Life on the Farm
These papers were written by Ada Rhetta Bradley Patton in 1969-70. She first sent a letter to Leslie Bradley's son Wayne in response to his question about his father's early life. She then sent copies to all the members of the family so we would know what life on the farm was like.Writing to you to reach you on your 30th birthday. You expressed the desire to know more about your father's family so the following is to give you and others a small idea of our life. I cannot write about Leslie's life without bringing in incidents concerning all members, as our family is known as one of togetherness.
Charles Walter Bradley and Margaret Ann Blakeman were married Dec 2, 1888.
Children
Flossie Mae, born Nov 16, 1891
Hattie Lee, born May 15, 1893
Marvin Leslie, born Oct 14, 1896
Ada Retta, born Oct 25, 1901
Joseph Eugene, born July 16, 1907
Mother and Dad lived in McKinney, or near there, when first married. Mother's parents were dead and she had lived with aunts and uncles since her mother's death. Soon after their union a horse ran away with them and threw Mother and her Grandmother Gallagher, out of the buggy and onto a wire fence. Mother's face was badly cut and her ear almost severed. Grandmother's leg was broken and the Dr who set it was supposedly drunk and as a result of the break she never walked again. She spent the remainder of her days in a wheel chair, living to the ripe old age of 103. She smoked a cob pipe and was the boss of the family. From McKinney they moved to Waxahachie and there Flossie was born. They then moved to Grapevine and that was the place of Hattie's and Leslie's birth.
The first two children were girls
Adored for their manners and curls.
Don't you know the father had great joy
When the news came that the third was a boy.
In 1900 to Atwell they moved to carve
Out a home from the inherited acres so bare.
They arrived with $17.00, a rake, and a hoe,
And it took work and fortitude to make a go.
Mother's dad, Joel Blakeman, left his three children, (Ollie, Etha and Margaret) a section of land he had secured from the Indians in Callahan County. He drove cattle from Abilene to St. Louie. This land was divided into three parts and all three children settled and lived there for several years. John Clark and Etha were the first to settle and they owned a grocery, drug store and tended the post office. They had three children, infant daughter, died at birth, Byron, Near Leslie's age, and Vivian, two years younger than I.
Mother's brother, Ollie, was not married at that time, being separated from his first wife.. He later moved on to Ariz. to stake out a claim. When this claim was lived out he moved to Dallas, then married Polly and they moved back to Atwell, then to Rising Star.
The house Dad built was a shotgun, three-room affair. Never had any paint on it and the same roof provided us shelter. As the boys grew older and we needed more room, Dad added a room at the side of the kitchen and a porch across the front of the house. The house was located by the side of the main road in a grove of beautiful oak trees. Windows were shaded by beautiful morning glories and maderia vines. The latter vine was also used for medicinal purposed, such as poultices, etc. Mother would boil peach seed kernels and mix them with sweet oil and laudenum and use this mixture as ear drops.
Of Leslie's early childhood I can't remember a lot, being five years his junior, but here's one thing Velda recalls I'll tell you about. It was the custom in our family as babies got old enough to sit at the table that the youngest one would sit on Dad's left on a bench. Dad always sat at the head of the table and could help the younger child with his food. When it was Leslie's turn to move down for me, he refused, so Mother sat him in a chair to Dad's right and there he ate until we moved to Dallas in 1918. Mother sat at the other end of the table where she would be handy to the stove to serve up hot biscuits and other goodies for which she was noted.
(Here Ada talked about photos. I've only included the Atwell information)
One was a home made framed one which school teacher, Etis Otis Allen paid for. I think he boarded at our house. Another picture was Leslie with wagons and thrasher in background. Joe said it was made in Okla in 1917 when Dad and Leslie took thrasher to Okla. Drought had been so bad in our community that there was no crops to harvest. Drought lasted for seven years and was responsible for our family moving to Dallas. Then followed pictures of Leslie, Florence Maddox, with whom he dated, Brashear girls, Hattie, Gentry Brashear, Clint's brother, who died with Pneumonie over seas in World War I. Then other pictures were of boys who worked at post office, B. Buchanan, and Vernon Smith, who died in Dallas.
Velda, Joe and I, were all born in Atwell, Texas. Today, we all have a large reproduction of this house in charcoal. This was done by Cora Purvis, and we are surely indebted to her for this work.
