My oral history interviews with my grandmother are stories that she told me about her past, or about the past of
other family members. To me, as a genealogist, it is important to preserve oral
history from older members of the family, whose lives and their memories are at
risk of being lost to time. Therefore, interviewing my grandmother, as well as
my parents, was always a first priority of mine as a family historian to
interview as many grandparents and great-grandparents, as possible – just
little remembrances such as the story below.
My children and grandchildren love them!
Grandmother Gets Homesick
~.~
From a tape recording interview made on Oct 10 1977 with
my grandmother, Eva Caroline (Smith) Cox (1889-1988,) when she recalled various
memories and the following story about her own grandmother Fidella (Porter)
Sanders. She wanted to spend the night
with her grandparents who lived about two miles or less from her house.
Grandmother: “Oh, I don’t
know how old I was. But I wanted to go
over there and stay all night and they let me go. And I don’t know…I just got so homesick…and I
wanted to go home. I had stayed one
night. And I thought, well, the next day
I’ll go home, but I didn’t go.”
When
the next night began to come on, oh, I got so homesick. I began to cry. I could hear them all hollering over there at
home …and talking and laughing in the yard.
And I said I wanted to go home, and grandma said, “No, you can’t go tonight…cause we have no phone, and you might
fall. It’s too late, and there’s a big
snow on. I would never know if you got
over there or not.”
“Well,
I just set into squalling. (Laughs.)
But I set to crying…and she finally give up…about dark. And there was a big snow that night…up to
your knees. And it was nearly night
time, and she couldn’t do nothing with me.
But I remember enough that she got a pair of grandpa’s wool socks and
pulled them up over my shoes and fixed them where they wouldn’t fall down, and
she let me go. Laughing) And there I
went. In the snow, walking.”
Jerri: “What did your mother say when
you got home?”
“And
I come in, and Mother was so surprised.
All of them. They had the lights
on… lamps… and they hadn’t eaten their supper …they always ate late. And grandpa eat early…about 4:30 in the
wintertime. So I had already had my
supper. And I really wanted to go home,
and I was so happy when I got there.
There wasn’t any wind blowing.”
Jerri: “Were you as big as Amy?” (My daughter was about six or
seven.)
Grandmother: “Probably was. Probably larger. But I was homesick. And I wanted to go home. I just would not stay that night. I could hear their voices…hear them all
talking, carrying in the wood, I guess.
I imagined everything. And the
more I listened, the more homesick I got.
And
it wasn’t but a mile. But they didn’t
know. I could have fell and froze to
death. And nobody wouldn’t have known
it. It’s the wonder my grandmother let
me go, but I guess she thought she would have to sit up with me all night.” (Laughing)
“Well,
I was going. I had made up my mind. I was homesick. Yes, I was.”
~ .~
Born
at Select, Ohio County, Kentucky,
Died
at Tyler, Smith County, Texas
~.~
Old Sport –Guard Dog
Of
Charles and Fidella Sanders,
Grandparents of Eva (Smith) Cox,
Who lived at Select, Ohio Co. KY about two miles
from my grandmother when she was a little girl.
Grandmother: “Yes, and one time, her dog bit me. Old Sport.
I went over there, and in place of going to the door, I went around and
thought I would miss him, and he was in the chimney corner, by the chimney, and
when I turned the corner he grabbed me.
And I mean he bit the blood out of me.
My grandmother, Fidella Sanders, came running and taken me in the
house. And in that day and time, they
had nothing but turpentine, and she put that on that sore, on the place where
that dog had bit me.”
Jerri: “Was he bad about biting?”
Grandmother: “Yes.
We all knew that. He was a guard
dog. He was a great big old black wooly dog….with
a little white on him. He was a pretty
good sized dog, too.”
Eula Mae: “You didn’t like him, then?”
Grandmother: “No, I was glad when he died. (Laughter) Well, I really was. I never did like that dog. (Laughter
from those around her dining room table, who were listening to her stories.) Now they were
really proud of that dog, and they were old and it guarded them, and they loved
him. But I didn’t like that dog.”
~.~
Contributed by my good friend, Janice Brown.
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