Childhood Days
Mama said when I was age three or four, I was very sick (they called it Acute Colitis), was paralyzed in my left side and had to learn to walk and talk all over again. In those days, they kept me at home and the doctor told mama that even a pin dropping could mean my death. She said she went out to the porch and prayed. Daddy said he knew I was improving when I grunted for some water he was drinking. If that prayer gave me life again, I wonder if I’ve accomplished anything I should have. At age seventy or seventy one, the doctor sent me for an MRI. The X-ray showed an “old stroke!” That childhood sickness must have been the time. The MRI was done because I was having so much numbness in my face and head - Arthritis. In later years, the doctor’s check-ups showed blood work was always excellent. Not until about age seventy did I start having aches and pains.
I was well enough by age seven to start first grade. Where we lived in Columbia, VA, there was a big yellow building up the hill behind the Baptist Church where we went to school. Maybe this is a good time to say that there was a hill across the road from the church where children liked to play - we called it Monkey Hill. From what I’ve seen of my report card, I was doing well and making good grades. Evidently, I was still recuperating because I remember the manager of the cafeteria assigned me a special seat where she served strained vegetable soup. (It’s hard to believe I ever had trouble eating.) She was a dear lady - I think Mrs. Wiley Shepherd.
The most well-intentioned parents can “help along” a sickly child to have a bad attitude and disposition. Perhaps I’m making excuses, but I think I was a temper- mental pre-teen and teenager. I can remember walking down the path in Grandma Beard’s garden while wondering if I had already been forgiven seventy times seven. (Mathew 18: 21-22) I was a Christian but not for quite a few years did I control this attitude.
While I’m on a similar subject, I recall adults threatening children who didn’t behave with “The Boogie-man will get you.” These were adults who loved us but somehow seemed to lack wisdom. This worked because it scared the children into proper behavior. It’s surely a lot better to do right because of love and respect.
In my opinion anyone choosing the Christian path to God because of fear is on the wrong path. To me, choose Him because of his great love and what he has done and will do for us. Of course, not being obedient to parents or God has consequences; not having that close relationship is enough of a punishment.
I certainly agree that each person approaches God in his/her own way. I will never understand countries that try to destroy other countries because their God wishes them to. How can God be love in that attitude?
I would like to claim this scripture as my own. Part of the scripture in II Timothy 2:24 that says, “And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men. ”To me this means not to argue.
I could go on and on in this subject. In the classroom are plenty of children who have had so much physical abuse or hateful reprimands it seems they have no tenderness or desire to please. ‘Nuff said.
I need to explain a little bit of why things happened as the did. Our very fundamental, old fashioned Baptist Church was pretty much the center of our lives. Preaching in those days was very harsh and extremely judgmental; I took it all very seriously. Toward the end of the first grade, when we children were in beds in the room next to Grandma Beard’s front porch, all the adults were on the porch having an argument of some kind. To my childhood mind, it was so bad, I envisioned coming toward me an angry, bearded “God” writing in his “Book-of-Life”. I think this led to a nervous breakdown. I remember being in bed and my teacher, Miss Miller, coming to see me. SO they planned for me to begin school again when Mildred went. When Miss Miller sent me to the board to write my name, she made me switch from my left ot my right hand. I guess they were still worried about my eating. Mama sent black house help to school with plates of food for lunch; I remember pork-and-beans!
At church at Christmas, we had a drama and gave out fruit and candy. Sometime along the way, Mildred and I started singing duets. We would kneel at each end of the manger and sing Away in a Manger in our white, gauzy outfits with gold tinseled halos.
When Mary Alice Anchors, an educator, moved to our community, the Christmas music and drama really became well known. They were such good years. The smell of stored Christmas costumes filling the church as we planned is a pleasant memory. Once one of the three wise men didn’t turn up the night of the play; everyone gasped in astonishment when daddy came up the aisle. He wasn’t a singer.
While daddy wasn’t a singer that was the main thing the rest of us did. You would often find us gathered around the piano. You future generations would think we were really deprived - we didn’t have a TV. Not until I was away at college did mama and daddy buy one. Millie and Jim Marshall, two of our newer church members, would often be at our house to enjoy singing - Jim even recording our voices. The Marshall’s moved to Columbia when Alice Walton hired Jim to service her Philco Appliances.
