“Luke, the Force runs strong in your family.” – Yoda, Star Wars VI: Return of the Jedi
We love getting Robert Krampf’s Experiment of the Week, and if you’re not getting this weekly email you probably should check it out, but this week’s email was something extra special. I’m a sucker for family history, the tales and stories of people we know who have lived in times so different than our own. Padawan Learner really liked this story too, so I thought I would pass it along for all of you to enjoy.
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My Grandmother
This week, my grandmother passed away. She was 104 years old, and went peacefully in her sleep. She was an amazing lady, and she had a very long and interesting life. The following is a story about her life, and instead of an experiment, I thought you might like to read a little about a person that had such a huge impact on my life.
The article was written by my Mom, for a book of oral histories on the history of Hickman County, where my Grandmother grew up. Because of that, it has lots of names and extra information that I left in, mostly because is it amazing that my Grandmother could remember them all.
Little Lot Memories
I am Lizzie Jim Sanders Farmer. I was born in Little Lot, Tennessee at a time when it was a busy community with mills, stores, a bank, and doctors, and lots of friendly people. It was fun growing up there. My mother, Lizzie Bee Coleman Sanders, was born in Little Lot, too. She was born in a house on a hill on the right side of the road as you leave Little Lot going to Anderson Bend. It is not there anymore. Some time after Mama and her sister and brothers were born, her father, Rufus Coleman, swapped this piece of land for a place on Mill Creek. And this land stayed in the Coleman family until some time around World War II.
My mama met my daddy, William James Monroe (Jim) Sanders when he came to board with her sister Louella Keys, who had married Cisero Keys of Lyles, Tennessee. At that time, I believe my daddy was working for the Hassells. Soon he began to work for the S. M. Jones farm and worked there for many years.
Aunt Lou did not have an easy life. After they had three boys, her husband Cisero disappeared. He left for his job one day and never returned. Some people thought he fell into a large sinkhole nearby, and some thought he hopped on a train and left his responsibilities behind. After Cisero left, Aunt Lou’s baby was badly burned when he wandered too close to the fireplace. The baby died the next day, in spite of efforts to save him. The middle son, Andy, kept getting into mischief, and the neighbor men got tired of it. One day several of the men took him to Nashville and put him in an orphanage – without telling his mother they were going to do it. He soon died there and was buried in their cemetery in an unmarked grave. This cemetery was uncovered in recent years when the Nashville airport expanded.
Dewey, the oldest boy, came to live with us for several years. Aunt Lou went to live with her brother Ewell. She had no money, and no way to get clothes or food for herself and her son. She sold salve, and took orders from neighbors for dishes out of a catalog, to make a little money. Sometimes I went with her to deliver the dishes. She also stayed with women for a few days after they had a baby. When Dewey got old enough to help on the farm, Ewell made him come to live with them. As soon as he was old enough to get a job, Dewey worked long enough to make some money to buy shoes, new overalls and a shirt, and took off for Nashville. When he was settled into a job, he sent for Rose Fitts from Lyles, Tennessee, and married her. They had one child, Hazel. Dewey worked as a policeman at the State Capitol. He lived in Nashville the rest of his life.
As I was growing up, we lived beside the Church of Christ. When we got old enough, my brothers would make a fire in the church stove on Sunday mornings in the winter and I would help my mama make the communion bread. I wish I could remember how to make it, but she did not have a recipe written down. We attended the Church of Christ. Mama and her friends all sat together and they liked to sing. People said that mama could sing like a bird. On Sunday nights when I was little, we would go to Sunday School at the Methodist Church. I liked to hear Mrs. Joanna Anderson play the piano. Her daughter gave piano lessons. Edith Oliver’s sister also gave piano lessons. There were several families in Little Lot that had a piano.
If someone did a thing that they were sorry for doing, they would stand up and tell the people at the church they attended – Methodist or Church of Christ. But if they did something that was really bad and they were sorry, they would go forward at the Church of Christ on Sunday morning and the Methodist Church on Sunday night.
Not everybody liked the Church of Christ. There was a lady in Little Lot who had two sons. The first one married a girl who went to the Church of Christ. When her second son told her he planned to marry a girl who went to the Church of Christ, she ran down the road yelling “I don’t want another Campbellite in my family!!!” But she did get another one.