Leslie finished school five years before I did, but I remember his taking part in all kind of sports and seeing that the balls, bats, grounds, etc. were taken care of. He also took part in school activities, such as spelling bees, literary society, which was held once a month during school term. Plays were given, readings recited and Hattie was the best reader of them all. Our house was across the road from the school and the Baptist Church, so we never had far to go to get in on activities. We all went to church every Sunday, although not to the same church any following Sunday as each church just had preaching one Sunday in the month. One Sunday we would go to Baptist church, next to Methodist, then to Church of Christ. I can remember Daddy leading the singing at all churches and especially the Church of Christ as he used a tuning fork to keep the song on key. Hattie played the organ at Baptist Church on some occasions. Willie Roberson (now Brashear) was the regular organist, as well as Linnie Brashear.
Dad organized a barbershop quartet, as well as a musical band, if you could call it that. They played the harp, guitar, banjo, fiddle and organ. They often met at our house and we all enjoyed the sessions.
During our school days, if one of we four younger ones had a disease, all took it. We all had the whooping cough together. Leslie coughed so hard that he broke some ribs and when he would go out of mornings to round up the cows for milking he would just have to stop and let the dog bring then in. My eyes were so bloodshot that I would not let company see me. We also all had the measles at once and it was during one of those blue northers. Mother waited on us and did she have a time being chambermaid,
We grew produce, tomatoes, peas, potatoes, beans, etc. At harvest time we would pick and pack tomatoes in crates and Dad and Leslie would take them to Baird in covered wagon and stay until they were sold, or spoiled. They have stayed many a night in the "wagon yard". We had a big orchard, with rows and rows of fruit trees, peaches, apricots, pears, dew berries, black berries, grapes and even a cherry tree, from which the birds ate all that grew. Plums were in abundance and several varieties. Dad was a stickler about the trees being in just the right space and he and Les and mother have measured by the hour before setting the trees out. Then he would carefully plow between the trees and we would have to hoe under the, being sure we did not bruise a single root. Leslie was Dad's right hand man in all the farm work, as well as Hattie. Flossie was away at school, or teaching: we three younger ones helped but our age was against being a mainstay. We grew very little cotton as our land was sandy. Dad preferred peanuts and let me tell you about peanuts-again Dad insisted that rows be straight. He would stake them off and I am sure Les had trouble following those stakes with the plow, but he had better guide that team right or Dad would give him "hail Columbia". When harvest time came they were plowed up and we children would follow and pick up the vines, shake the dirt off them and then turn them up so nuts would dry. They were arranged in neat rows, then when dry would be placed in shocks. When thrasher could get to you they were then hauled to it and nuts separated from hay. Nuts were sacked and hay bailed. Often rain would ruin all the harvest before could get thrashed, and as that was our only money crop we would kinda have slim pickings that year. You talk about dirty work, that shaking out, was it. We kids would go in to eat and we would be so dirty all you could see of our face was the white of our eyes. My back still aches every time I go by a peanut or cotton patch.
Back to this cotton. Dad did grow some cotton and we would pick it, take it to the wagon in sacks to weigh and pile it in the wagon until we got enough to make a bale, which took approximately 1500 lbs. Then it was hauled to gin and lint separated from seed. The bale would weigh around 500 lbs. The remainder would be seed, which was fed to cows. We kids always dreaded to see Dad hitch up Barney and Dan, our horses, to the wagon as they would invariably balk and faunch, and then Dad would get so angry that he would also do some faunching.
We always hired out to pick cotton around home in the fall. That is the way we earned money to buy our clothes to wear to school. Leslie and Hattie always earned more than Joe, Velda and I as they were older. One year Mr. Hailey, who had a cotton farm to the north of us, called and said he needed some hands and would like to have us but that last year some tagging had been done by us. Hattie explained that it was done by Joe and Velda and that if he would hire us, she would see that "no tagging" was done. That is, she would see to it that we picked the bolls clean. She inspected our work and found Velda and Joe were still tagging, so she gave them a whipping and sent them home. Of course they told what had happened when they got home and Hattie was reprimanded for using the peach tree limb on them. Mother and Dad were the ones who were to do the switching.
We were picking cotton one day for uncle Jim Clark and he owned a mean bull. This bull came by in the pasture on the other side of the fence from the cotton patch and seeing us decided to do a little antagonizing. We were all so frightened that we did very little cotton picking. Some of us even climbed a peach tree so we could watch the bull and report to the ones at work. Leslie finally crawled thru the high cotton and got thru the fence without the bull seeing him and ran to the house and got Raymond Clark to come and take the bull and fasten him up in the barn. That bull was really on the prowl, he would paw the ground, snort and prance up and down that fence. We just knew any minute he was going to jump the fence and take out after us. They later had to sell him as he got too mean to handle. When picking cotton for others, we were paid so much per lb. and had out board.