Still living at Grandma Beard’s in the fourth grade, I cried and cried when I failed the grade. I was so angry when it turned out I needed glasses. This turned me into a studious person feeling unconfident. From then on, I made good grades - even the Blue and Gold list in high school which meant we were exempt from exams!
Once as tiny children, we lived in an apartment over the grocery story where daddy worked. It was close to the train track. Evidently, it was just Mildred and I then. I remember crawling fast up the stairs to tell mama choo-choo train No. 9 was coming. There was a screened-in front porch where we looked down on the customers’ heads. Another time we lived in an apartment down on the street. Columbia, VA is on the James River and had quite a few floods. The water actually came up in the back yard; it came in the house once and we had to move upstairs! It seems we took that all for granted.
Unbelievable to future generations, our toilets were little wooden houses built over a hole in the ground.
In about 1938, daddy decided to open his own grocery business. They said they lined the cans just on the front of the shelves. A shoe salesman, daddy said, left a batch of shoes for him to sell IF he could; he said that really gave him his start. More about the store later.
During the time we lived in the apartment (1941 or 1942) we had a big snow. I think just a walking path was made down the street. Once when we came home from somewhere, mama reached up on the mantle to get matches to light the stove. Well, the hearth fell through! She surprised us when she knocked on the back door. A “rat-tail-comb had stuck in her leg! We ran to the store telling daddy, “The hearth fell in!” He replied, “That’s all right, Puddin.”; “But mama fell in with it!”
By this time we were in Columbia District School - a new school near Kent’s Store. In the third grade our teacher, Mrs. Marie Snead, was beyond her time in all the things she did. We had a post office that delivered mail all over the school - all of four class rooms! Lunch time meant taking our meal ticket to the lunch room and bringing food on a tray to our class room. She organized a little band; we had uniforms and she taught some of us to play flutes. Each flute was engraved with a number and each child had to remember his/her number. My number was 957J! This was during World War II so we played a lot of patriotic songs. Once when Mrs. Snead had us singing, she asked us to turn to a certain song about a bird. I went to her desk and told her that Mildred and I knew a bird song. When she let us sing it, she made us singers for the band. This same “Once I Saw a Little Bird” was what started Mill, Tommy, Jane and I e-mailing each other. Mill asked about some of the words.
Back to life in the store. Daddy soon moved across the street to a much bigger store. This was mainly a grocery store but, as in most country grocery stores, we had material for sewing, make-up and perfume for ladies, hardware, shoes, probably towels, etc. I remember only two or three kinds of cereal; there were a lot less brands of most things. I don’t know why we weren’t supervised more; we would eat and eat candy whenever we wanted to. Daddy just said, “Whenever you bend your elbow, your mouth flies open!” Whenever daddy got in shipments of Dan River fabric, we would pick out whatever we wanted to sew. I don’t know how he made it but he actually had Mildred, Tommy and I in college at one time!
While we inherited the Proffitt sense of humor, Grandma Beard whistled a lot and I know I have been a whistler. In fact, daddy came up with one of his sayings, “A whistling woman and a crowing hen, never brought good to any men.”! I find I whistle “Amazing Grace” and “I Need Thee Every Hour” most often, as grandma did. Also, another song I whistle is “Once I Had a Secret Love” by singer/ actress Doris Day during the forty’s.
When the black people wanted to buy bologna, they would say, “lonie or lonie sausage”. This has come down to me as a “cuss” word. When things aren’t going right, I say “bologna!” or if things are even worse, I say “bologna sausage!”
The only real childhood vacation as a family, that I remember was going to a cottage on the Piankatank River. Someone in Columbia let us use this place. It seems everyone in town was trying to get daddy to take a vacation. It was fun; there was an old Victoria to play records. We played “Basin Street Blues” over and over. The river had a lot of stinging nettles - so we must not have swam much.
