Our Past Ancestors

Submitted by:
Fred McCaleb

"We are people to whom the past is forever speaking. We listen to it because
we cannot help ourselves, for the past speaks to us with many voices. Far
out of that dark nowhere which is the time before we were born, men who were
flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone went through fire and storm to break
a path to the future. We are part of the future they died for; they are part
of the past that brought the future. What they did--the lives they lived,
the sacrifices they made, the stories they told and the songs they sang and,
finally, the deaths they died-- make up a part of our own experience.
We cannot cut ourselves off from it. It is as real to us as something that
happened last week. It is a basic part of our heritage as Americans."

White's Chapel Church of Christ

by Fred McCaleb

This church was established in 1927 with the following charter members: Bob and Cordia Herren, Jerry and Siddy White, Oscar and Dell Dodd, Mr. and Mrs. Boss Tucker, Mr. and Mrs. Henry Hollingsworth, Mr. and Mrs. White Howell, Mr. and Mrs. Anderson Howell, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Hollingsworth.

Some of the earlier ministers were Charlie A. Wheeler, Gus Nichols, A.D. Dias, Chester Estes, W.A. Black, Edsel Burleson, and V.P. Black.

This church is located about 2 miles south of The Bazemore community in NE Fayette County, Ala.

My grandfather James "Jim" Franklin and Rejina Catherine McCaleb lived about a quarter mile down the road from that church. Their children were H (my dad), Walker married Lula Roby, Mary married Lonnie Box, and Verla Married Louie Roby. In 1925, Frank White and his wife lived in a nice framed house, the first one on right south of the church. He was the son of Jerry and Sid White. I have been told that Jerry White was the principle influence in getting White's Chapel started, and the church was named for him. Frank White had gone off to WW1 and lost one of his lungs. He struggled for breath the rest of his life. Best I recollect he had a mail carrier job, therefore had more income than anyone else in the community. One of his daughters married Marshall Wyers. Marshall was a young man that came to Mt. Olive Church to preach on a Sunday or two when I was attending church there in the 1930s. Marshall's son James Wyers is presently (1995) preaching at the Winfield Church of Christ. He does a good job preaching. Much of the attendees are young people, which is rare in a modern church. I like to think the influence of Jerry White and Marshall Wyers is extending on through the years.

The second house on right of road south of White's Chapel was Walker and Lula Roby McCaleb's. Walker deeded a piece of land across the road from his house and toward the church for a community center and a church social building. Home coming dinners and church social events take place there. Walker had three children. They were Arlin, Ilene, and Clifton McCaleb. Clifton and Arlin were active in the church during its' history.

Down the road on the left past Walker McCaleb lived his parents James "Jim" and Rejina C. Hollingsworth McCaleb, Walker's parents and my grandparents. I never knew exactly how good their church attendance was, but assumed they were members at Berea or White's Chapel and maybe attended some events at both places. I stayed at their house one summer and attended a singing school conducted by Homer Colley. I think my brother Hubert and sister Clancy also attended. Needless to say, I failed to learn how to sing. That represented my total training in the musical world, and still no singing improvement.

Next house down the road on the left was the Bob and Cordia Herren house. They raised fifteen children ranging in age from the older ones that my dad played with to the younger ones that went to school at Clover Hill and were in my age group. They were Susan Emma that married John Russell Roby; Duncan Newbern that married Ada Rosena Sprinkle; Elijah Columbus "E.C." that married Myrtle Lee Erwin (my first school teacher. ) Columbus was ordained to preach when young, but later just gave talks at churches. He was mainly a school teacher. Louis Wiley that married Alma Irene Hiten (dau of Raymond Hiten, a school teacher.)Wiley became a C. of Christ preacher. ; Alma that married Walter A. Dodd; Marion Francis that married Lucille Berry; Sherman Theodore who married Lorene Brazil; Robert Howard that married Maggie Lee Hutchins; Velma Neeland that married John Frederick Wyers; C.S. that married ( 1) Dora Bopeep Hollingsworth, and John Sidney "Jigs" that married Evacille Davis. Four of the children died young. I went to school at Clover Hill one year with the last three, and my dad, H McCaleb went to school at the same place with three or four of the earlier Herrens. Some, or all, of these Herrens and families must have attended White's Chapel part of the time. The names of the ones they married may also have attended.

Down from Bob Herren was the Aute and Emma Hollingsworth Tucker Family. Further on over were Wheeler Tucker and the Robys.

The Oscar Dodd and Idella White Dodd lived across the road from White's Chapel during the 1930s. I recollect their daughter Inez and son Garvin "Dits" Dodd. They may have had more. Seems like one may have died of typhoid fever. Their well got infected with the typhoid germ.

Jerry White seems to have masterminded the founding of White's Chapel. Jerry and Siddie Tucker's family that lived were Frances Jane who married William Henry Clark; Idella who married William Oscar Dodd, and Andrew Franklin who married Emma E. Sparks as a second wife. Frank married Velma Johnson about 1915. Frank had to go off to WW1 and Velma died, I don't know if from childbirth or what. One source said Velma walked off and left Frank and died later. Velma was the daughter of T.S. "Ditch" Johnson and Mary Frances McCaleb, a sister of my grandpa Jim McCaleb. Ditch wasn't much good and was in Texas and my grandfather was taking care of Velma and some of the Johnson family when Velma married Frank White. So the McCalebs didn't lack much being kin to the Frank white Children.

Before White's Chapel the church was at Clover Hill, about a mile east of present location. Clover Hill may have needed repairs and was probably about worn out. Whether there was some sort of split that formed Tidwell's Chapel and White's Chapel I never knew as we were away in Miss. at that time.

Frank and Emma Sparks White's children were Frankie Lee White who married Marshall Wyers. Marshall was beginning to be a Church of Christ preacher when I was in my teens (1930s.) Their son James Wyers is the preacher at Winfield Church of Christ (1995.) Franks daughter Myrl Christine married Boss Beasley; son Thomas Loyd married Edith Sue Sherer,; Jerry Calvin married Jewell Brazil?; Juanita Inez maarried "Bill" Black; and there was a son named Eugene Rudolph White.

