go at night and
carry cornmeal, lard and a frying pan and cook right on the
creek bank. At night we mostly caught catfish. We would go frog
giggin at night beside the Seaboard Railroad tracks in a marsh
area. Our equipment was a good flashlight and a gig. A gig was a
long pole with a three prong fork. The croaking of the bullfrogs
would give us their location and when the flashlight beam would
hit the frog, their eyes would glitter. We would cut the large legs
off and discard the remains. We enjoyed the fried frog legs.

I looked forward to the springtime blackberry and plum season.
There was an abundance of blackberry bushes in a field behind
Rohanen School. I would wear a long sleeve shirt to protect my
arms from the briars and red bugs. However, I would still get
plenty of red bugs. To kill them, I would pour a little kerosene
and dab the red bugs one at a time. I was a little smelly but it
killed the red bugs. Anyway, it was worth it all for a delicious
blackberry cobbler. You could always find wild plums, red or
yellow, growing in the sand hills. They were delicious and I guess
we had a stomach of iron and didn't know it. If I did that today I
would need a bottle of Pepto-Bismol. There were many things in
the woods at springtime we could eat. There was sour grass, wild
strawberries, hog apples, and wild grapes that we called
scuppernines. We knew where the little uprising springs were in
the woods so we could always get a good drink of water.
I don't know how many of my brothers and sisters can remember
but some of the things mom kept for sickness was very
distasteful. Mainly, castor oil. I think it was used for any and all
ailments. It was usually administered with a teaspoon of sugar
and it still was terrible and I really don't think it cured anything.
One thing I know it cured and that was it would cure us from
playing sick.

Our summer shoes were our bare feet. I think the sole of my feet
was like leather by the time summer was over. At school time I
was taken to JC Penney's and fitted for a $3.98 pair of tennis
shoes. No Nike's or Air Jordan's, then just plain 'ole tennis shoes.
Now I can remember having regular leather shoes and we would
wear them until they had holes in them. When they needed
half-soles I was taken to the shoe repair store up town. The store
had a booth-like area where you could wait for the shoes to be
half-soled.

I always loved to go to the Saturday movies. I would wash my
feet, put on a good pair of bib overalls, get me a dime for the
movies and maybe a nickel for popcorn. On Saturdays they
usually had double features. It may be Charles Starret and Roy
Rogers or Gene Autry or Tom Mix or Buck Jones or Wild Bill
Elliot. No movie in those days had any cussing or sex. Even the
gangster movies with Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson,
Dan Duryea, James Cagney and a host of others all made clean
movies. The beginning of profanity in the movies was started by
Clark Gable in Gone With The Wind when he used the word
"damn". Now anything goes.

I remember when the movie "The Outlaws" came out and the
public was outraged with Jane Russell being so sexy but actually
did nothing. I have a copy of the movie and it could be shown in
Sunday school today. Sadly to say, today everything goes. This
present day society has forgotten how to blush.

The Rockingham Disgrace was the 'ole steam engine train that
came through the mill hill almost daily servicing the mills. It was
a pokey train that probably never went faster than 35 miles an
hour. Sure wish I had some pictures of that train today. As kids
we often would put a penny on the railroad tracks and let the
train run over it and flatten it out. For pastime we would often
see how far we could walk on the rails without fallling off.
Another fun pastime was skipping rocks on the pond next to the
Seaboard Railroad track.

I learned to swim at an early age and we had our favorite
swimming holes in the woods where we would swim in the nude.

Making homemade ice cream was a real treat in the summer. We
made it with canned milk, sugar, eggs, and vanilla flavoring. We
used the 'ole fashion hand churn. It would be so cold it would
make your eyeballs ache.

I was a young teen in the World War II days and we were all
involved in the war effort. Some days as a school project we were
let out of classes to canvass our neighborhood for metal objects
of any kind to be used to make weapons of war. Before the day
was over, we would have a mountain of iron.

