Memories Along Clinch River

   Before Norris Lake came and covered the land where the earliest settlers chose to acquire land along the river for its transportation purposes and its fertile river banks to grow corn: The all important corn. Corn was so important, not only for its food value to feed a family: It had to feed the farm horses that plowed the long river banks, for tractors hadn't yet come to the Valley. Corn was topped just above the ears of corn and blades stripped for fodder, nubbins to feed the cows that furnished milk. Cornbread and milk filled lots of stomachs before bedtime. Corn fed hens that produced eggs, not just a staple for breakfast they were used for baking and delighted children's eyes at Easter. Corn not hay was used. I can't remember one hay field. Wheat must have been grown, but we didn't. Upper land with nature grown grass, forage pasture helped feed farm animals. It was a different way of living back then and it's gone like the land Norris Lake covers.
    My father Willard Brewer was a worker and good manager: a Man whose one job was to take care, provide for his family. Carpenter work was his trade handed down from his father Nicholas "Nick" Brewer. Many a barn or house plan was drawn out on the planks of our porch and washed away the next time the porch was scrubbed with Red Seal Lye.
    Not just carpenter work, Dad had other trades. He had a great love for fishing Clinch River and my earliest Memory is waiting down the leaf covered road for him to come from the River where he had gone to trace his lines. He was so pleased to find me waiting to see his catch. He was such a good father.
    When he married my mother, Relda Beeler, they became renters, but his goal was to own land and have his own home. He saved money and managed to buy 20 acres with an old shot gun house for $75.00. One of Mom's brothers said he would have rather had a Victrola (one of the first record players). Dad chose land and being a carpenter he could turn that small boxed house into a livable home.
    I rode in the jolting, horse drawn wagon with him, to and from the place, there were cherry trees and I loved the cherries we picked.
    Once when we were there I cut my bare foot badly on a piece of broken glass and I remeber how he tried to stop the bleeding. He was reassuring and funny. When he found a scrap of none too clean cloth in the old house to wrap my foot he told me it was one of Granny Burnett's dish rags.
    He bought the land from Jeamsy and Cleatus Burnett when they moved to Big Valley. It was up a hollow on the south side of Big Ridge. We never got to live on the land Dad bought, his mother and father asked him to move and take care of them because Grandpa was no longer able to work. Back then there was no Social Security for the elderly, crippled or disabled. One of the children was chosen for the responsiblity. Out of eight children Dad's parents chose him because Relda (my mom) could "get along" with Dad's crippled sister Ina. She had spinal meningitis when she was 3 or so years old. Mom had more wisdom than anyone I have ever known to lead us through good times and bad.
    Grandpa and Granny no longer owned a home and Dad's boxed, shotgun house wasn't big enough to house so many people, also back then the one who kept their parents had the rest of the family coming and going, which was great for the children, I got to know them all. Dad's life plans changed and being the kind of person he was he took the next step forward and that was renting a big log house to house us all. Actually it was two seperate houses with a dog trot (porch) to connect.
    One part was for his 20 year old sister, though on crutches she was active and pretty and was courted by nice young men. She chose to not marry. Her house wasn't accessible to us children, maybe on rare occasion (If) we used our best manners and that was mostly sitting in a straight back chair in the middle of the room. Ina was very musical and we heard old time organ playing, singing coming from her house. She taught one of her brother Millburn's sons to play guitar, because of her crippled arm she couldn't chord a guitar, she would set in front and direct when and where to change chords.
    We moved and settled into the big log house just above the old 33 Bridge that crossed Clinch River and was one of the most beautifully located places on the river. For the first time I was actually seeing the Clinch River, always before it had been an imaginary place. Someplace where Dad went to catch the great strings of fish. I must try and describe this exceptional, magical place and its not going to be easy. Oh how I want bring back the sights and sounds (Life) along the River where I moved to when I was 4 years old. It was known as the Dick Cook place but it had been sold and Dad rented the house and Clinch River farm from brothers Everette and Herbert Needham for $25.00 per year, such a small amount in today's world and so much back then. One long river bank we tended- corn rows ended at the base, abutement of Clinch River Bridge. (South side toward Knoxville).......
    You looked out or up and there was the bridge. Young as I was I could thin corn and chop weeds in someone else's row. Very few cars passed the ratty bridge. About the greatest sight passing was the Middlesboro bus that went down mornings and came back evenings.
    Once a car stopped, a man with a camera aimed it right at us, took a picture and went on his way.
    The log house was built on a hill that extended way out and we had a scenic view you wouldn't believe. We could see far beyond the bridge down the river and all the way up the river to where 33 Highway came through Gap Branch. By the poor farm where people were kept when they became too old, disabled and had no family. It was notable that we lived right in sight of it when Dad was standing between three people who might have become members of the poor house if they hadn't had family.
    Dad was a barber too and a man called Bob walked from the poor farm to our house to get a hair cut. On Bob's leaving Dad would give him a big, red handkerchief to keep the tobacco juice from the corners of his mouth-it didn't do much good, the next time Bob came without a handkerchief.
    Next down the river was from the poor farm was John Graves. He lived in a big white house on the hill overlooking 33 Highway. His farm extended across 33 to his river bottom land. His house was almost facing ours across the river on higher ground. One of my first puzzling questions was how could I sit in our house, look out the door and see such a big thing as John Graves' house because the door wasn't as big as the house.
    Next down from John Graves on 33 Highway was The Store. The Store was such an important place in a neighborhood and always a hub of activity where people lingered, visited and exchanged news. When a burst of loud laughter echoed up and down the River, across to our house, someone would say, "That's Osber or Winslow Ousley." Isaac Cook ran the store and Wash Russell and his son John after Isaac.
    The store was in the bend of 33 Highway before it turned south to approach the bridge... I have been there twice when the lake was low enough to see the wide, vacant gap, bridge and spans gone: Just the remaining concrete columns standing as stark, silent sentinels to the past.