At the forks of the old gravel road at White's Chapel was a little store run by a Sprinkle, Moses I think. Some of the Sprinkles went to church there. Going north toward Bazemore and across New River was the Holly and Alma Woodard Tucker family. Then in Bazemore was the Howell families and the Tom and Molly McCaleb Hollingsworth family. Tom ran a store in Bazemore back then, and his son Ecter later operated the same store. Many of the Howells and Hollingsworths up there went to White's Chapel. This is about all I have picked up on this church. The cemetery there is full of graves of people I knew, or knew of, that have been put there during my lifetime. It's enough to make one want to cry.

Some of this info was furnished by James "Jim" Herren, son of C.S.,and some was from Herbert Newell's History of Fayette County. Some came from Fred McCaleb who did this write-up.

New River Vignette

By Myrtle Aldridge
Submitted by Fred McCaleb

On Sunday August 4 (year unknown) a series of meetings began at the New River Church of Christ. Curtis W. Posey is doing the preaching, and the public is cordially invited.
This must be at least seventy five times that an event sililar to this has taken place on this same spot. The original building was incorporated into the present one when a remodeling job took place a few years ago.
1886 has been given as the date of organization. Mr. John Tyler McCaleb owned a large farm near by. He gave the land and financed the building of the house except for $18 which was donated by Mr. Jim Wade. Mr. McCaleb was an elder from the time of the organization till his death August 13, 1918.
One of his young daughters was first to be buried in the church cemetery. She was Sarah H. McCaleb Reed. June 13, 1868 to Oct. 13, 1888. She left a small son, Luther, who was reared by his grandfather.
Another daughter, Medora S. Haley, 1866?-1890, also left a small son Wilburn who was also reared by his grandfather McCaleb.
Mr. McCaleb was twice married: first to Elizabeth Susan McDonald whose dates are 1847-1894. After her death he was married to Mattie Drucilla Lee whose dates are 1860 to 1940.
Mr. McCaleb was highly respected by all who knew him. A man once came to him to buy a turn of corn. Mr. McCaleb was busy and told the man to go to the crib and help himself. The man said, "But no one will be with me to check on my honesty." "Oh you are mistaken" replied Mr. McCaleb, "The Lord will be there."
Needless to say, the man could not have then been dishonest if he had had any inclination to do so.
Mr. McCaleb was also known for his generosity. Mr. Huse Haney tells me that during a big meeting he had seen as many as forty saddles on the fence at Mr. McCaleb's home.
Papa Aldridge told me that as a young man, he often visited in this home. On one such occasion, several pallets had to be made down. The next morning Aunt Silla said "Well where did Wilburn sleep last night?" To this her young stepson, Joe McCaleb, replied, "The last time I saw him he was standing in a corner with a quilt over his head, like a tent."
From 1899 till 1911, Mr. McCaleb served as postmaster of the New River Post Office.
Some ministers who have served this churchS: Jeremiah Randolph, whose dates are 1807 to 1894, his son Virgil, whose dates are 1847 to 1908,Green Haley, Joe Halbrooks, C.A. Wheeler, W.A. Tipton, Samuel B. Carson, Howell Taylor & others.
Uncle Joe Holbrooks lived at New River for a period of 16 years. He preached there, in adjoining communities and counties. At the time he was considered a very scholarly man, for he had attended Mars Hill Bible School near Florence.
Some of the older members of this church today are Mr. & Mrs. Bill Hollingsworth, Mrs. Lucy McCaleb and Mr. Oliver Davis and wife.
The morning I visited this cemetery, a gentle rustling of the leaves, bird calls, the flutter of butterflies wings in an ancient crepe myrtle, were the only sounds in this tranquil spot. I was reminded of a poem by Mrs. Ruth E. McCaleb as I stood by l
her grave, in which she described the land which her husband loved, the acres of fine corn through which the wind passed and "Came to rest, with a sigh, at his tomb."

