RECOLLECTIONS OF MY CHILDHOOD SPENT
IN
OLD ENON, BULLOCK COUNTY, ALABAMA
written by
MRS. ALBERT E. BARNETT (née MAMIE BANKS)
OPELIKA, ALABAMA for her children
at the request of her daughter
MRS. L.B. ORDWAY (née MARY BARNETT)
ASHEVILLE, N.C.
November 1937
"I will make a last song, when I am old,
Out of the shining of remembered days."
Somewhere I have read this line of advice, "Lock up your treasures, save them from the dust of time, and some day you too may take your memories out untarnished and relive them in retrospect."
Such possessions have no monetary value, but are invaluable to the owner on account of the happy days they recall. When the years have passed and we are approaching the great silence, almost unconsciously, like old children in a dream, we look again at the pictures that memory has painted of the scenes and people that clustered round us in the daylight years of our youth. Realizing that we are an insignificant part of the present day picture, we turn to those on memory's wall and enjoy the retrospect. This seems to be a part of God's great plan -- the law of compensation.
My pleasant response to all this forces on me the conclusion that I must have been a child alive to the changing moods of nature. I knew and loved the trees on the hillsides, the heart-leaves with their odd little pitchers, the woods-violets, the muscadine vines with their dark rich fruit hanging from the branches of the big trees, the pretty moving white clouds against the blue of the summer sky, and the dear old spring at the foot of the hill with its never failing supply of clear cool water -- these were among my silent but much loved companions. They responded to the imagination of a fanciful child and whispered their sweet secrets in my listening ears, suggesting that the fairies lived among the wild flowers that shed their sweet fragrance at nightfall where they came to dance by the light of the moon. An otherwise lonesome little village girl was thus given an enchanted childhood, though nobody knew it.
I enjoyed the beautiful out-of-doors, and now, though an old woman, I still get pleasure from walking through the woods at sunset and listening to the sleepy notes of the mocking-bird in his good-night song. I find myself being sorry for any grown-up who has not had the real happiness of spending at least a part of his childhood in the wide open country, knowing the wild things -- the squirrels, the rabbits, the frogs, grasshoppers, and katydids, the birds and butterflies -- and all the pretty, useful things that grow in the good earth. The quiet joy of it all is indescribable, but the memory of it will always remain in the heart, bringing peace, like "a song that would never be sung."
I must tell you of Enon, that small hamlet away from the busy world, that sacred little spot of earth so dear to my heart. It was so named on account of its many, many springs by my great-grandfather, Rev. James Elizabeth Glenn, a pioneer missionary to the Indians and slaves.
His daughter Florella Ann Macon Glenn married my grandfather, John W. Allen. They lived at Smith's Station, where my father and mother, Cordelia Allen, were married and where they lived the first years of their married life.
When I knew Enon, the inhabitants consisted of thirty-five or forty white families and countless numbers of negroes. Most of the slaves remained on the plantations of their former owners. So I knew a number of the ex-slaves who had belonged to my grandfather Banks. The homes of the residents were built on the sand ridge running across that part of the state through what was once called Chunnenuggee Ridge, where in the ante-bellum days lived the well-to-do farmers who built their substantial homes along the same ridge that was Enon. With the coming of the railroad most of these country people moved to the towns, mostly to Union Springs.
Among the aristocratic families of Chunnenuggee Ridge was that of Col. Richard Powell, whose likeness was engraved on a window-pane in his home by a flash of lightning. Augusta Evans Wilson got the idea advanced in her book "At the Mercy of Tiberius" from this window, which was sold in after years to Joe Carey from Texas, a great grandson of Col. Powell, for twenty-five dollars. Mrs. Barksdale who owned the place knew little of the value of this unusual piece of glass.
In the old days, the Chunnenuggee Camp meetings were memorable occasions where crowds gathered from the surrounding country. I think it was at one of these summer gatherings that my father met my pretty mother, then a girl of eighteen, when he was twenty-three. They were married the following year in December at her father's home at Smith's Station, Ala.
My grandfather, James Jones Banks, was a man of high honor and integrity. He had charge of money belonging to some orphans, invested it as he thought wisely. But it proved different. So to pay all in-debtedness, he sold his nice plantation home, and moved with his wife, Hannah Alston (who was his cousin), from Culloden, Georgia, to the newer state and rich lands of Alabama in 1843, bought several hundred acres of land and built the good comfortable home in Enon which, after his death was our home. Papa, who was then eleven years old was the youngest of seven children, six of whom were living and went to the new settlement.
I interline the story he told me. As a boy, he owned a young ox which he loved and wanted to take with him to his new home. So he and Archer, a trusted negro slave, drove it to a cart all the way to Enon over rough roads in winter weather. He said Archer would build fires to warm them and their food. If rain or snow came, they would sleep under the cart on comforts. They arrived safely, only a bit cold and tired after the journey. No wonder boys like this grew into strong self-reliant men.
All these children, two girls and four sons, grew up in Enon and, as a family, were an important factor in the village and the surrounding country. My father, Dunstan Marion, and his brother, Newton, went from the Enon schools to college, one to Athens, Georgia to the State University, the other to Philadelphia to study medicine at Jefferson Medical College. His two sisters, Rachel and Sarah were educated in the local schools of Culloden and Enon.
I heard of a Mr. Seales who was principal of the Male Academy; and Miss Minnie Jefferson, a Yankee school-ma'am had a school for girls. She boarded with Col. Crawford's family and married Mr. Wesley Oliver, a relative of Mrs. Crawford. In my day, which was after the war she was visited by few people, as the people of the defeated South couldn't forget that she came from Yankee land. However, in later years, one of her sons, Claude Oliver, married Kate Anthony, a grand-daughter of our cousin Billy Davis. They lived in dear old Enon at the old Rogers place long after most of the white people had moved to the cities and other towns.
Just before the war closed my father sold his home at Smith's Station where all four of us children were born and moved back to Enon. Our plantation at the former place was called "Long Hongry" named by the slaves because the dinner pails were late reaching them in the fields some distance from the big house.
I was born at "Long Hongry" with old Dr. Driver as the attending physician. It was a wonder that my sweet mother or I lived through it, as he knew next to nothing. After a year, we moved to the house which now stands back of Mr. Hayes' home at Smith's Station, and from there to Enon. When I came with Mama to Grandma's at the age of nine years, we went to this house to see Sissie and Professor Smith who lived there. It seemed familiar to me though I was quite small when we left -- an example of early impressions.
I guess Papa was homesick for the place where his father, a brother (Uncle Newton), and a sister (Aunt Rachie Tarver) still lived. And Uncle Jabez lived nearby in Hurtsboro. He must have realized his mistake, for Smith's Station was a good community and in close proximity to Columbus, Ga., a good market, and on the Western of Alabama railroad. Enon was five miles from any railroad over rough country roads.
Uncle Jasper,* my father's oldest brother had some official position in the building of the Mobile and Girard railroad and the people requested that he use his influence to keep it from going through Enon, as it would bring in a working class of people and the smoke and noise from the train were not desirable. So it remains to-day five miles from the railroad and not even on the modern paved highway.
[*Possibly Uncle Jabez Benoni Banks, since Jasper died in 1843, and the railroad was not built until 1854.]
Papa bought a plantation about four miles from Enon. Cousins Willis Butt and Will Allen owned land adjoining ours and were our nearest neighbors. The Allen children were numerous and nice playmates. (Will now lives in Mobile and Annie in Charleston, S.C. Fannie, that darling girl, married Henry Williams unfortunately and died years ago). Our house on this plantation was a log house, two big rooms with an open passage-way between them, a shed room back of these, and a big log kitchen in the backyard where the cook used the open fireplace to prepare our meals.
I remember only a few things about this place, but at that early age, I began following Papa everywhere I could. One morning going down to the meadow with him where there was a flock of sheep, I was so pleased with the little lambs, their wooly backs and tiny black noses. How I trembled with fright to see the men hold the big sheep on the benches to be sheared in summer.
Uncle Dock (Marcellus Allen) and Aunt Sue came there on their wedding trip (and all through the years he kept coming for help, as he was never successful -- a type of the "old South" who never adapted himself to the new order of things. The Glenns were like that. They came from South Carolina and seemed to inherit the aristocratic manners and ideas of life impractical in the new order.) We all sat in Mama's room around a big open fireplace where logs of wood burned and warmed the twenty-foot room. Aunt Sue gave me some striped sticks of candy, a rare treat to a country child in reconstruction days.
We all went to church in Enon in the family carriage, still in use, driving two horses. Papa did the driving. I would take to grandpa my tea cake dolls and ginger-bread men, and he would put them in the big clock on the mantel and give them back to me the next Sunday.
My grandfather was a fine, good man of the pioneer type, devoted to the church, where he sat in the amen corner, was honored and respected by all who knew him. Like most old people, he had his eccentricities. He believed that "children should be seen and not heard"; so we acted accordingly.
Grandma always had a good dinner, but at his place, there was a corn meal hoe-cake. He insisted that everyone have a piece of his "corny-bread" as he called it. We hid our small pieces under our plates, for we didn't like it and wouldn't eat it for our health's sake.