There was another woman who refused to walk in front of the Church of Christ building. She would wade a branch, cross a field and climb over a fence to keep from walking in front of the church building every time she needed to go that way.
A man had two daughters who wanted to be baptized. He heard about it and got to the creek before they did. His land was between the road and the creek and he nailed up the gate and put a chain around it so the people could not get to the hole in the creek where they baptized people. They had to go a long way down the creek to get to another place that was deep enough, but the girls did get baptized that day.
Everybody liked it when a church had a revival meeting. Most of the time, Cathy Baker preached for us. But at revival time, a preacher came in from Nashville, or some other place. It was a chance to dress up every night for a week -–sometimes two. Ladies got to visit with each other and men stood outside talking about the crops until the singing started. Then most of them came inside. The preacher was judged on how good his sermon was, and how bad he made hell seem. It helped if he raised his voice and thumped the Bible occasionally. A lot of chickens got killed during a revival, because everybody wanted the preacher to come to supper – and he almost always got fried chicken.
When I was not very big, a tornado came thru. Mama put us all on the floor on a feather bed, and she and my daddy held on to the doors as hard as they could to keep them from blowing open. Our cow was about a mile away in the pasture, but when the storm was over she was in the garden next to our house. The storm had blown her there, but she wasn’t hurt.
Everyone called my daddy Jim. He could really catch fish. He set out trot lines in Duck River, and baskets to catch fish. His favorite way to catch catfish was to dive down in the river and feel around for their den. He would put his hand in and pull out the biggest catfish you have ever seen. I don’t think he ever came home from the river without a big mess of fish. He caught lots of fish for us, and for friends like Buck Bratton and Burt Neely. He caught them, cleaned them, and cut them up just right, but he would not eat a bite of fish. He often used mussels from Duck River for bait. Once he found a black pearl in a mussel. A man told him it might be worth something, and took it to have someone look at it. My father never saw the man or the black pearl again.
My sister Grace, my brothers Hub and Boon (their real names were Herschel and Rufus), and I, walked to school in Little Lot. Sometimes we came home for lunch, and sometimes we took a fried pie or a baked sweet potato for our lunch. More times than a lot, there were two girls who tried their best to get my lunch before I could. They did not have much food of their own to bring. I still remember their names, but it wouldn’t be right to tell.
I went to school with Kate and Georgia Grimes. Kate could not walk unless she put her hand on your shoulder to steady herself. We took turns helping her to walk. Some of the other kids that I went to school with were Thelma Anderson, Cornell Easley, Edith Anderson, Pauline, Odell, and Elese Ferguson, Elese Baker, Lily Worley, Ruby Harvell (who often came home with me for lunch), Paul Jones, Hobert Baird, Early Bratton, Malcolm Baker, Pauline Neely and Lorene Martin, who had a crippled foot. There was a boy we called Dummy but I don’t think I should tell his name.
I liked school, and I liked my teachers. Gene Harvill was one of my teachers. So was Fannie Hunter (Jessie Hunter’s sister), Mr. Hoover, and Mae Bratton. Mr. Harvill taught the older kids and behind his back, they called him “Half Man” because one of his hands was smaller than the other. He was a good teacher tho.
There was a boy who couldn’t speak nor hear. His parents sent him away to a school. When he came back, he could talk with his hands. I saw him a lot, sitting on his front porch. He taught me to say a few things to him with my hands. I can’t remember his name.
After we moved from Little Lot to the S. M. Jones farm, we had to walk a long way to school. Sometimes my father took us on a mule, mostly when it was raining. If the weather was too bad, we stayed home and worked in the barn cleaning out stalls and shelling corn. If we stayed home from school, we had to work. Sometimes we cleaned the ashes out of the fireplace and saved them outside in a bucket. My mama used the ashes to make hominy from dried corn. We could make it to eat in the wintertime, when the corn was no longer growing in the garden. She also used the ashes to make lye soap to wash our clothes – and us.
My mama made all our clothes. She would let me sew a little – mending a tear or sewing on a button. One day while she was out working in the garden, I found a really pretty piece of red material. I only had two dresses and they were getting old. I was about 8 or 9 years old, no older than that. The material was not for me, but I really liked it. I wanted a dress out of it. I laid it out on the floor and put one of my dresses on top of it. Before I could change my mind, I took the scissors and cut out a dress. I pinned it together and went to the sewing machine and quickly sewed it up. I knew how to push the pedal up and down with my foot to make the machine go.