Daddy memorized poems in grade school that he remembered all his life. He had little sayings for almost everything. Most used, each time you entered the house, he said, “Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly - ‘tis the prettiest little parlor that ever you did spy.” “She called for pie and I thought I’d die, for I had but 50 cents.” When our babies would sit in his lap and pull on his tie, he would say that they needed to work on the railroad “pulling ties”. When it was snowing, he said, “We might have to jump up to spit!” Often said over a high cost or big problem, “This is bad enough to sink a battleship!” He would say, “Are you working or hardly working?“ Also, “It’s as cold as blue blazes!” I also want to add some of mama’s sayings: whenever anyone needed reprimanding she said, “You tell him while I pat my foot.” When someone was very upset she said, “Don’t have a ca-nip-tion!” When things weren’t even she would say they were “catter-wampus” or they weren’t “whitly-cut”. When we finished a job quickly she said we did that in jig time. When mama was busy and we were lazying around, she would say, “Make yourself useful as well as ornamental.” Mama said for a hugh number “twenty‘leven dozen”. When things were confusing, she said they were “discombobulated“. These were only some of their sayings; our family laughed and cut-up a lot. As I analyze, I think the sense of humor came from Grandma Proffitt - she was often giggling. Aunt Ruth and daddy definitely had this humor.
I have ended up with a lot of these sayings. Jeanie quotes me as saying ; “The best things on life are free; Stop the world, I wanna get off!” Don’t know why she puts these two sayings together.
In high school, we took turns working in the store. As teenagers will, we complained but I actually liked it. Those were the days you wrote down each thing the customer bought, got it off the shelf for them and totaled it on the adding machine. When you put the money in the cash register, you had a certain letter to use - my letter was “E”. I guess this helped daddy keep up with who sold what.
A lot of black women came to Columbia on the bus, bought groceries all over town and put it in a big cardboard box daddy labeled for them in the front of the store. Late in the afternoon, daddy or Tommy Jr. would deliver groceries to their homes.
Some of the women - to us young sensitive teenagers - seemed SO demanding and cross. Mildred and I dreaded to see one coming. One time, we actually hid under the counter! I don’t remember what finally happened. There was a big roll of white paper on the counter to wrap their meats in. We had to cut off a hunk of white salted meat, weigh it and wrap it for them as well as other meats. We had to pump small cans of kerosene for them to start fires. I guess those are what bothered us about working in the store. When daddy wasn’t busy, he would help us with whatever we were doing. It was his “cup of tea”. He hustled around happily, lifting 100 pound sacks of feed from the basement.
Saturdays were usually very busy days. Christmas time was especially busy, the store full of demanding people. We were thankful when it was time to go home. At Christmas the house was decorated and smelling wonderful with good cooking. We would go to the woods and pick out a Christmas tree each year; we usually had to nail on a limb.
Mama was a good cook and had a flair for decorating. She also kept the store windows decorated. I still have a “wrapping paper” snow flake she had made; Mama was such a caring mother. She was always encouraging when we wrote themes and did well. Whenever we were sick, she would be there cleaning the room, making the bed neater and more comfortable, and bringing what we needed to eat. Then, when Alzheimer’s struck, I think during her forties, she was not the same. When I was a teen, I was mama’s helper in Bible School. She probably could have been an excellent school teacher. She, cheerfully, handled the children well. Perhaps that’s the seed that made me become a teacher. When we wanted to, we would change around furniture and clean the living room. Mama was always pleased and told us so.
The croquet set was often left up in the front yard - we all liked to play.
At some point, in the early forties, daddy was on his weekly trip to Richmond to pick up things for the store, mama went ahead and signed papers to buy our home. Although this wasn’t until the forties, it seems that was always home. Soon after we moved in, daddy bought a new piano; Mildred was still taking lessons- in fact she majored in music. The piano teacher, Mrs. Conrad, came to the grade school to teach lessons. I took through seventh grade.
The idea of all activities going on during the school day, also applied to high school. When there was a ball game, we would get out of school at 1 pm to enjoy the game. Mr. Carter, our wonderful principal, was always kneeling on the side-lines cheering the team on. Rev. Dean, an Episcopal minister, refereed the games. He was loved and respected by the boys. We were blessed by an unusual number of good teachers. Mrs. Wood, a young, attractive English teacher, would put up assignments - do so much work for a “C”, “B” or an “A”. Of course, each grade a student worked for required “more work“.
