Edith McCullough Perry:
My Story

Picnics stand out in my memory--basket dinners taken in wagons, buggies or in any way--carried to a picnic ground where there would be a well or a pump, for a community dinner. There were many suitable places for eating outdoors. Usually the men would play catch or pitch horseshoes, and sometimes a swing would be made by throwing a rope over tree limb. The women spread the dinner and after it was eaten they just rested and visited, enjoying the outing.

These dinners were in connection with church services. At the close of a protracted meeting at the schoolhouse that doubled for a church, one time we went out to Clover Bend--a bend in Black River--for a burial service. It was so far that it took all day, and people had to take dinner and eat outdoors on the ground. When Emmet Jones, who had lain sick all summer, died, his family, who had come to Alicia from Glover Bend, and may have had a plot out there, took his body back there for burial. I was just a child, but I had been sent day after day with flowers for his room, and that is why I was taken to his burial.

The last years we were in Alicia, there were two-day picnics--meat barbecued over a pit by some negroes from Clover Bend for dinner of the second day. Lemonade stands and dance floors were important parts of these picnics. Mama always sent for some barbecue for our dinner at home, and in the afternoon we patronized lemonade stand and the ice cream booth, and visited with friends for a while. These picnics were held in town or just a short distance out.

I took Piano lessons from Mrs. Allen, whose parents had been missionaries to India; they had trusted her, their baby, to a native girl, who gave her cocaine to quiet her. Mrs. Allen still took it, but I'd never saw any effects of it, and she did teach me. I think it was from those lessons that I performed so well in Neelyville. She was a good teacher, and I remember with pleasure my hours with her. Mama supplied her with butter and she'd never got through raving about that "beautiful butter". She gave me a little plaque from India within Indian head on it and some pink beads, which I still have.

I had lessons from other teachers in Alicia and later on in Little Rock, until I chose water colors instead.

In the fall of 1903, when I was going to be ten years old on the 21st of November, I went home from school on Friday, the day before my birthday all excited about the party I was to have tomorrow. But when I got home Mama met me with, "Honey, the things for your party came (all such had to be ordered) and I think you might take some down to your Papa. He is weighing cotton and he came up here looking for bite to eat; he cracked hickory and ate it. I know he would be pleased if you brought him some of these." So, off I went, happy as a lark with my mission. But it soon as I neared the gin, I saw him lying in the ginroom door. Evidently he had gone in the ginroom out of the cold and had fallen, for he was lying on the hard dirt floor. I remember he was wearing his light-colored top coat. A wagon going to town stopped and the driver got down to see; he came to me, called another man to help him, and they lifted Papa into the wagon and told me to run home and tell Mama to get his bed ready. The doctor called it a cerebral hemorrhage. I know now that he had high blood pressure from hard work and worry and exposure, and nobody had physical checkups in those days. Uncle Will and Edgar O'Neil had hard feelings between them and, both idle, were always at odds. Finally O'Neil shot Uncle Will on the street right in front of our house. The boys worried Papa, too.

On Tuesday morning as we were leaving, we passed his bed to say "goodbye." because he was awake and alert. He asked, "Where you going, Ladybugs?" Mama explained that we were going elsewhere to play so the house could be quiet. Almost immediately he said, "Oh, Nannie, my head! I can't stand it!" and he was gone.

Of course, that week was very quiet, the party cancelled; I don't remember anything about that week. He lay in his casket only a day or so, with the service in the little Baptist Church. I don't know who conducted the service but I do remember hearing the bell toll 45 times, and I do remember the drive up to spot decided on. It was in one of the fields or pastures. I also know we did not grieve 'as those who have no hope' for we had heard his testimony as he strummed his guitar or the piano and sang, "I will not be afraid with the dark grave I see, For Jesus has died and arisen for me."

I remember hearing him--a precious memory--and one of my earliest recollections is of going to sleep with my ear on his watchpocket. I remember, too, how he would take us children through the store on Sunday mornings to get coins for the collection. Every child present was given a coin. I recall, also walking beside him holding onto his little finger. He superintended the Sunday School and told the children that when they brought a dollar he would put a dollar with it. That's how they bought the little church, the organ and the carpet. After he was gone we had a very quiet Christmas, though I think I took part in the program at the school-house and when I got home I found the Edith doll on the love seat with smaller dolls for the other girls.