My mama came in and saw that I had cut up the red material. She was a gentle person and never yelled at us or spanked us. But I could tell that she was sad that I had ruined her red material. She had sold eggs for a long time to get the money to buy it. She didn’t have money to buy any more.
She picked up the fabric. When she saw that I had made a pretty good dress, she was happy. If I could sew this good, she would not have to make my sister and brothers’ clothes. She could spend more time in the garden, growing food for us to eat. And this is how I got the job of making all of our clothes. I made clothes for my sister and me, and I made my brothers’ shirts. I soon was making clothes for my mama and my grandmother Sanders. I made clothes for them the rest of their lives.
Some people have a talent for painting pictures or playing a musical instrument. I guess my talent is sewing. I have been sewing for 90 years. I still like to sew, and can make most things without a pattern.
For a while, the Matt (S. M.) Jones family lived in Little Lot, in the second house behind the church. Across the field, Will Anderson and Mrs. Nin lived with their children Edith and Joe Thomas.
Sam and Lily Anderson lived in a big house. Mrs. Lily was from Lyles and was sick a lot. Their children were Pauline, Odel and a boy whose name I cannot remember.
The Grimes lived on a hill, behind the school. They had Odel, Pauline, Kate and Georgia and some more I can’t name.
One of the stores, Hunter and Nichols, was run by Mr. Jesse Hunter. The Grimes family ran two stores – one on each side of the road. Mr. Jones also had a store. Mr. Lon Anderson worked at the flourmill. I think he owned part of it. Ed Ferguson and his sister Ora lived across from the flour mill. Their aunt lived with them.
There were two mills. One mill made flour and one made meal. And there was a bank. The man who ran the bank lived three doors from the stores. The Andersons and Hoovers ran a sawmill just outside Little Lot.
There were two doctors in Little Lot then – Dr. Doyle and Dr. Flowers. Dr. Flowers stayed the longest. He was a big man and lived in Little Lot. Dr. Doyle lived down by the creek. His daughter Esther was in my class. My sister Grace and I had scarlet fever. Dr. Stephenson from Centerville came and put red flags on the gate posts so no one would come in and get scarlet fever.
My daddy’s brother Dan had small pox. Everyone was afraid of small pox. Dan stayed by himself in a cabin that was a long way from his mother’s house. She would take his meals and put them on a stump that was not close to the house, and after she left, he would come out and get them. He had to stay in that cabin by himself until he was well.
Mr. Matt Jones (S. M.) got the first car in town. It came in on the railroad, with 5 gallons of gas already in it. They had to put the wheels on it. I got to ride in it two times. Once, several of us girls were baptized in the creek, and he gave us a ride up to a house to change into dry clothes. The other time, I went to a baby’s funeral and I was just getting over the measles. I fainted at the funeral and almost fell into the grave. Mr. Matt gave me a ride home.
Sam Anderson got a car soon after that. It was a few years later that Mr. Matt took my daddy to Columbia to get a car with the money he had saved.
When my daddy first started working at the Jones farm, we lived in Little Lot and he had to walk back and forth to the farm every day. Soon we moved to the Matt Jones farm. There was a big white house that was very old. In fact, part of it started as a log cabin. It was originally built by slaves. There were four small houses scattered between the big house and Duck River. The Sanders (us), the McCoys, the Neelys, and Charlie Yonker (the Jones family cook) lived in the small houses.
At one time, there were 14 kids living on the farm. We had a lot of fun playing together. I cannot remember all of the names but here is what I can remember:
Sanders family (Jim and Lizzie Bee) had Lizzie Jim, Grace, Hub and Boon and nephew Dewey Keys.
Neely family (Burt and Lily) had Odel, Mary, Porter and Paul
Grimes family (Jack and Lula) had Loyd (Pete) and Horace
McCoy family (Susie and Jim) did not have any children of their own but children sometimes lived with them
McCoy family (Tom and Lyzie) had Louizie and Eddie
We played under a large cherry tree sometimes. Once in a while, our cousin Will Totty would come over and make us all sit down under that tree while he “preached” to us. Later in life, he became a well known Church of Christ preacher, and spent many years preaching in Indianapolis. On Sunday afternoons, we would play baseball, and the grown-ups would sit and watch us.