Mr. Bowman, chemistry teacher and band instructor would chase down and try to get freshmen in his band. Our family all went in for music so we were willing bait. Mildred played clarinet, Tommy played trumpet and I played saxophone. That young sister, Jane, who came along later - I don’t even know what she played. I’m realizing more and more how we took other siblings in the family for granted. We were just all there. I guess, my senior year, Mr. Bowman had left and Captain Edgerton from Fork Union Military Academy came to teach us band. We thought a lot of him. In fact, during lunch period, we hung around the auditorium playing our instruments. While my friend, Margaret, played the piano, I transposed up five notes to be in her key - I couldn’t do that now! My senior year I was recognized with the Band Award.
Each year in high school we had a big musical production - Minstrel Show. We each had to try out for the show. With Mildred playing the piano, I sang, “Please Don’t Say No, Say Maybe”; I thought I was SO clever.
One Christmas, we got a Philco phonograph. When mama went off to the store on Saturday morning, she would put on a stack of records. The last record would play over and over - mama’s scheme to get us out of bed. Musician Mildred would finally jump out of bed and storm down stairs saying, “I can’t stand it any longer!”
Even on cold evenings, Tommy could be in the “Pack House” trying to pick up voices from a distance on his crystal set radio. Daddy would call out the back door, “Have you gotten ‘Chili’ yet?” Mildred and I had things wired in such a way that we sang from the house hoping he would think he was getting voices from far away. He probably didn’t even hear us.
I did everything I could in High School to avoid chemistry but Tommy majored in it! It really helped, in later years, when he supervised daddy’s medicine.
We had a lot of silly times and would almost crack-up laughing. One Saturday, Mildred, Jane and I woke up, heard a noise down stairs but didn’t see any cars outside. A certain car was always there when ever mama was home. We pondered what to do. We called mama - no answer. One time, I actually crept down close to the kitchen and saw a man’s shadow! Hurrying back upstairs, we decided to run to the store. But first, we decided to look on daddy’s closet shelf and get his gun. As we were reaching up Jane asked, “Is it loaded?” “Yes!” “Put it back, then!” So we quietly left the house and ran to the store. There was daddy but no mama. When asked about mama, he said, “She’s at home.” She had let Tommy use her car. As it turned out, mama had on pajamas, was ironing and deep in thought about happenings at church! At that time our little country church was in the clutches of a mentally ill pastor. He did everything he could to destroy our fellowship.
In our pre-teen years, our pastor, Rev. White, began taking our youth to the mountains each summer to Baptist Training Retreats. The Baptist, at that time, rented a campground at Massanetta Springs which belong to the Presbyterians. It was wonderful. Rev. White went to the office first thing and brought back little booklets (programs) that told of happenings and speakers. We sat around exclaiming, “Oh, so and so is back this year!”. Some women from the church went along with us to cook. We walked up the mountain for devotionals on Sunday. The swimming pool of spring water was very cold!
In fact, we liked it so well, Mildred went one summer as a waitress. I went the next summer as a waitress. The campers left on Sundays and Mondays, all waitresses gathered wild flowers for their tables. This was the hotel. Luckily it was a Christian group because once, as I returned to the kitchen with a tray of glasses (some with water) on my shoulder, I dropped the tray on a lady! She was so sweet and all the waitresses were feeling sorry for me. Before we went to Massanetta, we, usually, picked blackberries and mama made a delicious blackberry roll.
A lot of churches don’t even to have Baptist Training any more. It’s a shame because it taught a lot about church organization, etc. Even before Baptist Training, churches had B.Y.P.U. - Baptist Young Peoples Union. We spent a lot of time at BTU doing Bible drills which were fun. Almost all of our social activities centered around the church. Now days (2005) young people have trips, white-water-rafting, etc. Our young people would meet in homes for parlor games and refreshments. That pretty much substituted for dating and I was satisfied with that. At that time, in the 1940’s, most of our pastors loved our church and said they wanted to retire in Columbia. Our church members were responsive, friendly and sincere. When there was an “Altar-Call”, especially during a revival, everyone responded. Mildred and I felt so tender toward our “probably very elderly” revival pastors that we wrote them letters when they left. I haven’t said anything about my own Christian life. I became a Christian as a child, always meant it, it’s just part of the fiber of my being. That doesn’t mean that I’ve been what I should be. Our church wasn’t the kind that led you to talk about one’s personal spiritual walk. The hope was that others would see how you lived. That some churches are different - no problem to me; everyone has a right to do what’ s right for them. We aren’t to judge others. I’m afraid I used to think we were the only ones to have the answers. You can’t read some of the good authors without realizing that they have the Holy Spirit - Jan Karon’s books for one.