    Before I was 5 years old I walked alone across the bridge. Granny used snuff and if Granny was out of snuff I was sent to the store. I had bad dreams about the bridge, it had holes in the wood floor and rattling boards. I could see a long way down, in the way of fearsome dreams the holes were bigger and more of them. I would wake up scared until I realized I was safe in bed. I never mentioned the dreams, I enjoyed the trips. Once, when Wash and John saw a bad storm was coming, fast, up the River Valley they urged me not to start back home until the storm was over, but true to what I had been told- "Go straight to the store and straight back," I started home. When I was on the approach to the bridge the wind was already tearing at me, I heard granny's desperate, eerie voice- "Virgieeeeeee g-go BACK!!!" She was waving her apron high in the wind... "GO BACK!!!!!" It was said Granny had a voice equal to her father, Chris Keck's, even against the wind it reached me, eerily and I started running back. John Russell met me. As the River storm roared around the store, inside I was treated like a Princess, sitting on a nail keg, drinking an orange pop.
    Crossing to the South side of the bridge was "the cut," where an unpaved road turned left up the River Road on our side. The first house from the cut was Edgbert and Lucy Wyrick or Warrick. Walking people don't take roads they make short cut paths and that's what we did, close to the bridge we turned through a bushy field and came out close to Edgbert's house. It was a big weather-boarded house with a high, off the ground latticed porch. It was there we turned on River Road that wound toward where we lived. But first you came to Dick Cook Creek, a clear, cold mountain stream-just past the Creek was a well worn path to the spring where we carried household water and kept our milk and butter in the Spring House. The spring was also used by another family so we often met there. These children liked fresh, skimmed cream. I didn't and it bothered me that I didn't like fresh cream too. The skimmed cream was kept in a big crock. When it was full and 'turned' just right it was put in a dash churn and someone had to churn the dasher up and down until butter formed, then it was lifted out, rinsed, salt added, molded in special molds-usually with a flower design on top. Butter was a staple.
    On Dick Cook Creek bank is where we did the family wash. The only bad thing about wash day-my job was to wash "Hippins," Now called diapers, no disposables back then-but all the other good things made up for that chore. Grown ups and children headed for the wash place loaded down with sheet-bound dirty clothes and things needed to be transferred each time. Only a bottoms up big kettle, tubs and string, long wire clothes lines were kept at the wash place. a fire was built under the water filled kettle, they boiled everything they could for sanitary reasons and every woman along the River wanted it to be known she hung out White Washings. Bluing was added to the rinse water because it was known to add whiteness (which was a puzzle to me). Last after the bluing rinse everything starchable was was run through home made starch and hung on the lines in the sun to dry in the sun. Summer outings like that didn't seem like work, playing in the creek was fun, made for children, under the huge Sycamore trees. After a good creek scrubbing we too were sparkling clean going back to the house...

    In winter time washing was done at the house in the big kitchen, clothes boiled in a big tub on the wood stove which made a steamy, pungent lye soap smell escaping all over the house. There was no mistaking wash day as soon as you entered the door. Water for washing was caught in rain barrels placed along under the eaves of the house, in summertime wiggle tails were a problem in the rain barrels. Winter time they put broom handles in the barrels to try and keep the wooden stove barrels from freezing and falling apart.
    I can still remember the cold winds sweeping up the river, swirling your dress or coat tail causing you to hurry to get where you were going. The sight of broom handles frozen in rain barrels to us told the temperature more than any thermometer.
    ...Funny I didn't remember the house had 3 large rock chimneys until years later when the lake was low enough (finally) to walk out on the hill and I saw 3 heaps of crumbled chimney rock... Standing on the hill the very wind blowing, spirit filled echoes of the ones no more... Never before had past memories crowded in so closely ... and the loss, eerie... I stood, eyes closed, absorbing ... feeling ... searching ... picturing ... the River winds had been brisk, strong-alive! The wind from the lake was soft on my face, softly urging me to feel for all the ones gone on ... back, back to what?
    Moccasined feet had silently, nimbly followed trails to the River. Camped on the very hill where I stood? The strong men who fell the long, tall trees, hewed, notched and shaped the great log house? Erected the huge rock chimneys? The other children who had ran free and happy where my feet had gone? In my mind, inner being was an assuring whisper, "I'm here to remember"... I shivered out of the trance to what was left; desolation, silence, rubble and rock. A fast boat coming up the lake severed silence middling the Lake where Clinch River once ran free... I watched it go out of sight ... waves rippled from the boat's path-wider and wider-washed up gently at my feet... I walked to the pile of rocks that had been the fireplace chimney in Ina's place. Next: The kitchen chimney fireplace which we never used except for the stove pipe to the wood burning cook stove. The fireplace in the living room was huge to keep us warm. Great stacks of wood were ricked outside and carried in as needed. Special back logs to heave in place by a strong man (My Dad) to hold heat through the cold nights, smolder through the days until the back log had to be replaced, wrestled into place. I tried to be on hand for that event. It was fascinating to me.
    Down to the right of our house was a deep hollow and up the opposite hill to ours was another house, our closest neighbors, Emerson and Carrie Cook. A big weatherboarded two story house and their children Brian, Lois - older than me, Earl, Lena-close to my age, Ralph and some younger children... They were good neighbors, none better. They milked cows and had a milk separator, I don't know much more than that except seeing Carrie pour in milk and watching it come out two spouts in containers. Even then I knew Carrie used perfect English. Grandpa, Nick Brewer, had his own dialect and ours was filled with that (as you are sure to notice). They were the family that shared the Dick Cook spring with us.
    Milton and Mindy Cook lived next farm up the River. I just remember passing and knew they were old and kept to themselves. Across the road from their large weatherboarded house was a graveyard and I was told their son Rector, who as a young man drowned in the Clinch River, was buried there.
    John and Mrs. Munsey lived on the right in the curve of the road. I just remember seeing "Miss" Munsey and the children in passing and of course you always spoke to everybody in a friendly way.
