My daughter had to write a descriptive paper for college English so we put our heads together and composed this paper. I had written the body of it for the DOSS CONNECTION and we added her memories and more of mine. Whether it is accurate or not remains to be seen. I was only 7 years old when Uncle John died. That's 48 years ago. So some of this is memories of a child. My daughter is 25 years old and my father has been gone for 20 years. She remembers him and passes her memories on to the children. My mother who died in 1998 reinforced her memories and I am so grateful for that. Hope you enjoy!!

I never met my grandfather's uncle, John Madison Doss. I have heard my grandfather and my mother talk about him and his house so much that in my mind's eye I feel that I have met him and have been in his house.

He was a tall, thin man with massive hands. He didn't smile much but when he did the people around him knew things were right in his world. Children always know when they are welcome and children were always welcome in his home. He and his wife Lena Perdue Doss lived in a log house, on the land settled by the Dosses and Perdues when they came from Tennessee to Arkansas so many years ago. It was located near Lonsdale, Garland County, Arkansas. As a child, my grandfather would take my mother and the rest of the family to visit Uncle John and Aunt Lena, in the summer. They would also visit my grandfather's sister Mary, who lived across the road from Uncle John and she still lives there today.

It was not a big house but it was like home to my grandfather. The house was divided into two sections as was the design of that time. The two sections were separated by a breezeway. In the summer the breezeway was the place to be because there was always a cool breeze, a kind of early air conditioning. My grandfather always had a strange far away look in his gentle face when he talked about it. He had never lived in that house but it was the last of the original homesteads established by the Dosses and Perdues. It was very much like the house that he grew up in that his own father had built.

To my mother it was so different from what she was accustomed that she felt like Alice in Wonderland falling through the rabbit hole, only this time the fall was into history. In my mind's eye I can see it all today as it I had actually been there. The house was made of rough logs. Blue and yellow wild flowers grew in the yard and around the stone porch. The stone porch, steps and chimney were made from stones from the strembed near the house, lage stones that were every color of the rainbow. The chimney always had smoke curling out of it, no matter what time of the year. Inside was old furniture, some of which was brought to Arkansas on a covered wagon from Sumner County, Tennessee, family treasures that could never be replaced. There were handmade quilts, knitted and crocheted afghans and delicate crocheted doilies on every table. There was an old rug made of twisted fabric that Aunt Lena could tell you what clothes had been made of the cloth and the rug was made from the scraps. It was like a family history on the floor. Around the room on the tables and the mantle were carved wooden figures of birds and deer that Uncle John had made as the whittled on the front porch. The figures were so intricately carved that it seems impossible that such massive hands had created them. In the evenings he would sit in the big rocking chair and whittle. When he rocked and whittled he would whistle old hymns and sometimes break into the words and sing in his loud bass voice. Aunt Mary said he didn't carry a tune very well and when he would sing the dog would sing along and the birds would fly off.

Electricity had not been connected to this home even by 1950. Coal oil lamps gave the room a small amount of light and also an eerie atmosphere of light and shadow. The aroma of burning coal oil in the lamps mixed with the burning wood in the fireplace was unique. Mix this with the smell of baking bread and other foods cooking in the kitchen could send the senses into overdrive.

The kitchen was also amazing because there was a big water pump in the sink. This water was used for cooking and drinking. Aunt Lena would pump and it would make a squealing sound like no other sound you had ever heard. Canning jars lined the shelves with green beans, canned red tomatoes, yellow squash, green okra, golden peaches. pink cinnamon pears and jellies of every color and flavor. Homemade biscuits and homemade Southern Muscatine jelly were the order of the day.

On the backside of the house was a small porch where wood was stacked for the wood burning stove and the fireplace. A big stump with wood chips all around it was the place where the wood was split. Beside the porch was a well. It looked similar to a wishing well but the opening was enclosed with a wooden cover. Aunt Lena, who was born with one leg shorter than the other, would limp out to the well. She would take a long piece of tube like pipe about four inches in diameter and four feet long and lower it into the well. Out of it would pour cold, clear, sweet water. She would give my mother a tin cup and she would pour some of this water into the cup. Mother said she had never tasted such wonderful water and has not since then. Even more amazing was that little house out back that was visited when it became necessary!

For a long time mother and I would drive by the place where Uncle John's house stood, high upon the hill overlooking the land of this family. The foundation, steps and chimney remained for a long time. The Arkansas pines are taller now and the pasture is covered with brush. Now only the chimney stands alone against the blue Arkansas sky. It stand as a testament to my ancestors who traveled from Sumner County, Tennessee to Garland County, Arkansas by oxen-pulled covered wagon so that I may call this my home.

Notes:
John Madison Doss was born 22 December 1885 in Tennessee (most likely Sumner County) died 23 November 1952 in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas and buried at Morning Star Cemetery, Garland County, Arkansas. John married Lena Perdue.

Mary Magdelina "Lena" Perdue was born 07 January 1888 in Banks, Bradley County, Arkansas and died 03 March 1981 in Kingwood, West Virginia and is buried at Morning Star Cemetery, Garland County, Arkansas next to John. John Doss and Lena Perdue were married 19 June 1920 in Morning Star, Garland County, Arkansas at the home of the bride.

The father of John Madison Doss was Andrew Jackson Doss born 28 February 1854 in Kentucky, died 16 July 1932 in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas buried, Garland County, Arkansas. His mother was Sally Elizabeth Tally and we do not know anything about her.

The parents of Mary Magdelina "Lena" Perdue were Edwin Jasper Perdue born 06 January 1846 in Sumner County, Tennessee. Died 06 March 1916 in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas buried at Morning Star Cemetery, Garland County, Arkansas. Married 20 March 1873 at Sumner County, Tennessee. Her mother was Mary Ann Saunders Hill born 02 February 1856 in Westmoreland, Sumner County, Tennessee died 30 June 1938 in Hot Springs, Garland County, Arkansas. She is buried at Morning Star Cemetery, Garland County, Arkansas.