"Once Upon a Lifetime: in and Near Baker County, Florida," book - v.1 (file 1/2)

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                       Once Upon A Lifetime
                in and near Baker County, Florida
                          Volume No. 1

               By La Viece (Moore-Fraser) Smallwood
                          Copyright 1993

Copies available complete with photos, family genealogy and other footnotes

             Rt. 2 Box 543 Macclenny, Florida 32063

Permission has been granted by the author for posting to this page.

Contains biographical narratives and genealogical information on the
following Baker County folks:

* Ernest Harvey, Jr.
* Elvie Anderson Byrd
* Harley Burnsed
* Myrtie (Taylor) Walker-Rowe
* Ida Mae Padgett
* Annie (Givens) Blue & son Bennie Blue
* William Clyburn and Wille Mae (Mathews) Gilbert
* A. L. Ferreira
* George Dewey Fish
* Mollie Wilson
* Mamie Mae Burnsed Rodgers (in file 2/2)
* Lawton and Essie Connor (in file 2/2)
* Ida Gainey (in file 2/2)
* Edgar Lewis (in file 2/2)
* Dr. John Holt (in file 2/2)
* Ray and Athena (Raulerson) Brown (in file 2/2)
* Lacy Richardson (in file 2/2)
* Alvin Chace (in file 2/2)
* Harold and Fay (Mathews) Milton (in file 2/2)
* Claude Scoles (in file 2/2)
* Joe Dobson (in file 2/2)

_____________________________________________________________________________

                        Ernest Harvey, Jr. 1993

     When Ernest Harvey, Jr. was born August 15, 1923, in Seven Mile
Camp in Columbia County, it was in the most humble of circumstances,
yet his father, Ernest Senior, an employee of the East Coast Lumber
Company made good money for the times. The family of eight was
painfully poor. When Ernest Sr. got paid on Friday, he drank moonshine
until his salary was gone, and then he went home empty-handed to his
family.

     "Our bellies were always hungry", expressed Ernest, who climbed
the mountain of success yet has remained modest like his beginnings.
The children learned to survived on palmetto roots and berries from
the woods when they grew hungry. In spite of the difficult times,
Ernest said with undaunted conviction "I loved my parents, they were
good people."

     Ernest's parents were members of colossal pioneering families in
Baker County. His paternal grandfather, Andrew Harvey, was a tax
assessor of Baker County and fathered 19 children. (An uncle, Roy
Harvey) served as a Baker County Commissioner for 28 and a half years.

     His story is a saga, following one dramatic situation after
another. The fact that he survived is astonishing. And the certainty
of his accomplishments under the most difficult obstacles is nothing
short of miraculous.

     Ernest began his life in a small, crude two-room section home
available to employees of the East Coast Lumber Company.

     "It was so small that when the company relocated, a crane just
picked up the house with the family in it, placed us on a flat bed
train car and settled us on the next site," he recalled. "I remember
those days with great excitement," he said, remembering how he and the
other boys would jump from car to car as the train rumbled down the
steel tracks. "And I was just a little squirt of a fellow."

     When East Coast Lumber Company went bankrupt, Ernest Sr. took a
job share-cropping for a large landowner, T.J. Knabb. But he was a
restless man and moved from place to place regularly.

     "If we acquired anything, we'd just sell it and move on,"
explained Ernest. He remembered too that his father was a man of
drastic temperament. Often he would destroy the family's furniture and
belongings in rages of temper.

     "If mother got any money on pay day she'd cook a big meal and we
seven children would eat until we got the belly-ache," mused Ernest.
"We knew we'd starve the rest of the week. When daddy did bring home a
pay-check the family would gladly walk the five miles to Lake City to
buy groceries and tote them home."

     Ernest Sr. was cutting railroad cross-ties for a living and
drinking up his pay in whiskey when his wife, Sarah (Davis), died on
January 19, 1935. She was buried on January 21, her 38th birthday.

     Up to this time, Ernest's brothers Paul and J.D. had helped their
father cut cross ties, their hard labor uncompensated.

     "I don't know how our family would have made it without their
help," said Ernest. Their sacrifice had seen the family through meager
survival. With the mother now gone, Ernest's sister, Roxie, left to
find work in Jacksonville, Beatrice married, and Paul struck out on
his own, enlisting in the CCCs. Sister Gladys had previously gone to
live with her paternal grandmother and had never returned to the
family. J.D., Beatrice, baby Helen and 11 -year-old Ernest were left
at home with their alcoholic father. (A child named Ralph had died
earlier.)

     "Coping with everything was hard on daddy," said Ernest. "He gave
J.D. up for adoption to a man named Owen Cobb, but J.D. ran away to
Grandma the next day, and for a while just lived from place to place
mostly with relatives." In the fall of that year, little Helen
contracted polio and was placed in Hope Haven hospital in
Jacksonville.

     Until this time, Ernest said his life wasn't too much different
than many of those he knew. But all that changed on a cool crisp
November morning when Ernest Sr. came to the Sanderson school house
and summoned his son out of his fourth grade class. With him was
German Crews, a local bootlegger. To satisfy a whiskey debt, Ernest
Sr. gave his son up for adoption.

     "You might just say my father traded me to someone for a pint of
moonshine," said the mild-mannered Ernest. "And believe it or not, I
had mixed emotions about it. After all, German Crews had a store in
Margaretta and food on his table so I thought I'd be better off. I
never blamed my father for what happened to me." The adoption had cost
German Crews and his wife Evelyn $30. Ernest was transferred to school
in Glen St. Mary where his teacher was Baker County native Arlie
Rewis.

     Life was to be better, and it was for three months. As quickly as
it began it was over. Crews had purchased a 20 acre farm four miles
from his business. Ernest was taken to the farm and introduced to his
new home and surroundings. As German Crews drove away, he left a small
parcel of food for Ernest and some musty stale corn for the hogs. It
was to be the last food the 12-year-old would receive from his
adoptive father in the almost three years he tilled the man's land.

     Walking into the sparsely furnished rickety old farm shack, he
noticed a large gaping hole where a fireplace should have been.
Decrepit wooden shutters on the windows hung loosely and the cold
November wind easily blew in. A lone slim cot could be seen in the
dark comer of the room where he inspected a dingy mattress stuffed
with Spanish moss filling and held together with feed sack ticking. A
thin dank blanket lay across the cot, intended to be his cover against
the winter chill. There was no pillow to lay his head. And his humble
dwelling place had no back door, exposing him to intruders.

     That night and many to follow were sleepless.

     "Huge rats crawled on the rafters above me," remembered Ernest.
"I couldn't help but wondered what would happen if one fell on me. And
I almost froze to death. There was this cow that tried to push against
the hole in the wall where feed sacks hung to cut the wind out and the
noise she made would scare me throughout the night. The china berries
that fell from the tree and hit the house's tin roof were just as
frightening."

     Within three days he had pneumonia. His chest pounded with pain.
The winter wind raged and the cold air circulated throughout the
house. Sick as he was, he took some lard, put it in a saucer, tied a
rag around a chip of wood and made a light until it burned out.
Needing to relieve himself, he managed to get to the edge of the
porch. He remembers falling off. He could see beneath the house to the
other side. Clearly visible, he said, were the strong legs of a bull
and he was scared.