This was our step-grandmother (a Mrs. Preston). Our own Hannah Alston died while Papa was in college. Being too young to remember dates, I can't say when Grandpa died, but I can't forget the tolling of the church bell at the funerals. How it made my heart ache! After his death and burial, Grandma took her share of the property and went to Quincy, Florida to live with her brother, Mr. Robert Jones. She often came back to Enon to visit us. She was a sweet old lady. She always dressed in the old style, wore a black net cap with a lace ruffle around it quite becoming to her.
Papa took his father's home in Enon where we lived all my childhood days. Uncle Newton took Papa's plantation for debt, he having lost his entire cotton crop of fifty odd bales by fire in Cousin Mack Allen's Warehouse in Columbus, Georgia with no insurance. So he moved to Enon and began his long career as a teacher.
At three or four years of age, my life in that dear little village began, like Dorothy Dix, I never bought a plaything, nor saw a theater or a big city. My information consisted of home, Sunday School, a few toys, the sunshine, birds and flowers. As some poet said, "In the time of my childhood, 'twas like a sweet dream To sit 'mid the roses, and hear the bird's song."
The war between the states was over and these were the days of reconstruction. The slaves and confederate money (except the many bills we played with) were all gone. A new era of work, "plain living and high thinking" had dawned in the South. For four years, Mama and Aunt Sallie did the cooking and house cleaning. They had been accustomed to having a house girl and a good cook. We three little girls swept the yards on Saturday. Sis Bet, Sis Net and Sis May (as they called me) wore Calico dresses and, in winter, the linsey-woolsey ones, and flannel sacques, pinked around the edges, to keep us warm. I had two crocheted or knitted hoods; one was white with pink edges, the other was light blue. My shoes, with copper toes, were bought at the village store. No fancy clothes, but the glow of health was in my cheeks and the glint of the sunshine on my hair.
Mama and Aunt Sallie had a few silk dresses left from the pre-war days, which they sometimes wore with their Neapolitan bonnets with ribbons tied under their chins, and tiny flowers under the brim. Aunt Sue had beautiful, silk dresses and lovely jewelry. Her father, Mr. Godwin, was a bridge builder before the war and made lots of money, and after his death she had lived in the home of Dr. Urquhart in Columbus. I guess this jewelry had been her mothers.
Aunt Sallie, Mama's sister, who always lived with us was always a lady of the old South. She maintained her modest dignity and aristocratic manner, though she did her full share of the work during the hard times. She belonged to the numerous class of old maids after the war which took the lives of many marriageable young men. Having known her, my hat will ever be off to the nice useful women who prefer single blessedness.
Though times were changed and we were among those whose fortunes "had gone with the wind" of that cruel war, we had a beautiful home, the necessities of life, and happiness. My brother John, whom we called "Buddie," the oldest of us children, stayed most of the time at Smith's Station with Grandma Allen. Aunt Liza Howell (Grandma's sister) and Sissie (Mrs. Professor Smith of Auburn) and her children lived with Grandma too. All of them were devoted to Buddie whom they called "Bun". He grew up rapidly and was mentally beyond his years, but was never strong physically. When about eighteen, he went with Sissie and Mr. Smith to Vermont where Mr. Smith's father ran a dairy farm. He came home fat and rosy, showing that he needed the out-door exercise.
We three little girls, just ordinary mortals, took part in the daily tasks and pleasures of our home life. All of us grew up to be strong and healthy. The two older girls were very helpful to Mama. In the summer vacations, they were taught to sew usually making a block quilt.
From my earliest recollection, I was my father's shadow. He was the center around which the family revolved. He made me feel that I helped him; hence I was ambitious to do things for him. I used to fan him with a palmetto fan during his afternoon nap. I remember how tired my small arms would get and yet I held out. Then he would tell me stories about when he was a boy in Culloden and fan me till I fell asleep.
Mama had an old time Wheeler and Wilson machine where the cloth went from left to right under a glass foot. It must have been one of the early types and often wouldn't sew. Hence many of our clothes were handmade. I can see Mama now sitting in her chair with her work basket in another one in front of her. She usually put her feet on the round of this one and cut out our little dresses on a lap board. I had a habit of running down the hall and jumping on the back of that chair. One day she happened not to have her feet on it, so it turned over and cut my chin. I still have the scar.
I'll try to describe our house. How I wish you might have seen it for it was really beautiful, consisting of four large rooms with a hall between the two on each side. The wide veranda was entirely across the front of the house with four big columns supporting the roof. The house was painted white with green blinds. Double doors with glass side lights and above them made the entrance into the hall. Mama's room, on the right as you entered the front door, opened out on a side porch where steps led to the back yard. On this porch was a shelf for the wash pan and soap where we all washed our faces and hands. A higher shelf against the wall held the water bucket and dipper. On the other side of the door was a roller towel which was for family use. It was a nice place to sit in summer, as our house faced the sunset. In winter, the wood and kindling were piled out there, and a basket of nice dry chips which we children picked up from the wood-pile when the darkies cut the wood. So on winter nights, to "crute the fire" as Mandy said, we only opened the door and got more wood.
Our room was back of Mama's room and opened into it. We three little girls slept and had our belongings in there. Sis Bet and Sis Net had a big four poster bed which Grandpa Allen had his carpenter Sawney to make of China wood for Mama when she was married. We left it in the house when we moved away. I slept on a trundle bed.
On the other side of the hall was the parlor, and back of that Aunt Sallie's room. We didn't use the parlor, except for company. I remember peeping through the blinds at the pretty lace curtains which had been Grandpa's. Aunt Fannie got the velvet carpet, the brass andirons, and the mohair covered sofa and chairs. Uncle Newton was already the rich member of the family and Aunt Fannie was noted for her saving and acquisitive qualities.
At the other end of the hall there were two steps down onto a long open passage way like that described at Tara, Scarlet's home. This was a nice cool place to sit in the afternoon as our house faced the sunset. A little shelf was at one end, on which was "a piggin." This was a small cedar bucket with no handle. It was used for drinking water. Grandma used that shelf for her candle molds to let the candles dry. We had a swing hung from one of the stout rafters overhead. I have stood in that swing and pumped high enough to touch another rafter with my feet. It scares me to think what might have happened.
At the end of this passage way was the dining-room, a big room furnished with a drop leaf table, a sideboard made of walnut wood and glass knobs for the doors and drawers, also chairs with arms to them.
At the side was a long narrow room which was originally the ironing room. Beyond these were the kitchen and pantry, a passage way between them where the steps went into the backyard. From front to back, it was a long house but space meant nothing in those days for it was plentiful.
When we took school girls to board Papa had this passage-way weather-boarded and made a dining room of it and used the others for bed rooms. Grandpa extended the front porch making an ell where another room was added. This was always called "The preachers room". This was heated by a small wood stove. The other rooms had the open fireplaces and andirons with brass knobs on them. The nice warm fires were made of sticks of wood and plenty of "lightwood" for kindling.
The house, painted white with green blinds at the windows was far from the street with a lawn containing many trees in front. Most of these were oaks from which hung bunches of long Spanish gray moss. Many trees in the town had this moss on them. My father bought school books from a northern book concern; and at a request by Mrs. M.B.C. Slade of Boston, he sent a bunch of this moss with a description of how it grew written by one of the school girls. She wrote that she hung it in her library and was quite proud of it.
A low white paling enclosed our flower yard where grew the cape jasmines, crepe myrtles, lilacs, roses, tiger lilies, jonquils, and hyacinths. Two large cedar trees were on either side of the little front gate. In one of them a yellow jasmine vine had grown to the top. Its fragrant yellow blossoms were so pretty mid the dark green of the cedars. In the early morning, many of these golden bells were on the ground to be picked up by a little barefooted girl who loved to play with them. A line of poetry comes to mind.
"I did not know how sweet
Was youth, until I caught
The scent of jasmine blooms
When I was old."
A white ash tree grew under the other big cedar. We called it "Grancy-gray-beard". The blooms were very like an old man's beard. I have seen one other tree like it in Swanee, Tennessee. On the opposite side of the yard were two big mock orange trees (evergreens). We climbed into the trees and sat on the lower limbs to watch the robins eat the berries till they fell to the ground drunk from over eating. Near the end of the porch was a pit where Aunt Sallie kept her flowers in winter. It had only a cloth cover as the winters were mild and of short duration.
I remember only one snow when I was sixteen years old and how beautiful it was. Papa made a sleigh by taking off the wheels from a buggy and putting on runners. So all the young folks and children had a sleigh ride even in the "deep south." The horse was pretty stiff the next day from his drive in the soft snow. We made and enjoyed snow ice-cream mixed with sugar and vanilla extract.
Mama usually had her garden planted on the fourteenth of February. You must remember we had plenty of space. I think there were twenty acres in the place. To the right of the front yard was the peach orchard. How pretty it looked when in bloom, and the bushels of peaches it produced! I seem to smell and taste them yet, for they were the best ever. As a little barefoot girl, I would help Papa treat the trees with bar soap. My legs and arms would get so tired, but I’d hold out to help him and get his praise at the end. He planted for me a row of goobers across that orchard from which I gathered a bushel of nuts.
