Editor's note: The Post would like to thank the family of Mrs. Omer Connell Chitwood, a Georgia resident who lived in Gaylesville for several years, for sharing her memories with us and all our readers. Mrs. Chitwood's words appear almost exactly as she wrote them, longhand, on 10 sheets of paper. Part One appeared in last week's edition of The Post and may be read online at www.epostpaper.com.

Some people wonder what we did to pass the time. There was no TV, no radio, and no record player at our early home. Oh, the Lord blessed us! We all liked to read, sing and play games. On Saturday night we would gather at different homes and play “Kitty Wants Your Corner”, “Pretty Bird in my Cup, What's in Yours?”, “Who Has the Thimble” or “Ring on a String.” If there was enough room we played “Blind Man's Bluff.”

Sometimes the neighbors would give a quilting or corn-shucking party in early spring. Once when it was our time to give the party, mother didn't like the size of my stitches so I went to help the men shuck corn. We heard a strange noise in one corner of the crib. Papa took a hoe and tore the corn pile down. To our horror there was the largest mountain bull snake coiled up under the corn. We all tumbled over each other trying to reach the door. Papa killed the snake and coached us back on the job. Later in the day a friend found another snake not quite so large as the first, but it was large enough to scare me out of the barn for ages!

Once I was sitting on the floor giving my baby brother a bath in a large pan. The door was open and a big dog with rabies came to the door. I threw the pan and water at it. It staggered off the porch, had a fit and then killed a bunch of mama's baby chickens. Later, a neighbor killed it.

Married off
At the ripe old age of 16 I married a man of 19. We didn't have a job or a place to live, so we stayed with in-laws from October to December. We picked enough cotton to buy a few clothes, and oil lamp and some groceries. Our families gave us a bed, one chair, a small table, a chest, and a few old dishes and pots and pans. We rented a crop on shares. We moved into a house with one large room and a shed room for junk. We worked when we could find anything to do during the winter, and took anything we could for pay—corn, syrup, peas, lard, meat, etc. We never went hungry one day. I cooked wild onions, polk salad, wild turnip salad and berries. I made hominy from corn using wood ashes to take the husks off. We made coffee from parched meal and parched okra seed when we didn't have enough money to buy the real coffee. I cooked on the fireplace for three months, then a cousin gave us a small box stove. I have never been more happy than I was that day!

Even harder times
During the Depression we worked in the fields from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. for 50 cents a day when we could find a job. We sold lint cotton for 9-11 cents a pound one year. We raised most of the food we ate, made soap from rank meat, skins, and the bones from pork. We made lye from oak and hickory wood ashes. I done all my laundry by hand until after World War II. We used flat irons heated by the stove or the fireplace. We made brooms to sweep the house from broom sage grass. Mops were made from corn shucks. Of course, the floors were bare planks with cracks between each one.

When Franklin Roosevelt was elected and set up the New Deal, things got better for poor people. My husband helped pave a 20-mile stretch of Highway 27 and got paid 40 cents an hour, eight hours a day, five days a week. What a relief! He still farmed in spring. The children and me gathered the crop. We were then able to buy more and better furniture, a cow, chickens and hogs.

We were blessed with seven children, all born at home. A doctor delivered three and the rest were delivered by a midwife. Our total doctor bills for all seven was less than $75.

When our oldest son was 11 years old we bought our first car. He learned to drive it in our yard and didn't have any trouble getting his driver's license at 16. Our first radio was run by battery. We all enjoyed it so much. The girls and me enjoyed the “soap” stories. My husband and my sons liked the westerns, like “Tom Mix” and “The Lone Ranger.” On Saturday night we would all sit listen to the Grand Ole Opry until 12 o'clock, then switched to a real scary story, “The Screaking Door”. It was as scary as a Dracula movie on TV.

Our youngest child died of cancer at age 9. Our other six are all married with children of their own. We now live in a push-button world. Big tractors have replaced the mule. Cars, trucks and jets have replaced the horse and buggy. Cotton pickers and corn pickers harvest the crops. Automatic washers and driers take care of the laundry. Electric stoves and microwave ovens do the baking and cooking. But we are happy to know how to survive without gas or electricity if we need to.

Part One appeared in the March 26, 2012 issue of The Post.