    On around the bend from Munsey's place and to the right of River Road up a deep hollow was where dad's oldest brother, Wylie, moved his family on Pola Cook's place. I stayed "all night" with Wylie's daughter, Ocie, lots of times. Wylie had a second family. Fred, Zynn, Nila and Ocie's mother died when Ocie was under 4 years old.
    On simmer Sundays Wylie invited us all to eat watermelon. I can still picture him cutting, slicing, juicy red melons. I watched because they looked so-oo good, but like the sweet cream, I didn't like them. Wylie knew that and teased, "I don't think the cantaloupes are ripe yet"... After teasing, last he cut rich, golden cantaloupes and I had my fill of Wylie's "mush" melons.
    I heard them say that Fred and Zynn hunted Copperheads and rattlesnakes on the Mountains surrounding where they lived. We children were cautioned to stay away from the sawdust piles because of snakes. But I wonder if they knew the history of snakes in that hollow? Not long ago I was told the old log house in the hollow, before the later house Wylie lived in, was burned because of Copperheads. A man and his wife stayed one night and a half-After the first night, the husband laughed at what his wife told him-NO she didn't see snakes crawl out of the logs and crawl across the floor... The next night, the wife woke Sam at 11 o' clock to see for himself ... they left immediately and went to a neighbor's house (Tom Cook's) for the rest of the night. They went back the next day to feed a hen and chickens. After killing a Copperhead at the chicken coop, without going inside to get their household stuff, they set the house on fire, snakes ran every direction. Lucy Cook was telling me about it (just by chance) over the telephone, in March 1999. Her mother and father, Sam and Louverna Cook, were the ones that moved out in the middle of the night. Lucy said she heard her mother tell it many times.......

    Pola and Sally Cook's house was past the beech grove to the left of the River Road, they lived in a big, well kept, two story house. They had a large family of girls and one son (at that time). It was said that Sally was such a worker, her feet were never still.
    The next farm up was Tom Cook's and as far up the River as I ever walked. Tom owned Crossroads Store through Gap Branch over in Big Valley. He kept a paddle boat (skiff) to cross Clinch River morning and back at night. Lots of mornings a 10 year old boy set Tom across the River so he could use Tom's boat to hunt mussels. Boat tied around his waist he hunted and tossed mussels in the boat, opened and looked for pearls on the River bank until Tom came to be set back across. That boy was Andy Perry, my husband. Andy never forgot Tom letting him use his boat and trusting him to be there to set him across at night. Andy only found one pearl to sell, but a man bought the mussel shells to make buttons.
    My Aunt Rona, Dad's youngest sister, married Tom Cook's son Russell and lived near Tom. Rona was special to me from the time I can remember. Wherever Rona was, I was there- a lot... Her only child, Genevieve and my sister, Elretta were the same age. Russell operated his father Tom's sawmill in the hollow where Wylie lived. When the sawmill was in operation the whine of the big saw ripping through logs end to end filled the hollow and far beyond. It was a big outfit hiring men with teams of mules to snake cut logs down the steep mountain sides. Russell stood on the platform guiding the speed of the saw, using glasses and wide brimmed hat drawn low to protect face and eyes from flying dust. One of the workers was off-bearer who took outer slabs and discarded them in a pile, Then waited to take the sawed lumber to stack in neat stacks. The first Ivy and flowering Rhodonderon flowering bushes I ever saw were growing on the steep bluff path behind Tom Cook's house going down to the River. They cautioned us children not to pick any flowers, they were poison. Genevieve said Rona would cook supper and they would sit on the steps and wait for Russell to close down the mill and come home to eat.
    The River roared after storms carrying refuse of every kind coming from who knew where... It passed on by swiftly, at times like that high, swift water, coming unexpectedly. Dad wasn't able to prepare for it and lost fishing equipment. He taught me how to tie twine nets, using the big wooden needle. He would tie in cross sections for the hoops and I did the body work. He was proud I could help and I was prouder. Dad had a commercial fishing license: Unusual in our area.
    In his day, Grandpa Nick didn't mix in farming like Dad. While Grandpa did carpentry work Granny and the children raised a garden, truck patches, but carpentry wasn't a winter trade so they moved to Knoxville during winter and every child old enough got a job in the cotton mills. Each spring Nick and Rachel Keck Brewer moved them back to start over near both their folks in Big Valley. Grandpa Nick boarded over in Kentucky when he helped build Middlesborough. My Dad didn't like moving around, he wanted land and roots.
    I've not said much about my Mother. Mom is hard to describe. I heard her tell dad "we are a team," and that's what she was to Dad: Without working as a team, the wagon won't go. With carpenter work Dad wasn't home all the time: But Mom was. One of dad had to stretch a long-g way and we helped in every way we could. Grandpa could feed the animals, do small things, get on his knees in the corn crib, shuck corn for hours. He kept any eye on things and we children were used to him sitting, quietly in a shade, whittling curly, red cedar shavings, tiny and so small you knew it was an Art. I heard it said when he was building a house he worked all day, after supper at night he whittled, carved trimming for the house. Gingerbread?
    Ina? Ina grew up with the shorter leg and little arm and hand, but the other side of her was strong and she wasn't lazy. She couldn't work outside, but she could cook better than Mom and Granny put together. If-you could get her to let you have some of it. She didn't like children in the kitchen "In her way... Tracking in and out" We didn't mind her scolding, she was Ina and would come to help if you screamed loud enough, she would come grumbling "what's wrong now?" If you hurt yourself and were bleeding, you didn't go to Mom, she would pass out. Granny would help, but if she wasn't available you went to Ina. There were no band aids. With children they prepared ahead. Thumb, finger or toe stalls with strings to tie around the wrist or ankle. You tried to shield, keep the stall clean, it usually had to last the duration of your wound. I think Mom "got along" with Ina because Mom grew up with brothers. Her only sister Lydia was born after Mom married. So to Mom, Ina was a sister..............