From the peaches, Mama made preserves and the best sweet pickles, both put up in stone jars, bought from the jugglers who passed that way with their wares. We picked quantities of fruit and put it on frames in the sun to dry. When sufficiently dried, it was put up in clean flour sacks for winter use. Stewed sun-dried fruit was nice and Mandy made the best flap-jacks by frying it in pastry patties.
The brick smoke-house, where the meat was cured, and kept, stood in the back yard -- a veritable monument to pre-war days when every man raised his own meat. It had a dirt floor, so the hams, shoulders, and strings of stuffed sausages hanging from the heavy joists across the top could be smoked and cured by the smoke from hickory wood fires. At the sides were wooden bins in which the middlings were salted down. "Hog-killing" time was an important event even in my day. The coldest day in winter, the negroes would come, kill from eighteen to twenty hogs, scald them in the big pots in the brick furnace, clean them, and hang them up. The next morning they would come and cut them up on two big wood-blocks and put the meat away.
On the opposite side of the yard, was a big, log room, a servants room in the slavery days. My mother's hired cook, Mandy Morton, and her two boys, Mack and Tom, occupied it. I remember how she looked and what a grand cook she was. I'll never forget her nice hot biscuit, which went fine with butter and new cane syrup, and her chicken pies. Mack was our water boy, on his frequent trips to the spring bringing two buckets of fresh water, one on his head and one in his right hand. Tom was young and spent most of his time sucking his thumb and hanging around his mother.
The thing I 'specially remember about our large garden was the two grape arbors with the bunches of sweet grapes that hung within easy reach. We were not restricted; so we ate the grapes and figs as we pleased and somehow they didn't make us sick. Some of the old time herbs grew in that garden -- the sage bushes whose dried leaves furnished seasoning for the sausage meat and sage tea for colds, and fevers, hoarhound, catnip, vermifuge, pepper bushes furnishing strings of red pepper which hung on the kitchen walls for seasoning –- also artichoke bushes.
The day of home remedies hadn't gone by. Many herbs and roots were used for medicine. I knew of slippery elm poultices, sassafrac tea, and the use of the Jamestown weed for infections. Mama made the nicest salve for chapped hands and faces of mutton suet, camphor and fresh sweet gum. These melted together and poured into a cup to cool made a good and pleasant remedy. For a pain in the chest and lungs, good greasing with tallow or mutton suet, then a flannel cloth saturated in turpentine was applied. We lived through all this and the limited knowledge of the "country doctor."
By the spring lot gate grew the white fig tree so called because the ripe figs were a cream color. Between the smoke house and kitchen was the largest fig tree I ever saw. It bore quantities of sweet purple figs. One day Sis Bet climbed up this tree and went out on top of the smoke house to gather some real ripe figs. When her bucket was full, she couldn't get back into the tree. She began crying. Sis Net and I joined in, for we feared she would fall off the roof. But Mama came to the rescue having a ladder placed so she could descend safely with her bucket of delicious figs.
In the spring lot was an ash hopper filled with hickory wood ashes from which "lye" dripped into a vessel by pouring buckets of water on the ashes. Mandy made lye soap for scouring and cleaning the kitchen things.
This spring lot as we called it was on the brow of the hill leading down the path to the spring. The trees that grew on that hillside seem to come back to me now in grand review, "the seven sister poplars who go softly in a line" with their leaves turned yellow in the fall, and the sweet taste on the inside of their spring blossoms was sugar to us. The big old chestnuts and chinquapins opened their burrs and dropped nuts for our gathering; the hickory and scalybark trees furnished our winter supply of nuts and enticed the squirrels from their hiding places. The sturdy oaks gave us acorns to spin like tops. The fragrance of the honeysuckle and sweet shrubs and the white blooms of the dogwood lent their charms to the wildwood.
Down the winding path was the spring, a rival truly to the story book one of "Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby". A wooden box over it protected it from the sun; a white sand bottom kept it clear. A trough went through the spring house on which the milk and butter were set to keep them cool. Through this the water flowed on into a big tub many a time. We plunged into this clear cold water, undressed and dressed again in nature's bath room surrounded by the hills and trees with never a thought of being disturbed. A branch ran along there into which the spring water flowed. Willows and elder bushes grew along its banks. These furnished the popguns in which we shot china berries. My grandfather had a field of rice in the damp bottom land along that stream. When Papa owned it, he made for us a sugar cane patch.
About twenty acres were included in the place. Enough corn, fodder and roughage was raised to feed the stock. We had cows (I remember "Star" on account of a white spot on her head, and "Peace" a butt-headed, dun colored one) some pigs and two horses (a black, balky one named Helen). The big gate in the back yard opened out on a driveway to the lot where the barns, stables and cotton house were.
A row of mulberry trees edged and shaded this driveway. The ripe berries falling to the ground were food for the hogs and many times, after school in the afternoon, we would stand on the high garden palings and pick and eat our share of the ripe mulberries which tasted good. On the brow of that hill were two crab apple trees -- how sweet and pretty they were in bloom! and a red haw tree which bore tasty fruit like tiny apples. We would string them and wear them like beads until they were all eaten.
Every morning it was my ambition to rise early and go with Papa to the lot where he milked the cows and fed the stock. He would lift me up in the crib, where I'd get a basket of ears of corn for him to give to the pigs and horses, always bragging on me as his little helper. So that was sufficient reward for missing my morning nap. What a picture of simple devotion we three made as we walked together in the morning light to the lot -- I, a little barefoot girl holding Papa's hand, while he carried the milk bucket in the other, and Judge White, the tall angular stoop-shouldered old man whose rugged, but sincere love for Papa brought him every morning to be the third companion. He seemed to enjoy the morning chat during the feeding time.
I must explain that Judge White was the village post-master. His house and the post-office were across the road in front of our home. He was also a silver-smith and a notary public. So he was an important member of the community. I have heard that the Jernigan brothers brought him to Enon in the early days. His wife "Clarissy", an unlettered woman, and a son William and himself composed the family. Many stories were told in the village of his eccentricities.
Most of the cases brought before him were among the negroes. On one occasion a negro was accused of stealing. After listening, the Judge said, "Let me see your hands." The verdict was "guilty" because no hair grew on his palms. "All negroes," he said, "who have no hair on the inside of their hands will steal." The negro couples who came at night to be married, he'd ask a few questions, and then calling Clarissy to bring the broom, he'd tell the couple to jump the broom stick and then they were man and wife.
He was a staunch Methodist when denominational matters were much discussed. Mr. Arnold left the church and joined the Baptists. The old judge said to him, "Well, Arnold, I hear you've gone over to the Baptist church" to which Mr. Arnold assented. His sage reply was, "You never catch the sheep about the water; it's always the swine."
One of his possessions was an ox and a small wagon. Jack and the cart with "Willyarm" to drive were useful members of his family and to the neighbors, as they could bring things and sometime people from Guerryton five miles away.
He was the school children's friend especially on Valentine's Day when we frequented the post-office to get our many home-made valentines. His son, William, came to school free of any charge. As a token of his love for "Dorney", as he called Papa, he fixed up a tall old-time clock as a gift. It had two weights and when wound, it kept good time for eight days. I don't know what became of it. I think it was on the mantel in Mama's room when we left Enon. I wish we had it as it would be a curiosity now. I believe if it were put on a level and wound up, it would still tick away the minutes and strike the hours.
The fat old mail rider came in a buggy with a big yellow, red, and blue umbrella stretched over him, twice a week from Midway in the morning and from Guerryton in the afternoon -- a long ride over the country roads for each of these places was five miles from Enon. Wednesdays and Saturdays were red-letter days. One of my few amusements was to sit on our front veranda and watch the people come and go to the post office.
Judge Granvil [Granville] White, the typical village postmaster, was a rather remarkable man of good native mind, but, like many of his day, of limited education. After a useful life, he with Clarissy was buried in the old grave-yard back of the church "where the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep, waiting the judgment day." In later years "Wilyarn" joined the Salvation Army and then settled down to live in Phoenix City, Alabama.
Another so-called celebrity in our town was an old negro named Sam Crymes who seemed to belong to everybody. He stuttered when he talked and was the one person who was known to drink whiskey. Papa said to him, "Sam, you are getting old and you ought to stop drinking." He replied, "Yas suh Marse Dunston, I sho' gwine to do dat. When de debil tempts me, I says' git ye behime me Dicky - loogy.” Sam was the town alarm clock. When anybody was to take a train trip, which necessitated very early rising as the depot was five miles distant, one had only to tell Sam to wake him at two, three or four o'clock in the morning. No matter what the weather was, rain or shine, warm or cold, at the appointed hour, Sam was knocking on the front porch with his stick until he waked somebody. I guess he had some sign by which he knew the hours. He was a privileged character and lived without regular work. The people, black and white, owed him a living.