Leslie worked out in the summer and fall and made enough money to buy a pony, named Ned, and a buggy. I believe he got these in Cisco. We other children were all so proud of that pony and buggy as the only other transportation we had was the farm horses and a wagon.
Mother often said we had lots to eat but little in the way of clothes. Our dresses were made from print flour sacks. All of our clothes, with the exception of the boy's trousers, were hand made. Of course that was while we were still small. We girls wore black bloomers over our underpants, similar to the ones worn in gyms.
As long as the Clarks lived in Atwell, Leslie had a playmate in Byron. They were near the same age and Vivian and I were great pals. However Aunt Etha kept her closer inside than mother did me. Aunt E. was afraid Vivian would get dirty. One day Leslie and I went to play with Vivian and Byron and Leslie and Byron went to the barn to check on a stallion. I wanted to go with them, but Aunt E. said Vivian could not go. After Byron and Les left I decided I would go anyway and when I got to their stock tank I found their dog "Dink" dead on the tank dam. I went home and told other that I had found Dink dead on the dam tank. Kinda got things in reverse, did I not?
The Clarks moved to Putnam and Uncle John owned and operated a large grocery store. Velda remembers Leslie sending Byron a water melon by the postman. He took a pocket knife and carved Byron's address on the rind and it was delivered safe and sound.
Vivian would come to Atwell to visit us and she, Velda and I would go to the cellar and play paper dolls by the hour. One year she came down and it was harvesting time in the fields. The next morning Mother sent me to the field to work and I knew that Vivian and Velda were home playing paper dolls, and I did not think it was fair for me to have to work while they played. I told Dad I had a headache and he let me go home. When I got there Mother gave me castor oil and to this day the mention of castor oil makes me sick.
Flossie taught school in Putnam and boarded with Aunt Etha. Vivian was her pupil and she says school teachers definitely help mold their pupil's thoughts. Vivian's father was a staunch Republican, so is Byron, but Vivian is a Democrat and she says Flossie was her guiding influence. Flossie was seldom at home after she finished school in Atwell as she taught in the winter and went to school in the summer. She went to Hardin Simmons in Abilene for extension work.
Uncle John's farm joined ours to the east and just across a country lane the young people made a tennis court. Leslie and Hattie were in this group and there was always a crowd playing on the week ends. The net and rackets were kept at our house and it was Leslie's job to see that the net was mended and the balls in good shape. Joe, Velda and I had lots of fun in using the "dead' tennis balls for 'anti-over". I remember Joe trying to pitch that ball over our house long before he could even get it up to the porch top.
On the farm we had to haul water. Dad and Leslie dug five wells and Dad hired a rig to dig one in our front yard. All we ever got from the well digging was a lot of white sand to play in. However, we did have hopes that the one that was dug in the front yard was going to make us rich as Dad discovered gas from the hole kept blowing out the side, but needless to say, riches never came our way. (Cathy's note: oil was found near this site sometime after 1960).
Wood was cut and hauled from the pasture to cook and heat with. One day Leslie was unloading the big sticks of wood and one I recall that that slipped and fell on a two year old horse that had just been broken to work. The horse got frightened and ran, throwing Leslie off the wagon and his jaw was broken. The Dr. came and wired up Leslie's jaw and he looked so terrible with all those bandages. He could only eat thru a straw until the bones mended. The team ran into a stalk cutter and the young horse cut a tendon in his leg and had to be put into a swing like harness until it healed. He was always crippled but could work.
Velda, Joe and I had a lovely playhouse under a thicket of small oaks. We cleaned away weeks and partitioned off the ground into rooms by mounding up dirt as wells. We used old broken dishes and discarded pans for our cooking utensils. We made our broom from wild broom weed that grew abundantly all around. Our main dish was mud pies and we spent many a happy day play housekeeping. "plak"-meaning play like.
One day mother was visiting Aunt Etha, they had a guilt in the frames. Vivian, Velda and I were outside playing and Vivian and I were supposed to keep an eye on Velda to see that she did not get into things. Vivian and I found a can of snuff over close to the grocery store, and that was such a wonderful discovery to us as we used it for cocoa to make chocolate icing for our cake. While Vivian and I were engrossed in our cooking Velda got in the chicken trough and got her pretty white dress wet and dirty. Needless to say, Vivian and I both got a scolding with a peach tree limb.
