Blog 97: Excerpts from My Autobiography

     

By Donald W. Jones

(Also, see Blog 73)

     I was born the middle child of three children in the mid ’40s to a farm family in rural central Virginia. My father was first a farmer, then a carpenter, then a demolition expert. He built our home from felling the trees to make the lumber, to hand planning the trim work for the doors and windows. 

     Our farm consisted of a farmhouse with four bedrooms, kitchen, dining room, living room. A barn, grain house, equipment shelter, chicken house and acreage for grain and vegetables rounded out the balance.

     Life on the farm was challenging, especially the daily chores that sustained the core family. We’ve often heard about hog killing time. The hog was an essential part of the equation. It supplied all the cuts of pork that were edible. The two things that were not used were the hair and the squeal. The hair was too rigid and the squeal was impossible to capture ( if you did, what would you do with it?). Other byproducts included lard for cooking, cracklin’ for cornpone, fried pork skins, and lye soap.
     My paternal grandmother raised a family of seven (7) children. I never knew my paternal grandfather who was murdered in 1929 while working on the railroad (not as a laborer). According to the 1920 census, he was mixed to the point of being questionable as to his ancestry. Upon being identified, thus to his demise, Jim Crow showed its head.
 

Alice V. Jones, 1871-1958

     My paternal grandmother pictured above was part Native American. The dress and apron worn were made from flour sacks. Flour came in cloth sacks upwards of 50 lbs., normally in solid colors until necessity made them useful for their content. Then, the printed patterns became abundant. My grandma Alice wore these dresses daily.      I have fond memories of my grandmother. Standing next to her, I noticed that most times she would have her hand in her apron pocket. It wasn’t until I grew older and observed her working in the garden, that I noticed she was sporting (smoking) a corncob pipe. This was one of her private pleasures. 
     Our church, Union Baptist of Shores, Virginia, had Sunday services on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month. Preachers were few and covered other churches on the 1st and 3rd Sunday at those locations. Sunday school was conducted all four Sundays. We lived about 1.25 miles from the church and walked there each Sunday. My grandmother would have on her church dress and newly polished laced-up shoes with her hat and veil. She always walked with a staff (not a cane) and we scurried either alongside or in front of her.
The road was the old gravel washboard type, rough and dusty. People would walk, or drive their horse and buggy, or mule and wagon. Those with cars would offer rides the last part of the way upon overtaking the walkers.
     Revival was the 4th Sunday in August. This was a full day of both morning and afternoon services with a lunch (more like a dinner) served between. All families would bring baskets of fried chicken, ham, potato salad, greens, rolls, iced tea, cakes and pies. Sometimes there would be watermelon. As kids, we knew who made the best of everything.
     Being part Indian, we knew that grandma’ would have some remedy for most colds, flu, cuts, bruises, bee stings and broken bones. The most memorable was her “mixture bag.” It contained a concoction of roots, herbs, grasses and who knew what else. It was placed on a string around your neck and had an odor onto itself. The one thing that it did was to keep everyone else out of your face. They couldn’t stand the smell. Maybe that was the intention. I also recall that for a sore throat she would make you swallow a partial teaspoon of Vicks salve. Ughhh.

Grandmother Alice Jones and grandson Donald Jones, c1954