We had short mild winters and long hot summers. In the good old summer time nearly all work ceased. Everybody except the darkies, who could stand the sun's rays, stayed in the shade and tried to keep cool using palmetto and turkey wing fans. Mr. Cason in his book “90° in the Shade" says, "The man on whom the snow never falls is not worth a tinker's dam." We of the deep South cannot agree with him, for the hot days far outnumber the cold and few snows fall.
We children welcomed the summertime for then came barefoot days when we put our feet in the soft white sand and waded in the branches. Happy days they were, but I always paid the penalty of having dew poison when the bottoms of my feet were covered with blisters. Uncle Newton finally opened all the blisters and poured caustic on them which burned badly. I think the cure came when I was big enough to wear shoes all the time. Another ailment I had was a rising in my head which discharged at my left ear. The country doctors knew nothing of lancing the ear. So Mama only put hot things to it to ease the pain. So now at the age of seventy-five, my hearing is very poor, and with the aid of an expensive instrument, I try to hear all on account of a trouble in childhood which was not properly treated.
The school house and church were in close proximity and were the important buildings in the community. The former was a two-story building with a porch across the front and four big columns, three flights of steps to the three entrances, two doors and double doors in the center. Four big windows on each side gave plenty of air in summer, and in winter it was warmed by two wood stoves. The church and school house were both painted white with green blinds and looked so nice against the green of the oaks and pines.
The second story of the school house was a Masonic lodge. The two smallest front rooms were used with the consent of the Masons for school purposes. One was a music room where cousin Sallie Glenn from Glenville taught music, using a small square piano which Papa bought from Mr. Rogers for $100. The other room was a classroom where Aunt Sallie Allen taught the younger children. When I began school, the old wooden desks of prewar days were still in use and were cut up with notches and the jack-knife carved initial.
Our school was for boys and girls, a post-war improvement on the old days. When the old desks and benches were replaced by double patent ones where the seats let up and down, the town people and school children were much pleased. Two rows of desks were for the girls and two for the boys with a wide aisle in the center. Across the rear of the building was the stage surrounded by blackboards on which we worked sums in our Mathematics and wrote sentences in English. The teacher's desk and chair stood in the center so he could see the whole school.
Sallie Jernigan was my desk mate as we were little girls we sat near the front in one of the smaller desks. There we studied together Webster's Blue Back Speller, McGuffey's Readers, Davis's Arithmetic (using slate and pencil) Monteith's Geography, Pinneo's English Grammar, Quackenbos's Composition and Rhetoric and, as we grew older, a thorough course in Latin. I had read Aesop's Fables, three books of Caesar, Virgil's Aeneid, and beginning Horace when we moved to Union Springs.
I wish I had those old books. They would be curiosities now. The pictures and lines of the first reader are vivid memories. "The dog ran", "The cat is on the mat," "The big fat hen" etc. Further on were words of more than one syllable. We used the entire series of McGuffey's Eclectic Readers through the fourth reader. A few lines of poetry I remember.
"Down in a green and shady bed,
A modest violet grew.
Its stalk was bent, it hung its head
As if to hide from view."
Another was,
"Lazy sheep, pray tell me why
In the pleasant fields you lie,
Nipping daisies in the spring
While the birds above you sing."
"Little master, this is why
In the pleasant fields I lie,
You'll cut my woolly coat away
To keep you warm for a winter's day."
The more advanced readers contained articles illustrating truths and lessons of life and extracts from the masterpieces in literature -- "The Contest between the Sun and Wind" over the man with an over-coat; "The Hare and the Tortoise"; some poems, "How the Water Came Down at Lodore"; "Lord Ullin's Daughter"; Timmyson's Brook" and many others. My books handed down by the older sisters, had the spot at the lower part of the page made by the thumb holding the book in the left hand.
As the years went by, my father established a good school, to some extent famous in that part of the world. Dr. J. L. Cotten, our presiding elder, came to Enon and was so pleased with our nice church and the people, and especially the school that he named it "The Gem of the Woods." By this name it was well known abroad and at home as long as we lived there and papa taught the school.
Dr. Cotten was from Tarboro, N.C. and was a great preacher though rather eccentric. He was a widower, and his two daughters Mattie and Lucy were in the boarding school at Summerfield, Ala., the old Methodist College. He brought them to Enon where they boarded with Aunt Rachel Tarver, finding there a real home where they remained after their father's death and until they were grown and married. Mattie married my brother, John and Lucy, my cousin, Clarence Glenn. They were educated at the "Gem of the Woods."
Boys and girls from the nearby towns and country places came to school in Enon. It was a fine type of the old private school and was known for the well prepared students who went from there to college.
Our house was full of girls who were boarding students. I will mention a few of the long list. Stephie Greene was from Seale. She afterward married Tom Brannon. Her son, Peter Brannon, is well known throughout the state for his articles in the Montgomery Advertiser on the early history of the state and the Indians. One of the old postman's jokes was, when a letter came to her, to read it "Miss Step - hie Greene."
Another girl was Lela Spangler the daughter of a Methodist preacher. She was an orphan adopted by a friend of her father. She was of such a happy disposition, full of fun and wit. Her son is the cartoonist for the Montgomery Advertiser and signs his name "Spang."
Will Feagin from Midway came in a buggy every morning to school, a pretty little boy. He was in mature life the Superintendent of Education in Alabama.
Sallie Bass, a beautiful girl from Glennville, came to school and boarded with Aunt Rachel. Later she married Aunt Rachel's son Milton Tarver. Their daughter Marie Tarver Carroll, the wife of a successful banker in Ozark, is a writer of some good poetry published in current magazines and papers. She is the poet laureate of the Woman's Missionary Society of the Alabama Conference.
Mr. Flew Persons, a bachelor, had the reputation of bringing out all the girls as they grew up. He was the beau of the village with never a thought of marrying, as he cared for his father, a little sister and two younger brothers. He was a nice man and meant much to his family and to the social and church life of Enon, He was among the last of the inhabitants to leave. When he died at the home of his niece in Savannah, it was said in a newspaper article that "he was carried back to old Enon for burial, and at the age of eighty-five was the last of a generation" -- which was true.
Some of these village lads, when grown up, were financial successes. Among them I mention Cousin Jimmie Tarver who was a merchant at Guerryton, then in Columbus, Georgia where he conducted a big supply store and accumulated a large fortune, and left to his wife and children an ample estate. His daughter, Rosalie, is Mrs. Howard Wade of Charlotte, N. C. She has a very beautiful home and lives in luxury.
Another Enon boy who succeeded financially was Crawford Jernigan who married my sister Bettie. He inherited nothing but by his business wisdom and honest effort and the help of his good wife, he made a fortune and left to each of his six children around a hundred thousand dollars.
Cousin Billy Banks was a successful merchant in Hurtsboro, as was Tom Davis in Wayeross, Georgia.
James J. Banks, Uncle Jabe's son, from Hurtsboro, went from the "Gem of the Woods" to college at Auburn, Ala. He is now Associate Chief Justice in Honolulu.
I wish I could mention more of those splendid young people who filled their places well in life, but my story lengthens.
A high moral tone pervaded the town and school. I don't remember any really bad children. A boy from Montgomery, George Mulligan boarded with us. His father was a train conductor, and George an only child wasn't very studious. His chief delight was playing an accordion.
We all had a happy time in a simple way. At recess we played the old time games of base, stealing sticks hiding and jumping the rope, Our school hours were from eight-thirty to twelve and then from one to four P.M.
The exercises at the close of school attracted crowds from the surrounding country. On one occasion they played "Romeo and Juliet." It was well played by intelligent young people. It had a romantic ending as Jimmie Tarver, Aunt Rachel's son, played Romeo, and Sallie Banks, Uncle Newton's daughter played Juliet. They were first cousins who afterward married.
Another event in the history of the school was when Lee Fitzgerald came from San Francisco to school in Enon. He was a bright handsome boy of fourteen years, son of Aunt Sallie Banks who married Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald in the early days when railroad facilities were meager and shortly after the gold rush to California. His mother, like everybody who ever lived there had that love for Enon, the people and the very soil itself. After an absence of twenty years, she seemed to hold in her memory a home loving call. So she gave expression to it by sending her son back to the home of her young womanhood for three years of his education. She couldn't realize the changes since the war had been fought and the South defeated.
Lee lived with Aunt Rachel who was always one of the elect women of the old South. She was sweet, kind, devoted to her kin. In fact, she was everything that went into a lovely character. Uncle Monroe Tarver, her husband, was a queer old man, very deeply religious, a great reader of the Bible. He was a good financier, but delighted in being different, and when he had a drink was very talkative. He said that Rachel refused him at first, but when he went back to see her, he looked so handsome in his fine suit and waist-coat of black velvet with blue morning-glories on it, that she couldn't refuse his wooing. I think she must have been influenced by his wealth as she was far his superior.
Lee was a sort of hero at school. California seemed to us on the other side of the world. We knew very little outside of Enon, which to our innocent minds was the center of the universe. Lee stayed three years and Aunt Rachel went home with him. All these were important events in the life of the sleepy little village.
