More of Nick Morris Diaries by Fred

Nick Morris Diary Necrology 1913-1930 by Fred McCaleb

1913 June 19 Mrs. Butler

1914 Feb. 21 Reedy Boz
28 Josie Davis baby died
Mar. 2 George Wakefield
3 Josie’s baby 10 days old died
April 2 D. C. Whitehead
2 Mrs. Emma Ehl

1915 Jan. 24 Emma Williams Dau. Born
July 16 Made coffin for Gen Davis
Sept. 16 Babe of J. R. Hiten died
30 Dau. Born to Lane & Cora Morris
Nov. 20 Helped bury Tim McCaleb’s little girl

1916 April 15 George Kelly

1917 Oct. 31 J. Jones Haney
Dec. 21 Fred Ervin Friend of my dad. I may have been named for
Jan. 22 Mrs. Minda Harkness
May 12 Helped bury Larry’s baby
April 8 Mrs. Wiley Hollingsworth
12 Frank Smith of Okla.
Aug. 11 George Caddell

1918 Feb 1 D. M Harkins
D. M. Patterson
June 1 Mrs Sam Clark
18 Helped bury Lonzo White
Lonzo Baby Buried
12 Mrs Sam Clark
Oct 12 Helped make coffin for George Grigg
12 Bage Caddell
Dec 13 Don Sprinkle

1919 Feb 10 J. R. Anthony
June 15 Mary Guess

1920 April 14 Mrs Weavers baby
July 19 H. S. McArthur
Dec 11 J. J. Jones

1921 Jan 1 John E Tucker
Feb 30 W. A. Lee
1921 May 16 G. D. Wakefield
July 28 Baby born to Zilpah Clark
Aug 8 Mc Baby buried
15 Kilby & Vergie Corpreys baby
Oct 15 Hassie Nichols
31 G. W. McDonald

1922 Jan 16 Old lady Gann
Mar 11 Ras Tidwell
May 7 Son Born to Cora Morris
Sept 30 Isaac Perry
Nov 15 Nick Whitehead
1 Shirley Artory ?

1923 Feb 25 Tinie Had boy last night
Apr 1 Bud Williams
Aug 7 J. B. Whitehead of Brilliant
July 2 President Warren G. Harding of Ca.
Aug 7 Mrs Don McDonald
Nov 24 John M Barnes
Dec 25 Mrs Icy McCaleb
12 May McDonald from falling tree

1924 Jan 30 Lois Anthony
Feb 20 Mrs Pender
2 Woodrow Wilson
Mar 15 Frank Tidwell
Apr 19 Mrs W. W. Kelly
26 Mrs Sophia Walker
June 21 Mrs Ann Haney
3 Alex McCaleb
Nov 7 Mary Whitehead

1925 Feb 26 Josie Davis
June 5 James E. Early Bham.
Oct 31 Henry Aldridge
Nov 20 Joe Wakefield
22 R. P. Caine died in Fayette

1926 Feb 16 Helped bury Ethel Whitehead
27 Helped Make coffin for Miss Annie Phillips
Mar 7 Mr. Pierce Hubbard
4 T. D. Davis Married
April 13 Bettie Smith died
May 4 Car wreck killed someone
June 4 H. B. Moore in Tex.
1926 July 4 Mrs Wakefield by lightning
5 Susie McDonald died last night
Ervin Whitson electrocuted (no Date)
27 Tim McCaleb died ( I ate My first grapefruit at Tims)
Oct 4 Conley Berry died 3 AM

1927 Jan 21 Myrtice McCaleb died
May 10 J. F. Whitehead
Aug 11 Ruth died this am
Oct 9 Babe of Mrs. John Norris

1928 Jan 21 J.F. Aldridge dies
Feb 2 Rhinalda Jones son died
23 W.H. Billy McCaleb died at noon
April 28 J. R. Baccus
May 7 Bashie Perrys funeral
Aug 18 Ida Harris
19 Ida and babe buried
Oct 5 Josie born+

1929 Jan 25 Senator O. W. Underwood
June 17 J. N. Sprinkle died suddenly
July 8 J. T. Box
Aug 13 J. M. Haney at Haleyville
28 Lillie Roby
Oct 29 Rosalee Ervin I believe lst buried White’s Chapel
29 Preacher J. M. Wade
Nov 24 Sandy Flippo
Dec 23 Joe E McDonald
20 Roy Elliott

1930 Jan 4 Mrs O. C. Dobbs
Mar 23 Nick Morris (Author Went to Jasper Hospital diagnosed
With prostrate cancer by Dr. Hollis of Winfield and that’s all he wrote. Said
he
was there 2 wks. He must have got back home unable to write. Don’t know when
he died. I was glad to bring his deaths up to 1930 as he hadn’t done that. I
guess
he hoped to live many more years much as people today do. I didn’t know the
last names of some of the ones he called by first names. He would have done
better