     Speaking with conviction he continued, "I know I saw the bull,
but suddenly he ran, and I saw a pair of human legs. That is the last
I remember for awhile, but when I became conscious someone had put me
on the porch. My head lay on a burlap bag that wasn't there before.
The sun was coming up in the east and it warmed my body. I fell asleep
and when I awoke again the sun was settling down in the west. I was
able to get up and hand grind some corn and cook some grits on the
wood burning stove. I ate heartily. From that day on I was never
scared again. I never felt alone again. After that experience, I'd lie
in bed at night, and the rats roaming the ceiling rafters even looked
beautiful to me. The cows would be bellowing outside, and my body
freezing cold, but I'd feel safe, as if someone was in the bed with
me."

     Then reflecting he said, "To this day I've never figured out who
picked me up and put me on the porch, but I've always considered this
to be the first memorable encounter I had with the Lord. And I can
honestly say that I've never met a man I didn't like."

     Six weeks later, German Crews visited the farm. This time he
brought some chickens for Ernest to tend along with the cows and hogs.
They were put in an existing coop. in a few days, Ernest discovered
dead chickens "all over the place." Ernest ran the four miles to
Margaretta to notify German Crews. The two drove in Crews's Model T
Ford truck to the farm. Together they buried the dead chickens.

     Then, to Ernest's horror, he was forced to lie on a large mound
of dirt while Crews beat him with a heavy flat shovel. Crews,
seriously into witchcraft, accused Ernest of casting a spell on his
chickens so he wouldn't have to feed them.

     "I don't know why he said that when the hogs and cows survived,"
he said as if still bothered by the fact he was so faultily accused.
"But," he explained, "his wife was into voodoo too and even if they
got a headache, or stumped their toe I was accused of casting a spell
or causing their problems. When they beat me they called themselves
beating 'the spirits' out of me. I suppose that is how the saying
'beat the devil out of em' originated."

     "Actually," Ernest explained, "the chickens had coccidiosis, an
existing condition in the old coop".

     The beating put Ernest in bed unable to move. In a few days,
Crews's mother-in-law passed the farm and found the 60-pound,
12-year-old boy in a poor condition. She managed to load him onto her
wagon pulled by a mule, and take him for medical help. A salve was
prescribed and applied to his wounds, and for six weeks Ernest was
unable to get out of bed. However, when he did, Crews returned him
immediately to the farm where he lived a recluse life for the next two
and a half years.

     Once a week, Ernest regularly walked the four miles to Crew's
store where he would spend the night and "tote" back two pails of slop
for the hogs before daylight the following morning. Barefooted, the
spindly, undernourished, youth made his way in the summer's heat or
winter's cold. With no food, he quickly learned to fend for himself.
He added salt to the hog's corn to keep the weevils out. He would use
a hand grinder to make grits, and the salt off the corn husks to
season his grits. He used a straight pin with an attached string to
catch (mostly) catfish from the nearby Cedar Creek. He found berries
and roots from the surrounding woods to eat. He drew water from a
polluted muggy well that filled his bucket with wiggle tails from
mosquito larvae. "I'd quickly hit the bucket and they'd go to the
bottom so I could drink from the top," he said matter of factly as he
explained his survival techniques.

     Summer months meant fighting mosquitoes that swarmed into the
windowless and doorless shack. He burned cow dung to smoke them out.
To fight the "bed bugs" he put the four corners of his bed in saucers
of kerosene. "If you didn't fight them, they'd suck all your blood he
said. "Every night I'd try to pick the bugs off my moss mattress where
they'd be visibly crawling all over. In the morning the bed would
always be covered with my fresh blood where I'd rolled over and
squashed them."

     Equipped with a hoe, Ernest was expected to keep prickly briers
from growing on the farm. "I had 20 acres to clear and those brier
bushes could grow as tall as ten feet high," he said. "I cleared land
and planted corn and peanuts for the mass amount of hogs kept on the
farm." And he did it alone. His father, siblings or relatives never
visited as long as he was there. There was one person, however, who he
says probably saved his life. She was a respected county midwife. "And
I loved her as dear as I could love anyone," he said.

     Walter and Mary Woolbright, a negro couple, happened to be
Ernest's nearest neighbors. Often times Mary would send one of her
grand children (usually "Punk Blue") for Ernest and invite him to eat
with them. He vividly remembers those special times. "Mary would have
my own little table set up with a starched white cloth, and while she
and her family ate at their dining table, I ate from my own table
because I was white." In those days, he explained, that was proper
among blacks and whites. "She was no doubt aware of my predicament and
this was her way of helping me," he said, explaining that many times
he'd also find fresh vegetables from the Woolbright's garden on his
porch.

     Two and a half years passed while the devil beatings and cruel
punishments continued. Survival was a daily task, along with the long
hard hours of work it required to run the 20 acre farm. Ernest finally
decided to run away. In the small town of Sanderson, about six miles
from the farm, Ernest took refuge for the night in a railroad boxcar.
Much to his surprise, he was awakened by a tremendous bang and jolt
and the boxcar moved along so fast Ernest ended up 30 miles east in
Jacksonville before it stopped.

     "I was in a city, and all alone," he said. "I just began to walk
and ended up on a bench in Hemming Park. A one-legged man sat down by
me on the bench and introduced himself. He invited me to come live
with him and his wife on Church Street and I did. They were basically
kind and honest people, but I decided to move on and went down to the
railroad yard and jumped a freight train. I rode on that train and
several other trains. I would get off in one town, steal something to
eat and move on. I was arrested in one small town. I was starving to
death and hiding under a depot in a town in North Carolina when I
apparently passed out," he said. "When I awoke I was in a hospital,
the first one I'd ever seen. I had to tell them my name and where I
was from, so they called German Crews to come for me."

     German Crews arrived on a train to take his adopted boy back to
Baker County, to Margaretta, and to the farm.

     The rain had poured down for a week when German Crews arrived one
day at the farm and instructed Ernest to set tobacco plants out in the
down pour. When Ernest protested, the unscrupulous Crews threatened to
beat him with a rugged cow whip. Scared of the beating Ernest grabbed
a plow heel and hit his master over the head. He then quickly ran six
miles to his Grandma's house, told her of his situation, and never
returned to the Crews's farm. As far as he remembers, there was never
an attempt to have him returned, or any mention of his attack on
Crews.

     About this time his little sister Helen was released from Hope
Haven Hospital and returned to the care of Ernest Sr., living in
Watertown (near Lake City), sawing logs for a living. Ernest, his
brothers, Paul and J.D., moved there and lived in the meager
facilities. "We boys slept on the hard floor while Helen (about 5
years old) slept on the bed with daddy," he said. "Helen couldn't walk
so daddy and my older brothers worked while I stayed home to care for
Helen, cook and tend house. Ernest taught Helen to walk again while he
tended her.

     "We soon moved back to Sanderson," said Ernest. "Helen went to
live with a married sister and daddy and I lived with my Mama's sister
for a few months until there was no work left, or food."