We often had drummers coming thru the country and they always landed up at our house to eat and spend the night. Then too Mother was such a wonderful cook and loved to have people around that Sunday hardly ever found us without a preacher to feed, plus part of the congregation.
Velda, Joe and I were sent to the Sessions house one day to get some milk and butter. All our cows were dry at the time. Mother gave us permission to stay an hour and play with their son, Dayton, so we four were in the yard playing around on farm machinery when Velda fell off a cultivator tongue and broke her arm. As soon as it happened Joe took off for home like a streak of lightning. Mrs. Sessions (Metta) called Mother on the phone to tell her so she could call Dr and Joe came in the door at home just as Mother hung up the phone. His long legs had really covered a mile in nothing flat. Seems as though he should have been on a track team. Dr. splinted Velda's arm and it seemed to me that that split stayed on for months.
Mother and Dad were very strict with we children and we knew what "no" meant. There was no rangling among us, for when such started, Mother quelled it very quickly. She was the one who saw that we walked a straight line. Dad did punish me once. It all came up over the funny paper that we got on Monday mornings. It got to us a day late, being mailed from Dallas thru Dad's sister, Aunt Bertha. Velda and Joe wanted me to read the comics to them and I wanted to read them to myself. Dad said, "Retta, Aren't you ashamed not to read it to them. They can't read and you can." No amount of coaxing did any good so he threatened to shut me up in the storm cellar. Still I balked, so to the cellar I went. It was dark down there and I could imagine snakes and mice, etc. But there I stayed until Mother came and got me and put me to bed. I don't recall who read the comics to Velda and Joe, but feel sure I did not.
Mother was nurse for the whole neighborhood. Every baby that was born Mother was there, sometimes ahead of the Dr and had to be mid-wife and deliver them without the aid of the Dr. When death came it seemed to be her mission to dress and lay them out ready for burial. She would set up night after night with sick people, walking to and from their homes each day. She often came home with such a sick headache she would have to be in bed all day and we children would have to walk very carefully across the floor. She baked home made light bread by the dozens of loaves and gave away more than she kept. yeast was always set aside on the back of the stove for rising. She was a 'Florence Nightingale" for our community. She enjoyed giving of her time and her talents more than anyone I have ever known. Charlie, as Mother called Dad, said one time, "Maggie is a wonderful cook, but she can dirty more dishes than anyone I ever washed dishes after." I am sure her's were the only dishes he ever washed. He also said if he should ever have plenty of money he would soon be poor again as Maggie would give it all away. There was no outward show of emotion between the two but there was a depth of love ever present
Many summers our cousins, children of Dad's brother E. J. Bradley, E.J. Jr, and Hunter, with their mother would visit us on the farm. One summer during World War I they were there and we had a colt named "Dan Patches". Hunter was out playing in the yard. He was just a little shaver and had been warned to keep away from the colt, but he wanted to pet it so got too close to Dan Patches' heels and was kicked in the head. We were all concerned about him and Mother was doctoring him and he told her his head sure did hurt and he felt sure if we would just send Dan Patches over to Germany to kick the Kaiser the war would be over.
I remember the day the war was over. School was dismissed and a group of the older pupils went to the thrasher. In think it was on the Dunk Jones farm. Leslie was out of school and working with the thrasher crew. He was in the National Guard but was not doing any duty, so decided he would volunteer for the Army. He volunteered and was on the train to go to Army camp when it was discovered that he was already in the guard so he was taken off the train and never did see any active service. He was very upset over this, but could not get out of the National Guard.
Our chores on the farm were allocated. Leslie and Joe fed the stock. Hattie and Mother did the milking. I slopped the hogs and gathered in the eggs. Velda and Joe got in the wood and chips for the morning fires. When Flossie was at home she sewed a lot for us and helped with housework, washing and ironing. Of course, as we grew older our jobs were changed somewhat and Velda and Joe helped mother with the milking. I don't think Leslie, Flossie and I ever learned how to milk: in fact, I was scared of the cows.
As you have probably heard, we six children were divided into pairs. Flossie and Hattie were 18 months apart, so they were the first pair. Flossie was the quiet studious one, Hattie the active, fun loving one. Dad said Hattie would go to the field and work all day like a man, then jump every bush in sight on the way home. Then came Leslie, Three years younger than Hattie, then five years Late I was born, so Leslie and I made the second pair. Tho five years separated us he felt he was my protector and playmate. Velda and Joe were only 22 months apart and they were constant companions in all their play.