Housewives were encouraged to save their extra cooking grease
to be donated for the war effort. Since we lived only about 70
miles from Ft. Bragg and only 35 or 40 miles from Camp
McCall, it was like a war area. There were tanks in the woods
and at night you could see the 'ole C-47's pulling gliders and
spotlights on them as they flew over. I remember one night a
large bomber was in trouble, circling the neighborhood. The
Rockingham airport had no lights so people with cars headed to
the airport and lined the airstrip with their car lights. The large
bomber was able to land safely but really bogged up on the dirt
runway. I remember going to the airport to see the plane.

Families that had sons or fathers in the war had a satin banner
hanging in their windows displaying a star or a number of stars if
more than one was overseas fighting. Churches in those days
were filled with people praying for their sons and husbands and
also daughters that were in the war.

I remember going to Camp McCall one day and I saw some
German prisoners. Camp McCall was about 18 miles north on
Highway 1. James Oliver was my good teenage buddy and he had
a brother that was killed in the war. His brother's name was
Preston.

There was a shortage of some staple food in those days like
sugar. Stamps were issued to families and you had to have a
stamp in order to buy a bag of sugar. Gasoline was also rationed
and stamps were also issued to car owners to buy gas. There was
not a car at our house. The first car at our house was a '39
Chevrolet that I bought in Greensboro, N.C. I was probably
seventeen. I was already working in the cotton mill. I had quit
school in the ninth grade, having completed the eighth.

I worked for the custodian while I was attending Rohanen. I
helped shovel coal in the furnace, sweep the halls, empty trash
and a multitude of other chores. I had two paper-routes as a
schoolboy. I had a morning route with over 100 customers
carrying the Charlotte Observer and twice a week I also had a
route delivering the Richmond County Journal. It was rough. I
hated Sundays, especially when the papers were so large. I would
load up my bike with papers in a basket on the handlebars and
saddlebags on the back. I could hardly hold up the bike. Halfway
through the route, I picked up another load of papers. At one
time I also sold the Saturday Evening Post magazine and the Grit
papers.

I worked in the peach orchards some summers picking and
packing peaches. I cropped tobacco, strung tobacco, and hung
tobacco in the barns. It was hot, hard work. But it was money.
I also worked in sawmills way down in the woods. I also stacked
lumber in lumberyards.

I worked on a lumber truck hauling lumber to another town. I
worked making cinder blocks. Money came hard. I remember
when Doug was born and the reason I remember his birth is
because shortly after he was born, I was visiting Uncle John who
lived in a nice white house about one mile from where we lived.
He asked me what the new baby boy was named and I said that
he had not been named. So it was during World War II and
Uncle John gave me the name Douglas Delano to carry home. So,
Doug was named after Douglas McArthur and Franklin Delano
Roosevelt. So Doug is half Republican and half Democrat. I was
twelve years of age at the time.

Like all teenagers my heart's desire was to get a car. I had
already begun working in the cotton mill at the age of seventeen.
While I was in Greensboro with my cousin C.C. I ran across this
beautiful '39 Chevrolet that was sort of turquoise in color and it
cost $650.00. I still have the bill of sale. I don't remember exactly
how we came up with the money but dad did help me. It was the
first car at the White house.

A young World War II veteran I met at work was taking flying
lessons on the G.I. bill. I would go to the local airport and fly
with him in a two wing Stearman airplane. It was an open
cockpit and a stunt plane. We would do barrel rolls, lazy eights,
tailspins and fly upside down and I enjoyed it. I wore the
old-fashioned aviator cap and goggles. Sure wish I had taken
pictures but I do have the memory. When he took his
crosscountry solo, he landed at a remote air strip and picked me
up to fly with him from Rockingham to Jacksonville, Florida.
The plane was a small Taylor craft where the pilot sat in the
front seat and the passenger (me) sat behind the pilot. It was a
very narrow plane. I think 3,000 feet was about as high as we
flew. Our first stop was Charleston, S.C., and his first time to
land on a concrete runway. We had no radio and as we
approached the commercial airport, we would circle and wait for
the tower to give us a green light to land. Needless to say, we
bounced a few times but landed safely. We refueled and got on
our way. On our return flight we also landed at Charleston and
we could not get the engine started. We yanked and yanked on
the prop and had decided we might have to catch a bus but some
young man ask to give it a try and sure enough, one hard pull on
the prop and the engine started, so we were off to Rockingham.
That Taylor craft was just an over-sized kite with a motor.