     Homeless, Ernest roamed the woods and occasionally found shelter
with friends or relatives. His desire for an education lingered and he
began going to school, where he was placed in the seventh grade. He
hollowed him a haven between two large palmettos near the Sanderson
school house. When not in school, much of his time was spent reading a
Sears Roebuck catalog he found in a privy, (of times called an
outhouse or outdoor toilet). At night he crawled through a broken
window pane in the boy's bathroom and slept on the first aid cot,
leaving before the caretaker arrived and returning to his palmetto
hide-a-way until school started. He'd search for breakfast eating food
where he could find it. Many times it came from garbage cans. He
carried his one pair of pants wrapped in a newspaper beneath his arm,
never letting go. The school children were cruel, especially the
girls. Holding their noses they'd walk behind him and shout
"phew-you." "I probably did smell, but I washed my pants in the creek
and would dry them on a rock or in a tree trying to keep clean," he
said.

     "Most likely the principal, Thomas Sweat, knew my difficulty
because he eventually arranged for me to eat a meal free at the school
and he never had the window fixed," he reflected.

     Sometime during the 8th grade Ernest moved back with his father
to care for little Helen after their sister found the chore too
difficult. For the next year Ernest tended a 40-acre farm for C.L.
Williams for $ 10 a month while Helen was in school. When his daddy
remarried, he left to live with his paternal grandmother, Lula Harvey,
and returned to school, where he was placed in the 10th grade. In
addition to school, he cared for the eight people living in the house.
Before daylight he was milking the cows. Then he prepared breakfast
single-handedly and did the dishes before leaving for school. After
school he did chores before cooking dinner for the family.

     Ernest was in the 11 th grade in 1943 when he was drafted into
the army to serve in World War II. The following day his grandmother
died and his aunt, Ruby Dopson, moved in to take over Ernests chores.

     His army stint was a primitive experience too. Placed in the
field artillery in Fort Bragg, N.C., he spent 13 weeks in basic
training before finding himself three weeks later fighting in Africa.
Most of the men in the National Guard Division that had been activated
for the emergency were much older than Ernest, serving in the Guard
for years. Ernest found himself rendering service on "the Hill," a
no-man's land between the American front lines and the enemy's front
lines. His duties were carrying a radio pack and relaying messages
back to the "howitzers" so the cannoneers could zero in on their
targets. He spent two years serving on the front lines, (except for
some occasional R&R), without a serious injury. (The only mishaps he
experienced, he said, happened when a shell exploded in the field
piece tube and burst his eardrum and when he fell from a truck and was
run over.)

     Upon honorable discharge in December 1945, Cpl. Harvey had earned
a number of medals with stars and various combat ribbons.

     After his army stint, Ernest returned to his grandmother' house,
"because I didn't have anywhere else to go," he said. His Aunt Ruby,
and her husband, Leon Dopson, became his second "parents" until both
of them died. "I could never repay them for the love and security they
gave me," he said.

     He returned to Sanderson High School and finished the 12th grade
in four months, although his total schooling had only amounted to a
grand total of five and a half years. After graduation, he enrolled in
the University of Florida in Gainesville on the $81 a month furnished
by the GI Bill.

     College life was a new experience he had not expected. Insecure,
and wondering why he was even there, he marveled at the vast amount of
students enrolling. He said he felt he was just an "ignorant farm boy
with very little knowledge" as he sat through the entrance
examinations. His grades were a minus score on all except English, and
on that he made a zero.

     "I simply can't explain how low I felt nor how insignificant a
person I felt I was," he lamented.

     One college experience will stand out in his mind forever, he
said. His first English course was under the Dean of the University,
Dr. Little. At the end of Ernest's first semester, Dr. Little sent for
him to come to his office. Ernest wasn't even invited to sit down. The
professor took a paper from his filing cabinet and asked Ernest to
identify it - Ernest did. It was his last weeks assignment paper he
had written in response to an inquiry about his life and expectations
for the future.

     Dean Little told him his assignment was the most pitiful excuse
for written communication that he had ever tried to read.

     "He told me I was not a thief, or a robber, but my kind just
never finished college," Ernest said.

     But, much to Dean Little's surprise, his student did pass his
English course and received a master's degree in agriculture. Ernest
was the only student in the group that Dr. Little hugged.

     "I immediately realized that his gruffness on my behalf woke me
up and provided my inspiration to finish college. Dean Little was a
wise man." And some would say Ernest was a determined man.

     While in college Ernest learned to exist on one meal a day for
the three years he attended before taking a break to work in a
Jacksonville restaurant. During this time he met Frankie Marie Thomas
while attending a church meeting at Dinkins Methodist Church south of
Sanderson. They married in June of 1949. He returned to college and
received a master's degree in education, beginning his career in 1952
as a teacher of vocational agriculture in Sopchoppy, Florida. The rest
of his educational career has been in Baker County, teaching sixth
grade for six years in Macclenny Elementary, teaching principal in the
Sanderson junior High School (and at one time in the same room where
he started the first grade in 1929. Ernest taught fifth grade one year
at Macclenny Elementary before being appointed principal, where he
remained for 24 years until his retirement in August 1985. In all he
served more than 30 years of service in education.

     Today, in 1993, Ernest piddles around his backyard garden of
Eden, putting his agriculture wisdom to good use. Flowers adorn his
Fifth Street resident year round and fruits and vegetables grow there
annually as well. Two 20-foot deep freezers are kept full by wife
Frankie who retired in 1983 after 30 years with the Baker County
Health Department. The couple spends much of their time devoted to the
Manntown Congregational Holiness church where they have served in
various callings since 1946. (Ernest helped build portions of it,
remodel parts of it, teaches Adult Sunday School Class (for 8 years)
and sings in the church choir. He writes and directs inspirational
plays using his own personal experiences from his teaching profession.

     His greatest joy? His and Frankie's only child, a daughter, born
after 16 years of marriage. Faith Miracle Harvey is now Mrs. David T.
Fly and resides in Marietta, Ga., but visits her parents often.

     It was at an Adult Sunday School Class Christmas Supper held at
Western Sizzlin' restaurant on Lane's Ave. in Jacksonville December
19,1987, that Ernest Harvey shared this poem with his friends and
pastor the Rev. Tim Cheshire. On this special night a group of 37
people had gathered to surprise and honor him for all the work he had
done through the 40 years of service he had rendered at Manntown
Congregational Holiness Church. He had prepared this poem to read to
his friends that night. It is a true account of his Christmas in 1933.
His poem touched me deeply and it has been touching to others as I've
shared it with them during the holiday season.

THE WAY IT WAS AT MY HOUSE: Christmas 1933

TWas fifty and four years ago
The great Depression raged,
TWas the year of '33
When this plot was staged.
We lived on the old Dick Harvey Place
My family and I,
Six children and mom and dad stayed
In a house much like a sty.
TWas a week before the Christmas day
That grandmother came our way,
She gave my daddy a new dollar bill
And said she could not stay.
But,"Earn" she said, "buy something nice,
For these children come next week,
They are not animals as some might think
Attention and love they seek."
She left us standing on the porch
My daddy with the dollar in his hand,
With us thinking in our souls,
"We can get something now we know we can."
I was 10, a brother 12 another 15,
A sister 10 plus 7 was, and one sister 19.
One month was our baby sister
Too young yes, to young to know,
That she was not included.
In our fortune that was bestowed.
All next week we thought and dreamed
just what Christmas Day would bring,
just what would daddy buy for us
We'd never before gotten a thing.
I asked my sister of 17
What she thought would be enough
She said, "Maybe a little jar of Pond's cold cream
Maybe even a powder puff."
My oldest sister, bless her heart,
was never neat but rough,
"Give me a whole plug of Brown mule's tobacco
A whole box of Navy Snuff."

