My young life on our families farm was anything but dull. There was always something to do to keep a child busy and if I couldn't find anything to do, my mother was very adept at finding that something for me. When she couldn't come up with something for her children to do, then my Dad would step in with his "suggestions". Neither of them believed in our hands being idle.
She gave birth to nine children and raised her sister's son from his birth. Her sister died during child birth. So you see, my mother and daddy were busy and they believed in keeping their children busy.
I had seven brothers and two sisters. Five of the brothers were older than I and two were younger. I had one sister that was older and one sister younger.
Looking back on my younger years, I can't see how my parents coped with all of us. We had no electricity, no running water, no indoor bathrooms, no televisions, no stereos, no vcrs, and definitely no webtv's. We did our homework by oil lamps. We had one big floor model radio that used up batteries like a dog eating steak. I can still hear my dad saying, "save some of the batteries so we can listen to The Lone Ranger." My favorite was called "The Inner Sanctum" (remember the squeaking door).
My mother would heat water to wash clothes in a big black wash kettle, out in the back yard, over a big fire. The water usually came from rain barrels that were placed under spouts that caught the water that ran off the roof. If we had dry weather, then the water had to be hand pumped out of a cistern. In the winter the ice would have to be broken to get to the water. All of the dirty clothes were washed out in the back yard on a wash board and with homemade lye soap. I have never seen a woman have so much pride in anything as my mother had on her ability to hang out (always with her girls help), about five clothes lines full of clothes and they had to be hung up in a certain way. The white things had to be so white that the sun would blind you with the reflection. No dingy whites were ever allowed on her clothes lines. The overalls and pants had to be hung together, shirts, socks and etc. all in their own category. She wanted the white sheets and pillow cases all on the same line. When it was all done, with the wind whipping through and the sunshine as nature's natural clothes dryer, she would stand there with so much pride and admire the fruits of her labor.
I look back and realize that these tasks were carried out relentlessly in the freezing weather in the winter and under the shade of a big oak tree in the blazing hot summer heat. I can't remember her ever complaining about having to do anything for us, no matter that she must have had dozens of things to do at the same time. She never believed in putting off until tomorrow, what could be done today.
My dad was a hard working man and never had any luxuries to do his work with either. He worked in a Tennessee marble quarry during the depression and he made a fabulous amount of $1.00 a DAY (notice I said a day, not an hour). Some of the beautiful marble that you see in the buildings in our nations capitol, was quarried by my dad. When the second world war created a need for the Atomic bomb, the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee came into existence and my dad was hired there as a city fireman, a job he had all of my growing up years. He would work in the fire department for 24 hours and would be home for 24 hours. There was no idleness on his off days because he had all the crops and gardens to attend to. He was a city Firemen in Oak Ridge, Tennessee for 30 years before his retirement.
When we were younger, Daddy would call us his "younguns." So, we "younguns" came in handy for helping with all of the many tasks there was to do on a farm. The boys always helped our dad and the girls would help mother. Our kitchen was always the hub of lots of activity and always had the smell of something cooking on the big black and chrome wood cook stove. Every one of my brothers turned out to be good cooks just by hanging around the kitchen and watching our mother prepare some fabulous meals as well as some plain ole down home Southern cooking. She was the worlds best cook and I don't say that because she was my mother, she just had a natural born talent of good cooking and baking cakes and pies. There was never any boxed cake mixes in her kitchen while I was growing up. I think she did start using box mixes in her later years. By the way, her 3 girls could serve up some pretty tasty meals also.
I could keep on writing until I wrote a book but time and space won't permit. Before I quit, I want to tell about the funniest thing that happened to me as a young girl. We had two horses on the farm. My younger brother claimed the one named Dolly and I claimed the one named Jim. Daddy would make sure that we kept the horses groomed, fed and watered. The watering part was no problem as long as we had plenty of rain because we had a big pond on the farm that supplied all the animals with water. One summer that stands out in my memory is one where we had no rain and our pond went bone dry. Daddy would haul water from a spring, which was about a mile away, for the cows and pigs. Our 2 horses were a little different because my brother and I would just ride them to the creek when they needed water and they could help themselves. On one real, real hot day in August, with our horses so hot and thirsty, I decided ride Jim to get some water as quick as possible. To save time, I decided to just ride "bare" back because I was too hot to take the time to put Jim's saddle on and wanted to get Jim to water as quick as possible. Here we go, having a nice ride down the country road, holding on to the horses mane and my feet hugged tight around his stomach. Every thing was just going as planned until I got to the spring.....Jim was so hot and thirsty that he couldn't wait until I dismounted but instead just bent over as fast as he could to drink the water....here goes Betty, right over his head, into the cold water of the spring, screaming because of the cold water and the surprise of having been virtually thrown in the spring by my own faithful companion, Jim. There I was soaking wet, fussing at Jim for being so impatient and there he was....that horse looked at me, gave a loud "neigh", brought his lips into a certain fixed way that made him look just like he was laughing at me.....Just ask me if a horse can laugh and my answer will be yes because until this very day, 53 years later, I know Jim was laughing at me..