For years Leslie was our rock, our guide.
It was always a pleasure to be by his side.
In later years along came Joe,
What a blessing, such thoughtfulness on us he bestows.
1970-More About Events On the Farm
One Sunday afternoon Ruby Ezzell, Lottie Maddox and I were playing in the pasture and were using a wire stretcher to hoist each other up in a tree. My best Sunday dress got caught in the pulley and they just kept pulling me up. All the time I was hollering "stop" but they just kept pulling and laughing. Needless to say when we got the pulley unwound I had a big hole in the front of my dress. We were always getting into predicaments. I was visiting Lottie another Sunday afternoon and we were riding horses, something I had never done, but I could not be a "piker". Her father had just purchased a beautiful horse and she talked me into riding it. I had no more than got on when the horse began to snort and rare up in the air. He threw me off and then began trying to stomp me. They pulled me away from him and that is the last horse I ever tried to ride. Her father found out from the man who had formerly owned him that he had killed one person; so we all were thankful that I had come out without a scratch; just scared within an inch of my life.One night after the family had retired our dog began to bark and when we ran out to find the cause of the disturbance Leslie had come along with some boys and they had found a possum trying to take off our chickens. When I found out the boys with Leslie were some of my boy friends and they had seen me in my nightgown I did not want to go to school the next day. But you know what; you can bet your bottom dollar I went. Leslie killed the possum and saved the lives of the chickens.
We had a bird dog named Don, brown in color and we all loved that dog dearly. One drummer who came thru and stayed at our house said we had a musical dog and a ball-playing rooster. We always had chickens for pets and taught this big Rhode Island Red rooster to catch peanuts when we threw them at him. Then we had taught Don, the dog, to accompany us when we sang. It was all fun. Don lived for 14 years and had gotten so crippled up and food was so scarce during the war that we felt it our duty to do away with him. Dad gave Leslie the chore but he could not get up the courage to do the job, so a neighbor did the chore.
Some years before Don's, demise we had a Collie dog come to us. We fell in love with her but her owner, who lived in Putnam, came one day to claim her and because she ran from he whipped her and we children all cried. I think her name was "Pharaoh." He promised us he would give us a pup from her litter and we soon had a darling male collie dog, which grew up and became such a playmate to Velda and Joe that their treatment was almost like he was human. They made harness for him and would hitch him up to the little wagon and fill it full of wood and he would haul it in for them. They also used the wagon as a play-thing; the dog would haul them one at a time and the other would walk along and drive. (Cathy's note: I have a photo of Velda and my Dad Joe with the dog and wagon. The back of the photo identifies this dog as Pharaoh). Don was so slow and bow legged that the collie would knock him down about every round. We also had cats and cats. In one litter there were several and the old mother cat was a cannibal so Mother got rid of her and we had four left. They were named "Hanz, Fritz, Mutt & Jeff", current comic strips at that time. I know my kittie was named Mutt and that we were taking the four kittens into the cellar to protect from the old mother cat and before I could get the cellar door shut Mutt had climbed the steps and the door fell on him and that was the end of Mutt.
We had a big iron wash pot (which Joe now owns) and in this we boiled our clothes and punched them around with a plunger to help get them clean. They were first rubbed with lye soap, which mother made from grease and lye, boiled in the same iron pot until it got to a certain consistency. When this mixture cooled it was cut into slabs and that was our soap. in this pot, lard was rendered from hogs that were killed when the weather got cold enough so that we could put the meat on top of the house to get cold. It was then salted down and put into a meat box, or hung in a smoke house and processed. Also in this same pot, mother made hominy from home grown shelled corn. She used a little lye to get the black eyes out of the corn and cooked it for a certain length of time.
Mother planned a trip to McKinney, where she lived before she got married. She wanted to see Bets, the Negro woman who cared for the three Blakeman children after their mother died. She was taking Velda, Joe and me, the other three older ones stayed home to help Dad with work. On Christmas Eve night a group of men planned to scare their neighbors by stringing cat gut up and sawing on it with a fiddle bow. Dad knew their plans and asked them not to come to our house, but the men took on too much hooch and did not take his advice. As a result Mother had a nervous breakdown over it and our trip was delayed. They hollered and shouted like someone in distress and Mother was not in good health and got very upset. the men were sure sorry about it after it happened and apologized.
Leslie was the hunter of the family, as we younger ones were not allowed a gun. When it snowed we had fun in the woods as he would take the gun, Don the dog, and we would all traipse along and find rabbit tracks and trace them down to some hollow tree. We would punch them out and then Leslie would kill them and we would have rabbit for dinner.