Skimming Ridge School or Boxes Creek School

(On front row third from left is Fred McCaleb)
by Fred McCaleb

From the best info I could obtain from the old timers in the area of this old one teacher school, it was built about 1910-12. It was located on the road between Berea Church of Christ and New River Baptist Church in Northeast Fayette County, Al. It was not built as a church building. Some singings and church events may have been held there in the last years of its duration. Berea probably had a country one teacher school, so did New River Baptist (Killingsworth) church, Clover Hill, Gravel Hill, Philadelphia Church, Glen Allen and other communities around the Hubbartville area. Fayette County had many one teacher schools up to around 1930. The schools in the Hubbartville area were consolidatted into Hubbardville Junior High School which later became Hubbartville High School. Skimming Ridge School operated from about 1912-1927. Travis Hollingsworth came in possession of the school house at end and dismantled it by hand,piece by piece.
I wondered how this building came to have the name of Skimming Ridge. Skimmings were a byproduct of sorghum molasses making. They could be stored in a barrel, let ferment into alcohol, and then boiled off in a still to obtain whiskey. One of the local enterpreneurs saved some barrels of skimmings, dug holes in the ground for the barrels and camouflaged the location. Some local resident came along and fell into one of the barrels. Thereafter the area was known as Skimming Ridge. Boxes Creek School was named Skimming Ridge after the above event.
Some of the earlier students at this school were the Sherrill and Fanny Barnard Killingsworth children : Cecil, Grady, Barnard, Arla and Mae. The younger ones Barbera and Gladys didn't go there.
John and Catherine Hollingsworth Nichols' children Ruby and Jack attended.
Dan and Leona(Mayfield) Swindle's children Mae, Reuben and Talmadge attended.
Wallace and Susan Angeline Tucker Roby's Children Attended. They were Ras, Emma, Louie, Arthur, Mae and Ruth and Willidine. Louie married Verla McCaleb(sister of my dad H.) Ruth Married Arvil Moore. Willidine married a Webster & Mae an Eads.
Judge and Maud Killingsworth Hollingsworth's children Sherman and Shelby attended. I(Fred McCaleb) can recollect when Shelby got burned to death under a T Model Ford truck that had turned over on him one night. He struck a match to see how to get out and gas caught on fire.
Houston and Kate McCaleb Haney's children Avis, Pauline, Lucille and Wilma attended. Their younger children Jimmie Lou and Borden didn't go there. Huse was a famous Church of Christ Preacher.
Billy and Alabama Hocutt's kids Cecil and Sleetia attended.
Billy and Alabama Whitehead were students?
Floyd ,Minnie Tucker, Jerry and Evie attended. Parents were Dee & Mandy Tucker.
Pollard Wakefield's daughters Carrie and Essie were students, and Essie was later a teacher there.
Charlie and Mollie Malone Killingsworthh's children Claudie, Wilburn and Sam attended.
Bud and Sara Hollingsworth's children Maud, Artie, Travis, Pate, Ceburn, and Cleburn attended.
Dude and Georgia Hollingsworth's children Lillie and Luther and Georgia attended.
John R.Hollingsworth's Dodson grand daughter Mabelle and her brother Lawrence went there.
Jim and Velma McCollum's kids were Ila, Wiley, Frankie & J.C.
Frank and Jinnie Box's kids were Ola, Lola, and Zola.
Tom and Bessie McCollum's kids were Ida and Ada.
Sem and Silla Tucker's kids were Sherman, Boss, Pearl and Eurna. John Roby's kids Roy, Early and Cordie Bell attended.
Jim and Mandy Kelly Hollingsworth's children were Ned, Luke, Flonnie, Tom, Alfred, Andy, Bess and Dot.
Curley and Bessie Sprinkle's kids were Basil, Polly, Kate, Mildred and Lois.
Tim and Sleetie Beauchamp McCaleb's attendees were Roy, Houston, and Alton.
Andrew and Julie Dunnovant's child that attended was Marvin.?
Rass and Carrie Sprinkle's kids were Tine, Lou Eva, Bethie, and Fletcher.
The ones I recollect the best were the older children of Ecter and Ethel Hallmark Killingsworth. They were Ola, Eunice, Mildred and I believe also Vivian. We walked to school together, and had to pass over Boxes Creek on a one bannister footlog. Ola got dizzy and fell off the footlog one day. She barely missed falling into the water and drowning. Her face was injured and bleeding. We got help and she pulled through. The above were cousins.
The H and Eza Hallmark McCaleb's son Fred attended this school as his first introduction to the educational world. The teacher Alma Sherrer Kizzire made an example of me and her son Albert. Alma was one of my mother's best girl friends.
One of the pupils that went to this school made a lawyer. He was Jim McCollum. His son Hardy McCollum is mayor of Tuscaloosa, Al.now(1996.) You can never tell what a school or individual will produce or become.Jim's dad was Capt.Newman McCollum. Jim's brother Clay also attended.
Virgie and Minnine Hollingsworth and Felix (their brother and husband of Arla Killingsworth) were early students. Could that have been where Arla met Felix? Their oldest son Howard may have attended there a while. Parents were John T. and Orpha Perry Hollingsworth.
Some of the Joe Kellly children attended this school. They were Jess, Fannie, and Bill.
The teachers I could find out about were Jim and Pollard Wakefield, Pollard and Bet Wakefield's daughter Essie, Thomas Herren, Myrtle Ervin Herren(wife of Columbus), Alma Sherrer Kizzire (later Cannon,), Murry Duncan,Florence Ezell,Fred Johnson, Fannie Little, Kelly Little and Maybell Baker.
The board of education(a paddle or good switch from the woods) resided on the teacher's desk at that time. Obeying easy.
Some contributors for this write up were Ada McCollum Box, Ruth Roby Moore, Arla Killingsworth Hollingsworth and her family, Fred McCaleb and my cousin Eunice Killingsworth.
The classes of old Skimming Ridge School are thinning out now. Only a few of the most hardy that have survived the hardships and temptations of the years are around today. Arla Hollingsworth is about 95. The youngest would be around 70. The house is gone and its pupils are about gone. The bell that called the classes from playing town ball and "Antny Over" still survives on a post at a neighbors' of my Aunt Verla McCaleb Roby Sandlin. I have a VCR recording of the bell. Soon it will be only something to read about. Then the story will not be believed. I felt like I wanted to say something for posterity about my first school. I guess I learned something about reading, writing and arithmetic here and some respect for authority.
The Roby children walked through Sie McCollum's pasture to get to school. Sie's bull would try to run them out of his territory. Sie was a black boy from slave days. He had Bill Ervin make him a coffin many years before he died and kept it under his bed. He said his black (he called them Nigger) kids were too sorry to bury him. All the whites loved Sie. Sie showed my dad and I how he fit in his coffin one day in the 1930's when we stopped by to talk. Andrew McCaleb just about gave Sie the first track of land he acquired and told Sie never to let the white folks beat him out of it. I am not sure, but don't think his estate has been settled yet. There is a nice McCollum Cemetery there where many of his descendants are buried. So many of his descendants must have been better than he thought they would be.
None of Sie's kids had the privilege of attending Skimming Ridge.
Ada McCollum had to walk to school with Alton McCaleb. Alton was a big tease and aggrevated her very much.
I don't recall getting into any fights while attending Skimming Ridge. I was 6-years of age at the time. My cousin Ola Killingsworth was sort of a "mother hen" that looked after her younger sisters and me. I did have fights in other schools later, especially at Shannon, Ms.
School lunches were not packed in a paper bag at that time. One brought his or her lunch in a half gallon lard can. You might have a biscuit with some ham meat or country eggs in it. One might have some butter and syrup or jelly to put on the biscuit.
The pickings were not too good. They just depended on what home grown canned or dried food your mother had at home. Fried apple tarts with plenty of grease in the ingredients were a favorite. The apples were sliced, dried and bagged in the summertime. Later sandwiches from bought loafbread became popular, and the lunch was packed in a paper bag. Then that succombed to the school lunch program under the present socialism. Still the kids liked junk food instead of the good prepared food, and spent their allowance for junk food and dope. There was no allowance at Skimming Ridge, and face was lost if you got a whipping at school you got another one by your parents at home if they found out. Self esteem was earned by performance instead of teaching it.