The post war craze for teen boys was a Whizzer bike which
consisted of a one cylinder engine strapped under the cross bars
of a bike and powered the bike with a belt. The headlight and
taillight was powered by a generator (very small) that was placed
on the flywheel. The bike would only go 30 to 35 miles an hour.
The gas tank was strapped on the top bike bar. I had a
windshield and saddlebags on my Whizzer. The craziest thing we
ever did was one summer night we decided to Myrtle Beach,
which was at least 100 miles. We rode all night and those country
dogs would get after us so we would put our feet on the
handlebars 'til the dogs would stop chasing us. Our posterior was
sore by the time we got to Myrtle Beach. I found someone I knew
with a car and hitched a ride back to Rockingham.

A normal day after work would consist of playing sandlot
football at Alco mill playground and afterwards go skating and
after skating, bowl a few games. I was unaware of all the energy
I possessed. Actually, my first job was working at the skating
rink at what was known as Black Bottom. I think the name came
from the beer joint because so many fights took place. That was
during World War II, so I buckled skates on mostly 82nd
Airborne troops and made good tips. I was no more than twelve
or thirteen at the time. That is where I learned to skate.

It was almost like a festival when all the surrounding neighbors
would gather at my grandfather's to kill and butcher hogs. It was
quite a chore and usually lasted all day and night. Farmers in
those days had smokehouses. They had a method of smoking the
hams, making ground and smoked sausages and placed in the
smokehouses. I can still smell the hog stench when I think about
it. Even though I was very young when my grandfather passed
away, I still have some vivid memories of him. I remember the
thrill of riding on the mule and wagon with him and when he
would plow a field, I would walk behind him with bare feet and
walk in the cool soil as the plow would turn over the soil. Such a
precious memory of a fine man and a hard worker.

We often had homecomings at grandpa's farm. Tables were
made of pine slabs under a nice, shady area where there were tall
pine trees. The food was heavenly: potato salad, fried chicken,
ham, green beans, home-cooked bisquits, coconut cake, banana
pudding. I get hungry just thinking about those days. I was in
North Carolina a few years back and drove in the country trying
to see the old home place. It was difficult to find because of the
highways that now criss-cross that area. The two-story house still
stands and looks good. I was born at grandfather's house. It was
in the single-story house they lived in before he built the
two-story house. Of course that single story house is no longer in
existence.

Grandfather raised cotton and at cotton picking time it was done
by hand. The pickers would use gunnysacks to put the cotton in
they picked. They would be paid by the pound for their labor.
After the day was over, everyone would sit around in the
backyard under a large Chinaball tree and maybe drink cool,
homemade lemonade and talk. The chickens just ran loose and
would roost in the trees at night. I remember they would just lay
eggs in a sand nest. People worked hard and life was simple.

Grandfather bought an A-Model Ford and it was a thrill to ride
in it. It's the first car I can recall. My grandmother was a snuff
dipper. She would get her a small dogwood stick and chew the
end of it to make a swab. She dipped Tube Rose snuff and
always bought a bladder of snuff. She would get snuff on the
dogwood swab and the stick would protrude out of the corner of
her mouth. I remember riding in the back seat of the A-Model
with grandmother and grandfather and when grandma would
spit out the front window, I would hit the floor to dodge the snuff
spray.

Did you ever drink out of a gourd? A gourd was tied to the well
in grandpa's backyard. One could draw a cool bucket of water
and my how that well water could quench your thirst. However, I
would never drink out of a family gourd today!