He lived up to the main entrance to the high speed auto ago. His wife and
daughter hade a ride to Berea Church in sons 2 door Ford Sedan. He had helped
paint a Ford truck or two and son had wrecked one truck. He had driven a
delivery truck for a company he worked for. Dr. Barsele was one of the dentists
back then. They didn’t patch teeth back then. If it got infected and hurting
the
remedy was to extract. Dentists were feared. Dr. Green Was another Dr. which I
don’t know what kind. He saw an airplane pass over. I saw one of the early
dare devil sort of planes fly at Winfield in cow pasture while at Winfield
High School. They flew upside down and every other way imaginable. A big cotton
mill was built in the pasture and it moved to a foreign country 10 or 20 years
ago. Nick attended all political rallies and elections. He was interested in
the school at Glen Allen, helped build it and upkeep , took census of students
that would attend. He and family went mainly to churches at Berea, Elam, and
Clover Hill. Went a few times to White’s Chapel, to New River, to
Hubbardville, to Glen Allen and to the black church above Bazemore. Many of the
times he would tell who was preaching. He hardly ever went many times to same
church before trying another one.

He and my grandpa’s brother Bird McCaleb visited at least once a week.I never
did figure out why. Bird didn’t work at toiling or do any for Nick. Nick must
have gone for advice or to sell Bird something like making out mortgages for
him. Bird’s children helped Nick pick cotton and do other things. A. C.
Alfred McCaleb later lived somewhere near Nick

Cotton sold for 5 1/2 c per lb in 1909, 7c lb 1914, 12C 1912, up to about 20c
1918, up a little in 1920 and down to about 5c in depression days of 30s. It
has been above 60c per lb in the 1990s and later. Sort of slumps very badly
with depressions.

Nick stripped cane, made molasses, pulled fodder, gathered corn and picked
cotton in the fall until the last years of his life. Early in the spring he
broke up land the old fashioned way with mules and turning plows. Women and
children hoed millet, corn, cotton and garden. They also fed mules, slopped the
hogs, milked cows. Nick got to where he helped his wife wash the clothes in his
last. His wife seemed to go places to visit on her own.

I will try to mention some of the places he went to store and to mill. They were
Hollingsworth store, William Ervins shop to help make coffins, to stave mill in
Glen Allen to work and hauled strips for wood, to gin in Glen Allen, Beasley
store, Raspberry sawmill, Curt Hubbards, to corn grinding mill in Glen Allen or
Bazemore, Tilly sawmill, Tom Perry mill, Kelly multiple mills in Bazemore and to
Winfield many times.

Nick’s house seemed to be open to all that wished to visit, especially his
children, to William Ervin, Bird McCaleb and children, politicians, and
seemingly to all. No one goes much further than the TV set today. He was
willing to help most anyone in trouble, to make a coffin or dig a grave. He was
a center of news and complained of being too sick to work many times in thee 15s
and 20s. He helped repair phone lines, put in phones, went to Winfield for
batteries, put in relay stations, dig well at Berea, repaired church benches,
hauled many loads of wood by mule and wagon and at last strips by truck, took
cane to molasses maker, helped with Kelly school, to U. S. court in Bham. For 3
weeks out of one month, talked about a big whiskey still raid at Austin
McDonalds and the agent accidentally wounding self with gun and no trial, WW1
registration and hostilities ceasing, split boards and repaired roof on own
house and outbuildings, attended most all elections, worked on road maps,
watched boys cut bee tree for honey, saw the 1920 census enumerator, moved for
about a month to near Jasper and worked in store, and then came back, worked in
stores in Glen Allen & Bazemore, adjusted and cleaned gin saws and gristmill
rocks, family reunion at Glen Allen, tick eradication law, half soled shoes,
helped eat a possum, said what weather was most every day, told about dry
spells, about a railway boiler explosion, about wife Bip’s nearly a month
trip to Texas, about Virgil Whitehead moving to Neddleton,Ms. And Virgil coming
back to visit and Nick going to Ms. To visit one other and Virgil, to all day
singings at different churches and at Curt Hubbards, about his wife selling
about 40 acres of land for 25 dollars and 2 years to pay, about big protracted
meetings and how many saved, about peddler Sprinkle, about hanging of Harry
Mark of Fayette, about writing Senator John B Bankhaed and brother
Reprasentative William Bankhead big congressmen in his late years and my
early time, about son in law Dock and Jenny Hollings leaving for Ark. Oct. 7,
1925 and 1927 Jennie back for a while, then Nick and wife went to visit Ark.
For about a month and there seemed to be no bad feelings toward each. They had
been faithful to visit all through the years. Nick seemed to hold no bad
feelings against anyone. He was just too busy most of the time. There were 2 or
3 places where he seemed to be referring to my grandpa McCaleb. After 1927
Cover Hill was moved to about a ½ mile away and is now Tidwell Chapel and
White’s Chapel started by Jerry White. There seemed to have been no argument.
Some of this data is not done too well but it’s my best at 92 years old. I
salute Nick Morris for telling what it was like in first part of 20th century.
Done by Fred McCaleb.