MY FATHER

by Fred McCaleb

My father was H McCaleb. The H was just a letter of the alphabet and not an initial for a given name. Sometimes it was spelled Aytch. His mother, Rejina Catherine Hollingsworth McCaleb,studied the Blueback Speller (memorized much of it) at the little log schoolhouse she attended. She memorized the spelling of all the alphabetic letters, and for some reason she called my dad's first name H. My dad was born February 18, 1893 in Northeast Fayette County Alabama. His parents were James (Jim) Franklin McCaleb and Rejina Catherine Hollingsworth. Rejina's mother was a McCaleb,Elizabeth (Bet) Jane McCaleb the daughter of Andrew McCaleb. Andrew was an older brother of Alfred McCaleb. Grandpa Jim McCaleb was the son of Alfred McCaleb. So I suppose my father must have been loaded with McCaleb genes.
My father was the oldest of the Jim McCaleb family. Jim and Rejina got off on the wrong start at the beginning of their marriage. Jim and Rejina ran away to Aberdeen, Ms.to get married. Rejina's father John R. Hollingsworth didn't like Jim from the start. Jim and Rejina started farming, the mule died and the crop failed, and by that time my dad was born. Jim was faced with feeding the family. He went to Texas to make a fortune. One of his McCaleb uncles owned a ranch there. Whether he worked for this uncle I never found out. My grandmother went home to her Hollingsworth parents. She and baby H resided there until grandpa arrived back from Texas. I suppose the Hollingsworths took care of my dad and grandma for a year or two. In Texas my grandpa got lightning struck from the legs on down. The lightning knocked the tacks out of his shoes. He kept the shoes and showed them to visitors all during his lifetime. By the time daddy started to school John R. Hollingsworth had given grandma a track of woodland. Grandpa hewed out logs for a one room log house, and had cleared up some land for crops. My dad went to school at Clover Hill. Clover Hill was a church building about a mile away. The church buildings also served as school buildings at that time. Religion and learning were freely mixed. I went to that one teacher school when I was in the third grade. My dad didn't seem to accomplish much learning in school. He was left handed. The teacher tried to make him use his right hand. One of his teachers was Raymond W. Hiten. After my dad got older his father kept him out of school much of the time to help with the farm work. So his education was of a meager amount of book learning. He could write a little and read slowly. In his older days, the main thing he read was the Bible. Mr. Hiten's son Hollis Hiten told me of dad being in the school play one time. Dad played the part of the hoot owl in a tree outside the building. Hollis said dad did real well with that. I suppose dad had the equivalent of about a fifth grade education.
My dad was a farm boy during his youth. Farm families hoped to have boy babies back then. They could help their father do hard work. Grandpa tried to get as much work as possible from my dad. He had a crop to make every summer, and woodland to be cleared of trees every winter. So my dad was trained to use a cross cut saw, a chopping axe, a broadaxe, how to hoe cotton and corn,and how to plow a mule. He knew all about hitching mules to buggies, wagons, and plows. He came up in the tradition of hard work, hard knocks, and bad luck. Not much was done back then to boost his ego. He did manage to buy a fancy riding saddle by the time he was grown. He could then show off by riding his horse or mule at high speed to the church gatherings. I recollect his saddle. It finally deteriorated sometime after I was grown. Owning a fancy saddle and fast horse back in his early days was about like owning a fancy high speed sports car today. Dad's education was more of a learning by doing manual farm labor than of school learning. My dad rebelled against grandpa about the time he was grown. He and grandpa got crosswise about something. Grandpa tried to punish him. He left on a train for Texas to seek his fortune just as grandpa had done. He found a job in The Rio Grande valley as a hand on a vegetable farm. In about six months or a year he became tired of that and wrote a conciliatory letter to grandpa for money to pay railroad fare back home to Alabama. Grandpa sent enough money for the train fare, but nothing for eating. It took two or three days to get back from Texas, and dad was about starved when he got home. He then stayed home until he married my mother, Eza Etta Hallmark.
My dad was more of a sociable being than was my mother. According to Myrtle Ervin Herren, he could be talked into driving the mule wagon with Myrtle and his sister Mary McCaleb to social events. Myrtle described a bob tailed grey mule and a black mule that grandpa had. Dad would hitch the mules to a wagon and drive the girls high speed to an all day singing. Myrtle was amused at how the bob tail mule's tail flopped around as they proceeded to a gathering. Dad must have been easy prey for the girls to talk him into taking them where they wanted to go. Dad was sociable in other ways. He always liked to fox hunt and kept fox hunting hound dogs. He had many fox hunting friends. The friends would talk him into going fox hunting Saturday night. They would stay out all night listening to the dogs run the fox and tell big tales. Also they liked to brag on the dogs. My mother wasn't too impressed with this. I wasn't either. I went fox hunting one time. That turned out to be enough for me for a lifetime. My mother cooked cornbread for the dogs. The dogs were never allowed inside the house as many modern little and big pet dogs are allowed. My dad never expected to imprison his dogs. He wanted them to be free to run rabbits, bark at buggars or do what they wished at night. Dad had too many fox hunting friends. He most always tried to go to church, at least as long as I knew, each Sunday. He was biased against other religious beliefs other than his own. The best I could find out, when young, my dad got into trouble using too much alcohol a time or two. Momma said that soon after they were married, some of dad's social friends got him drunk at an all day singing. He got fined a few dollars. Momma paid off the fine. She also let him know that such behavior shouldn't happen again. Another fellow told me that his daddy and my daddy got into a fight with a black boy at some social gathering. They didn't think the black boy should be there and raised a fuss with him and hurt him. I never thought my dad was biased against the blacks. He and Dave McCollum, a black, used to cut railroad crossties together when I was a little boy. They could hue out eight in a day. The next day they would load the ties on a wagon and take them to Bazemore on a wagon and receive fifty cents apiece for the ties, thereby making one dollar a day. It was hard work, and the compensation was about as good as they could get back then. I still have the broadax my dad cut the ties with.