    My Mom had way of reaching a hand at the right times, like getting breakfast which they both worked at to get the day started. If Ina made biscuits Mom was there to work the oven door. They worked well together. Ina was happy on the hill above Clinch River Bridge, she had her own separate house and snowy white bed spread, which no child was allowed to touch. Ina was a gifted person. She could cut a dress pattern oout of newspaper, use the pedal machine. She tried so hard to prove there was nothing she couldn't do. Mom was a team mate for her too. All my life I have wished I could be more like Mom, but she was one of a kind.
    In October to November the corn had to be gathered, hand stripped from the dry stalks and brought into the crib. Wylie or Millburn would send a son to help: One fall Wylie and Millburn came themselves... Mom, here is your Clinch River Memory (as you told me)... Clinch River never carried such an echo up and down its length as those three brothers working along the Riverbank cornfield, competing, racing to beat each other end to end. The winner whooped, cheering for the other two coming at him. Millburn alone had a voice rough as thunder that would carry for miles-- 3 of them? Wylie, Millburn and Dad had teasing, fun ways, and fast sure hands.
    Winter times were hard to manage, especially late winter when food was running low. There were no supermarkets. Through the summer canning was done. Cold pack canning hadn't come or pressure cookers. Food was cooked open on the stove and put in half gallon green glass jars with glass lined zinc lids, sealed on rubber rings.
    Sour Kraut making was involved (in more ways than one). The moon phase and zodiac signs just right so Kraut wouldn't turn dark. Mom, Granny and dad (if he was home) went to the garden early to cut tubs of crisp cabbage heads and brought them to a good shade tree. The heads were clipped of outer leaves, dunked in water, left there for crispness. We had a hand chopper, from a Coupon Catalog and with one handle on a tin can, you might say, a chopping good time was had by all. Children peeled cabbage cores to add. When a dish pan full was pronounced fine enough, salt was added, mixed in... ooohhh it was good that way. Then it was packed in half gallon jars so its own salty liquid came to the top, zinc lids tightened, loosely, and placed in an isolated dark nook where they kept a close watch on it as it went through the "working" process (spewed out). In due time it was sealed to keep pale yellow. Anyway in winter when a can of Kraut was opened it reminded of a summer day of fun under the shade tree. (There were more ways to make Kraut.)
    Before frost sweet potato vines had to be clipped, dug and carried to the barn loft to dry. We never had much luck keeping them. We liked sweet potatoes too much. Fried and/or a big pan baked to add butter. Irish potatoes were dug and stored in a straw lined hole, underground. It was hard to keep them all winter.
    Around Thanksgiving they killed hogs. When the gun was taken outside: There was stillness as all women and children waited deep inside the house. One spot: If the aim was true a big hog would drop in its tracks, soundless. One never squealed at our house, but yet there was relief when it was over, each time. Busy days were ahead, fat had to be trimmed, rendered in a big iron kettle, it took lots of stirring. Lard was poured into shiny new cans. Sausage ground, seasoned, fried and canned, jars turned upside down for the grease to cool on top. Why? Kept it fresher they told me. Meat salted, stored on benches in the smoke house, hams hung. When company came through the winter, they cut a ham. Some said: "If you run out of food go to Willard Brewer's". The wooden eating table was covered with an oil cloth. The table had to be long just for us, but when company came children had to wait for adults to eat first. Why? I don't know, but it must have been respect for our elders. In time Mom changed, she fixed us plates and we ate at the cook table. There were no counters, sinks or running water. No bath tubs.

    Through the summer we kept clean in Dick Cook Creek, running clear and clean down the mountain, filled in between, "Don't go to bed with dirty feet..." and "wash your face and hands before coming to the table." Wash pans and galvanized tubs for winter. You avoided being doused in the big wash tub if you could ... but at the end you got a warm bucket of water poured over you. The kitchen would be warm and cozy.
    Carpenter work was different before electricity. Wylie didn't farm as much as Dad and Dad could go in and out of jobs with him anytime, but after corn was laid-by, Dad packed his tools in the burlap sack and went on his own job... If he rode a horse who fed it? So, he walked and stayed a week at a time where he worked. That was the old way and he was treated like a member of that family. Someone would be on the ground to hand up and maybe on top too. Dad knew the setup before he went. Dad carried his tools: Hammer, handsaw, big and little squares, plane, level, auger and bits, pockets to carry the tools up the ladder on top. He would place his handsaw in the rack on the porch banister to sharpen it before going on a job. Metal file on metal, on and on screeching hurt your ears and probably the neighbors ears too. He would be eager, looking forward to a job with new lumber. New lumber in his hands compared to a dressmaker with the finest fabric. Squared corners, rafters and roof pitch, how he loved to get them just right. When he came home on the weekend he and Grandpa discussed how the job was progressing. If there was a problem, they combined their knowledge.
    We were outside more and used to it, thinly dressed by today's standards. Inside all homes were drafty-no fireplace ever heated the rear of a big living room, let alone the bedrooms. The warmest place was the kitchen because the wood burning kitchen stove did the cooking to feed a family. Breakfast over, dinner was started. They tried to cook enough for supper as well, but always the stove had to be heated to add a "ho" cake or fry a pan of potatoes. There were no refrigerators to keep food. In summer especially food had to be cooked daily. It was GOOD. Spring and summer vegetables- a hunk of meat in the green beans cooked in the big iron kettle, the ones left over for supper were even better ... boiled corn on the cob or fried hickory "cane" corn, lettuce with fresh green onions cut up in it, "killed" with hot bacon grease. Milk and butter a long way from the house, that was children's jobs, "Go get the butter" then it was "take the butter back to the springhouse." Good as butter was sometimes you wished there was no such thing.
    Toys? I never had a doll. I saw them in out of date catalogs Ina let us use for cut outs on a cold day or if company children were there. Ina could be helpful sometimes she let us build a playhouse in part of the kitchen. We learned string games, Jacob's ladder, crow's feet, tea cup and saucer. Summertime we were outside with 2 or 3 play houses. Hop scotch using a piece of broken glass, rolly hole marble, jump the rope using a piece of plow line. Children always find something to play, noisy and happy.