My brother older than I by two
Seemed satisfied enough,
He said, "I'll steal the Brown Mule
And dip my sister's Snuff."
So I thought and thought what would I get
I'd walk around and babble,
Whatever else would come my way,
I wanted a big red apple.
You see, I'd never had an apple before,
Nor ice cream nor mashed potatoes,
nor bananas, grapes nor lemon pies,
But lots of stewed tomatoes.
Do you think on Christmas Eve,
We would hang our socks on the mantel?
Wrong, we never had shoes to put on our feet,
So what good would socks be to handle?

So on Christmas Eve, daddy went away,
We knew he had gone to Sanderson
Because he rode the mule that day
To give Raulerson's store a gander
I knew daddy wouldn't know what to buy
As mama did as a rule,
But she had a baby just a month before,
So she couldn't ride the mule.
And on the mantel on that night
We set our bowls and pots,
my sisters and brothers giggled and jibed
But for me I expected a lot.
In our containers on Christmas morn
Were things most people got,
Walnuts, Brazil nuts and a coconut
Which almost filled my pot.
There were two oranges, one chewing gum
And hard candy galore
But may I remind you here and now
I expected a whole lot more.
My big red apple could not be seen
Nor my sisters box of Navy Snuff.
Nor the Pond's cold cream
Nor a lot of the other stuff.

I sneaked out of the house and stood alone
To sort of hide my dismay,
But then I thought one person must be happy
On this glorious Christmas day.
It was my mother for she had got
The two things which filled her with glee,
A pot cleaner to clean the pots
A tea strainer to strain the tea.
Now she could discard the dirty rag
Through which she strained the tea,
From it she made a pair of drawers
And gave the things to me.
I said it before and I'll say it again
'The good ole days' were bad,
But even with my ardent disdain,
It was the best Christmas we'd ever had.
My daddy had bought well for 65 cents
But he had 35 cents more
With which he could have bought a big red apple
And made me smile all o'er
But he didn't do that, no, no
So what do you think?
He bought a pint of moonshine
And gave us all a drink.
A true story.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                         ELVIE ANDERSON BYRD
                      Glen St. Mary, Cuyler 1981

     When 18-year-old Elvie Anderson saw Travis Byrd for the first
time, she told her co-workers in the Glen St. Mary Nursery greenhouse,
"Hands off!! He's mine"

     Travis Byrd was also 18 years old, a poor shy boy with patches on
his faded and worn overalls, but according to Elvie, "I liked him
before I even talked to him. Seemed like it was love at first sight
'cause a lot of other boys wanted to go with me, but I always
said,'no'."

     Born May 10 1903 in the Cuyler section of north Baker County,
Elvie was next to the youngest of 15 children born to Margaret Crews
and Jacob Anderson.

     "I had a pretty good life until I was about 10 years old," said
Elvie as she talked in the comfort of her warm and cozy frame home in
Glen St. Mary.

     "Mama got sick and papa went blind and all the older ones in the
family left the farm to go find work," she said.

     Elvie said she was left with almost all the household chores,
and, deprived of a scrubboard, she washed clothes in a wooden trough
by hand or by beating them with a stick to get them clean.

     "The first washing I did took me three days," she said.

     "Ma worked in the fields plowing with me and my younger brother
Ivy when she was able, but mostly she had asthma so bad she couldn't,"
said Elvie. "Ma got real sick and for two years me and Ivy would plow
the ole mare every day and walk to church at night."

     "Why didn't you ride the mare?" I wanted to know.

     "Well, they said the ole mare was too tired," she quipped.

     "My daddy would grind cane and save the skimming off the cane
juice to make shine (illegal whiskey) but the law would get after him
so I had to go to making it," she said, shaking her head in dismay.

     "Pa, he wouldn't have made it if he'd had any other way of making
money, but there weren't no other way.

     "After the sheriff stopped Pa from making it, he moved the still
down in a pond and left me down there to keep a fire to it. I told Pa
I was scared to stay down in that pond by myself so he moved it up
near the smoke house and Pa and ivy would just watch for the sheriff."

     Elvie chuckled and said, "One night I was after dark gettin' it
(shine) run off and I had to keep tasting it to get it right and my
brother saw me and went and told Ma. They said I was out there just a
singing. Ma put me to bed. They said I was just as drunk as could be,
and ma told pa if he wanted that mess run off, he'd better get someone
else 'cause Elvie's not messing with that anymore.

     Times got harder and harder, said Elvie.

     "We didn't have any money after that, and I had to drop out of
school. I didn't have shoes or money for books 'cause back then you
had to buy books."

     Eventually an older brother moved back home for a while to help
Elvie's disabled parents.

     "I went to Jacksonville to live with another brother and got me a
job at a box factory," said Elvie, "but Ma wrote me a letter saying
she was sick and to come home. Me and Ivy tried to make a little crop
again but we didn't do too good, so that's when I went to live with my
sister in Glen St. Mary and got a job working at the Glen Nursery. I
walked the two miles to work and back home each day .... rain or
sunshine.

     Elvie said she had seen Travis Byrd, "from afar on a horse going
to the field to work" but on this particular day it was raining.

     "He and some more boys was totin' plants in the greenhouse and us
girls were puttin' claims on the ones we liked. He had patches all
over his britches and was poor like my family so I just said to the
other girls, "See that one there with the patches on his britches,
well, he's mine.

     "Not too long after that I saw him at the store in Glen and he
asked me if he could, walk me to the house."

     Elvie married Travis within the year after a proposal one evening
on the front porch of her sisters home.

     "We married on the same front porch and Travis paid the Baptist
preacher $5 'cause he had to walk to get there," she said.

     The newlyweds moved in with Travis's widowed mother and
eventually rented a two-story home for $7 a month, renting out the
upstairs to another newlywed couple, Minnie Johns and Lloyd Townsend,
for one half of the rent.

     Travis, who earned $1.75 a day, made Elvie quit her $.75 a day
job.

     "He wouldn't let me work no wheres but home," said Elvie.

     Travis and Elvie became the parents of seven children including
one set of twins. one child was born dead. All were born home, aided
by Dr. Crocket or midwives during birth.

     Travis Byrd, who began working on the Glen St Mary Nursery as a
water boy at the age of seven when his father died, completed 47 years
of service before his death in 1969.

     "He was a good man, never did drink or anything like that" said
Elvie.

     Elvie said that one of her fondest memories was leaving the farm
as a child and traveling to Macclenny.

     "Pa'd always come to town big court time and we'd come with him
in the mare and wagon. Ma would save up eggs and we'd trade 'em for
ice cream. I just loved going to court with Pa, just sittin' there and
listening to 'em talk. I still love to go," she mused, but said 10
years had passed since her last visit.

     Elvie said her parents eventually lost their farm.

     "Pa thought he was a homesteader, but some man came along and
said he owned it and wanted Pa to pay $800. Pa couldn't afford it so
he and Ma sold their furniture and moved about living with us
youngins," she said.

     Elvie's parents are buried with grave markers in Taylor Community
cemetery while their pioneering forbears are buried in a homesteaded
field plot somewhere beneath the Baker County soil they helped to
cultivate, their names forgotten, their hardships memories of the
past.

