by Joe Stout
My mother’s father was Charlie Crabtree who lived at Flytown and was a farmer all his life. He was what we here in the south call a “Yellow Dog Democrat.” I always called him Papa. My father’s father was Al Stout and also lived at Flytown on the next farm to Papa before I was born and was also a farmer. He was a Republican and served as postmaster during the term of Herbert Hoover and moved to Greenfield. I always called him Pappy.
Mom and Dad went to school in the Flytown community at Mt. Airy which was through the eighth grade. In those days not many young people were able to continue education any further than that.
My grandmother Rosa Mitchell Crabtree fell and broke her back when I was in high school and came to live with Mom and Dad. I called her Mama. Not too long after that Papa contracted T.B. had to leave the farm and after a short stay in a T.B. hospital also came to live with Mom and Dad.
As you might imagine my mother was a Democrat and my father was a Republican. My father was a very quiet man and I never saw him engage in any controversy, especially politics. Many times I’ve seen my dad sustain insults from Papa about politics and watch him just smile and give no reply.
Shortly after I graduated high school, Papa, along with my parents help, set me up in the country store business about 3 miles east of Greenfield in the Needmore community. Shortly after this time, the Democrat Governor, Gordon Browning, was running for re-election and someone asked to put up a sign in the grocery store window. It had not been up but a short time and Jere Pence and Poundsie Pope came by with a poster with Roy Acuff running as the Republican against Browning. They asked if they could put this poster in the window also. I allowed them to do so.
When Papa came in the store that day and saw that poster of Roy Acuff, he immediately grabbed it and tore it up throwing it in the trash can. This was the first of many disagreements I had with my grandfather.
On another occasion he got in an argument with a customer over politics and chased the man out of the store with an ax handle. I lost a good customer that day. On that day I became a Republican.
Papa’s only other child was my uncle Jim Crabtree. Mama Crabtree sold eggs, butter, etc. to help supplement Papa’s farming to send Uncle Jim to college and medical school. He became the Deputy Surgeon General of the United States and is buried in Arlington Cemetery. Uncle Jim had two daughters, Nancy and Patricia. Nancy was my age and Patricia was about a year younger.
Uncle Jim called from Washington D.C. one day to tell Papa and Mama that Nancy was getting married, and that her fiancee was a Catholic. Now Catholic’s in our neck of the woods are scarce as hen’s teeth. Papa’s reply was “I don’t care what he is as long as he ain’t no Republican.”