There were three stores in Enon; all of them kept dry goods and groceries. Mack Caldwell (who married my cousin Galenia Banks, Uncle Jabe's daughter, who lived only a year, and whose second wife was another cousin Sallie Glenn of Glennville, Ala.) had a store. I remember the candy jars on the shelf in his store with the sticks of red striped and lemon candy. Cousin Gilmer Banks, one of the Jack Banks' sons, came to see us often and had a special liking for me. He gave me once a whole quarter which I spent for some of that candy, and I had never before had so much.
Colonel Joel Crawford also had a store. He was a well-to-do man and kept the nicest store in town. He was brother Jernigan’s grandfather.
Uncle Monroe Tarver had a store and the largest trade. The front porch of his store was the gathering place, especially on Saturday afternoon, for the village folk and farmers.
One Jew ventured a store in Enon, a Mr. Hirsch. He didn't stay very long as there was too little commercial activity.
These stores were all on Main Street, which was a wide road of deep white sand running through the town.
Mr. Fletcher Rogers, whose only child Miss Lou Rogers had married cousin Billy Banks of Hurtsboro, was one of the aristocrats, who still kept his carriage and horses. He never left Enon. As long as they kept it, his carriage was available on special occasions. When Buddie and Sister married, they went to Hurtsboro the next morning, a wedding journey of seven miles, in Mr. Rogers' carriage drawn by two horses and with a negro driver in the coachman's seat.
The customs and even the styles of the old days still prevailed in this isolated village. I remember the Godey's Ladies Books in the bookcase drawer which were the only fashion books I knew until I was a real big girl. We were so far from any railroad that it seemed a little world all to itself. All the inhabitants seemed satisfied to be non progressive.
Among the goodly number of boarding students who came to study at the "Gem of the Woods" was a nice red-headed boy from Clayton, Ala. whom I liked very much. His name was Richard Fryer. His mother, a very nice person, was a widow. I have wondered if any of Richard's descendants lived in Clayton. Another boy, Eugene Price from Glennville, used to write sentimental poetry and slip it into my desk. Of course, I didn't like him a bit!
When the bell rang for school, the children came trooping in, stopped at the water buckets for a cool drink. On the porch were two buckets with dippers, one at the girls' entrance and one at the boys'. I guess the era of germs hadn't dawned as those buckets and dippers didn't seem to carry any. "Where ignorance is bliss" etc.
Once we had a "Battle Spelling" or a spelling match. As usual, my ambition was awakened and I believe I could have spelled every word in Webster's "Blue Back Speller." Most of the villagers were present. Sallie Jernigan and I were left standing on opposing sides. We were so excited. Finally, she missed and the victory was mine. Dr. Jernigan sent me next day a pencil and a small bottle of perfume bought at the village store. (You may imagine its fragrance.) To me they were treasures.
One day Papa was teaching a lesson in common fractions. Alf Morton, who had some dry wit, was asked the question, "If I cut a watermelon in two equal parts and gave you one, what would you say?" His reply was, "I wouldn't say nuthin'; I'd jes' go to eatin' it." Henry Davis, a near sighted boy, was drawing on his slate. Suddenly he laughed aloud. The teacher asked "What's the matter with you, Henry?" He replied, "I drew a house on fire and a man trying to put it out with a rake."
At that early age, I had an ambition to write, as most children do. So one lovely fall day, with a shawl around me, I sat in a fig tree on the brow of the hill where the path led to the spring, hoping to get inspiration for my composition on "Falling Leaves." Hearing a scream, I found Mack, our negro water boy, who said, "Oh, Miss Mamie, I thought you was ole crazy Nancy!" This was the interruption of my first effort at poetry. I had with difficulty written:
"Falling leaves, sweet falling leaves
What music to my heart ye bring;
you tell me of the winter's frosts
And whisper of returning spring."
--Some poetry! But it rhymed.
I had a dear girl friend, Mamie Spann, a pretty fair haired maid, who lived at old Chunnenuggee Ridge. She brought me from her home a snow-white kitten, which was the object of my heart's devotion. As in other instances, this was bad for the object loved. I nursed and petted that kitten so that it died. I sincerely felt that my child-heart would break when I laid its lifeless body in the small grave 'neath the rose bush. These sorrows of childhood come when sorrow is so new and strange. Papa, always my sympathetic companion, marked the grave with a wooden headstone containing the name "Snowdrop" and the date (May 1870). For several years that sacred little spot was kept by me with loving care.
Mamie was the most timid blushing girl I ever knew. She married an Atlanta man before I left school. Her brothers Jim and George came to school. Jim studied medicine and was a doctor in New York the last I heard of him. Old Major Spann used to tell a joke on his wife. During the war, he read in a paper that "In this struggle, the Lord of Hosts is with us." And she innocently asked if he was a new general who had come to help the Confederates.
This was before the days of picture shows. All the children were glad to see the bus-looking vehicle and the nag hitched under a tree. We knew it meant a show in the school house that night. Everybody would come, and never will I forget how wonderful those pictures were.
There were three buildings on my way to school worthy of note. The only two story house in town, where there was a beautiful flower yard in front and two summer houses over which climbed the yellow jasmine vine, was one. The story was told that a rich cousin, somebody Dubose built it. Then Dr. Crymes, Walton Crymes’ grandfather, owned it. And in the later years, old man Buck Cox (so called as a mark of disrespect as he was known to be unkind to his slaves) lived in this pretty place. The only time I was ever in this imaginary palace was when a travelling artist was there and all the children in Enon had a chance at having a tin-type picture made.
Another building was the "brick office". Our three physicians had their headquarters there -- Dr. N. P. Banks, Dr. Chas. H. Jernigan, and Dr. Groves Caldwell. It was set back off the main street. The front division of this building was an apothecary's shop where the supply of medicines and their few surgical instruments were kept. The back part was a consulting room. To us children who could peep in the window, it was a ghost-chamber, for there in the corner, hung a complete human skeleton. It was with whispers and wide open eyes that we often stopped on our way from school to view this wonderful mystery.
The next was the black-smith's shop where Mr. Edgar with "strong and brawny arms" would shoe the horses and mules and make the sparks fly on the anvil. We children coming home from school looked in at the open door; and to us it looked as big as the modern runs in the iron foundries.
There were two churches in Enon, Methodist and Baptist. These were the meeting places for all the people in and around Enon. The Methodist preaches [sic] lived in Midway and came to Enon two Sundays in the month. The other two were given to the Baptists. They were few in number, but were counted among the faithful. Old Uncle Billy Morton, in his cracked voice, raised the tunes; and for new members the Baptism took place in a creek of running water in accordance with their faith.
The Methodist Church had a large membership and a good Sunday school. At the roll call, each one repeated a Bible verse, which was very good. Most of the scripture I know was learned in that Sunday school. The first preacher I remember was Brother W.K. Norton, a mild good man, a typical "Vicar of Wakefield", a true earnest preacher of the gospel. He had singing on Sunday afternoons when he taught us the songs from the book "The Sunday School Bell". He understood music and had a tuning fork, the only one I ever saw.
Brother Norton owned his home in Enon and his family always lived there. Anna Norton, a very fine girl, was my friend, and Charlie was one of my few rustic admirers, a "boyfriend" in modern parlance. We left them there living in their simple home next door to Aunt Rachel.
We had a good Sunday School to which everybody came except the Baptists. They were too narrow along denominational lines and too few in number to have one of their own. Rev. W.H. Wild was our next preacher. It was during his ministry that I joined the church, a little girl of nine years. With other children, I took the vows of the church at the altar of that dear 'little "church in the wildwood", that sacred spot still held in loving memory.
Our next preacher was Brother Jere. S. Williams. We loved him very much. I remember we children gave him a new hat to wear to conference of which we were quite proud. Those godly men devoid of earthly ambition preached the true gospel, and the people had faith in the promises. How this has been tested in the after years, and how few of us have "kept the faith" will be known only when we have "met the Master face to face" in the great day of accounts.
At our church, Mrs. Lottie Nelson and her daughter Grace raised the tunes using the "American Tune Book." After they moved to Midway Sis Bet and Loula Caldwell raised the tunes. We had no musical instrument. It was customary for the men and boys to sit in the pews on each side of the two aisles, and the women and girls in the center of the church. If a girl had an escort, he left her at the door and at the close of the services waited there to escort her home. Another custom was that the preacher and congregation knelt in prayer. These were among the "good old days" of Methodism when people went to church to worship and not to be entertained. I grew up in the atmosphere of faith in the Bible, the church and people, knowing nothing of the "deceitfulness of riches" or the vanities of the world.
We had a typical village church painted white with two flights of steps leading to the two doors at the front entrance. The steeple on the point of the roof contained the bell which the negro sexton rang by pulling the rope to call the folk to church. At the rear of the church was the cemetery, where people were buried in open graves dug in the good earth.
The twenty-sixth of April was Decoration Day when everybody came to clean off and decorate the graves. I knew of no soldiers buried there. I doubt whether any one from Enon was in the Confederate Army. It was truly a place apart from the world.