     Elvie Byrd, husband, and many of her children are buried just
inside the gate at Manntown Cemetery south of Glen St Mary.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                            HARLEY BURNSED
                              Moniac 1979

     When Harley Burnsed was born near the Florida-Georgia state line
in 1892, the area was primitive. His parents, J.L. (Jasper) Burnsed
and Zelphia Thrift were poor pioneering settlers. So were their
neighbors.

     "There weren't no bridges or graded roads," said Harley, who
never left the area where he was born. "There weren't nothing but
horse cart trails and horses or mules for transportation. Very few
people had carts. My daddy was the first in the community to have a
wagon."

     "And," he said, "boys wore dresses back then. I was a great big
boy when Mama made me a pair of knee pants. I looked down and saw 'em
on me and started crying."

     "My daddy grew long cotton and when we'd go into Sanderson to
sell it for 5 cents a pound in the seed, we'd leave 'bout 3 a.m.,
before daylight The reason I remember that so good is because my mama
would fix us a good breakfast and we'd stop over by Cedar Creek to eat
it. There'd always be a great big slab of white bacon and oh, my Lord,
was that good ... too good to even talk about," he said with a
shudder, obviously overcome by the memory.

     "My daddy was a great hunter," he said, "and he took me with him.
None of the other kids cared to go too much. A coon hide brought 50
cents and a seven foot gator hide a dollar fifty.

     "By being a good hunter we got along good in them days cause
there weren't no laws governing the Okeefeenokee swamp then. The bears
and deer were fat on acorns and blueberries and the meat was so
sweet,' he said.

     "How did you fare during the Depression when things were already
so bad?" I asked.

     "Well, the first depression I ever heard tell of was once me and
my daddy was over in Moniac and there was some talk 'bout it and ole
man Riley Crews spoke up and said, 'They say there's a Depression, but
I can't tell no difference.' And he couldn't 'cause all we ever had to
buy back then was a barrel of flour and maybe some coffee ever so
often. We raised or grew or hunted the other foods we needed. We were
pretty self dependent on what the land produced for us and we learned
how to manage and plan for our survival.

     During the late 29 and 30 years, those who could afford to hunted
for bargains paid such prices as 20 cents a pound for meat. A wool
blanket was $1. An eight room dining room set cost $50 and a 9x12 rug
cost $6. Most items came from the Sears catalog, but occasionally the
rural families would travel to the big city to shop.

     Harley said as a lad he made his first trip by train to
Jacksonville with a school teacher. He said he "really got an
education."

     "I didn't even know horses wore shoes and I heard these horse and
surrey buggies clopping down Bay Street, which was brick then. Boy,
that was amazing to me," he said.

     The first airplane and automobile didn't surprise Burnsed any.

     "I knew they were coming all along cause I read about it in the
Bible," he said. "It (the Bible) says that men would go up in the air
without wings and that carriages would be drawn without horses, so I
was expecting it."

     Harley fell in love with Lossie Rhoden, a neighbors daughter.

     "We were going to school together-and well you know what happens
in school," he said. "Well that was one of the rare opportunities
young people had to meet and become acquainted at that time."

     "I think I got almost to the third grade before I married her on
December 31, 1911," he said.

     The Burnsed's began their life together as tenant farmers.

     "I didn't like that too much," he said, "working for someone
else. I wanted a place of my own but I only had about 30 dollars and a
mule.

     "About that time the Bo-weevil came into these here parts and ate
up all the cotton," he said. "Bootlegging come along so I went into
the bootlegging business like a lot of other people and that's how I
got the money to get me some property. I reckon the Lord sent the
bootlegging for a purpose after the Bo-Weevil ate up all the cotton,"
he said. "Ain't nary a still in these parts nowadays. A lot of people
abandoned their farms back then and moved away getting what they could
for 'em. I know of one 350 acre farm that sold for $400 and the man
moved to Macclenny and plowed other people's gardens with his mule up
'til he died. That's all he'd ever done and all he knew to do to make
a living."

     The Burnseds became the parents of seven children, five girls and
two boys. Lossie lived to see her first grandchild. After Lossie's
death, Harley married Margie Padget. That was 20 years ago.

     Harley said he was a grown man before he heard about Santa Claus.
Even the real meaning and significance of Christmas eluded Burnsed
until he had a family of his own.

     "Nope, I never heard tell of Santa Claus, or Christ's birth when
I was a youngin'," the amicable 87-year-old Moniac native said. "When
I did hear tell of it (Santa and Christmas) I thought it was a mighty
nice thing for kids. I still do," he said, explaining there was no big
meal prepared for the occasion in his childhood home. "We did know to
exchange gifts, but I was never told why.

     If my parents knew they didn't tell me. We made our own gifts
because there sure wern't no place around to buy anything. Me being
the oldest of my parents children would go into the swamp and cut down
black gum trees to build wagons and other toys."

     "I had a good time all my life," he said, "growing corn, peanuts,
cane, raising hogs, cows, and now goats."

     He said he never joined a church although there were all kinds of
people coming 'round wantin' me to join up. I tell 'em I don't have
time. I'm too busy taking sick people to the doctor and the Lord's
taking care of me." He admits he is basically hardshell Baptist and
says he's read the Bible through twice.

     Failing eyesight prevents him from doing many of the things he
would like to do, but he still manages to laugh and tell about the
good ole days.

     "What are you telling her?" quizzed his wife Margie as she
returned from a shopping trip to Macclenny.

     "O, I told her the facts," he jovially replied, "but I could tell
her some really big stories," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

     "You see, once there was this really big bear and me and my
daddy.......

Update 1993: Harley Burnsed who was born Oct. 12, 1892 died July 1989
at the age of 96 two months from his 97th birthday. He is buried at
Oak Grove Cemetery north of Macclenny.

His children are: Rosa Thomas, Lottie Thrift (died 1992), Willard
Burnsed, Nathan Burnsed, Geneva Griffin, Minnie Johns, Edna Sands.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                    MYRTIE (Taylor) WALKER-ROWIE:
              Cuyler section of Baker County: Macclenny

     Fun loving, congenial, and witty, Myrtie Rowe grew up in the
Cuyler section of north Baker County. She was one of 13 children born
to Robert E. Taylor and his wife Blanche Elizabeth Williams who owned
a grist mill and country store in Taylor. Friends and neighbors often
gathered at her parent's farm home to play the piano and sing. They
played games, had cane grindings, peanut boilings and peanut
parchings. There were no cars in those days. Friends came by mule and
wagon or by horseback. Some even walked. She remembers that it was the
good life. it began on September 26, 1906.

     "You couldn't go too far from home in those days," said Myrtie
speaking of the turn of the century times. "There were only about two
cars in the whole community and most everyone traveled by mule and
wagon.

     "It was especially exciting to visit Macclenny and see the train
go by," she said. "We'd have to really hold on to our mule."

     School for Myrtie was a three room school house not far from her
home.

     "But when I spent the night away from home with friends we'd have
to get up before daylight fix our breakfast and pack our lunch and
start walking in the dark to get to school on time.

     "We'd have the best school plays, and more fun than you can
imagine. Nothing compares to it today. They were absolutely the
greatest. We'd put our whole heart into it.

     "We'd carry a lunch bucket to school everyday and eat on the
playground with the hogs and all," she said. "Once a hog grabbed my
sandwich right out of my hand and took hold of my finger and all. I
still have the scar," she laughed holding up the injured and scared
finger as proof.