With that many kids, we sometimes got in trouble. There was a rope and pulley at the mule barn that was used to pull bales of hay up into the hayloft. We found out that it was fun to pull each other up there. Naturally, we got caught, and that was the end of that.
Another day, we decided to try riding the hay wagon down the big hill. There was no way to steer it. We pulled it to the top of the hill and got in. A couple of the bigger boys gave it a shove and jumped it. It rolled fast down the hill, and somehow managed not to turn over. However, Mr. Jack Grimes saw us, and before we could pull it back up the hill for another ride, he was giving us what for, and warning that he would tell our daddies. We never did that again, either.
Later, we moved back to Little Lot because of a disagreement between the farm owners and the workers who lived on the farms. Because of an idea that Joe Thomas Anderson had, the farm owners decided that their workers could not have livestock of their own on the farms. So my daddy took his cow, and us, and moved back to Little Lot. Others moved off farms, too, so that their families could have a cow to milk. Eventually, the landowners changed their minds and my daddy took his cow – and us – back to the farm to live.
On Christmas Eve, my daddy would go to the woods and cut a small cedar tree. He would bring it home and put it in the big room that had a fireplace. When we woke up on Christmas morning, we would find a dollar for each of us pinned to the tree. That was more that a days wages that he gave each of us. Usually, my sister and I would find a doll for us to share, and the boys might get a little wagon or some toy horses to share. We looked forward to getting an orange for each of us. Because oranges came from so far away, we only got them at Christmas. We also usually got a peppermint stick for each of us.
One Fourth of July, the people in Little Lot decided to have a picnic for the whole community. The men barbecued a whole hog, and the ladies brought all kinds of food, including lots of pies and cakes. We played games and had a good time.
At Halloween, sometimes the older boys would play pranks. They would turn over an outhouse, or hide things belonging to neighbors. One time they put a buggy up on a barn roof. They got into trouble for doing that.
My grandmother, Mattie Sanders Martin, and her husband, James H. Martin, lived across Duck River from Anderson Bend. We would cross the river every week to go see them so that my father could cut wood and do chores for them. Mr. Martin had a big red horse. Sometimes my sister and I would have to feed it. Once a year, he and Mr. Hassell would ride their horses to Columbia to a meeting. I think it was a meeting of people who had fought in the Civil War. Mr. Martin had two bookcases full of books, but he would not let us read them. I really wanted to read those books, but I never got to do it.
When Mr. Martin died, Duck River was flooded and all the roads to his house were covered with water. His casket was carried down Duck River on two boats, which had been tied together. The boats were caught in swift water and almost turned over. When they reached the other side, his casket was carried ten miles by wagon and mules to Tottys Bend Cemetery.
When Jack Grimes stopped managing the farm, my family moved into the big white house for a while. My sister Grace had her baby, Carlene, while she and her husband Arch Anderson lived there with my family. Later, my family swapped houses with Paul Jones and his family, and moved into the tenant house close to the main road. My parents lived in this house many years, until they had to move to Memphis to be near us, because both of them were in bad health. Paul Jones wanted them to stay on the farm, and made sure they knew that the farm was their home forever, but my daddy just could not keep living there and not go to the fields every day.
When they moved to Memphis, they lived in a little house across the street from Graceland. It sat where Elvis’ airplane sits now. This was just a year after Elvis bought Graceland, and my daddy spent many hours sitting in the front yard, watching the Elvis fans come and go. And yes, they saw Elvis going up and down the street in his pink Cadillac, or on his motorcycle.
They lived in this house a little over a year until my mother died. My daddy spent his remaining months living with me, and playing with his great grandchildren. He and my mama are buried in Tottys Bend Cemetery.
Back to Little Lot…….I liked school, and went to the 11th grade two years because there was no 12th grade. I still have my diploma. After I finished school, there was no work for me to do to earn money. I did not like the idea of moving to a big city, but I had relatives there that I could stay with, so I decided to try it. I let my cousin Dewey Keys and his wife Rose know that I would be coming on the bus. I was about 18 years old. They were glad to have me come, because Rose was pregnant. And I decided to change my name and call myself Elizabeth.
