(All of daddy’s family)
Daddy and mama are on right in last row.
Mildred and I on left in first row.
Tommy on right in first row.
Jane front row between grandma and granddaddy.

My dad, Thomas Jefferson Proffitt, was a farm boy of about 11 children. I thought his mother, Laura Proffitt, named more than one of her children after presidents! His dad, Burrus Proffitt, was a quiet, mustached (almost deaf when I knew him) farmer who lived to be into his nineties and still worked in his garden and fished. My memories of Granddaddy Proffitt were of him sitting by the stove with his little dog in his lap. Maybe he started most of the families love of animals. Although, Grandma Proffitt was known to kiss her cow.

Maybe this is a good time to say that my sister, Mildred, and I went to stay a week with them each summer in our pre-teen years. Mama made us shorts and halters of printed “feed bags” and we thought we were quite the fashion plates! We enjoyed visiting them because two of the uncles were close to our ages. But when the uncles grew up and went off to jobs, we were so homesick, I cried in the butter I was churning. Mildred and I vowed to play house with littler sister, Jane, whenever she wanted us to. Before those “home-sick” days, we learned to “skin-the-cat” on one of the many trees in their yard. Also, when we gathered in the lamp-lit kitchen to wash our feet at night, we laughed and joked and the uncles told stories to scare us. Mildred and I slept on a pallet (old quilt) on the floor in un upstairs bedroom. Sometimes those teasing uncles would throw bits of paper down through the wooded ceiling slates of the attic.

Another thing we did was go to grandma’s parlor and look at Civil War 3-D pictures through a stereoscope when we visited. Before lunch, grandma would send us down the hill to the spring (a boxed-in part of the icy cold stream) to get butter and milk. When it came to eating, I remember big baked sweet potatoes and canned King Syrup for biscuits or pancakes. To us, it was all fun. Grandma Proffitt’s name was Laura Morris before marriage.

                                                T. J. Proffitt, Sr.
                                                Learned in school
                                                (Mary Ellen’s Dad)

                  Come little leaves, said the wind one day.
                        Come over the meadow with me and play.

                  Put on your dresses of red and gold.
                        Summer has gone and the days grow cold.

                  As soon as the leaves heard the wind's loud call;
                        Down they came fluttering, one and all.

                  Winter has called them and they were content;
                      Soon fast asleep in their earthly bed.

                  The snow laid a blanket over their head.

                                                T. J. Proffitt, Sr.
                                                Learned in school
                                                (Mary Ellen’s Dad)

            T. J. Proffitt Family             Mary Ellen standing in front of Daddy
                Mama, Daddy,                     Mildred between Mama & Daddy
      Mildred, Tommy, Mary Ellen         Tommy, Jr. sitting on Mama’s lap
Jane