My dad married Eza Etta Hallmark of northeast Fayette County Alabama. She was the daughter of Samuel Winn Hallmark and Mary Roxie Eason. They were married August 15,1915 at the Hallmark parents home. Daddy had a mule and the fancy saddle mentioned earlier when he was courting momma. He lived about 5 miles from where momma lived. I guess they met at Killingsworth (Now Newriver) Baptist Church. Daddy had some Woodard first cousins that lived near the church. Grandma's sister Martha Hollingsworth married Melton Woodard, and their children were first cousins of my dad. I expect the Woodard cousins somehow made the connection.The cousin Alma Woodard and my momma were big friends. She told me that her and momma were the smartest two in the little school at Killingsworth, and that their teacher tried to get them to take the test to become qualified to teach school at that time. They didn't take the test. Perhaps they were more interested in becoming Mrs. H McCaleb and Mrs. Holly Tucker.
The children of H McCaleb and Eza Etta Hallmark were me, Fred McCaleb born September 7, 1916, Hubert McCaleb born September 28, 1919, Clancy McCaleb (a girl) born September 21, 1921, Thomas Raburn McCaleb born 27th July, 1925 and died two years later, Clara Jean McCaleb born December 26, 1930 in Lee County Mississippi, and Leroy Dewitt McCaleb born May 21, 1934. We were raised up much as my dad had been raised up. By the influence of my mother, we were never required to work many hours on the farm when school was in session. The first three children never had any transportation other than their two feet, a mule drawn wagon, and some train rides. We were required to work in the fields doing hard farm manual labor. The last two children, Jean and Leroy were almost a separate family from the first three. My dad had a Chevrolet pickup truck by the time they were grown. The truck was the only auto he ever had during his life. He paid for it mostly from an allotment from my pay while I was a soldier in WW2. The wheel of progress? had turned slightly by the time Jean and Leroy were grown. I had given them a bicycle to to get around on. So they had a little more than their two feet and the mule drawn wagon. My sister Clancy thought she was a boy, or at least she could do anything a boy could, until she was about 16. We walked across most of the county one day by 1PM to our uncle Arthur Hallmark's House. On arriving there Arthur persuaded Hubert and I to go squirrel hunting. Clancy didn't go with us on that. We walked in the woods the rest of the evening. We didn't have any trouble sleeping that night until 4AM when Arthur came shouting "last call for breakfast." It was the habit of many farmers back then to get up at 4-5 AM and get ready to go to work by daylight in the fields. The work hours were from sunup to sundown with about an hour out for lunchtime. It took most of that to get to the house, eat, and rest about 30 minutes.
Our growing up seemed mostly hardships to me. Our pleasures seemed to be mostly nonexistant. Hubert and I saved our money and bought a Sears and Roebuck 22 rifle for about seven dollars. We went squirrel hunting with that, but killed few squirrels. We practiced target shooting. I shot at many birds. I shouldn't have done that, but the birds were mostly safe. It was very rare that I ever hit one. I got pleasure out of making truck wagons. The wheels were sawed from a black gum log. We would ride the home made wagons down a steep hill in a path winding between the trees.Hubert and I had one little red wagon my dad bought us when very young. We and our friends tore it up in a month or two. Dad never bought us another toy of anykind. That was probably the nicest thing he ever did for me. I had to learn to use what few tools he owned and make things for myself. When I was young I had a click and wheel to run up and down the gravel road. The wheel was a rim off an old wagon wheel hub. The click was a stiff piece of wire with a U on one end. The U fit the bottom back of the wheel and one ran down the road making the wheel turn. Hubert, I, and our Trim boyfriends walked to a few basketball games when in junior high school. Mt. Vernon was only 7 miles away. Wayside was about 6 miles away. I don't know if that was pleasure or not. Anyhow we got our exercise. When I was young I was pretty good at climbing trees. I climbed one slim tree to about 20 feet high. It bent over with me down to about ten feet. I couldn't get back down via the tree, so I had to let drop to the ground. I bent my knees so they would have spring and landed safely. Young boys used to see how wide a ditch they could jump. I think about 6 feet wide was the best I ever did. I built a 2 seat farris wheel one time. Clancy and someone, I think Hubert, agreed to test it. Clancy landed about 12 feet up in the air with Hubert on the bottom. She sort of got shook up but got down some way, I don't know how fast. I had to write that project off as a failure. One of my most pleasurable recollections was when I was at my grandpa Jim McCaleb's house. I was about 9 years old. He was in the field plowing a mule hooked to an Avery cricket turning plow. He let me plow a few rounds and I thought I was really up in the world. No one had ever let me do that before. He had trusted me and let me do something the grown ups did all the time. I was wanting to be like the grownups. You had to set your life to the examples the grown ups provided. There was no radio or tv to let one know how ignorant the grownups were, and how to hate them. The way my grandparents picked up the news back then was by going to some neighbors house nearly every night. They would discuss their problems of the day, what they had heard about the neighbors, etc. There was no instant news back then. When someone died the neighbors would take turns staying up all night. Myrtle Erwin, my first school teacher, said she just loved to stay up with grandpa McCaleb present. He would just keep on talking, and she loved it. I never was as sociable as my grandpa McCaleb and my dad.
My dad mostly raised his family in Fayette County Ala. The first place I recollect living was on Boxes Creek. It was away from everything, even a gravel road. The school there was Skimming Ridge one teacher school. It was about 1/2 mile away. We walked a path that crossed Boxes Creek over a footlog with only one bannister to hold to. Momma's friend Alma Sherer Kizzire was the second teacher I had there. She made an example out of her son Albert and myself. We got the full round of punishments. At the time we lived there my dad and his uncle Jim Hollingsworth had a fish trap on the creek. To have a mess of fish he went to the fish trap and brought back the fish. Sometimes there was a snake in the trap. I recollect my dad having steel traps set to catch mink. Their hides were valuable to put on women's fur coats. Once in a while daddy would catch a mink, skin it, and stretch the hide over a special shaped board to dry. Then he would sell it when dried for about $4. That was cruelty to the mink family to make a little money so the socialites of New York could wear the latest style fur collar on their coat. The next place my dad took the family was a little house on his daddy Jim McCaleb's place. We stayed there a year. Our next door neighbor was Neil Sprinkle who was a county deputy sheriff. My dad liked the sport? of rooster fighting, and that was against the law. My dad ordered steel spurs for his game rooster. One of his social friends came with his rooster. They fought the roosters in one of the mule stables. They fought to the death, and dad's rooster won out. This was in sight of the deputy sheriff's house, and rooster fighting was illegal. We shared a well with the Sprinkles. The well went dry in the summer. Then we got drinking water from Grandpa's drilled well. That well had yellow mineral water in it. My mother did her washing in tubs and washpot heated water from a little stream that ran by the house. She washed