I once worked for Aunt Annie Belle's husband J.K. Odom. He
ran a serving station on the East Rockingham Road near town.
Why was it hazardous? Well, J.K. liked to drink and when he
drank a lot and got almost drunk, he would pull out his six
shooter and start shooting at the calendars on the wall and
anything on the wall. I would get under the counter and while he
was reloading, I was out the door running home. I never told my
parents. Some nights late, he would close up and allow a group of
men to gamble in the station, playing poker. J.K. would stick that
six shooter pistol in my belt and have me to walk guard around
the station. How stupid can you get, it's only by the grace of God,
I didn't get in trouble. We also bootlegged gasoline because it
was wartime and gas was rationed. We had bootlegged gas
stamps and I would copy car tag numbers on the stamps as cars
passed. J.K. would sell gas for a high price mostly to taxi drivers.
I was no more than thirteen years old at the time.

After a couple of years in the cotton mill I got a job as a hard
labor hand 'taking off cloth'. The job involved removing rolls of
cloth from the looms. It was a hot, sweaty job. I worked the first
shift from 6 a.m. until 2 p.m.. Pretty tough on a seventeen year
old. My hourly wage was 65 cents. Dad would usually get up
early, because we worked the same shift, and fry me an egg and
heat me a biscuit. One day after he arrived at work and I had not
yet arrived and it was after 6 a.m. the boss man asked him where
I was so dad came back home and I was in a chair asleep. I had
one shoe on and fell asleep before I got the other shoe on.

After a couple of years, I decided to join the Air Force to escape
the cotton mill. Several other fellas tried to join the same time I
did, and I was the only one accepted. The day came for me to be
sworn in at Pope Air Force Base in Fayetteville. It was April
1950. I was given pullman train tickets for travel to Lackland Air
Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. I had just turned 19. During
my physical I was almost turned down when an officer
discovered that I had a finger and a half missing from my left
hand. I lost the finger when I was 9 months old by crawling out
on the back porch and pulling a bucket of hot ashes over my
hand. So, since I was 9 months old when I lost the finger joints I
got a waiver. If I had been older when I lost the fingers, I would
have been turned down. It took two days and one night for the
train trip to San Antonio. I remember trying to dress and undress
in the upper berth of the pullman train. I think I had to change
trains in Atlanta. I had meal tickets and was able to use them in
the driving car. It was an eventful trip I will never forgot.

A lot of other young men were at the train station in San Antonio
waiting to be picked up. A truck picked all of us up for the ride
to Lackland and we were taken straight to what was commonly
known as the "Fun House". That's where we were issued our
bedding, fatigue clothing, and a G.I. haircut. I weighed a
whooping 132 pounds. This was the beginning of fourteen weeks
of bliss. I was in flight 4919. I don't think anyone ever forgets the
flight they were in. The Korean War broke out while I was in
basic training so that pretty much eliminated everyone's choice of
tech schools. My only choice I had was Air Police or kitchen
police, so I chose Air Police. I was only allowed to leave the base
once during the fourteen weeks of basic and that was for a few
hours to go into San Antonio. We had no civilian clothes because
we had mailed them home after arriving the first week. So we
covered the town with uniforms. About all I remember was the
River Walk. I weighed 160 pounds when I finished my fourteen
weeks. At the end of my basic training, I was taken to Austin,
Texas, by bus, to be stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base.
About all I did for several months was walk guard duty guarding
the F-84 fighter jets. I had been in the Air Force for almost a
year and had not been home in North Carolina. My mom, being a
letter writer, wrote a letter to the base and it went directly to the
Base Commander and she was inquiring why her son had not
been able to take leave. Needless to say, I forgot to mention that
while I was in basic training, I wrote home once and mentioned
to mom that we were restricted to the barracks on Sunday to
prepare for inspection. Well, my mom wrote her first letter and it
also went to the Base Commander and the Base Commander sent
it to our Squadron Commander. He called for me to come to his
office and the first thing I saw was my letter that I had written to
my mom on his desk. He asked me if I had written that letter and
I answered "Yes, Sir". He then excused me and shortly
thereafter an announcement was made throughout the squadron
that there would be no more Sunday restriction. Needless to say,
I was ribbed by my fellow barracks guys. They wanted me to
write my mom and tell her the food was bad. Of course, I did
not. After getting a couple of stripes, I was able to get a patrol
job driving a jeep. That beat pounding a ramp. Within two years,
I had three stripes and I was hitting offices in base headquarters
trying to get out of the Air Police. I was on orders to go to Camp
Gordon, Georgia for advance Air Police training and I had my
first lung collapse and could not go to Camp Gordon. Before the
orders came up again, I had orders to attend an air-conditioning
school at Fort Belvoir, Virginia. It was a thirteen week course
and when I returned to Bergstrom, I was transferred to the Air
Installation Squadron to the refrigeration shop. I finally had
decent working hours and shortly thereafter, I made my fourth
stripe, which was a Staff Sergeant. I had lived in open bay
barracks for almost three years and enjoyed Austin, Texas. I was
dating a girl named Marty that had invitations to the
Inauguration Ball of Governor Shivers. We first went to the
dance at the University of Texas where the band of Ted Weems
was playing. Later we went to the Driscoll Hotel, where other
dances were taking place. My favorite places while I was
stationed in Austin, was Barton Springs Park where I would
swim and polish my car under the shade trees. I also
roller-skated a lot. That's when I owned a beautiful black and
chartreuse 1950 Ford Crestliner. I am hoping to eventually find
one I can purchase. I do own a red 1950 Ford today, but it is not
a Crestliner.