The Important thing is having love for others. Kristen said that when terrorist struck the New York Trade Center, 9/11/2001, the Mexican news on TV only talked of their own people who were hurt. Not being critical of Mexico, the US, our Christian nation, has love and compassion for other nations and tries to help them. We often wonder, though, where does all our money sent out come from?! At this time, 2005, we are at war in Iraq. All evidence points to Sadam being a very evil ruler but it is so hard sending our troops to face death. Sometimes we wonder if we interfere with other countries too much. I think this is still talking about one’s spiritual life. After all, if we don’t have love and compassion for people, have we done what Jesus said.
More about daddy. Somehow he had the volunteer job of measuring the James river; he did this job for fifty years and weather dignitaries came from Raleigh, NC to give him the Thomas Jefferson Award! - his real name. Anyway, I remember a long flashlight that he used to see the water level, at night. I don’t know how often he had to “keep an eye” on the water. When there was a lot of rain he had to report rain amounts and river levels. Columbia, VA had their share of floods in those days. It seems we took all that for granted.
When it was very obvious - at age sixty eight - that mama had Alzheimer’s, daddy was her sole care-giver. He cooked and cleaned and when we went to visit we helped. On Sunday I even put mama’s make-up on her before church. Whereas she used to give us home permanents, she couldn’t even fix hair. At one point, Bill and I were making plans to move in with them. Bill took early retirement but shortly after, mama died.
When daddy was alone and getting confused, Tommy Jr. had also retired. Tom, Minnie, Bill & I took turns staying with him. Bill and I stayed in our camper off his porch but had an intercom to hear him. Once for privacy, he left the swing on the porch and went inside to talk on the phone to his “girl friend”. From the camper, we could hear everything he said! Daddy would have nothing to do with this girl friend until he became senile. Tommy, with our help, eventually moved daddy to an assisted living near him in Kinston. NC ; then later to a nursing home. Tommy visited him every day and supervised his medicine. Daddy was close enough for Bill and I to visit at least once a week.
Another thing about daddy’s store days. At one time, Columbia voting was held upstairs in the store. When Eisenhower ran against Stevenson, I came home from college to vote - probably 1951 or ‘52. Sitting in his chair by the fire that night, daddy said, “M E, you must have voted for Stevenson.” I had, I guess he knew how each person would vote. I thought I was so educated and informed.
In the store, daddy had all these little books for people to charge things if they wished. Across the street from the store lived young high school twins, Bobby and Billy Nelson. They even had little charge accounts and would try to charge to each other. Their dad was the pharmacist. His drug store was down the street with an expanse of sidewalk outside. In childhood days, we would roller-skate back and forth on that cement walk. We would go in the drug store to buy orange two-stick popsicles; if you got a free stick, you could get another popsicle FREE! That was big stuff.
When salesmen came in the store and stood by the counter and named merchandise daddy might want, I remember daddy saying over and over, “No sir!”. I was embarrassed and felt sorry for the salesman. Our Baptist background was “be kind and polite” - I thought daddy was being rude. Daddy’s storekeeper Motto which he drilled into our heads was, “The customer is always right”. We really lived by this.
Two or three days after Christmas to take inventory, daddy would close the store. He would take down the counted items of ALL who were working - several people telling him numbers at the same time. We would count each item on the shelf. On the bottom of boxes (... socks, hose, etc.), he would have a code for how much he paid for them. His code was “Cornflakes” for all ten letters. For example $1.85 would be ckf. Smart?!