when the stream wasn't muddy. There was no running water in the houses. Water was made to run by sending a boy to the well to draw a bucketfull and run back with it. My brother, Thomas Raburn McCaleb, was born at this place in 1925 and died two years later in Lee County, Miss. While at grandpa's place I went to the one teacher school taught by Mrs. Hassie Reed. She traveled to the school, from about 4 miles down the road, in a buggy pulled by her favorite horse. This was the same school house where my daddy had attended classes. He hadn't gained very much " book larnin" there. I must not have learned too much there either. I failed the third grade after moving to Mississippi where there was a better school.But Mrs. Reed was a very nice lady. In the winter of 1925-26 we moved to a place between Nettleton and Shannon,Ms. There they had excellent schools for their time. Mrs. Carter kept me in the third grade for two years. I never failed anything completely after that. The farm my dad had in Mississippi was too wet for farming most of the years. Occasionally the weather would cooperate. My brother Raburn died with membrane croup or diphtheria. Momma held him while he choked to death. All the then family had the malarial. Daddy nearly died with the malarial fever. A big hero of mine in 1927 was Charles A. Lindburg when he flew across the Atlantic in the Spirit of St. Louis. I read the Memphis Press Scimiter each day to see if Lindburg was going to make it. After that flight nearly all boys in the school got a leather aviators cap. It was good to shed the rain and to keep the ears warm in the winter. The move to Mississippi was a good thing from the standpoing of education for his three oldest children. From an economic and health standpoint it was a bad move. By 1932 daddy had had enough of Mississippi. He moved the family back to Alabama to a farm on the west side of the Luxapallila river ten miles northwest of Fayette, Alabama. Here he resided until his children had all left him and married. He died October 31st,1958. At this farm he cleared the trees from about 20 acres of land called newground. I was at the other end of the crosscut saw in much of this clearing. In this work I learned to sharpen saws. My dad was left handed and not adept at using tools to make or fix things. At this last place my father lived he was finally able to heve electricity about 1945. After electricity the children installed an indoor bathroom, a well pump for running water, and a refrigerator and electric stove for the kitchen. The family had never had any of this before. He was up in the world. His family had never had even an outside Johnny. They had to use the mule stables, high timber, or high cotton. The Sears & Roebuck catalog was used for toilet paper. Some used corn cobs that were obtained when a turn of corn (about 1 bushel shelled corn) was prepared to take to the grist mill to be ground into meal for cornbread. This sounds crude by present standards, but we were among the well to do. My dad made about $400 a year from the farm. He was too rich for me to get into the CCC camp just before WW2. We would be in super poverty now. Many people now make more than $400 in one day. My outlook on things is quaint and antiquated.
What was it like having a father like mine? I guess the way things turned out I couldn't have been luckier even if I had picked my parents before being born. My dad had some bad habits. The worst of his habits was smoking. That lead to his early death when he was only 65 years old. In his last years he had emphysema and had to do much struggling even to get a breath of air. He tried to be sociable and do what others were doing. I have never been much of a one to try to do what the Joneses are doing myself unless what they are doing sounds logical. My dad was somewhat of a tease and criticizer. He had the habit of foxhunting sometimes with his friends all night on Saturday night. I heard him and one of his foxhunting friends discussing their children one day. The friend told my daddy his children wouldn't do what he told them to do. My dad told the man he didn't have any trouble with his children disobeying. He told him he just didn't tell his children to do anything, therefore you get perfect obedience. As you can see he liked to outtalk the other fellow. He would let a traveling salesman talk his pitch an hour before telling him he wouldn't buy. At the same time if a salesman came along late in the evening he would invite him to spend the night so they could get in some talking. My dad tried to never punish his children while he was angry. He had the good habit of going to church most every Sunday. He was biased against other churches than his own. Only his could have the whole truth. Who in the population isn't biased against something? My dad never heard of psychology, but he was adept at using reverse psychology. When he gave me $2.45 for a Greyhound bus ticket to Berry College at Rome, Ga. to work my way through there, he said he expected me back home in about 2 weeks. I never showed back up until I had earned enough for the first year's tuition. I would have completely lost face if I had left and come back home. When my sister Clancy was ready to go to Berry he told her that education was no good for girls. The only thing they were good for was to have babies. That completely determined her to go to college or bust. She made a more outstanding record there than either Hubert or me. There was no welfare to go to for help in dad's day. When a family was in trouble the neighbors would help out if they knew about the need. My dad would share what little he had and could spare with another family. When we were in Mississippi he found out that Roy Williams and his two sisters were starving. My dad carried a bushel of cornmeal and some homecanned goods to the family. The family was too proud to ask anyone for help, and dad may have saved their life. When I was in my teens, I judged my dad to be sort of ignorant and making mistakes in the way he managed things. When I was older I realized he did the best he knew how with what he had. Later on I knew not to make the same mistakes he had made. Never in my life did I become disloyal to my parents or to my brothers and sisters. My daddy's ways made me want to do better. His influence never steered me in the wrong direction.
I have already mentioned dad's means of transportation: his two feet, saddle and horseback, mules and wagon and finally a pickup truck. The truck was in his last days.