I was stationed at Bergstrom AFB almost three years before I
was transferred to Walker AFB, in Roswell, New Mexico. In my
second year at Bergstrom, I suffered my first lung collapse right
after getting off duty. The doctor had no idea how to treat me. I
was confined to bed for a couple of weeks and then given sick
leave to go home for several weeks. It was in the hot summer
months as I drove from Austin to Roswell. It was a hot, desolate
drive. That was before air-conditioners were put in cars. I
travelled in my car barefoot and no shirt. I stopped in every town
(almost) to cool off my car engine. They could not take the heat
like cars can today. I didn't know what I was in for going to New
Mexico. I never forgot approaching Comanche Hill and getting
my first view of Roswell. It looked like it was in a valley.

I had not been in Roswell very long before I went on a blind date
with a young Christian lady. My first date with her was attending
a church youth rally at an old theater on Main Street. I did not
really enjoy the meeting but I got under conviction. I later
attended church with her at Tabernacle Baptist and became a
Christian and shortly thereafter, I surrendered my life for full
time Christian service. There were a lot of military attending
Tabernacle Baptist Church and many of them making plans to
attend Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri. I only had
about five months to go in the Air Force after I became a
Christian and I made life-long friends in those few months. I
completed my four years in the Air Force in April of 1950 and
made that long trip to Rockingham.

Owen Ganey was attending Bob Jones University in Greenville,
South Carolina and was instrumental in praying for me to attend
Bob Jones. I was eligible for the G.I. Bill so I attended a regional
banquet for prospective students and submitted an application. I
had acquired a G.E.D. while I was in the Air Force and was
accepted. I got my old job back in the cotton mill for the
summer. There were no Independent Baptist Churches in
Rockingham so I attended Southern Baptist Churches. While
attending East Rockingham Baptist Church located on Alco Mill
Village I spotted a young lady with long, beautiful hair and she
came up and spoke to me. I did not know who she was but I did
know Josephine Parker that attended church there so I had
Silver to call Josephine and get her name. It was Johnsie Maness
and she was only fifteen years old. It all started with a telephone
call. I went off to Bob Jones for one year and it was a rough,
academic year for me. Johnsie and I corresponded regularly. I
attended Bob Jones University for one year (1954-1955). I went
to work for Johnsie's dad at the Imperial Life Insurance
Company. We got married June 24, 1956, she was seventeen and
she had completed the 11th grade. We had purchased a small
house on Deweese Avenue (4,000 dollars) and I continued
working but was not satisfied with what I was doing. We got rid
of our household goods, rented the house, and went to
Springfield, Missouri to attend Baptist Bible College. Johnsie
finished high school at Central High School, but received her
diploma from Rockingham High. Cheryl was born at the Burge
Hospital in June of 1958. I suffered my third lung collapse, my
second collapse was at Bob Jones. I was put in a Catholic
Hospital in Springfield and an ex-navy nurse advised me to apply
for disability through the Veteran's Administration. After three
months, I was approved for 100% disability. Our meals went
from hamburger to T-bone steak. I drew the 100% all through
Bible College. Just before graduation, I was cut off to 10%, and
shortly thereafter, to 0% by the Eisenhower budget cut. Without
a doubt, the Lord was involved in my getting a disability check,
otherwise, I consider quitting college and returning to
Rockingham.