Rose took me to Federal Can Company where her sister Annie Fitts worked. They hired me and soon I was making cans for Maxwell House coffee and King Leo Peppermint candy. They paid piece work, so the faster I worked, the more “pieces” I could make, and the more money I could earn. I learned to work really fast. Soon I was making enough money to pay my board, and have money left over to buy pretty clothes – coats with fur collars, satin shoes with silver buckles, and dresses of all colors. I had my hair done every Saturday, and they gave me a discount if I would walk up and down the Arcade so people could see how nice my hair looked. I liked Nashville. I liked working, and I really liked having money to buy things that were pretty and store-bought instead of homemade.
My friend Annie set me up with a date with Robert Farmer, a young man from Adams Station, Tennessee, who also worked at Federal Can. We dated for a while and then he bought me an engagement ring. December 25, 1926, we were married at the home of Jimmy Allen, a Church of Christ preacher. That night, the Cumberland River flooded, and we had to be taken out of the house by boat in the middle of the night.
My sister Grace, her husband Arch, and their daughter Carlene, came to Nashville to find work. They stayed with us for a while, and Arch went to work at the factory with us.
Times got hard. The company tried not to lay anyone off, and almost everyone worked part time. People came to stay with us temporarily, until they could find more work, or until they could find a way to get back to where they came from. Both of us were working some, and we were not in debt, so it was not as hard on us as it was on some people. We went home to Hickman County every weekend and brought back vegetables from the garden, fruit, and fish or meat from the hogs my father had killed and smoked. Our friends thought we were wealthy – and in a way, we were.
Soon, I was pregnant, and had a son, Robert Farmer, Jr., who only lived two days. He was buried back in Tottys Bend cemetery. I was too sick to go to his funeral. Many newborn babies died that summer in Nashville. Several of my friends had babies that died at birth. Years later, they found out that not all of the babies had died. Some of them had been stolen and sold to people who wanted to adopt them. My baby was not one of them. My father came to Nashville and brought the little casket to the cemetery in his car. My Aunt Lou insisted on seeing the baby so she could tell me how he was dressed. They opened the casket and let her see him. I am so glad that she saw the baby so that I would know he was actually there.
This was when times were really hard. People were even throwing their newborn babies into the city reservoir. They would rather drown them as to have them starve to death. The city put up a fence so they could not do that any more. One couple that we knew buried their stillborn baby in the corner of our yard because they had no money for a funeral.
The factory was sold to Continental Can Company, who closed the Nashville plant and moved to Memphis. Anyone that wanted to move to Memphis could keep working for them, so we packed up and came to Memphis and I got pregnant again. This time, I had a girl who lived, Shirley Ann.
Wartime is always hard on people. When World War I started, people around Little Lot really did not know a lot about what it was all about. When the young men were called to become soldiers, some of them had never been away from home. They had young families, and they had never even been to Nashville. The thought of going far from home, across the ocean, to places they had never heard of, and shooting people who had done nothing to them was more than they could bear. Some of them took to the hills, hollows, and haylofts. Friends or family often left food for them. Sometimes a child would tell his father he saw a man down by the spring. His father would say, “ No, you did not see anyone. You probably saw a ghost.” Some of the young men were caught, and spent a few months in the “pen” in Atlanta. By World War II, newspapers and newsreels were able to get more information out about the war and why America was in it.
World War II came and the factory became a defense plant, making containers for hand grenades. I did not work any longer, because I wanted to stay home and raise our child. It was hard to get enough gas to make it back to Anderson Bend, but we managed to go often. The man at the gas station seemed to always have a gas stamp available for us. Once again, we brought fruits and vegetables back with us. This time it was because of rationing, not because of lack of money.
Before long, my sister Grace with her husband and daughter moved to Memphis, and her husband Arch went back to work for the factory. Later, my brother Hub moved to Memphis. My brother Boon died during World War II while he was in the Air Force.
I still live in Memphis – close to Graceland – and I like living here, but it is not Hickman County. Every day I wish I was back there, living in Anderson Bend, cooking on a wood stove, and making a fire in the fireplace.
I have managed to instill a love of Hickman County, and the old times, in my child, grandchildren and even great grandchildren. Even though I can no longer travel up there, they manage to get back at least once a year, to go to the Tottys Bend cemetery, and over to Anderson Bend to see what is going on at the Jones farm.
I hope you have enjoyed reading how things used to be, and I hope it makes you thankful for all the inventions that have come along to make life easier – but not more pleasant – than it was in 1905.
Have a wonder-filled week.
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