Life moved on. Lizzie didn't return to college, but stayed home to be a companion for Mama. Mr. Guelck had saved some money and he bought into the business, changing the company name to McCullough and Guelck. A second gin had been bought at Minturn, a few miles North, and Hugh managed it. It had been acquired from the Shirey estate and an old-fashioned square piano was also acquired, and placed in our front room, which was a joy to us.

The other people who figure largely in my life at Alicia were Mrs. Gardner and Martha Fortney. Mrs. Gardner came to Alicia from Portia (15 miles north). She came into the store one day asking for Papa; her husband had left her with four children, she had moved into that little 'house out there on the road' and she needed work. when asked what she could do, she suggested washing and ironing. Papa realized that Mama could use her help in the laundry department with such a large family, so he said, "All right, you can have our washing." and let her have some groceries on credit. She never forgot that kindness, and she was ever ready to do anything she could. I remember seeing her milking, churning, carrying long Kentucky Wonder green beans in from the field, stacked in her arms like stovewood. Once when we had a severe winter, she would bring in long icicles in the same way to melt in a big dishpan on the cook stove. Such nice soft water! Our pump water was hard, but the rain-barrel provided water for the reservoir. Mrs Gardner took me to pick blackberries. She was a good Christian woman and Mama never worried when I was with her.

Martha Fortney was deaf and dumb. She was house-keeper and cook for Aunt Mary and Uncle Will and a good companion for me. I loved to help her gather the eggs and feed the chickens. She would tap on the pan of grain and call, "A-poopy, a-poopy." and there was a full response. I don't know whether it was from the tapping or the calling, but the chickens came from all over. That house was on a hill with posts under it at the back so we could walk under it, and the hens had nests under there, too.

Martha had a ruler with the deaf alphabet for one hand and that's where I first learned to sign to deaf people. Little did I know that someday I'd use it with another deaf friend. A certain little pie pan appealed to me and one day when I took home the bucket I had brought milk in, that little pan was in it. She had used it to make little pies for John Orr's dinner pail. He was an adopted son and the night telegraph operator.

Mrs. Gardner was good when there was sickness and Mama had a long illness in the spring of 1904, right after Papa's death. She was a valuable friend and remained staunch as long as we stayed in Alicia. One time she needed to go back to Portia for something, and since we knew the Duncans who had lived at Alicia--a daughter Hugh's age and a son mine-- Mama planned the trip. It was a summer day and she and Hugh say in the front while Mrs. Gardner and I sat in back in "the surrey with the fringe on top". It rained a shower, but the most interesting thing about that trip was seeing those kids bring watermelon in from the patch and eat them with sugar!

Mrs. Gardner was a true friend and Mama made the wedding dress for her daughter, Linnie. Her Annie was about my age and I liked her very much; I was very sad when she died of a brain fever. the procession from that little house to the church passed right along our side fence and I sat on the wagon scales and watched it. Papa led the procession along the big road, marching and singing, "When the Saints go marching in". The homemade casket was carried on the shoulders of some men, Papa leading the singing, across the tracks and down the road on the other side. I saw it, heard it and watched it as it went on to the little church. I don't know why I didn't go.

Making Linnie's wedding dress reminds me of the many such services Mama rendered the various hired girls. As our family grew, she needed help and girls from the country who wanted to come into town found Mama's the best place to stay. A long series of them came. Some of them I remember with pure joy, like Henrietta Owens. When we'd ask here to pop us some corn while the stove was hot, she would always say, "Well, go ask your Mama," The replay was always, "Yes." and she would take the big black dinner pot, set it tilted on a front hole of the stove, put grease in it, wait for it to heat, put in the corn, and stir it with a long-handled spoon. A heaped-up dishpan would be the result, but not one kernel was eaten until after supper, when it would be taken up to Mama's room. We all liked Henrietta, but she married Steve Beavers and Mama made her wedding dress, too.

A cousin, Maude Fife, came down from Duquoin, Illinois (or maybe she stayed behind when her family moved). Anyway, she lived with us for a while and later married Ralph Pryor and they lived in Alicia and he worked in the store. Many years later I visited them and their youngest daughter in Texarkana, Arkansas.