    Christmas? We didn't expect gifts or put up a tree and No I didn't go to the neighbors and see theirs and feel deprived. In the first place young children in our family didn't go visiting much in the winter time and besides I don't think most of our neighbors had a Christmas tree either. It was a way of the times. Christmas Eve we hung stockings along the mantle and were up early Christmas morning, excited to fine "Santy Claus" had been there... Our stockings bulged with candy and fruits. We kept orange peels to try and kept their smell. Oranges smelled better then, didn't they? Christmas was the only time we had oranges.
    Winter days were when women of the family put up a quilt... 4 staples in the kitchen ceiling had strings hanging from tied in the quilting frames. Patches of cotton were grown. Winter evenings cotton was lined in front of the fireplace and everybody "invited" to pick seed from the cotton. Cotton was carded to make rolls of cotton bats to be placed on the lining for filling, then the decorated top pinned to it before they sat down in straight back chairs to quilt in the warm kitchen. When they quit quilting for the day strings were rolled around and frames, rolling the quilt higher than a man's head, out of the way. I learned to use the cotton cards. Standing on the floor I was allowed to quilt in the corner so bad stitches didn't show.
    Birthday's were different too. Someone would wake you early... "This is your birthday, you are a year older ... you are five years old and start to school in August." There were no gifts, no cake with candles, no children invited and today I do not think I was deprived.
    Sounds carried along the River Valley. Dad said he could tell what farmers knew how to handle horses plowing the long river banks. When an angry man lost it, yelled, "I said gee not haw!!!!"... threw clods of dirt at the horse. Dad shook his head, "reminds me of Pop, he couldn't handle horses either."... He said that about his Dad?? My grandpa??
    I knew a mare kept in the barn lot was going to have a foal... One morning after spending the night with Ocie I came home to the excitement going on at our house. A new colt already named Ted was in the barn lot and he was a bay beauty. That wasn't all, I had a little sister also born during the night. I knew a foal was expected, but not a bay, they just didn't tell children things like that at our house.........

    There were 5 children in our family... Fleeta, myself, Elretta, Rondie and Katie... A hole in our family that will never be filled is Fleeta... Mom and Dad's oldest child died with spinal meningitis when she was 5. For Mom, Dad and me the empty space was there. I was 2 and a half when she died and all through the years how I have guarded, kept the windows in my mind of her...
    When Rondie was just a baby we went to a Union Primitive Baptist Church association and dinner on the ground in Big Valley. The biggest crowd I had ever been in and all strangers. Rondie went to sleep and Mom and some more women laid him in a car. I can sill see that T-Model, I stayed with it, sitting on a valley rock by the car. I was SO afraid that car would leave and take my brother while Mom talked and visited ... of course it was Paris and Mollie Graves' car, dad's cousin, Mom knew he was safe, but I didn't. I guarded, no one was going to take my little brother...
    None of us children were supposed to go near the River although I had been up and down the river path with Dad uncounted times. I rode in the skiff while he raised fish nets and traced his trot lines stretched across the River, willow tree to willow tree. I made dough balls, one of the baits used. They had to be mixed just right so they wouldn't crumble in the water. Dad told me I could make them best-was that just his way to get me to make them? We will never know!
    Granny was 60 or so years old and active, she helped run the household, a second mother to my Mother. On a July day, Granny made a blackberry cobbler for dinner. Not long after eating Sunday dinner Grandpa became violently ill. Then others became sick. Dad had gone to Wash Russell's store, I was sent to get him. When Dad became sick also, that added to the question WHY? What was wrong? Dad finally said, "I didn't want to say anything but that blackberry pie didn't taste right to me..." He had hesitated, because his sister was visiting that day and he thought she might have made the pie. No sooner than the pie was mentioned, Granny put her hand to her mouth... That morning cleaning and straightening in the kitchen: On top of a tall cabinet she found a paper bad with some flour in it. Thinking it was flour they had taken to the wash place to make starch and brought back, she had dumped it in the flour barrel, and later made the pie. The bag held arsenic of lead ... later they started tinting the arsenic pink. River neighbors came, someone went to Dr. Palmer and he sent word, make everybody vomit quickly~ The raw egg mixture to cause vomiting looked awful. I was all over the place. Grandpa Nick was on the ground, near the corn crib, deathly sick. Granny was frantic... In the confusion they missed giving me the egg mixture. At 11 o'clock that night I got sick. The poison stayed in my system the longest. After that, I was what they called "sickly." Granny knew a lot about herb doctoring, concocted and gave me terrible tasting medicine. I didn't know how to tell them I was numb at night... My body felt like Salt. I have no idea why I picked salt for the feeling I dreaded when I went to bed... Lots of mornings I would be dizzy. Then I was kept in bed... Carrie Cook came. She came to the door where I was in bed and I saw her just standing in the door. She didn't say anything, she turned back and I could hear their voices in another room. Carrie wasn't one to visit, she hadn't been to our house before. I don't know how to explain, Carrie had a family of her own... I didn't see her much, mostly when she was on her way to or from the spring. With all the family around me: Our family, folks from every direction... Carrie was right in there as one of my favorite people... When Carrie left that day I would have been outside to walk a "piece" with her, for coming... But I couldn't even sit up in bed I was so dizzy. I cried into the pillow so no one would hear. Gradually I got better. Dr. Palmer was a friend of Dad's and he went to him for advice about the family. Did they know more than they were telling me?
    I entered River View School in August when I was 5 years old. The Bridge was about half way...
    You could buy syrup in little buckets: A syrup bucket was what I used to carry lunch: A biscuit with homemade jelly, ears of boiled corn, or a tomato, apple when they were in season, sausage or ham in a biscuit, boiled egg, a variety... River View was a typical country school of that time. A pot bellied coal stove furnished (some) heat in the winter. The teacher came early to fire up the stove, some teachers paid a small amount to some older boy to build a fire. Our water was carried, by students, from a small spring up the hollow, behind the school. A 2 gallon bucket with a dipper for ALL students to use was on a table at the back of the school room. After dinner, recesses-outside games of hop scotch, stink base, jump the rope, marbles, baseball... hot faced children lined up to the water bucket all used the one dipper to get a drink. Can you imagine? But the teaching method was EXCELLENT. The teacher used the blackboard, did work before the whole school which consisted of Primer through the 8th grade. What the class did on the board was graded, discussed, making it possible for an interested student to learn far beyond their grade.