The negro church was not far from the post-office and down the road from our house. Crowds of negroes passed on their way to church. Sitting on our verandah on summer nights, and even after going to bed, we heard them singing and keeping time with their feet, answering with their refrains of "Yes, Lord" and "Glory hallelujah". The old time darkies had sweet voices and sang with spirit. They handed down to us many superstitions about haunts and ghosts, many signs of good and bad luck. Seeing the new moon through the trees and the grave-yard rabbit crossing the road in front of us foretold bad luck and the ill-omened screech-owl could be silenced by putting the shovel in the fire; and there were many others in which they believed.
Politics had its day in Enon. As the negroes far outnumbered the white voters, and the ignorant had the right to vote and were all Republicans, often the poles [sic] were closed and Cousin Will Allen would come out and announce that there was a message from Montgomery not to have an election; so they could all go home. This was done unless they could buy up the Negro vote.
One of my chief delights was to spend the day with the Jernigan girls. It was a right long walk out there, but such good times we had -- all sorts of fruit, a lake with a boat on it, and Miss Cornelia (as we called Mrs. Jernigan) always gave us a good dinner. Other friends who were Enon girls were Sallie, Cephie, and Jenny Stewart (Jenny is now Mrs. King of Midway, Fannie and Annie Allen (Annie is now Mrs. Leonard of Charleston, S.C.) Willie Davis, Annie Tarver, Dru and Ella Read, Allie and Minnie Jernigan. These last were daughters of Mr. James Jernigan of whom there were nine, viz., Allie, Minnie, Mary Belle, Fanny Lou and Estelle, Sallie Kate and Mozelle, Jimmie and Eneree. (Observe the rhythm!)
Once Sis Bet, Sis Net and I went out in the country to spend the day at the Coleman's. Effie, Fannie and Dave came to school. The round dinner table was in two tiers. The lower one contained the plates, knives, forks, and glasses. The upper one had the dishes and platters of food. It would turn around so that each one could help his own plate as the dishes came to him. I have never seen another like it. The Coleman's moved to Texas, and George and Dave, are grown young men, came to see us in Union Springs.
Another place I liked to go was out to Cousin Jenny Allen's after they moved back to the plantation about four miles in the country. We children liked to ride horseback. Once we were riding and the horses seemed to think we were racing. Will Allen was riding a mule and couldn't keep up with us. So being frightened, I jumped off a fast-running horse, Something made my head hurt dreadfully. I suspect in this day the doctor might have said concussion of the brain or something worse. Papa was helping to build a house on a plantation for Uncle Dock (Marcellus Allen) to live in. So he brought me home with him that evening. I have been out there in the winter when they were grinding cane to make syrup. We would ride the wagons to the mill, drink the cane juice and ride back in the empty wagons to the house. I got so fat, my clothes began to be tight. They had a nice plantation home, and Will, Fannie and Annie were fine playmates.
The village social life was high-toned and very proper, but everyone enjoyed it. Croquet was a popular game played by the young folks on summer afternoons. I remember the first roller skates I ever saw. Brother Jernigan and Sallie Crawford, his aunt, went to Troy and came back with some they had bought. In Troy they had a skating rink. The villagers would go to the schoolhouse to see them skate on the stage, the only available place in Enon for skating.
Four annual occasions were enjoyed by everybody. In the May days, was the Sunday school picnic usually held in the grove of magnolia and bay trees near Cox's creek about two and a half miles from Enon. Everyone went in two mule wagons. We fished in the creek and played games, then had the best picnic dinners you ever saw – fried chicken in true Southern style, home-made pokes, chicken salad containing all the good ingredients, and the very best cakes. The chief delight of the children was the ice-cold lemonade made in a big tub and dispensed by Mr. Bill Read [sic] in numerous tin cups. It was the one occasion in the year that we had ice which was bought in Columbus. It tasted so good to the country children.
In the summer, Dr. Jernigan gave his annual fruit party. The long tables were placed in his big shady back yard. These looked quite tempting with the profusion of luscious water-melons, peaches, apples, figs and grapes, and sometime canteloupes. Everybody young and old were there. We all walked out to the nice Jernigan home and back home, a right long walk through the deep white sand. I guess the exercise kept us from being sick after the feast. Dr. Jernigan was a fine host with very graceful manners. We remember his mother, née Miss Caroline Gachet, who was a native French woman.
In the colorful autumn days, when "the corn was gathered in and the fodder in the shock," the sun shining by day and the moon by night, the apples red, yellow and ripe, the word went round that everybody was invited to the cider drinking. Mr. Wesley Tarver had a cider press and an apple orchard. It was a happy gathering of the village folk, and we children had a good time "sucking cider through a straw." The housewives made their vinegar from apple cider.
When the cold days came, and "the winter sun drew cold blue shadows from the trees," the thought of Christmas was in the air for Santa Claus always found his way to our tiny far away community. Mama soon would be going to Columbus and bringing back the mysterious bundles to be hidden away from our curious eyes. Our stockings were hung around the mantel-piece in her room. They were filled with the simplest things, for the good old saint didn't bring us expensive toys and luxuries that my grandchildren enjoy. We generally had two apples and oranges, some candy, raisins and nuts, always a cocoanut which went into the proverbial ambrosia for Christmas dinner, some simple toys, marbles for playing checks, a ball, a doll, or my old one dressed over. These with some fireworks made a happy Christmas for us. It was the only time in the year that we saw the Christmas fruits. Sis Net and I would divide oranges, each one of us having a half of one so they would last longer.
The event of the season was the annual party held at one of the homes, to which all the families contributed and went. I remember one they had at our house. The huge tub of ambrosia, the wonderful cakes a la the old Southern cook books, the delicious syllabub made of rich cream and good grape wine churned in a deep tin bucket with the time honored syllabub churns -- the taste of them lingers in fancy adown through the years. The preparations meant lots of work, but the feast was enjoyed by everyone. We children played out in the yards, for even in winter it was warm enough for our outdoor games of base and hiding. We older sisters went to the sociables and parties during the year. The nearest to dancing were the games of "stealing partners" and "fishing for love." There were other simple games that belong to the long ago.
I had two dolls. They had cloth bodies and china heads, hands and feet. Later, Nellie Smith, now Mrs. Charles Thach, sent me a larger doll with hair, that could open and shut its eyes. My, what a treasure. She also sent me a book, "Tales from Catland". I had two other books from the Sunday School in exchange for my tickets for good lessons --One "Wick Healey", an Irish story, the other "How Charlie Helped His Mother', Aunt Sallie Fitzgerald sent us from California "The Little Corporal", a magazine. Papa had a set of Abbot's Histories with red backs. I tried to read a few of these -- "Mary, Queen of Scots'' and "Madame Roland". I remember when I grew up, a book called "Beautiful Bertha” was to me a charming story. And with great misgivings, I asked Papa if I could read "Beulah", a real novel by Augusta Evans Wilson. For lack of something better, the stories in the Union Spring Herald, the Home and Farm, and the Sunny South -- all weekly papers -- my school readers, and a few books of poetry were of interest to me. It all seems quite meager compared to the many beautiful children's books of today.
I will remember the first banana I ever saw. Annie Tarver brought some to school and let her friends have a bite. Her mother had brought them from Columbus. I also remember when Mama brought us the first bought chewing gum. We had been accustomed to getting the sweet gum from the trees.
We children also had our games of club-fist, William - come - trimble - toe, checkers, jumping the rope, stealing sticks and base. After we were in advanced classes, authors was a favorite game, but not cards. I never saw or touched a deck of cards till Herndon Glenn, a young cousin, lived with me. They were associated with gambling and considered a very bad, worldly sin.
Some of our happy jaunts were the plum hunting groups. There were plum orchards scattered over the fields where, when ripe, the red and yellow plums were fine and juicy. We ate as many as we wanted and brought some home in our tin buckets. In the fence corners, we found the partridge nests. Their eggs are larger than the usual birds' eggs. We set traps baited with corn and other grains to catch birds. I don't remember ever to have found one in my trap.
On the fourth of July, most of the young folks and some of the old ones went on the excursion to Columbus, Georgia. This yearly trip to the city was the only dividend ever awarded to the stockholders of the Mobile and Girard railroad. So there was always a good crowd of passengers. People all along the way took advantage of the free ride for shopping and pleasure.
One winter the circus came to Union Springs, a distance of sixteen miles from Enon. Dr. Jernigan was taking his two older children, Crawford and Sallie. So he filled his two-mule wagon with other children. Sis Bet, Sis Net, and Buddie were among them. They left home about day-light, seated in chairs and wrapped in extra shawls with hot bricks to their feet. I was given the price of the ticket to stay at home, as Mama thought the trip too much for a little girl of my age. So I missed the opportunity and have never in my long life been to a circus.
I remember two big fires. Uncle Newton's home was burned. There was no chance to put out fires as the water would have to be carried in buckets. So with the help of people, things were removed from the house, and the house was left to burn. How weird it looked and sounded to see the flames against the midnight sky and hear the Negroes screaming "Fire! Fire!" arousing the neighbors from their quiet slumbers. Dr. Jernigan's house some distance out, was also burned. The people of Enon bought one of the old houses on the Ridge and had it moved and rebuilt for him. With no insurance, the good doctor wasn't able to build another house. This was an illustration of the kindness of people in those days of simple living.