There was a long list of girls while the family was so large. It is a good place for them because the laundry done elsewhere, the work wasn't hard, they were two men, two growing boys, Mama, one grown girl, and four little girls. At times we had to dining tables, one for the four men and, and the other for the ladies and girls. They sat down together and one blessing was said for all.

About refrigeration:-- ice came to us on the afternoon train in 100 pound cakes packed in a gunny sack full of sawdust. It took a man to lift it into a wheel-barrow, bring it to the house, rinse it at the pump and lift it into the top of the ice box. That top was never opened except in case of illness until the next cake came. It was a standing order, and its frequency depended on the weather. Great crocks of milk and pounds of butter kept in perfect condition below it. But we never had chipped ice. Later, before we left Alicia, an ice house was built in the front half of the old house on the corner. Then we were not so deprived. Still later a new and larger ice house was built across town, insulated; then ice was sold to the other people in town.

The spring following Papa's death and Mama's illness, Lizzie worked up a Children's Day program and had printed programs, printed by the newspaper in Walnut Ridge, the Blade. She cut the programs in two and pasted them in colorful folders. I still have mine in a scrapbook. The Date on the program says June 5, 1904. In the fall of that year we did a Christmas program in the little Baptist Church. There was a stage built over the area in front of the seats and she had the organ moved back of it. There many good recitations and songs all about Christmas and finally Old Santa Claus (my brother, Lynn) came in the door, jingling his sleigh bells and singing, "Oh, I am the saint from the frozen North....." and he sang and the chorus of children replied. I remember it still, verbatim. (see end of book for entire song.) During the entire singing, Lizzie was behind it all, at the organ, playing to her heart's content. She was very musical and could play anything but ear. One time nearly 60 years later, I visited her during her last illness and sang all those songs to her.

Also that year she plied her needles making beautiful embroidery, while she planned a hat store. She made lovely "after-dinner" cloths and centerpieces and decorations for our dresses and petticoats. While this was going on, the Delineator advertised some tiny doilies; she ordered them, and taught me how to do it. I still have some of them.

She planned a hat store. She wanted to make hats; everybody wore hats and all them were hand-made. She would go to St. Louis to learn hat-making and would take me along to go to school where there grade levels. Mr. Guelck knew some men in St. Louis and arranged with a Mr. Cox, who secured us a place to live with Miss Irene White, her Aunt Kitt and half-brother Harry Williams who was a concert pianist. We stayed there until Christmas; I could walk to school and did, and got acquainted with dill pickles which the girls showed me we could buy for one penny each. Sunday mornings I went to Sunday School with Dr. Sweet and his daughter, Stella. At night, Lizzie and I walked to a little Baptist Church where I first heard, "Nearer, still nearer, close to Thy heart, Draw me, My Saviour, so precious Thou art", as the choir (in robes) entered the choir loft.

It was that time while I was in St. Louis that Maibelle [pencilled in margin "age 6"] broke a photograph of me into two pieces and showed it to Mama, saying "Two Eee-aahs". Mama scolded her (she was much too old for either action) and said, "No, it's not two; you've broken poor Edith in two." Then she just wailed.

On our way home for Christmas we stopped in Popular Bluff, Missouri for brief visit with the Tuckers and Vinnie, who used lived at Alicia. While we were there something was said about the possibility our not returning to St. Louis because of Lizzie's health and the weather there, and Mrs. Tucker invited me to stay with them and go to school with Vinnie. She would be glad to keep me for the same price we had been paying in St. Louis.

When we got home, Mama her Lizzie talk, and said, "you have a sore throat" and took her to Dr. Coffman in Newport. He confirmed that diagnosis and advised sending her out west to a drier climate. So she went to El Paso, Texas, to the Thomas sisters who had lived in Alicia. One of them was Edith, for whom I was named. I went to Popular Bluff and Edith Thomas set me a red plaid wool dress-length and Mama made me a dress and trimmed with brass buttons.

I had gone to St. Louis schools from an ungraded situation, having had no music or art, and was sent from one room to another-- all in the fifth grade. So in Popular Bluff I went to the sixth grade and did well; also in Popular Bluff I had water-color lessons with the fifth grade teacher on Saturday mornings.