In June, 1958, Cheryl Ann was born at Burge Hospital in
Springfield, Missouri. It was such a joy and delight. Johnsie's
parents were the first relatives to see her. They visited us for
several days to see their first grandchild. We had no hospital
insurance when she ws born but the hospital bill was only around
$300.00 which I did not have. I wrote Carol McLean, my banker
in Rockingham, and he sent the money to me along with the note
to sign and return. That was when your word was your bond.

We graduated from the Baptist Bible college in May of 1959 and
returned to Rockingham to start an Independent Baptist Church.
For a while I worked at several jobs. I was called to pastor
Midway Baptist Church for a short time and was ordained while
pastoring there. I later preached part time at Community
Church. The church had a Baptist preacher and a Methodist
preacher. We alternated morning and evening services.
Eventually, I rented the Old East Rockingham Freewill Baptist
Church building and had our first services and organized the
Temple Baptist Church. I had attended that church some as a
young teen when Walter Carter was the pastor. They eventually
sold the pews, so we had to go elsewhere to meet. We found an
old store building near Rohanen School and it was owned by
Lester Adcock. We were able to rent the building after cleaning
out all of the "crud". It was a rough neighborhood, so we had a
hard time. We had our first wedding in that store building, and
all I can remember is that the groom cried. That was a shock to
me, so I stopped and asked him if everything was aok, and he
said "I am so happy", so we went on with the ceremony.

We had Dr. Sightler come preach for us from Greenville, S.C.. It
was 170 miles, one-way, and he drove up several nights and
brought some of his men to do the driving in his old Packard car.
The property where Temple Baptist is now located on airport
road was purchased at an auction because Dr. Sightler
encouraged me to get the property. We got the property for
$20,000 along with a large house that was already remodeled for
church services by the Presbyterians. I refinanced my house and
came up with $500.00 along with several others who did the
same. We had about 35 people and gave about $8,000 the next
Sunday to pay on the property. A beautiful building is now
situated there and my picture is in the foyer as the first pastor.

Today is August, 2001 and Johnsie and I attended the funeral of
my pastor in Abilene, Texas last Tuesday. Bro. Howard Ingram
was the pastor atTabernacle Baptist Church in Roswell, New
Mexico, when I was saved in November of 1953. We have been
here at Westbrook Baptist Church for 29 years and celebrated
our Forty-fifth wedding anniversary this past June 24th.
Cheryl, our oldest daughter, married Gabe Ruiz and they have
four children: Michael, 25, then Justin, 23, then their daughter
Tiffany,21 and youngest is Adam, now 19. LaRelle is married to
Art Ferro and has 3 children: Cody,14 and Karissa,12 (from her
first marriage to Dale Roberts) then youngest is Austin, age 8.
His full name is Austin Richard Stancil Ferro (poor guy). We
have seven grandchildren. Darcella married John Carlton Stutts
of the U.S. Air Force, stationed at Cannon AFB on February 3,
2001. Starla lives in Lubbock, Texas and is the manager of the
non-food item department in a large United Grocery store. June,
2002, we celebrated our 30th anniversary as pastor of Westbrook
Baptist Church and the church's 50th.

It has now been over 2 years since I had quadruple by-pass heart
surgery at the Methodist Hospital in Lubbock, Texas and to this
date, my heart is still beating.

We are closing this writing out today June 17, 2002, and in seven
days, Johnsie and I will celebrate our 46th wedding anniversary
and we are still madly in love.

I am now 71 and Johnsie is still 63.
May God bless you.

I Corinthians 15:58. "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye
steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the
Lord, for as much as ye know that your labour is not in vain in
the Lord."