    When I entered school Lois Cook was asked to watch out for me. I admired Lois (she was a lot like Carrie), Pretty, tall, slim, blonde, quiet, Responsible. If she told me children on the way to and from school were not supposed to crawl through the fence at Albert Cook and Isaac Cook's to get apples, I didn't. Children were allowed to pick up apples that fell on the roadside. We went by the rules. Even the boys that rushed ahead left some for the rest of us. Mornings children arrived at different times but when school let out at 4 o'clock there was a road full walking together because children on out 33 Highway, past the cut, joined the River Bunch. Boys rushed ahead, but not Wylie's son Nile. Nile was never too far away in case somebody said or did something to me. When Nile was killed in a car wreck when he was 19 years old we grieved quietly together. Mom told me Nile taught me to walk ... after his mother died Nile lived with us 2 years... Nile: My little red headed protector: We walked Clinch River Road...
    Passing Primer and First grade the same year, in the fall when I was 6 I started the 2nd grade. None of the girls wore pants and when it was cold we wore above the knew cotton stockings, an ugly reddish brown, it was either that or black like Granny wore. With all the walking, holes wore in the heels: Granny was a good darner, but I liked new stockings, without the holes in them.
    In winter time the children were in the roost and kerosene lamps lit when we got home from school. Some children missed lots of days, but I didn't. Carrie's children didn't miss days either...
    The Road of Life has many turns. If we stick true to our turns we don't have any regrets later. I do not have any regrets. Good people live along the River, each family working, keeping a certain private distance, but when trouble came to a family, they came, quietly: As they did for ours, twice. You don't forget people like that in your lifetime... We are part of all we have known. They are woven into the pattern of our life, some more deeply than others..........

    Our family contributed. Being a carpenter and death came to a community Dad and Grandpa Nick would work all night making a walnut coffin (preferred back then) while women folk prepared cotton bats before the lining was added, cooked food to take. Without embalming when death came: Next day burial. Hard times came to River families as the Depression settled in. We would know of tired looking people, with children, walking along 33 Highway with no place to go, or maybe they were on the way to relatives: We hoped...
    Along the River families handled having less in their own quiet way. I know we wore more 'darned' long stockings and was instructed to make new fall shoes last through the winter...
    Young friars, hens for chicken n dumplings, were not bought at the store and their heads had to come off, blood drained but not by Mom... It was done at the chop block, or in a pinch, hurry - Granny could wring a chicken's neck in a flash because it had to be done. If company came and without telephones company was nearly always unexpected: They had to be included at mealtime and usually overnight if they came from a distance. Corn fed, tree roosting, hens didn't lay many eggs during the winter months, so if hens didn't lay eggs you did without. In early spring they waited, anxiously, for a hen to 'set.' Early 'settings' meant early frying chickens. Eggs were marked with a pencil and as many eggs as a hen could incubate were hers. Eggs had to be marked for often another hen would lay another egg in the same nest. Children loved to gather eggs-but NOT from under setting hens. Most of the hens were vicious and would wring a piece of flesh from an invading hand... When I said eggs delighted a child's eyes at Easter, Oh, they did-but not in the ways of today... In spring at peak time for hens laying eggs, stiff, woven cane baskets held as many as 3, 4 or 5 dozen eggs kept in a cool, dark corner. each morning a big platter of well done eggs (no over lights) were passed around the breakfast table. A grown up would put an egg in a child's plate then their own and pass the platter around the table. They did the same with meats and bowls of gravy. No child at our house was allowed a "Boarding house reach." On Easter morning was when we had scrambled eggs, two big platters, one on each end of the table, fluffy and golden, all you could eat. Not only that but a big pot of boiled eggs were already cooling, natural color (brownish) didn't matter. You could peel and eat all day... A family's eggs had to be shared, carefully because an adult carried the big baskets of eggs to the store and traded for sugar, salt, baking powder, baking soda (no self rising back then) -- or eggs bought cloth for new dresses. Eggs were a source of income ... one elderly man known to be tight with his money told his wife, "If eggs go much lower than 2 or 3 cents a dozen I want to see more eggs frying on our stove..."
    Dad started growing 'clay peas' in the corn. Vines would climb up the stalk and they would have to be picked and shelled. Pumpkins planted in another corn field, after frost they were brought in, peeled, sliced in round rings, hung to dry. Green beans strung on long strings to dry for shuck (hay) beans and to me they tasted like a shuck-cow feed: BUT you didn't say "I don't like that," you let the bowl pass on around the table, food wasn't to be taken out and wasted.
    Dried hot, red pepper pods strung and kept handy to flavor. They preserved every way possible to have food through the winter.
    Cane was grown to make molasses instead of using sugar. Molasses makings were a social event. The cane had to be stripped and cut before frost. Over time molasses tended to go flat. heated and with a dab of baking soda added molasses turned foamy, golden and was a staple with biscuits or cornbread. Breakfast brown sugar (Grandpa's favorite) was hard to come by.
    Tubs of corn were brought in after supper, shelled and put in a clean, thick meal sack. Women along the River wanted it known their meal sacks were clean and white going to the mill. A 'turn' of corn was divided in the middle, placed on the horse's back with the rider, taken to Wash Russell's corn mill beside the store on the day he ground meal (usually Saturday). Meal ground that way was coarser than what we know today. Oh all the ways corn meal could be used to supplement a meal-Granny and Mom and Ina knew them all.
