IMAGES From Nostalgiaville
TENNESSEE- (GOODLETTSVILLE AREA)- DAVIDSON COUNTY- NASHVILLE, TN- 1999

MANSKER STATION

MOSS-WRIGHT PARK  (See Sumner County for detailed pictures)

Compliments  of L Martin/G Farmer
Our ethnic background is officially black, but upon close observation, as with many black families, we are a wide range of colors, shapes, heights, hair textures, etc. This diversity within our families exists because we all know the circumstances of our ancestors, and how we became a "mixed breed" of people so to speak. Our families are from various counties in Middle Tennessee.

I have only been able to trace my father's heritage back to my grandfather and grandmother, who by the way, were not husband and wife. My grandmother died before I was born, but my grandfather spent quite a bit of time with us when we were small children, but died when I was a teen. His occupation however, was that of a groundskeeper for one of the wealthiest White families in my hometown of Goodlettsville. Many of the Blacks (a.k.a. coloreds at the time), worked for this family in many occupations, either at the house, bank, or funeral home. They also owned orchards with fruit trees, which my grandfather also helped care for, and we were the beneficiaries of many bushels of apples, pears, peaches, and occasional pints of strawberries.

MOTHER

At the time of the marriage, an extended family was the situation at the house up on "mud" street. There was my grandmother, great grandfather, great aunt, my mother and father and their children. This was a normal situation for this period. My oldest sister remembers not having electricity, running water or an indoor toilet. There was no refrigerator, but an ice box, a wood burning stove in the kitchen and a bucket with water and a dipper. There were also wood burning stoves in the other rooms of the house, the front room which had a bed in it, the middle and back room. Mind you, our grandmother was considered well off because she owned her house and it was furnished nicely. The house was not a shot gun style (rooms lined up one in front of the other), but rooms were arranged so that you did not go straight through, but had to turn left or right to go from one to the next. This house also had a hydrant near the back porch. The outdoor toilet had a concrete floor, a child sized seat, and one for adults. The receptacle for the waste was also made of concrete, not just a hole in the ground. At intervals during the year, a person from the sewage company would come and siphon the toilet contents, which was considered better than just moving the outhouse to another spot in the backyard.

With all those relatives living in the house, there was always something going on. the young children were well taken care of, and were often the center of attention-showing off their "talents" for eagerly waiting adults. The children could dance, sing and recite speeches learned for various church programs. Christmas time was very special during the early years. My grandmother and great aunt taught my mother how to cook all kinds of goodies at this special time of the year-cakes(fruit cakes, jam cakes, caramel cakes and coconut cake). We had ham and all the trimmings. Fruit was a special treat at Christmas time and of course, Santa Claus always made a visit. My oldest sister and brother were the recipients of our first television set from Santa on one of the most memorable Christmas Holiday's. 

Another tradition of my hometown, in the area where the Blacks lived, was "hog killing season". Our fathers were mostly seasonal construction workers, so in the winter they killed hogs for all the White people in the area and from miles around. They killed hogs all the winter it seemed. The slaughter took place in the back property of my great aunt and great grandfather. The men would kill the hog, lower it into a troth of scalding water, which was kept hot by a fire under the troth, scrape off all the hair, hang it up as it's done in a slaughterhouse and split it from one end to the other. Out would come chitterlings and everything else. The Black people would get all chitterlings, hog heads, hog feet, and then some of the choice parts. We usually had one or two hogs of our own, which we had fed all the year ourselves. During this season, we were very busy cleaning chitterlings from scratch, making sausage, hog head souse, making crackling skins, and curing hams and other meat in the smokehouse. We had enough meat to last another year. The men would give us the bladder of the hog to play with as a balloon, which was inflated by placing a wooden reed at the small end and blowing it up. this was a heavy duty, long lasting toy.

In the early days, fifties and sixties, people had a strong sense of family togetherness. We ate dinner together, and did not eat until our father came home from work. We had almost a reverent respect, almost to the point of being afraid of him. The most fun was when our cousins and their parents would come to our house, or we would go to theirs. There was a lot of noise, laughing, talking, eating, children playing games-hide and seek, tag, red light/green light. This would last for hours, specially on Friday and Saturday nights.

One of the advantages of living in the "country" at that time, was that there was a real sense of community. If you did something wrong, and your parents were not around, then the adult witnessing the offense would spank you and tell your parent then you would receive another. On the other hand, if anyone was ill, there was usually someone who knew what to do. The old pilgrim grease on a hot flannel cloth placed on the chest was supposed to cure a cold. If that didn't work, a dose of castor oil would be given, usually to all the children. Sometimes we were given coal oil and sugar to cure what ailed us, not to mention cod liver oil, to prevent illness. My sister remembers a quarter placed over the baby's navel with a belly band to prevent an umbilical hernia was always in order. A piece of raw bacon on an injury caused by a rusty nail was a sure cure, no need for emergency room visits or a tetanus shot. Soot from the coal burning coal would stop the bleeding of a finger which was badly cut. We must have had a real relationship with God, which allowed us to survive the medical treatments of the day.

We had two churches in our small neighborhood, a Methodist Church, which was located down in the bottom, and a Baptist Church, which was located on a hill on the opposite side of our little section of town. All the women went to church, but only a few men attended. Their children were required to go every Sunday. Businesses were closed on Sunday's and no liquor or beer could be bought. Chicken or meat loaf was the meat served with meals on Sunday. This was the best day because we had dessert. Meals during the weekdays included pinto or navy beans with cornbread and vegetables.

Much of the clothing we wore was hand-me-downs, but we did get an occasional new item of clothing, specially at the beginning of the school year.  The shoes of the day were black and white saddle oxfords with bobby socks. The oxfords refused to wear out, they seemed to have lasted forever. The hair style was braids, plaits and ponytails. We wore "bangs" on special occasions, when we got our hair pressed. Our hair was pressed with royal hair dressing, bacon grease, Crisco, or whatever.

My relatives did not feel any obligation to be politically active or involved because they felt that the "white" people were going to run things anyway, so why should they waste their time voting. However, we are all registered voters now, and do not miss an opportunity to vote.

We often did ourselves more harm than good, with our traditional eating and lifestyle choices. We ate too much salt and pork, which aggravated our tendencies for high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes. Our men drank too much liquor, which was the root cause of many other problems, including unemployment, lack of basic needs, no emotional support, and often resulted in a single parent household. My family has a history of high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, aneurysms (claimed the lives of two family members), cancer, not to mention alcoholism among males in the family, and drug addiction. In spite of all of this, we are still a family, and have seen many good days and fun times.