Daddy's religion was Church of Christ, non instrumental type. He was more religious than momma but no better in the practice thereof. The church was the main center of social activities back then. The church building was also the school house. The preachers were self educated in the Bible. Everyone believed their interpretation of the Bible was correct. The churches were small country congregations. The members arrived on foot, on horseback, and on wagons. Mules and horses were tied to trees in the woods around the church buildings. Sometimes a dog came along and came in the building during services. The big events were the Big Meetings held by a preacher in August after the crops were "laid by." The preacher generally got a few conversions during the meeting. Baptizing was in a nearby river or pool. The big events were the "all day singings." All types of people attended the singings. Singers all tried to do their best and make a joyful noise unto the Lord. Many people stayed outside never going into the house. Sometimes there was a whiskey bootlegger around selling liquor to the outsiders. It was not unusual for someone to get drunk. At noon a dinner was spread on a on the ground or in the back of a wagon bed. Some people labeled these singings as "an all day singing, dinner on the ground, and the Devil all around." As mentioned before, my dad got mixed up with the alcohol devils at least once during his early life. People of other beliefs and people with no belief or principle at all came to the singings. I suppose something of a religious nature rubbed on to many of the attendees. The churches had singing schools in the summer when crops were laid by. I went to one or two singing schools. There I learned a little about music, but didn't learn how to sing. My dad never learned anything about singing. I suppose it was not in the McCaleb genes until it got to my daughter Bettie Dawn McCaleb Boswell.That must have come from her mother's family. Part of them couldn't sing either.
How did my dad manage his economic affairs? That was easy. He had nothing to manage. His average income was about $400 per year. He grew most of the things the family ate. He grew enough sorghum cane to make about 30 gallons of molasses. He generally raised 3 fattening hogs so we could have meat and lard. He had a cow or two to furnish milk. He had chickens running all over the place to furnish eggs and fried chicken. He was a squirrel hunter and killed squirrels to eat. He also killed rabbits until they said the rabbits were infected with somekind of disease. At the first place I recollect living he had a supply of fish from the illegal fishtrap. There was no lawn mower. The chickens mowed the yard. We went barefoot in the summer. Sometimes I stepped on a black chicken manure dropping and squished it between my toes. Grandpa Jim McCaleb loaned the money to buy the place. Dad never was able to get all that paid. With his $400 income he bought flour, cloth for women's dresses and men's shirts, two pairs of denim ovralls per boy per year, one pair of shoes per year for the winter, sugar, salt, pepper, soda, spices, coffee etc. The corncrop supplied cornbread for the year and fed the mules for another crop. He had several stands of bees to make honey for the family. He spent part of the $400 for smoking tobacco. That was a shame, but people have to have their nicotine and freedom to die early. We were rich and never starved, luckily. One summer his money gave out. He told us we would have to eat cornbread for breakfast until the crops were sold. My mother and I agreed. Eating cornbread for breakfast was a loss of face for him. He went to the Raymond Harris store in Winfield and they credited him with a barrel of flour for the summer. My dad managed his affairs on what one might call nothing in the way of income. If you don't have an income you have to figure ways to get along without one. That he did. He never believed in credit. I never believed in credit either. Maybe I learned at least that much from him. He had a good credit rating among the local merchants, but never used it unless real hard up.
My dad's attitude toward his brothers and sisters wasn't too good. His oldest sister Mary McCaleb married Lonnie Box. Lonnie did some moonshining and liquor peddling. We drove up to Lonnies in the farm wagon to visit when I was young. I recollect Lonnie giving me a sip of whiskey on one occasion. I reckon dad loved his sister Mary but thought she had married the wrong man. The Boxes were better off financially than our family. When we visited them one time in 1925 Lonnie had a brand new T-model Ford touring car. He took us for a 3 or 4 mile ride. That was my first automobile ride. Daddy would never engage in any shady operation to make money. He remained a financially poor man all his life but rich in other ways. My dad's brother Walker McCaleb when a young man got drunk and into a fight with another drunk. The drunk cut Walker with a knife. Walker lost the use of one of his arms. Dad thought grandpa and grandma always gave Walker preferential treatment by giving him more assistance than they did dad.Walker was the only one of that family that went to high school. There was a boarding high school at Eldridge, Al. Walker went a year there. Whether dads idea of unfair treatment was justified or not I could never tell. My dad loved his sister Verla McCaleb better than the rest. He was dissatisfied that she married Louie Roby when she was only about 14 years old. Louie seemed like a real nice sociable man. His sociability got him mixed up with drinking and drunks. One of his friends killed him and threw him out beside the road sometime in the 1950s. Then Verla raised three nice Roby boys. Her son Roland and his wife are teachers at Hubbardville High School. Verla was a very nice lady and is still living at age 85 in 1995. She had a very hard life and lived more years than any of my dad's family. All the rest have already gone on to the Great Beyond.
My dad made a living by farming. The methods used were crude by comparison to modern ones. Mulepower and manpower were the power sources. The land was broken with turning plows pulled by a mule and operated by a boy or man and sometimes a girl. Corn and cotton stalks were cut,in the spring, by a stalk cutter pulled by 2 mules. The land to be planted to cotton or corn was first middle busted. Then guano from South America was put in the furrow and covered by listing a row with a turning plow. The guano was strowed by hand through a funnel held by the left hand and the right hand put the guano through the hand distributor from a bag on the shoulder. After the rows were made a section harrow was dragged over the tops of 3 rows at a time with 2 mules pulling the harrow. After the rows were prepared, a mule drawn planter was used to plant the cotton or corn. If too much rain came after the seeds came up the crab grass would grow faster than the cotton or corn. The women of the family or younger members did the back breaking hoeing. Farmers finally learned to plant the corn in a furrow instead of on top of the row. That way, if the corn grew faster than the grass, a plow or hoe could be used to cover the grass instead of digging it up. My dad never seemed to learn any of the shortcuts of farming. We generally did things the hardest possible way. There were no pesticides being marketed at that time. They did have paris green for the potato bugs in the garden. In the fall of the year the corn was pulled by hand and thrown into heaps. Then the heaps were picked up and thrown into the bed of the farm wagon and hauled to the corncrib at the barn. The corn crop was used for corn meal for the family and to feed the mules to make another crop, and to feed the hogs to make them grow large to have meat for the family. The cotton was picked by hand into long ducking picksacks that drug behind the picker. Some people could pick about 240 pounds of cotton in one day. I never did pick more than 150 pounds a day and not that much too often. About 1400 pounds of cotton was picked and emptied into a tall wagon bed and pulled to a ginn by the mules to get into a line and wait your turn for the seed cotton to be ginned into a 500 pound bale of cotton. A bale of cotton during the depression sold for as low as $25. The seeds were swapped for cottonseed meal and hulls to be fed to the cows. Enough cotton seeds were kept for next year's planting. The above is not a full coverage of everything that went on, but gives some idea. The cow and horse manure in the stables was hauled to the garden spot or a field where the land was poorer. We raised some beautiful gardens when the only fertilizer used was cow or horse manure.