The first death in the village in my memory was that of Col. Joel Crawford. I remember the tolling of the church bell and how his casket was brought on a one mule wagon to the cemetery and lowered with ropes into the grave. He was one of the well-bred men of the village, but was buried in the same simple manner of the others.
Three weddings happened among the historic events. First, there was that of Henry Banks and Sallie Kate Tarver. On a winter's night we all went to Mr. Wesley Tarver's nice home where the wedding took place. The bride wore a white dress and veil. Mrs. Tarver served a splendid wedding supper to the guests. The bride and bridegroom went next day to Guerryton where they were to live as Henry was depot agent and also kept his father's store. I must mention that Jabez, a younger brother of Henry, was a boy playing games with the children in the yard the night of the wedding, and in after years when Henry Banks died, married his widow who was seven years older.
Another wedding was that of my brother John J. Banks, and Mattie Cotten, which took place in January at the sweet home of Uncle Monroe and Aunt Rachel Tarver where sister lived. My brother John was nineteen and the bride was twenty. She was a pretty bride in a white tarleton dress trimmed in white satin ribbon bows, and a veil. Her hair was arranged in a shower of curls held by a tortoise-shell comb, an heirloom in her family. Aunt Rachel had a nice supper for the villagers present. As I have mentioned, Mr. and Mrs. J.J. Banks went the following morning to Hurtsboro where they were to reside.
Cousins Jimmie Tarver and Sallie Banks were married at Uncle Newton's house. They lived at Aunt Rachel's for several years, then in Columbus where he was a merchant. The matrons of that day, the postwar time, though they wore plain clothes, had the aristocratic dignity becoming the women of the old South. They were homemakers, housekeepers and mothers, not seeking social prestige which was theirs by inheritance. Public notice was not desired, a possible hand down from the Victorian age. The men were still the "heads of the houses". According to custom they were called Mr. by their wives. I never heard my mother call my father anything but "Mr. Banks". Likewise it was Mr. Tarver, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Allen, Mr. Davis etc. This was before the day of "The Vanishing American Male" as described in the American Mercury of 1937.
Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald was elected editor of the Nashville Advocate, organ of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Hence he moved his family from California to Nashville, Tennessee. They came to Enon on a visit, Aunt Sallie's first return since she was married thirty years before. This was my first acquaintance with Eleanor though as little girls we had exchanged letters. She was then about twelve and I a year older. Their visit was a big event in the history of Enon. I will not forget when Aunt Sallie came to our house, the home of her early life; the changes brought on by the war and the passing of the years, her father's death -- all must have swept over her like a dream. Eleanor and I have been back to old Enon which we both loved very much.
The people were becoming restless. Some of the younger ones had already felt the lure of the cities and left this quiet sequestered place. Those remaining were getting lonesome and dissatisfied. My father's school was not as flourishing as it had been -- fewer children and no newcomers. He was once elected president of the old Methodist Female College at Tuskugee -- now Huntingdon College at Montgomery -- but declined, to stay and teach at Enon at the "Gem of the Woods." Then he was offered the presidency of the school in Union Springs which he accepted, and we moved there in the summer of 1878.
After two years Sis Bet and brother Crawford Jernigan were married and went back to live in Enon. Their two older children were born there.
We lived in Union Springs three years. I graduated from Papa's school there. Then we went to Opelika where we have lived for a long time. Papa, with mine, Sis Nets, and Aunt Sallie Allen help ran a good school for boys and girls. We made a plain living for the family (my mother being an invalid), including Sister Mattie, her three children (John only nine months old) and Uncle Dock's two older children Edith and John Allen. Our home was always an orphan's home. But I digress.
Back to old Enon! When we left the neighbors' wagons were at the door to move our things to Union Springs sixteen miles distant. Cousin Will Allen had a two horse surry in which Aunt Sallie, sisters Bettie and Nettie and I went to our new home. Young Will Allen was the driver. I guess Mama came on the train. This was our last experience of such neighborly kindness. Henceforth we were in the world where every fellow paid his own way. It was good-bye to the place, friends, and customs of the good old days.
After we came to Opelika, a Negro man came to see Papa one day. It proved to be Wesley Allen who had made some name for himself as a leader among his race. He was teaching in Phoenix City and was also editor of a newspaper for Negroes. He was an ambitious young Negro who would come from Cousin Will's plantation and study with Papa at night. Even in that early time, he was an example of what Negroes could learn. Papa was proud of the result of his teaching and the success of his pupil.
I will give a list of the families, as I remember them, who lived in Enon and made up the population of this select happy community.
Dr. Newton P. Banks who moved to Columbus, Ga.
William Allen who moved to Midway, Ala.
Billy Davis who moved to Hurtsboro.
Wesley Tarver who never left Enon.
The Johns family lived in the country and afterward bought our nice home.
Billy Anthony went to Hurtsboro.
Dunstan Marion Banks, my father, moved to Union Springs and later to Opelika, Ala.
Mr. Edgar, the blacksmith, never left Enon.
Judge Granvil [Granville] White never left Enon.
Mack Caldwell moved to Midway.
Dr. Groves Caldwell never left Enon.
Billy Norton never left Enon.
Jim Stewart moved to Midway.
Bill Reed stayed in Enon.
Wesley Oliver stayed in Enon.
Dr. Crymes stayed in Enon.
Buck Cox stayed in Enon.
Monroe Tarver stayed in Enon.
Fletcher Rogers stayed in Enon.
Gus Persons stayed in Enon.
W. K. Norton, a preacher whose family lived in Enon.
Col. Joel Crawford stayed in Enon.
Beverly Barksdale moved to the Ridge.
James Jernigan moved to Birmingham.
Dr. Charles A. Jernigan moved to Birmingham.
Mr. Shehee stayed in Enon.
Henry Banks moved to Guerryton.
Mr. Dubose moved to Midway.
The Guerry's and their sister Mrs. Nelson moved to Midway.
Mr. Provost stayed in Enon.
Mr. Leveret stayed in Enon.
The Barksdale family moved away.
John Brown, a bachelor.
The Coleman's moved to Texas.
A young Englishman, Mr. Alterton, clerked at Uncle Newton's store at Guerryton and was a real beau of Cousin Sallie Tarver. I guess he returned to England. She married a preacher Mr. Crook.
I may have forgotten some of them but this is the roster of good families who made up the community where I spent my happy childhood. A good number of them were our kinsfolk as it was sort of a family affair.
If these old houses could talk, I think they could tell us interesting secrets of the days when they were real homes where old people were respected and honored, and where many children played, and the family gatherings were quiet and loving, where mother spent most of her time, and father came to rest after days of toil. They could tell us of joy and sorrow, of romance and the events that make history. But they are silent reminders of days that are gone leaving us to imagine the happenings that transpired within their walls.
I should not want to see my children or my grandchildren living as we lived. It would seem a very narrow life to them living as they do in this wonderful age of opportunity and adventure. Yet I know only too well that none of them will have one hundredth of the richness of memory that I have, for they lack the time to quietly think and indulge in day-dreams. Their lives are crammed full of duties and pleasures of to-day. Nor will they have the same fortitude to meet life's problems that I gained in my simple country life. They may have something else equally good and may be able to meet those ever existing problems with faith and courage.
I guess I have lived long enough to be called a "super." So I turn to the happenings of the long ago for interesting entertainment. Well is it said "We are a part of all the people and scenes that we have met." Hence those hillsides, trees, flowers, the very atmosphere of that little deserted village are a real part of this old woman of seventy-five years. For, like Mr. Chips, I am afflicted with "anno-domini." I like to go back to this "land of beginning again," though it has all changed along with me. I am leaving these scattered memories to my children and, with a sweet good-bye to old Enon, will agree with the sentiment expressed in this poem by a recent writer:
"I think perhaps I shall go wistfully
Along the streets of gold,
Remembering how earth too once was fair
And dearly loved, of old.
The pearly gates may shine resplendently
Fair to my wondering eyes,
But they can never bar the memory
Of earthly, sunset skies.
And I shall never be content with all
The glories that may be
If there is not, beside the jasper wall
One flowering dogwood tree.
With all the music of the heavenly spheres
Upon my senses ringing
Something will lack if I shall nowhere hear
A robin singing
Amid the scent of frankincense and myrrh
My thoughts shall turn again
To blooming orchards, apple, plum, and pear
To lilacs in the rain."
—Finis—
Annotations
Annotated “list of the families”:
Dr. Newton P. Banks who moved to Columbus, Ga. (Newton Paley Banks 1824-1901)
William Allen who moved to Midway, Ala.
Billy Davis who moved to Hurtsboro.
Wesley Tarver who never left Enon. (Elijah Wesley
The Johns family lived in the country and afterward bought our nice home.
Billy Anthony went to Hurtsboro.
Dunstan Marion Banks, my father, moved to Union Springs and later to
Opelika, Ala. (Dunstan Marion Banks 1832-1912)
Mr. Edgar, the blacksmith, never left Enon.