     "Young people back then really enjoyed going to church. We'd walk
to Sunday School in the mornings but go back in the mule and wagon at
night. Services started about 7:30 p.m. but lasted until after
midnight," she said, explaining that after the preaching, the altar
call was held.

     "On our way home at night us kids would lay down in the back of
the wagon and look up at the stars."

     As Myrtle grew into her teens her attention began to turn toward
the boys, one in particular who lived across the branch. "I could see
Verg plowing in the fields each day as I was grinding corn at the
mill," she said. "He was older than me and already had a girl friend.
Sometimes they'd come over to my house to play the organ and sing and
she'd call me her little girl. It turned out her 'little girl' was in
love with her feller.

     "I remember one time I was having to plow corn and I saw Verg
driving by in his mule and wagon going someplace. I didn't want him to
see me plowing so I hid behind the barn with the mule and plow until
he passed on by."

     Courtin' was done in groups those days, Myrtie explained.

     "We'd have bon fires out in the yard, play games, go to cane
grindings, candy pullings and peanut boilings, " she said.

     "Mama didn't believe in dancing, but we'd go to things that
turned into it", she said explaining that the boys would come by in a
wagon gathering up the girls to help 'hull peanuts' or any other kind
of help neighbors might need.

     "Back then everyone pitched in to help neighbors," she reflected.

     "After we finished up our peanut hulling or what ever we'd been
called on to do," she continued, "We'd somehow get into square
dancing.

     "Once I danced a hole right through the bottom of my new pat'en
leather sandals. We only got two pairs of shoes a year and I was
scared to death mama would find out. When I got home I patched them up
with some leather we had, but she noticed anyway," recalling that the
scolding she got from her mama wasn't too bad.

     "Mama was the boss when it came to saying what we did," explained
Myrtie. "Pa always said, "It's ok with me if it's ok with your Mama.

     "I remember once my daddy was camping out in the woods, cutting
cross ties with some hired hands. I had gone to a peanut hulling and
afterwards it just turned into a square dance. I looked up and there
stood Pa."

     He said, "What are you doing here? I'm going to tell your Mama."

     I said, "What are you doing here? You ain't supposed to be here
either."

     That was the last she heard of that.

     When Myrtie reached eighth grade that was as high as the Cuyler
school taught. Plans were made for her to go live with a brother in
Okeechobee, Florida to further her education. This news soon reached
Verg, who, with his brother Ira, had gone into the grocery business in
Macclenny. The year was 1925. The couple had other plans in mind.

     "I remember one morning I was working out in the field hoeing
peanuts with Mama and I asked her if she could afford a piece of
material to make me a dress, and she said she could. It was blue crepe
material. I made a beautiful dress out of it and Fannie Dinkins
(Rhoden-Taylor) made my hat covered with material that looked like
lace. it was wide brim and so pretty.

     "Verg had gone to town for a load of merchandise one Wednesday
morning and when he came back he said to me,'Let's get married now'",
recalled Myrtie.

     "Well I usually went to prayer meeting on Wednesday night but
instead I accompanied Verg to Macclenny and we went to judge Milton's
house about midnight and got married."

     The couple then drove to Jacksonville and spent their honeymoon
night in the Aragon Hotel.

     "Of course I didn't feel too good the next morning but we got a
load of groceries and came back to Macclenny and went to work." (
Bacon sold for five cents a pound and 25 pounds of flour cost
seventy-five cents in those days.)

     The popular couple moved into an upstairs room in a house
occupied by Verge's brother Ira and his wife Eva on South College
Street. "We all cooked and ate together," smiled Myrtie. "We all got
along well together."

     In 1927 Myrtie and Verg built the home she presently occupies on
south College Street.

     All Myrtie and Verge's children were born at home delivered by
Dr. Brinson.

     "Mama wouldn't let me get up for two weeks after a birth, and I
had to keep a tight band around my stomach. Now-a-days they bring
babies to church a few days old.

     Four children blessed their marriage which lasted a short twelve
years. One morning, while Myrtie was preparing breakfast, Verg had a
heart attack and died.

     Myrtie sold the store and went to work. Later, she married
Charlie Rowe, a sawmill man, and opened another store. With Charlie's
two children and her four, they lived next door to their business and
raised their family.

     Twenty-five years later, her second husband suffered a heart
attack and died.

     In 1993 Myrtie still lives in the same house occupied with
memories. She spends her time in community and Church of God
activities.

     She has been a past president of the Macclenny Woman's Club, past
chairman of the county Red Cross, President for the County Council on
Aging and President of the Church of God Ladies Auxiliary for 28
years.

     Her love and devotion for people is evident in the service she
renders. Friends say she is the type of person you can depend on day
or night to help out when needed.

     "I wouldn't have it any other way," she contends. "My life in
Baker County has been good."

     If she had her life to live over what would she do differently?

     "I'd get me a better education. I wouldn't change anything else.
I've had a happy life. I only wish Verg had lived to see his children
grow up. Bernice (Mrs. Ray) Green, (Vernon died at age 37, Claudell
and Virgil Eugene (Speck) survive.

     Charlie's children, who seem like her own, are Carolyn (Mrs.
Dwight) Jones and Myrna Jean (Davis).

     Any regrets?

     "No."

     Only one incident stands out in her mind that she feels strongly
about.

     "I should have taken my children to church more when they were
younger," she mused.

     There was a reason she was not active in church for awhile.

     "I went to a square dance with Verg," she explained. "The deacons
came to see me and ask me if I was going to go. I told them I might. I
knew if I didn't go someone else would go with him."

     She went!

     Her name was removed from the church roll. Fifteen years later,
at a church revival, she rejoined and was rebaptized.

     "I didn't think the Lord would punish me for dancing. I didn't
think it was wrong because I enjoyed it. It was good clean fun ... a
lot better than what young people do now."

     Times and attitudes may have changed from the days of frolic and
midnight church altar calls, but one thing hasn't changed, and that's
Myrtie Taylor-Walker Rowe. She leaves a legacy of inestimable
spiritual wealth, the kind that qualifies it to be said, "Well done,
thy good and faithful servant."

FOOTNOTE '93.

Myrtie's father Robert E. Lee Taylor was born September 17, .1873 and
died June 29, 1955. His wife Blanch Elizabeth Williams Taylor was born
May 12, 1875 and died March 11, 1951. They are buried in Taylor
Cemetery north of Glen St Mary.

Virgil (Verge) Dupont Walker's father James Benjamin Walker and his
wife Claudia Lillian Dinkins Walker. She was born Feb. 26, 1875 an
died April 11, 1958. They are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.

Virgil (Verge) Dupont Walker was born July 25, 1899 and died March 4,
1937. He is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery south of Macclenny

Myrtie was born September 26, 1906.

