by Jeannie Travis
I thought I’d write down some of my memories of Mama…..Myrtle Blanch Buntin Winchester
Mama was born to a woman who didn’t like her. They clashed from the word go. When her Ma had twins she only had enough milk for one of them, so she put the weaker one on the bottle and turned him over to Mama. Harold had asthma, and allergies, I’m sure. Mama had to tote him around a lot as he had trouble breathing, and said she had made biscuits many a morning with one foot propped up on the rung of a chair so her baby brother could sit on her knee. She had to get up and cook breakfast then go to the field and work..Come home and cook dinner, clean up the kitchen then go to the field till time to cook supper I asked if Ma had a lot of trouble when the kids were born and Mama said no, she was just lazy! I told you they didn’t get along!
When Mama was 17 years old Papa had a stroke, and she put in the entire crop that Spring with a little help from her younger siblings…She was a tall woman, and said at that time she could pick up a 100 lb. sack of feed , put it on her shoulder and carry it to the barn.
Mama married to get away from home, I think, but found herself having to live with her in laws, and her new husband drank and ran around with other women. When their unborn baby had to be taken from her and she got milk fever and almost died hubby was out drinking and carrying on. She never lived with him again, and started saving up hard earned money to pay for a divorce while living at home…She never forgave him.
A cousin she had dated as part of a group brought Daddy with him to date her younger sister Zula, and my parents fell in love instantly …. much to the disgust of Raymond Patterson, the cousin! They started courting, and after 3 months, Daddy put his arm around her. – A very respectful way to treat a divorced woman!. He sent her a lovely watch in the mail which she later gave me, and they wrote back and forth when Dad couldn’t come courting. One night they went to a ‘play party,’ Mama played guitar and sang and Dad was stabling the horse just as the sun was coming up. The horse got to spend the day resting. Daddy had to go right to the field! Now that’s true love! They got married sitting in the buggy out in front of the Squires house, which was apparently the fad of the moment. Oh yes, Daddy helped her get the money together to pay for the divorce when they got impatient to marry. Mom said it cost $15.00, which was a princely sum back then.
The first years of their marriage were hard, as they were sharecropping. Dad was ambitious, moving up from each farm to a better one over the years, and saving money for their own place. Mom said she hoed their cotton while Daddy farmed, and by the time she got to the end of the field, it was time to start over again! Can you imagine that ? Dad would hook up a horse and run the ‘scraper’ up and down each side of every cotton row…surely nerve wracking labor! She would hoe alone if he didn’t have time to help her, then he would go back and plow the middles to kill the wilted grass and weeds hoed from around the cotton stalks…
After a short while the babies started coming along…Robert, Joyce, Me, Jerry, Reba, Betty, Gerald, and Janice….Just like stair steps…When we were 5 or 6 years old we went to the fields to hoe cotton, corn, etc., and to pick cotton in a grass sack with a rag strap. My goodness, I don’t see how Dad had the patience, but needs must, and we were all healthy eaters…
Sorghum had to be stripped, cut down and piled to the side to wait for the wagon to haul it to the sorghum mill on a neighbors farm. I was one of the kids who had to cut the tops off…using the old butcher knife Dad made from a saw blade…Nicks on my bony knees and the cold made for a very sad little scrawny girl, I remember. We loved the ‘lasses Dad brought home, though. I can just picture it rolling slowly over the lip of the jar, bubbles trapped in the thick amber liquid stretching into nothing as it was poured over a chunk of butter from our Jersey cow…Stirred together and slathered on a hot biscuit….Ummmm, good !
Mama was a tall reserved English sort of woman with lovely ash blonde hair worn in a crown of braids, and Daddy loved her so much. His family had a very raucous type of humor, and I think this love for Mom kept him sorta calmed down. A scary bout with “Kidney colic ” one Fall day while we were picking cotton in a field over across the Big Ditch was the first hint of the dread Leukemia that was to take the life of this handsome blue eyed man at the age of 34.
They had 8 kids in their ‘short ‘ marriage , and Mom was 3 months pregnant when Daddy left us…She didn’t tell him, as she thought he had enough to worry about…I know he went to Heaven, because he was shown a wonderful vision of it just before he died. He was a ‘storytelling’ man, and I remember him describing everything he saw because Mama just couldn’t seem to see what he was pointing out to her so excitedly…
Ma kindly allowed us to move in with her in that big log house, and we stayed there till brother Paul was born, then Mama used the money left over after Dad’s year long stay in hospitals and in Dr’s offices to buy a 5 acre farm with a nearly new house. Needless to say she was suffering terribly from losing the love of her life, but she knew she had to keep on for our sakes…and Dad’s image was kept so perfect and alive that it seemed like a natural way to live for us little ones…
The man that owned the tenant farm set it up for us to get a check each month from the country, and Mama made it last so we always had just about everything we needed. When electricity came to our area she got the house wired and bought the fridge and other appliances one at a time on the payment plan. Since she never got even $100.00 a month for us 9 kids –nothing for herself–that took some planning. Maybe money from each year’s calf she always sold as veal, working for others hoeing, etc helped her get them. She canned every single thing that was edible, from Poke sallet to soup mix, and we always had plenty to eat. It was not unusual for her to can 2 or 3 hundred quarts each of snap beans ,tomatoes…and even blackberries. I remember me and her picking those big swamp blackberries around the edge of the new ground while big sister Joyce took care of the little ‘uns on a quilt in the shade. Yes, she canned everything for the cold winter months including the best ripe tomato relish in the world, and all sorts of jam and jellies .
Eating ‘soup beans’ was not a problem with her delicious skillet of cornbread and some tomato relish or chow chow to go with it. All the canning was done in a cold pack canner until she managed to save up enough money to buy a pressure cooker. Having heard tales of them blowing up, she sent all of us outside for safekeeping. Said she looked up later and every one of us kids was peeking around the doorways. Guess we wanted to see the mess if it blew up!
Since Mama had a ” Sweet tooth ‘, we never wanted for cakes, pies, biscuit pudding, or delicious fried pies. One of my favorite memories is walking up the hill on cold winter evenings after school – We rode the 3 rd bus – and going in through the kitchen so I could find out what we were having for supper. The windows would be fogged over from the supper simmering on the stove, and Mom would be sitting there by the coal oil lamp , reading while she waited for us. On favored days the table would be centered by the biscuit plate piled high with fried apple pies. I can just taste them, they were so good! Each pie covered half of the chipped old plate, and there was enough for every one of us to have a whole pie…
Oh yes, I remember Mama, and how very hard she struggled to keep her bunch of kids together. Church and doses of ‘peach tree tea ‘ kept us on the straight and narrow, and if I do say so myself, there aint a bad’un in the bunch! Well, some of us have a bit of Daddy’s ‘meanness’ in us !*grin* All of us own our homes, and we’ve raised a bunch of smart grandchildren. Counting in laws and outlaws there are about 125 descendents from that one couple!
Mama lived on for many years after Dad died, but she never got over grieving for him and I think she was just marking time till she could join him …When she died, it was just one day’s date later, and in the same month that Dad died…I think he came for her, because she had a little smile on her face, even as she lay in her coffin…R.I.P…..Myrtle Blanch Buntin Winchester