    Early in the spring when Granny told me, "We're going sallet hunting" ... it never entered my mind that there was a need for greens in our diet. Searching creek banks, river bottoms for wild sallet. Nobody in our family said greens or landcress, it was Sallet. I especially like the homey names of plants Granny taught me to recognize, Narrow dock, speckled Dick, woolly britches... Granny didn't like polk so we passed those plants slyly between us... We picked, rambled and talked, talked and talked-or I did, I had Granny to myself. Sunny days in January, which they called June in January, they sowed large beds of curly lettuce, under canvas-set out onion sets, planted cabbage sees to have early plants. They knew all the early, hardiest vegetables....

    I had been out under a tool shed trying out a Mystery Ocie taught me, If you bent over a doodle bug hole, said to the cone like, inverted hole, "doodle bug, doodle bug your house is one fire, come out come out... soon a wiggling motion would start in the very pit-bottom of the hole until you could see the tiny, sand colored back. Why?
    I was sitting under the edge of the porch asking myself, why would a bug believe its sandy hole was on fire? Granny and Grandpa came out the kitchen door onto the back porch, sat down. There! I would ask them, they would know about the doodle bug mystery. I was half up when Granny said to Grandpa, "I think Willard is just about out of money." Not knowing the full meaning that The Depression was about to cripple us on the bank of the Clinch River. It was Granny's worried tone about Dad... I crawled around to a chimney corner, drew up my knees and cried so no one would hear me. Dad was more serious, he didn't laugh as much, a load was on him with so many people depending on him. People didn't have money to spend and building (carpenter work) was an expense to be cut back first.
    Crippled? Yes-But, Dad had one talent left: The fish in the Clinch River. Fishing was something he dearly loved and never had enough time, now he did. He went Forward. He made more twine nets and I helped, up and down the River path I was at his heels to raise nets and trace trot lines. Early, Dad taught me to not take hold of drooping willow branches along the River bank as the skiff moved under them. He told me Fleeta caught a limb and was yanked out of the boat and he had to pull her out of the River. How do I say? Each time the boat slid along under the willows and swinging limbs brushed my face... Fleeta was with us, in Memory.
    I'd sit on the chop block in the woodshed and watch Dad making more fish boxes to hide along the River banks to hold fish he caught.... Tracing a line he could tell far ahead he had a 'big one' on. I knew to sit very still as he worked his way to it. Happy at landing a big one he would say, "You bring me good luck."
    Ever since Dad had a license to sell fish he had customers who liked fish and would come when he sent postcards to let them know he had their favorite kind. Two of his best customers lived in Big Valley, Dorothy Graves and Osber Ousley. Dorothy was fascinating to me, for many reasons, and I tried to be on hand every time she came. She was the first woman I ever saw wearing pants, a tan shirt belted in to matching pants. Pants were much more practical when she rode her big, black horse so far to get the fish. Dorothy was impressive to my eyes and ears as she set on the porch and visited. She lived in the section of Big Valley where Mom was raised and they had gone to school together. Whether she had news of Grandpa (France Beeler) and Mamaw (Tilda Burnett) or not she had other news. Dad had hand held scales to weigh fish and it was his way to weigh them before a Customer, then they were loaded in burlap (grass) sacks and placed carefully across the horses sides. There was danger for Dorothy crossing the Bridge, if a fin stuck or something spooked the horse. The horse couldn't take short cuts through the fields and it would take her a long time to reach the Bridge. I would go sit on the hill and watch for her to cross the Bridge... straight on by the store toward River View School where the road turned down the River a long way before to cross Big Ridge. Watching her go out of sight just past the store was sad. Before we moved to Dick Cook place we had lived near enough to cross Big Ridge and walk to Grandpa and Mamaw Beeler's. I missed them and Lydia that was 2 years older. If I ever got to go again would Mamaw have a can lid of brown sugar as a treat?
    Osber Ousley drove a sporty fliver that hauled enough for his fish to fry and more left to share with his friends in Big Valley. He was a good customer in every way, and that big laugh of his rolled toward the store from our hill... echoed up and down the River.
    Not only did Dad sell fish, he fed them out, people (folks) came from far and near to eat fish at our home. They were cleaned, cut up outside (no filets), when a dishpan full was delivered to the kitchen... "PHEW," Ina would snarl her nose, throw up both hands, but she would help salt, roll them in meal and fry them to a crisp, golden brown. Platters of cornbread would be ready for the table and coffee for the adults. We children were taught early to pick bones from our own fish, "your eyes are better than mine..." we were told. We didn't say anything, but it seemed odd to see a parent picking bones for a big child afraid they would get a bone in their neck, when a piece of cornbread would dislodge it...
    When "Bill" was there, along with the fish Dad would bring in a pan of fish eggs and in an aside voice would remind the cooks, "Fry these eggs or you will never fill Bill"... Fish eggs were richer, more filling. To me it was festive, not realizing fish was a Meal when food was scarce. Dad was a generous, caring person: Food was scarce for a lot of people. Dad fed out and gave far more than he sold.
    Some families ran a year long credit account at the store. Dad didn't. His credit record was excellent and he worked at keeping it that way. Sometimes he would buy winter shoes until tobacco sold before Christmas.
    There was a tobacco barn on the 20 acres Dad owned. I wasn't part of the handing off, but Wash Russell would haul it to market, a Knoxville Market. Dad seemed to always know a floor manager and he'd come home describing to us, "at first my baskets were placed under a leak in the roof, but I saw Bill and he had it moved." Other remarks that he was confident it would bring top price. "It looked good under the sky lights..." and "hoped the sun would shine on sale day". I went to a quiet place to wonder about 'skylights'? On sale day Dad came home carrying a market basket full of bananas. "I went down on Market Street and asked about over ripe bananas..." He knew bananas wouldn't last long enough to spoil at our house.
    Dad would be wearing buckle overshoes, creased, best overalls ... his heavy blue denim jump jacket, all the many pockets filled with goodies for his children. Tobacco prices kept going down to near nothing, five cents per pond, but on sale day Dad brought home the basket of bananas and goodies for his children. Santy Claus never failed to come, our stockings bulged on Christmas morning.