Myrtie and Verge's four children are:

BERNICE MARIE WALKER MILTON GREEN Born Nov. 28, 1925.
Married (2) Shannon Ray Green, Jr. Born May 1, 1922
Their children are:
(1) Marsha Dean Milton Williams. Born May 29, 1944
Married Sherrel Vernon Williams. Born Jan. 3, 1944
Their children:
Amy Elizabeth Williams, born April 5, 1971, Sherrel Andrew William
born May 2, 1974.
(2) Deborah Green Lamb, born April 21, 1950.
Married Danny George Lamb, born May 22, 1950
Their children:
Deborah Leigh Lamb, Nov. 20, 1979
Jeffery Beau Lamb, Jan. 16,1976
(3) Raymond Walker Green born July 10, 1955
Married Kim Dianne Sloan, born Jan. 1, 1957
Their children:
Shanna Rae Green, born Jan 10, 1980
Kellen Walker Green, born Jan. 14, 1983.

VERNON D. WALKER born May 16, 1927, died April 10, 1968
Married Willa Jean Malone on August 9, 1945
Willa Jean Malone was born December 3, 1928
Their five children are:
(1)Vernon D. Walker, Jr. born May 28, 1948
Married Charlotte Anne Bush born August 16, 1949
Their two children are:
David Bush Walker born Aug. 10, 1978
Courtney Ann, born Dec. 4, 1981
(2) Penny Walker Katsacos born June 2, 1952
Married James A. Katsacos born Aug. 2, 1928, died April 30, 1986
Their two children are:
William Nicholas Katsacos; born July 2, 1980
Joseph Walker Katsacos born March 13, 1983
(3) William Keith Walker, born Oct. 24, 1954
Married Tracy Lynn Baylis born Aug. 22, 1957
Their two children are:
Jamie Lynn Walker born March 25, 1984
Robert James Walker born May 21, 1988
(4) Edwin Kevin Walker born Oct 24, 1954
Married Brenda Sue Davis, born August 4, 1959
Their three children:
Kendra Lee Walker, born June 7, 1982
Kari Marie Walker born March 10, 1986
Vernon Jason Walker born June 9, 1988
(5) Jean Marie Walker born Oct. 4, 1957
Married Michael E. Brazell born June 21, 1952.
Their three children:
Jeffrey Brazell born Jan. 20, 1983
Julie Marie Brazell born Feb. 5, 1985
Walker Brazell born Nov. 18, 1986.

CLAUDELL WALKER born Aug. 25, 1929 in Macclenny, Fl.
Married Endia June Yarborough on April 23, 1949 in Macclenny
June Walker, born Feb. 23, 1930 in Jacksonville, Fl.
Their two children are:
(1) Claude Michael Walker, born June 7, 1951 in Jacksonville.
Married Wanda Jean Raulerson born March 23, 1951 in Sanderson
Their children are:
Claudette Michelle Walker born Apr. 24, 1975 in Jacksonville
Rita Marie Walker born Nov. 9, 1977 in Jacksonville
(2) Mark Duane Walker born Nov. 6, 1955 in Jacksonville
Married Susan Gail Harvey Dec. 24, 1975 in Macclenny
Susan Gail Harvey born Nov 18 1955 in Jacksonville
Natalie Laine Walker born Apr. 21, 1985 in Gainesville
Jeremy Dean Walker born Nov, 20. 1987 in Gainesville

VIRGIL EUGENE WALKER born June 18, 1934
Married (1) Mary Taylor on June 18, 1955
Their two children, born Dec. 15, 1956
(1) Mary Kay Walker born Feb. 28, 1951
Married David Unkelbach, born June 5, 1989
Their son Dane Taylor Unkelbach was born June 5, 1989
(2) Jeana Elizabeth born May 6, 1961
Married Phil Duval, born Jan. 15, 1966
Their son Klate Taylor Duval was born July 16, 1991
Virgil Eugene Walker married (2) to Susie Chesser-Lloyd-Lott. She was
born June 28, 1944

CHARLIE ROWE and his first wife NELLIE MARGARET HICKS two children:
(1) Carolyn Jane Rowe born June 15, 1933 in Macclenny
Married Dwight Wiley Jones on June 7, 1951 in Folkston, Ga.
Dwight was born June 5, 1931. in Macclenny son of D.J. and Maude
(Fraser) Jones.
Their four sons are:
Charles Dwight Jones born Sept. 26, 1955 in Jacksonville
Married (1) Patricia Matthews born Sept. 3, 1956
Their son Allen Lee, born June 18, 1973 in Jacksonville
Married (2) Patricia McCrorey born April 6, 1957
Daughter Megan Leann born April 1, 1989 in Jacksonville
Dwight W. Jones, Jr. born Mar. 4, 1962 in Jacksonville
Married Karin Elfers born September 10, 1963
Rowe Dwight Jones born Dec. 18, 1967 in Jacksonville.
(2) Myrna Jean Rowe born Feb. 8, 1935 in Macclenny
Married James Irvin Davis born Dec. 16, 1916, died March 7, 1981.
Charlie John Rowe was born Dec. 4, 1900 in Macclenny and died Mar 3,
1963. His first wife Nellie Margaret Hicks was born on April 11, 1914
and died May 7, 1982. Both are buried in Woodlawn Cemetery south of
Macclenny.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                           IDA MAY PADGETT
                            Macclenny 1979

     Ida May Padgett was born in the last of the 19th century. She has
lived to see fifteen Presidents preside over the United States, six
states join the Union, the invention of the airplane and automobile,
and experience turn of the century progress in Baker County.

     "I tell everyone I'm sixteen years old," she said with a twinkle
in her eye.

     "It's okay with me if they want to believe it."

     A Baker County native, Ida Mae Matthews was born May 9, 1893, in
Macclenny, the daughter of Frank H. Matthews and Ida Estelle Corbett.

     "My dad was killed when I was six years old," she said,
explaining he was a Union machinist with the Illinois Central Railroad
and lost his life when shot by a Scab during a strike.

     My father was born in Chicago, Illinois, but moved with his
parents to Baker County in 1890," she said. "His father, James
Bosworth Matthews, was originally from Lockport, New York, and was in
the newspaper business in Chicago when he and his wife, French
Canadian Margaret Newman, moved to Florida. He was editor of the Baker
County newspaper until his death," she said.

     Meanwhile, Charles C. Corbett had left his native state of
Vermont with his wife, Zilphia Crowningshield. A stone cutter and
funeral director, Charles moved his family to Baker County where he
became the first known county "undertaker" about 1880. Many of the
county's older grave markers were engraved by him.

     It was in Baker County that Matthews' son, Frank, met Corbett's
daughter, Ida. They married in 1890. A son, Frank Maynard, who died in
the 1918 flu epidemic, preceded his sister, Ida Mae, in birth.

     Ida May grew up under the scrutinizing eyes of her strict mother.

     "Once when I was a young girl, I went dancing at the ole Powers'
house," said Ida. "When Mama found out I was dancing ... well, I still
haven't forgotten to this day."

     Several years after the death of her father, Ida's mother married
Cecil M. Corbett, a first cousin, quite common in those days. They had
two daughters, Edweena and Carmeeta.

     "After the death of my grandfather, Charles C. Corbett, my mother
took over as the funeral director," said Ida May. ( The original old
records of many burials within the county, in many cases the only
record made of the person's death, are in her custody). Ida Estelle
inherited all the west half of Lot 27 in Macclenny and the original
home built on the corner of Sixth Street and Macclenny Avenue.
Eventually it was inherited by her daughter, Ida May, who still enjoys
the large spacious home with its inviting front porch and comfortable
rocking chairs. It is the only original dwelling still remaining on
the main street of town.