Once daddy decided to raise hogs. To us that meant more pets; we named them after the popular singers of the time. The “Hit Parade” was a Saturday night program that featured all the top songs. The singers were Snooky Lansom, Dorothy Collins, Jesell McKinsey - that I remember. When the hogs got BIG, daddy butchered them and, I guess, cooked them in the back yard. Then, evidently he made sausage, etc. to sell in the store. They had chitterlings (the intestines) on the back porch and we wouldn’t even go out there. He and mama made sausage and seasoned it just right that was so good. It seemed that whenever they made anything, it was delicious. There couldn’t have been a better fruit cake than mama’s.
I have to keep going back to include something else. Mildred and I did a lot of singing duets in church. When Jane came along, she sang alto and Mildred switched to tenor. Then, Tommy joined us with his voice. Tommy is the one that kept on singing in choir and solos in his church. He sounds a lot like Andy Williams and has made a couple of CDs.
In these days, 2005, people have to worry so much about violence and kidnapping - it would be hard for today’s youth to realize how peaceful our lives were. In grade school, if another student stole a pencil off your desk was about as bad as it got. Mildred and I would take the James River Bus Line to Richmond, get off at the bus terminal, walk down the streets to shop, see a movie and eat lunch - walk back up to the terminal to store our “goodies” in a locker and continue our day out. We often sat in the balcony at Lowes Theater where Eddie Weaver played the organ. Once while we were in the movie, we heard that Horace Height (a well known accordion player) was going to be on stage after the movie. We called daddy long distance to say we would take a later bus. Surely, it was dark by then but it was, of course, no problem. I should say that we weren’t familiar with telephones and calling long distance was a major chore. In those days, to use a phone, you had to turn a crank and ask an operator for the number you wanted.
This was in the 1940’s which makes me think of WWII. Everyone was very patriotic; because the factories were making products for the war, people drove old cars, patched tires and drove slower. We were limited on buying sugar, shoes and gas. People had what were called “Victory gardens” to grow our own food. I remember black, crippled Wilson Reed putting new soles on our old shoes to make them last longer. I’m sure they were awful looking.
During the war, our country had “black-outs”. In case of enemy planes being spotted, they wanted the country to be hard to see. We would turn out all the lights and sit on Grandma Beard’s front porch. Classes were organized in communities to teach us how to report planes. Mildred and I took the class and willingly took anyone’s shift. We reported from the town hall - a big two story building on a hill; it had a big porch - easy to see planes. Whenever we saw any kind of plane, we phoned to tell which direction the plane came from and the direction it was going. If possible, we had to tell the kind of plane - we had learned to identify these in class. Of course, we were all concerned about spotting a Japanese plane with a red circle on the side - called a Jap-Zero!
Columbia, VA, in my growing up years - 1940s - was full of people with decent looking houses; there were a couple of old vacant buildings. Today - 2005 - it is almost a ghost town, many old dilapidated buildings. Young people moved out because there were no business opportunities. Whereas, today, big road machines come through and quickly surface a road - back then they would put down a layer of tar followed by a load of gravel. Most of us would have tar on our clothes if we weren’t careful.
Even today the Baptist Church where we grew up is doing pretty well. In fact, Brother Tommy goes back each first Sunday in May - Homecoming - to sing. The rest of us are making an effort to join him in attending - it gives us a chance to see each other.
I don’t want to miss telling about the ice cream we used to buy. As we traveled back from Grandma Proffitt’s, we would hint from the back seat for daddy to stop to buy ice cream. That strawberry ice cream had big real strawberries and was so delicious!
One of brother Tom’s friends studied Animal Husbandry in college. When testing North Carolina ice cream, the college said Monticello Dairies ice cream was the best; this was the kind of ice cream we had in our area.
Also, I want to tell more about Grandma Beard’s. Beside her house, at the bottom of the hilly front yard, was a fenced in pond. Before my day, this was an ice pond. I can’t imagine it being cold enough for very long but the neighbor’s business was freezing ice, cutting them into big squares, storing them in the ice house, built into the side of the hill, and selling the ice to home owners to keep their food cold. The home owners had big wooden cabinets - I have seen those. As a child, I thought the sound of the frogs in the pond at night were stars twinkling. It was a pleasant sound; unless they were making ice, I think the pond was pretty much drained.