    One Christmas Eve a small cousin "Billy" came. He was so little to have walked so far on his own in a wet, slushy snow... wet soggy shoes and no socks. Because of "Billy" I didn't feel right hanging my stocking on the mantel... but next morning I couldn't believe my eyes what Santy had done... "Billiy's" shoes were the center piece. Shoes all dry and tucked inside, new socks, fruit-apples and oranges never looked so bright to my eyes. I knew that Christmas morning what the girls at school had told me was true. Parents were Santy Claus... Dad and Mom were the ones who knew "Billy" came and it was their way to include him as one of their own... and reaffirmed a 7 year olds belief: I had the best parents in the world.
    Creased overalls? Oh yes, by flat irons heated on the woodburning stove. No matter if it was only blue chambray shirts and denim overalls, Dad wore creases in his overalls. This showed he was cared for at home and he had that to show as assurance wherever he went. If he wore patched overalls to work on a job the perfect stitching was noted by others where he stayed. Dad was quite famous for his patched overalls. This was mentioned to me many years later...
    Rumors were flying: Talk of Norris Dam. The changes that it would bring to the Clinch River families were TOO TERRIBLE to comprehend ... so they talked, dismissed, denied: Comforted each other, "Water will never back as far as the Bridge..."
    Foremost for Dad and Wylie was a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp was going to be built on the hill overlooking John Miller's and Fall Creek, not far from 33 Highway, past the cut. Dad and Wylie rushed to apply for a JOB. Both were hired, promptly... Children know things without being told and I saw the changes in Dad and Wylie. Wylie came walking down River Road taking the longest steps I ever saw, Dad would join him on the road. Dad's strides were just as long as Wylie's. They were both tall, lean, long legged... Walked well together, took pride in their work. Every dime Dad made was used for the support of his family. Plus: Dad had a unique way of bringing knowledge home to his children and a whole new way of life was opening up at the CCC Camp, Captain this and Lieutenant that... The ones in charge of the camp were also dad's bosses and they knew their business which dad admired. Young men were arriving from all over the United States, lots of city boys who had never known country life, let alone lived it, lived in tents. Barracks had to go up to house them as fast as possible. Oh the hustle and bustle that inspired and being part of such undertaking was just what Dad and Wylie thrived on. Dad described the tables of FOOD spread out. More food than he had ever seen, cooked by men. "Good cooks," Dad complimented...
    He described the clothes and cloth hats issued and worn by the boys. The tools loaded into canvas topped, lumbering trucks that could go crawling over and around hills where no truck had ever been. They took big water coolers and stacks of little white cups. The first individual drinking cups came to our area...
    I thought of Dad's description of food on the CCC Camp tables when I was told, years later, what few people know: The Mandate that came down from Washington, DC: "Feed My People... these men have been on starvation diets too long and don't work them until heir strength is rebuilt..." A United States President's Decree reached to the banks of the Clinch River. Dad's awesome delight at the sight of all the food told me more than anything the struggle it had been for him to keep food on the table... In Honor of Dad doing that, I must say: "Nutritional Value may have been out the window, but I was never hungry... but he and Mom might have been"...........................

    I didn't realize what a dark time the Depression had been for my Mom until the sunny, fun came out in her again. She bought a new dress or two and a pair of new shoes. When she put on the new dress and new shoes, her eager children gathered around... "Mom, where are you going?"... "I'm going to New York..." Who among us even knew where New York was?? A wail would go up, "Mom we want to go too!!"... "Well, come on then, get the water buckets to leave at the spring... we'll go by Lucy's, through the field and by the store..." (You left water buckets to bring back household water no matter where you were going). ... Water buckets allotted for each size, banging, swinging we were on our way, happy to have Mom's permission to go with her.
    With Dad working, The Store was no longer a place to avoid. Mom spent money carefully and we were not indulged. Usually a nickel's worth of candy to share among us. There was never a complaint when the trip always ended at the store-You were worn out from a trip that far with Mom, she went like a racer and didn't alter that pace much for her children. She would reach down, hoist a small one on her hip and step on the heels of ones big enough to know not to lag behind. If she went out of sight (ahead) that would be your bad luck... When she said, "My legs might not be as long as Willard's, but I can keep up with him," Dad just grinned.
    Dad was a keeper of secrets... Mysteries... Places he worked and stayed old men who knew ancient lore passed down only to the reliable ... talking late into the night, they found Dad trustworthy...
    TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) land surveyors came to Dad's 20 acres early and he accepted the $500.00 (Five Hundred Dollars) check. I left Clinch River when I was 8 years old and being a first family to move nothing about Magical Clinch River had changed and I believed people when they said, "Water will never back up as far as the Bridge."
    Until he could find land to buy Dad moved us away from what was happening to families with big farms along Clinch River. We moved to Katie Myers Ridge, Big Sinks area in lower Big Valley to a little rickety house on Jim and Kate Johnson's Place (Kate was Dad's sister). It was a tiresome move and everybody worked frantically to get the house in some kind of order to eat and sleep. (Ina's bed, with the snow white bedspread was in the corner of a room with 2 more beds)... Dad had moved us away from the heartache happening to families along the Clinch River, but he went back and forth. Wylie moved temporarily into the log house we had left and Dad stayed with him, Monday through Friday, to help take down houses: River Families: Neighbor's Houses... That was the one thing he didn't bring home to share with his children. ... From Katie Myers Ridge I saw Norris Lake come, backing up Powell River side... It was a lonely feeling to know water had come, covered Clinch River Bridge.
    ... The Wise often live and die quietly: Later their wisdom is proved when what they left behind endures beyond the grave.
    ... I didn't know families moved from along Powell River. But, sorrow was left behind there, too...
    ... I felt the soft, spirit filled winds blowing on my face as I stood looking at the still, silent water...
    ... My one desire in writing this has been to leave something of the Early Ones I knew to start the Journey of life that has been mine. Something they left with me (in trust) to pass on... May 24, 1999
 

1935 TVA Index Map. Approximate locations told in Mrs. Virgie Brewer Perrys story - Memories Along Clinch River * Move mouse over image to view a modern map.