Our entertainment in the summer was revival meetings and ice cream suppers. The boys would have to go to Scranton by buggy to get ice to freeze the cream and would make it after we got to the party. Snap was the favorite game. Then there were trips to the mountain. "We called it a mountain," but now I know it was only a "hill". We had great fun trudging there and each of us have pictures taken on those trips.
Of our associates as we grew up we usually ran with those in our grade at school, more or less, as neighbors were not too close, that is, not like living next door i town. Flossie and Hattie went to many more parties, had more beaus, as I had just been dating a year when we moved to Dallas. Mother and Dad would not let us have dates until we were 16 and Hattie was so fun-loving that Uncle John offered her a watch if she would not have a date until after she was 16. He lost, she got the watch and still has it. She had numeroud boy friends-Charnell Hightower, John Gilbert, Gentry Brashear, Marvin Ezzell, (a man from Tennessee, who was working in the neighborhood, Walter Melton, we called him "high- pockets" because he was so tall), and others. All of us landed in Dallas in 1918 still single. Flossie with her studies and teaching was away from home and was not as prone to have so many beaus as Hattie. She went with Henry Cook and Ray ________, then some banker at Dressy where she taught school. Now Leslie's girl friends was another thing-they were numerous. He went with Florence Maddox, she married and he started going with Loma Deal, and I believe she married after we moved to Dallas. I was very bashful and like the three above did not start having dates until after 16 and we moved to Dallas soon after my 17th birthday. I had more dates with Horace Brashear than anyone else. The others I remember dating were Alton Tatum, Orby Fenter and Willie Ezzell. In school my desk mate was Etha Jones. She married Dayton Sessions and we have kept in touch with eeach other thru the years. She and Dayton still live in Atwell where we were born and reared. Two other close friends were Lottie Maddox and Ruby Ezzell. The nearest and dearest girl friend I had was Anita Nally. She and I used to call one another on the phone and say "I'll meet you in the cotton patch"; there we would chat and enjoy each other. We double dated together on several occasions; she went with Bernice Andrews. Velda was not of dating age when we moved to Dallas.
After we moved to Dallas; in fact after Dad's retirement, he was reminiscing and said Leslie was responsible for his joining the church. One day when we lived on the farm they were out in the field inspecting corn and Dad said he looked back and Leslie was making long strides. Dad said he asked him what he was trying to do and he replied "trying to walk in your footsteps". Dad said from then on he tried to always walk in the right direction less he lead someone astray. Dad was never one to make a great deal of money or to accumulate much in worldly goods, but he gave of his talents in service for the good of his fellow man.
Velda recalls how Flossie and Hattie got their nick-names "Pete & Jack." Mother made our under pants from flour sacks and put lace on the hems. One day Dad took the two of them to a circus and when he came home he told Mother she did not do a very good bleaching job because when they rode the Merry-go-around he could see "Pete" on the seat of Flossie's pants and "Jack" on the seat of Hattie's pants. The pants were made from flour sacks from "Pete & Jack's" flour mill. Flossie was known as "pete" all her life, but Hattie's nick name was dropped.
One day at school a bigger boy jumped on Leslie and fought him. On the way home from school Hattie took up for Leslie and told the boy if he wanted to fight to fight someone his own age. One word brought on another and soon Hattie was taking her lunch bucket to the boy. I am sure it was a syrup bucket, as we never heard of bought lunch pails those days.
Soon after Mother and Dad moved to Atwell Mother was hanging out clothes and Flossie was holding the clothes pin bag and giving Mother the pins as she needed them. All at once Flossie cried out in pain and Mother could not imagine the cause of her cry. She told Mother something hit her leg and when Mother investigated she found out that she had been shot. They never did find out who shot her but did know the direction from which the bullet came. It was thought to be a man hunting rabbits and a bullet went astray. Flossie carried the bullet to her grave as the Dr said was too uncertain just where it was imbedded.
Joe also told me about an incident where Leslie was hauling water and the team ran away and spilled the barrel of water. He had to get them back in order, re-draw all that water again and the worst part about it was that it was party night and he was late for his date.
Our family as a whole had a togetherness, a love for one another and I think this has carried on down thru our generation as not a single couple have separated. We were a church-going family in our youth and altho some of us may not be as faithful as we should be we enjoy and appreciate our Christian heritage and live by the Golden Rule.
This family record written by Mrs. J.T. Patton (Ada Bradley Patton) 1970