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FIRES OF THE HEART-Contributed F Newby'2001
Fondly I recall those Rolling Meadows and green fields of
my homeland I hold so dearly. Poverty seemed to grip the Heartland. People
were poor; The Great Depression had just ended. Closing my eyes, I can see a
vision of Granny up making a fire in the old wooden stove in the living room
in the winter, once a long time ago, there was a patio that led women to the
outside kitchen. Granny always had divinity in an old wooden barrel outside
of the house, corn liquor in reality, I believe. That long hair flowed when
she combed it, the locks spilling down to the floor, a mass of beautiful
raven colored hair. Grandma was a firm believer in hair, she said it was a
woman's "crowning glory". Flora Mae was a medicine-making woman, she used to
make a black sauve from roots and tree bark, it smelled like tar, but it
would cure anything. Laundry day on Walden 's mountain was a day of
intensive labor, I remember my Grandma washing the clothes on a rub board
outside and then putting them through a wringer washer and hanging the clothes outside on
the line to dry, and then finally finishing by making the starch. She had a
coke bottle with a sprinkler head on it and she had to iron clothes quickly
to keep them from going "sour". The iron had to be heated up on the stove
and then Grandma would complete the long day by pressing all Granddaddy's
clothes, all the way down to his long johns. .
Food was not something to be wasted either, in fact many
women set quite a store by their canning abilities. An abundance of canned
vegetables and fruits, lined the larder, and filled the root cellar. Always,
Grandma would inquire to each of the women-folk was, "Are you painting?"
so
as not to ruin the canning she'd done. If she wanted chicken, she'd heat the fire up
outside and
place a metal washtub on top, heating up as to make plucking faster. Squeamish, she
was not, and always mindful of which chickens were filling the pockets of her house
apron,
she would chose the least productive of her flock. Silently, she would approach
her unlucky prey and swoop, down came her hand, wrapped around the chicken's
neck. With a twist of her wrist, dinner was ready to be placed in the hot washtub.
Within minutes the once white plumaged chicken lay, naked and ready to be
floured. It's feathers soon to be the stuffing for a pillow. While the work was hard, the
eating was equally good, fresh eggs and fresh milk, along with the delicious hand-churned
butter.
Another event that was central to mountain folk, was hog slaughtering
time. Neighbors came in
wagons; men, women and children, everyone worked and reaped the benefits of
their labor. Grease was made from the fried crackling (pork rinds, to city
slickers), lard tendered, hams hung up in the smokehouse, already salted and
wrapped in cheesecloth. We would wait with anticipation until after the
July sweats. When beef was butchered she made stew, cooking it on the fires
in large vessels outside, a close piece from her back door. The seasons came
and went but meat was too precious to be wasted.
As a medicine woman, Grandma took care of the sick and down trodden,
delivered babies, and helped her neighbors. Granddaddy told me stories, one
I hide in my heart to be cherished, and never to be forgotten. When they
first got married it was a poor couple they were, Grandma pulled the plow in
the fields. Birthing 16 children and was back to chores the next day. She
used to wear, a big white bonnet and an apron, when going out into public
view. It kept the sun off of her face. She was a very handsome woman closely
observing my photograph's, the high cheek bones, good for her glasses, kept
them up on her rosy cheeks, and all smeary on the lens. Granddaddy was a tall
man ,red haired, a farmer, he loved the earth and respected its ability to give
back. His weather worn face scorched in the heat and sun. His hands were rough
but he laughed a lot and because I was also red headed, he enjoyed my
company. All the other children had dark features, from their American Indian
heritage, I enjoyed rode aloft on his shoulder's into the fields of corn. My hand
smacking
against the stalks, I whence, as I remember the sting from those leaves .As I
lay between them, on a cold wintry evening, grandpa ,his raspy voice says
"Woman, do you see the haint?" A Lady in White hovering at the end of the bed
floating in space, the words are spoken in a whisper almost "John prepare
yourself , your time is near." The next morning, neither of them want to
admit, but in a quiet tone, John admits "It was my momma Ruthey " Two weeks
later Gramps died of a heart attack, and they laid him out in the living
room. Grandma washed him, ever so tender, talking in a hush tone, stopping from
time to time to wipe her tears. "Paw you have gone and done it now, what will
I do?" The day they buried him it rained, I was only 3 ½ years of age but it
is vivid in my mind. The coffin lowered into that red clay, the hole was very
deep, rain falling like whispers, against a cloudy skyline. In my tiny hands
I held that dirt and cried as I tossed those small particles down into that big
space
My father had very little schooling, when you are dirt poor ,the chores
on the farm take priority over all else. As he grew into a man he grew
fastidious with the dull humdrum of the farmland got a hankering to move on
. The big city of Chattanooga, his brother Conley lived and worked
there, and he had recently married a showgirl, Ruby Boss. He looked for a job
and found one, with the American manufacturing Company, building furniture. He
enlisted into the service of the United States Army, in 1941, and decided to
become a Paratrooper. He was a member of the 508th PIR.
Dad was in the Campaign of North Africa and the European Theaters,
Italy, France and Belgian. He was a hell of a Soldier. North Africa and its
first overseas port of call, Casablanca.. Upon arrival, the troopers marched 8
miles south of the city where they established a cantonment area consisting
of a few stone huts and a tent city. Soon the regiment was moved "40 and 8's"
northward to Oujda, Algeria.The "40 by 8's" were railroad cars dating from
the First World Wars called because they were designed to carry 40 men or 8
horses.
Training included many jumps ,and one conducted in winds of up to 30
miles-per-hour put nearly 30% of the unit in the hospital with broken bones
,sprains ,and bruises .Finally the order came and the Regiment moved by
trucks to Kairouan ,Tunisia , which was the 82nd Airborne Divisions's point
of departure for the invasion of Sicily . When they were making jumps ,his
order's, to blow up an ammo dump. His mission was a success , but he received
2nd degree burns to his hands . His stay was short, at the hospital, for
when he found out his Unit was about to go into Sicily for that Campaign
.He went AWOL from the hospital and rejoined his unit. He saved his comrades
in arms that day ,out of his company only 3 men returned alive . There are
only two roads that lead onto the Peninsula and it was a very mountainous
region. So the Gerry's had a trap set snipers , heavy artillery . The German
Field Marshall was named Kesslinger, and he was a brilliant strategist , so
Italy was considered one of the hardest fought Battle Campaigns.
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