What did my daddy like to do best of all? Talking maay have been his best sport. Fox hunting combined with talking would have been second or perhaps even first. He loved hunting of any type. He was squirrel hunting when he fell over dead in the woods. My dad loved hound dogs for fox hunting. He also loved squirrel treeing dogs. We once had a small black fist dog that was good at treeing squirrels. He loved all kinds of domestic animals and always treated his plow mules good. He plowed the gentle mule and let me plow the wild one. I don't know if he made his mule gentle or if I made mine wild. It was uncertin whether my mule was wilder or that I made her wilder. Anyway we were both higher tempered than dad and his mule. His mule was named Maud and my mule was named Ida. Ida didn't go for someone trying to ride her. Hubert onetime talked my sister Clancy into trying to ride Ida. Clancy soon had been thrown to the ground. Momma saw all this happening. Needless to say, she was upset. The mules we had before Maud and Ida were Nig and Nance. Nig was a small black mule, and Nance was a small brown mule. I wonder how daddy arrived at naming Nig. I would just love to have a picture of these helpers on the farm. No pictures of them were ever taken. Daddy loved to go to gatherings, church or other type. That gave him an outlet for talking. He wouldn't help momma do anything in the kitchen at home. I found out from a foxhunting friend of his that dad was appointed at a foxhunting convention to make a washpot of brunswick stew. The friend said it was the best he had ever eaten. He must have kept that secret from momma. I guess I have done my wife, Bettie Virginia Cline, that way. Perhaps some of my dad coming out in me. I guess I should say that my dad liked to tease people. I don't think that went over too well with momma.
My dad did'nt have much choice in the way of food. His favorite meat was beef. My mother hated the smell of beef. She had a pet calf during her childhood that granpa Samuel Winn (Bud) Hallmark had killed for beef. That completely turned momma against beef. She didn't want any beef in the house. Daddy would occasionally slip off to Loftis Cafe in Fayette and have a mess of beef with the turnip greens, greasy biscuits, potatoes and the gravy that went with it. The cost of a meal there at that time was 35cents. The foods at home were fried ham, backon, sausage, sorgum cane syrup, big biscuits greased with hog lard, milk with cornbread crumbled in for supper, fried chicken, eggs, gravy, cabbage, collards, beans, pumpkins, beans fresh and dried, black eved peas fresh and dried. butter for cooking and spreading on hot biscuits. Fatback was used in cooking beans, greens etc. The diet was high in fat content. That worked ok for 12 hour day manual labor in the fields. In dad's older days after he had quit being able to do much work, the fat in the diet and the nicotine from the cigarettes ruined his health. He had a heart attack in June 1958 while robbing his bees. Honey was another of his favorite foods. He loved watching the bees. He died Oct 31, 1958 while in the woods doing a favorite thing, squirrel hunting. He told me he heard the angels singing during his heart attack. He loved all day singings. Maybe he is enjoying the angels singing now.
How did daddy get along with momma? They took each other for better or for worse until death did them part. I think momma may have thought he was worse than than she thought when she married him. She didn't approve of several things he did. One thing was the little drinking he did when first married. Another thing was that he spent money for smoking tobacco when it could have been better spent for something else. He teased her about her shortcomings. I recollect him trying to teach her to swim when I was a little boy. He turned her loose in boxes creek to swim on her own. She nearly drowned. She never went swimming again with him or anyone else anytime after that. She burned her hand on the stove. He told her he had sense enough to remove his hand before it burned. At the time of marriage, she was a Baptist and he was a Church of Christ member. He tried during his life to make a Church of Christ member out of her. He never changed her beliefs during her lifetime. She never changed his habits, unless it was his amount of drinking, during his lifetime. Momma had a very hard life milking cows, hoeing cotton and corn fields, cooking on a wood stove, doing the washing by hand with outside wash pots, tubs and washboards. The modern woman wouldn't put up with what she had to do, not even for a 2 week period. Momma stuck with daddy till death did them part, and she missed daddy very much after he was gone. She thought she had a great life together with daddy. The worst she ever did daddy was to refuse to cook him any beef. She would cook fried chicken when the preacher was coming for dinner. We would wait and be the last to eat which was generally the wings. Momma lived 22 years after daddy died. Maybe not eating beef was good for her. Or, could she have thrived on hardships? Don't expect to change your husband or wife very much after you have married them. They will remain the same at best, or maybe even get worse.
My dad got along with the neighbors just fine. Sometimes he talked about what was wrong with them, but he never actually got into fights with them. When the neighbor in Mississippi built a levee around dad's place there to keep the water from getting on the neighbors place, dad decided to sell the land and go back to Alabama. Dad may not have stood up for his rights as much as he should. One of my dad's neighbors in Al. was Thomas Dodson. Thomas was a Primitive Baptist and dad Church of Christ. My dad loved to argue religion with him. They would tell each other what was wrong with each's religion. Thomas was at dad's funeral. He told me that daddy was the best neighbor he had ever had. The community put daddy in as a member of the Kirkland Jr. High school board. I always wondered why they did that since he had such little education. He seemed to be liked by most all in the community. Maybe it was because he was a sociable being.
My dad's last 3 or 4 years were not too pleasant living. He had emphysema from his smoking. On waking up in the morning he had to cough for quite a while before he could get a good breath of air. He had been unable to do hard work on the farm for quite some time. He was renting the farmland to someone else. Before that he had sold the mules. He and my youngest brother Leroy had gone together and bought a John Deere tractor. Soon after getting the tractor, Leroy had been drafted into the army. I think they made a crop or two with the tractor. I think daddy got someone else to run the tractor while Leroy was in the army. When Leroy got back he soon married Laeuna Duckworth. Daddy and Leroy's farming was over. He rented the place from then on till death. During this time the fat clogged his arteries, health fell off fast until his death. He did have the pickup truck during his last days. Jean and Leroy were able to drive him around in that. Dad learned to drive the pickup himself in his older days. He didn't get very proficient, I don't think. But he did have transportation besides his 2 feet and mules.