Judge Granvil [Granville] White never left Enon. (Granville White, b. abt. 1800, wife Clarissa White, b. abt. 1825, son William White, b. abt. 1861)
Mack Caldwell moved to Midway. (Marcus J. Caldwell 1848-1891)
Dr. Groves Caldwell never left Enon. (Groves Caldwell 1824-1899)
Billy Norton never left Enon.
Jim Stewart moved to Midway.
Bill Reed stayed in Enon. (William B. Reed b. abt. 1828)
Wesley Oliver stayed in Enon.
Dr. Crymes stayed in Enon.
Buck Cox stayed in Enon.
Monroe Tarver stayed in Enon. (James Monroe Tarver 1821-1894)
Fletcher Rogers stayed in Enon.
Gus Persons stayed in Enon.
W. K. Norton, a preacher whose family lived in Enon.
Col. Joel Crawford stayed in Enon. (Joel T. Crawford 1812-1875)
Beverly Barksdale moved to the Ridge.
James Jernigan moved to Birmingham. (James Thomas Jernigan 1835-1913)
Dr. Charles A. Jernigan moved to Birmingham. (Charles Henry Jernigan 1829-1913)
Mr. Shehee stayed in Enon.
Henry Banks moved to Guerryton. (Henry Jernigan Banks 1851-1881)
Mr. Dubose moved to Midway.
The Guerry's and their sister Mrs. Nelson moved to Midway. (Charlotte "Lottie" Guerry [Nelson] 1841-)
Mr. Provost stayed in Enon.
Mr. Leveret stayed in Enon.
The Barksdale family moved away.
John Brown, a bachelor.
The Coleman's moved to Texas.
A young Englishman, Mr. Alterton, clerked at Uncle Newton's store at Guerryton and was a real beau of Cousin Sallie Tarver (Sarah Hannah Tarver 1855-1886). I guess he returned to England. She married a preacher Mr. Crook (Rev. David Crockett Crook 1837-1891)
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Additional names mentioned, in order of appearance (omitting unknowns):
my dear child, Mary: Mary Barnett (Ordway) 1894-1955
my great-grandfather, Rev. James Elizabeth Glenn: John Elizabeth Glenn 1786-1851
His daughter Florella Ann Macon Glenn: Florella Ann Macon Glenn (Allen) 1816-1844
married my grandfather, John W. Allen: John W. Allen 1805-1859
my father Dunstan Marion Banks 1832-1912 and mother, Cordelia Allen: Cordelia Allen (Banks) 1837-1885
My grandfather, James Jones Banks: James Jones Banks 1792-1867
his wife, Hannah Alston: Hannah Alston (Banks) 1786-1852
My father, Dunstan Marion: Dunstan Marion Banks 1832-1912
his brother, Newton: Newton Paley Banks 1824-1901
His two sisters, Rachel … Rachel Jones Banks (Tarver) 1826-1894 and Sarah: Sarah Elizabeth Banks (Fitzgerald) 1830-1913
And Uncle Jabez: Jabez Benoni Banks 1819-1891
Uncle Jasper: Jasper Galenius Banks 1817-1843
Cousin[s] Willis Butt: Willis Banks Butt 1839-1899
Uncle Dock (Marcellus Allen): Marcellus M. Allen 1841-1886
our step-grandmother (a Mrs. Preston): Mary or Martha Jones Preston (Banks)
Aunt Sallie: Sarah Allen b. 1843
Sis Bet: Elizabeth "Bettie" Benona Banks (Jernigan) 1857-1918
Sis Net: Cordelia Antoinette "Nettie" Banks (Hurt) 1859-1934
Aunt Sue lived in the home of Dr. Urquhart: Possibly Dr. John Augustus Urquhart 1805-1876
My brother John, whom we called "Buddie": John James Banks 1855-1881
Aunt Fannie got the velvet carpet: Frances Ann Elizabeth "Fannie" Jernigan 1831-1906
Judge White was the village post-master: Granville White b. abt. 1800, Clarissa White b. abt. 1825, William White b. abt. 1861
an old negro named Sam Crymes: Samuel Crymes, b. abt. 1825, appears in the 1870 Census living in Enon with his wife, Lucy, and five children
cousin Sallie Glenn: Sallie Glenn (Caldwell) 1846-1877
Sallie Jernigan was my desk mate: Sallie Jernigan 1861-1914
Aunt Rachel Tarver: Rachel Jones Banks (Tarver) 1826-1894
Mattie married my brother: Martha "Mattie" A. Cotton (Banks) 1854-1931
Sallie Bass, a beautiful girl from Glennville: Sarah "Sallie" Berry 1862-1955
Later she married Aunt Rachel's son Milton Tarver: Milton Wesley Tarver 1857-1937
Their daughter Marie Tarver Carroll: Mary Tarver Carroll 1883-1955
Cousin Jimmie Tarver: James Banks Tarver 1849-1917
His daughter, Rosalie: Rosalie Tarver (Wade) 1878-1956
Another Enon boy who succeeded financially was Crawford Jernigan: Henry Crawford Jernigan 1857-1930
Cousin Billy Banks: William Harvey Banks 1842-1918
James J. Banks, Uncle Jabe's son, from Hurtsboro: James Jones Banks 1861-1946 and Jabez Benoni Banks 1819-1891
Another event in the history of the school … Lee Fitzgerald: Lee Fitzgerald 1861-1895
who married Dr. O. P. Fitzgerald: Bishop Oscar Penn Fitzgerald 1829-1911
Uncle Monroe Tarver: James Monroe Tarver 1821-1894
Mack Caldwell: Marcus J. Caldwell 1848-1891
who married my cousin Galenia Banks: Mary Galenia Banks (Caldwell) 1848-1868
Cousin Gilmer Banks: Gilmer Rockingham Banks 1837-1900 one of the Jack Banks sons John D. Banks 1797-1870 (See Diary of John Banks)
Colonel Joel Crawford also had a store: Joel T. Crawford 1812-1875
whose only child Miss Lou Rogers: Mary Louisa Rogers (Banks) 1850-1925
Dr. Jernigan sent me next day a pencil: Charles Henry Jernigan 1829-1913
Alf Morton, who had some dry wit: Alf Morton 1856-1929
Our three physicians Dr. N. P. Banks, Dr. Chas. H. Jernigan, and Dr. Groves Caldwell: Newton Paley Banks 1824-1901, Charles Henry Jernigan 1829-1913, Groves Caldwell 1824-1899
Old Uncle Billy Morton, in his cracked voice: possibly William Morton b. abt. 1822, in 1870 a minister living in Midway
At our church, Mrs. Lottie Nelson and her daughter Grace: Charlotte "Lottie" Guerry (Nelson) 1841-, Grace Nelson (Hanchey) 1858-1898
Miss Cornelia (as we called Mrs. Jernigan): Martha Cornelia Crawford (Jernigan) 1840-1913
Other friends who were Enon girls were Annie Tarver: Annie Wesley Tarver (Stewart) 1863-1911 Dru: Drewcilla J. Reed 1860- and Ella Reed: Ella Reed 1863-
These last were daughters of Mr. James Jernigan: James Thomas Jernigan 1835-1913 of whom there were nine, viz.,
Allie: Alberta Jernigan (Gregory) 1862-1935
Minnie: Laura Minnie Jernigan (Klein) 1865-1943
Mary Belle: Mary Belle Jernigan (Stone) 1867-1963
Fanny Lou: Fannie Lou Jernigan 1869-1956
and Estelle: Estelle Jernigan 1871-1953
Sallie Kate: Sallie Kate Jernigan (Pitts) 1873-1910
and Mozelle, Jimmie and Eneree: possibly Anne Lee Jernigan (Fason) 1880-1943
remember his mother, née Miss Caroline Gachet: Caroline Sarah Mildred Gachet (Jernigan) 1807-1880
First, there was Henry Banks Henry Jernigan Banks 1851-1881 and Sallie Kate Tarver Sarah "Sallie" Katherine Tarver (Banks) 1856-1926
Jabez, a younger brother of Henry, was a boy playing games: Jabez Bunting Banks 1862-1928
This was my first acquaintance with Eleanor: Eleanor Fitzgerald (Robertson) 1863-1943
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Transcript of "Recollections of My Childhood Spent in Old Enon, Bullock County, Alabama" by Mary Hannah "Mamie" Banks, born June 13, 1862, and died Sept. 29, 1943, Asheville, North Carolina. She was 75 when she wrote this 45-page memoir. She married Albert Edward Barnett 1860-1915 on Jan. 6, 1892. Her children were Mary Barnett (Ordway) 1894-1955, Albert Edward Barnett Jr. 1895-1961, Sarah A. Barnett 1898-1937 (Hall), Marion Barnett (Reynolds) 1902-1966, and Ellen Glenn Barnett (Timmons, Fitzgerald) 1904-1996.
Transcribed and annotated by Meg Betts Torbert and Roy Banks Torbert, great-grandson of Jabez Bunting Banks and Sarah "Sallie" Katherine Tarver Banks, 2nd great-grandson of Newton Paley Banks and Frances Jernigan Banks, and 3rd great-grandson of James Jones Banks and Hannah Alston Banks.
Nov. 18, 2023