Transcribed For Online by Geraldine cookie@oakhurst.net
Records Contributed by Vicki Bell-Reynolds rreynolds@pdq.net

My father moved on the farm that his mother left for him and his brother he said that he wanted to get his boys out of town and raise them in the country. My grandmother died January 19, 1906 and we moved on the farm December 23, 1906 and we lived there 6 years moving back in town in December 1912. My father died July 26, 1907. We had an orchard there on the place which consisted of 5 acres of land and we had nearly any kind of fruit that grew in that part of the country, great big nice red apples that grew in the winter time, you could go out in the orchard when the snow would be half knee deep and get some of the nicest apples that you ever saw. This orchard was between the house and the road and all behind our place was a negro settlement and negros would pass by this place of a night and go out into the orchard and get fruit off the trees, they just keep stealing this fruit, I got and old coal oil lantern and lit it and hung it up in one of the trees and threw a bed sheet over it and believe me it would scare them off the place, and from then on we had all the fruit that we wanted all the time.

We have told these people that the fruit was poisoned but, that didn't do thing about, they would look surprised when you told them about it but, that was all.

We could never keep any chickens there on the place for people stealing the, about the only thing that we could have or do anything about was hogs we have raised some mighty big hogs both for our eating purposes and for the market also. I rember that one year we killed a hog that balanced the scales on 600 lbs, we had to take a mule and pull him up to the gambling stick so that we could cut it up. We have had several hogs that would go from 400 lbs to 600 lbs and we would have about 100 to 200 head all the time.

My father would raise nearly every thing that we eat right there on the farm, we would take about 3 bushels of white corn and about 3 bushels of yellow corn to the grist mill about ever 2 or 3 months and have it ground into corn meal, we would can up all kinds of fruit from this orchard every year also we would can up all kinds of vegetables from our garden and about all that we had to buy was baking powders, salt and sugar, for our flour we would have something like eggs, butter or even dried fruit or apple vinegar to exchange for the flour and then we would have all our crop clear, At gathering time my father wouldn't sell anything at all from his crop, he would keep all the cotton seed, and all his corn, then next spring he would sell it for about double for what he would get at gathering time.

For the last 17 months of my fathers life, he was bed fast unable to walk, so on moving to the farm, my brother Ben was only 15 years old and I was 13 years old and my sister Addie was only 9 years old, and neither one of us boy knew anything about farming, we couldn't even put a bridle or harness on the team, we had to be coached, my mother hired her brother of which was the worst thing that she could have done for he didn't know very much about farming or even harnessing a team either so he would get me and my brother all fixed for plowing and he would have to go over to town to see a man and from January to December he never did find this man that he was looking for, my mother let him stay there about 17 months and Ben and I went to her and told her that her brother was worthless to us and we was paying him $20.00 a month to stay there, we told her that if she didnt get rid of him that we was going to leave home and let her and her brother have it all, she told us to go on back to work and that she would tell him that he would have to go that we was not going to put up with it any longer, we had to pay him off in stock and house keeping things and he nearly broke us while he was there. He put us in debt $3750.00 in 17 months and it took us 6 years to pay out of debt.

My uncle that I spoke of was a mighty crooked man, he was dirty with his fellow man, There was a widow woman that had two grown boys, that lived there, this woman had two farms, one was a very good and rich farm, the other one was not quiet so good, she went to my uncle to do some

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