     Speaking of growing up in Macclenny, Ida remembers, was different
in those days. We had terrible fires then, destroying homes and
businesses," she said with a shudder. A frail woman, now eighty-six
years young, Ida said when the old Macclenny hotel burned, she stayed
inside her home and wouldn't go look as everyone else. "I feared the
fires," she said, adding "and I still fear them today."

     As a young girl, Ida was one of three employees in the old Baker
County State Bank which eventually folded.

     "I took care of the deposits and bank statements," she said. "I
still have some of the old stocks.

     "I didn't do too much courtin' in those days," she explained.
"There wasn't any place for us to go."

     Meanwhile, Baker County had employed a school teacher by the name
of Barney Padgett. He and his wife, Viva, were friends of Ida. When
Viva took ill, Ida helped care for her friend. When Viva died, little
did Ida dream she would become the next wife of Barney Padgett.

     "He was the kindest and most gentle man I'd ever met," said Ida.
"My mother liked him and approved of our relationship. We were married
August 6, 1919," she recalled. "Our marriage lasted 49 years."

     Ida moved with him to Archer and Tallahassee while he was
employed with the State Department of Education. Eventually they moved
back to Macclenny where he became the first principal of the Macclenny
School, as well as coach of the first basketball team.

     Barney Padgett wasn't an ordinary man.

     "Daddy always left his problems on the door step," said his
daughter, Mary Estelle Ferry. "I was grown before I realized he could
have had problems. He always had a smile."

     Barney Padgett was known as a humanitarian. He was honest and
loved his fellow man. Born April 26, 1886, in Suwannee County, he was
the son of Millard Padgett and Mary Smith, an orphan. "He loved Baker
County and the people," said Ida. "This is where he wanted to live."

     The people of Baker County loved and admired Barney Padgett He
was elected their State Representative in the late 20's and served as
heir mayor.

     He went into the Naval Store business and opened an abstract
company. His daughter Mary Estelle continued in this work.

     In 1930 the fire Ida so dreaded destroyed their home.

     "Daddy had a vast collection of books," remembered Mary Estelle.
"We were not worried about our clothes and toys, but we cried about
daddy's books," she said.

     When the fire destroyed their home they moved into the house
where Ida grew up on Main Street Macclenny. They lived there with her
mother. They never moved again.

     The house has been kept basically the same.

     "It's just the same as when we lived here as children," said Mary
Estelle, "except daddy's not here."

     Barney Padgett, one of Baker County's most beloved citizens died
in 1968.

     "Mama has never thrown anything away," said her daughter, a
collector of the past herself.

     Ida May Padgett is possessive of her collectibles. She lovingly
takes her Bible, held together with a rubber band, down from the
shelf. "They're all in here," she says, opening it to a page with
neatly penned names and dates.

     A stimulating story goes with each.

     "One of Mama's great, great, great grandfathers was Johann
Crowningshield (originally spelled Kronshell) an immigrant from
Germany," said Mary Estelle. "He was a doctor and met his wife,
Elizabeth Allen, when she was a patient and he had saved her life.

     They had a son Richard, a distiller, and his son, Richard the
Second, was a clothing manufacturer. Once he designed and made a dress
for his sister to wear to a ball in Boston attended by George
Washington, and she danced with him. one of Richard's sons was
William, whose daughter, Zilphia, became Mama's grandmother and moved
to Baker County," related Mary Estelle.

     Mementos abound in the Padgett home.

     Pictures of ancestors adorn the walls, as well as photos of her
children during various ages of their lives. Whatnots and knickknacks
remain in the same position they were placed decades ago.

     Nothing changes, except time.

     Not even Ida May Matthews Padgett. The same principles and
standards of puritan life handed down to her for generations remain
the same. She has instilled them in her children. And they are
grateful.

     Still believing as her husband Barney did, that most men's word
was to be accepted until proven wrong, she quipped when asked what she
thought about man's declaration that he had made a flight to the moon
during her lifetime.

     "Well, if they say they did, I'll just have to take their word
for it."

     Ida Padgett is one of the last 19th century Baker County natives.
Her legacy will remain long after the knickknacks are gone. The
contributions Ida and Barney Padgett have made to the growth of Baker
County will be seen and felt as long as there is a Baker County.

Footnote 1993: Ida May Matthews's parents were Frank H. Matthews and
Ida Estelle Corbett Her paternal grandparents were James B. Matthews
and Margaret Newman, her paternal great grandparents were Isaac
Matthews and Mary Bosworth. Margaret Newman's parents were William
Newman and Eleanor Channon. Ida May's maternal grandparents were
Charles C. Corbett and Zilphia Crowingshield. Charles parents were
Willard Corbett and Hannah Estey. Zilphia's parents were William
Crowingshield and Tirzah McDaniel.

Her husband B.J. Padgett's parents were Millard B. Padgett and Mary
Smith (she was an orphan) her lineage is unknown. Millard's parents
were Andrew Padgett and Elizabeth Green. (Her parents unknown). Andrew
Padgett's parents were Elijah Padgett and Sussanah Station.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                 ANNIE (GIVENS) BLUE, SON BENNIE BLUE
                      OF SANDERSON, FLORIDA 1980

     Ninety-year-old Annie Blue leaned steadily against her cane for
support, peering suspiciously at the white stranger.

     "What she want to know Bennie?" she said, her light brown eyes
sparkling with inquisitiveness.

     "She want to know 'bout your life Mama," replied her 65-year-old
son, speaking loud and distinct into his aged mother's ear.

     "You know Mama, when you were a little girl livin' with your Mama
and Daddy."

     "I knows all 'bout that, I can remember that good," the sprightly
little lady said pridefully.

     Annie Blue walked slowly to the small front porch and took a seat
in an old, wooden rocking chair and motioned for Bennie to sit beside
her. Then with shoulders straightened and a slight smile on her petite
face began talking about her father, Archie Givens Sr., and her
mother, Carrie Dallas.

     "I was the oldest of their five children," she began. "I was born
August 30, 1890, 'cause we wrote it down in the family Bible."

     "That's what they say," Bennie agreed.

     Annie said she was born on homesteaded property in a small wooden
shack about a mile north of Sanderson.

     "It's known as the Sanderson Negro quarters," explained Bennie,
glancing around his little plot of land.

     "It's been here as long as I can remember. My mama grew up here
and I grew up here too," he said, explaining that his grandfather
Archie Givens homesteaded land in the quarters more than 100 years
ago.

     "He gave mama and daddy five acres when they got married and my
daddy bought another five acres later," he said.

     Annie's clear and twinkling eyes observed her son closely,
straining to hear what he was telling the white stranger. An
occasional nod indicated she understood some of the interview.

     Bennie said that Annie's father peddled his freshly butchered
beef and pork through the quarters into Sanderson and sometimes Glen
St Mary by mule and wagon to earn money for his family.

     "Weren't no ice back then," he said, "but he'd usually sell it
all in a day."

     Annie married share cropper Owen Blue. Their son Benjamin was
born February 15, 1915.

     "I lived with 'em 40 years before I ever left home," said Bennie.
"Before I married out I went to school and learned to read and write.
I was 20 years old when I married. I was with my wife 38 years and had
eight children before she died."

     Bennie said his parents ran a small one-room grocery store when
he was a boy.

     "That's why I ain't got no teeth now, I ate too much candy," he
said.

     What was growing up in the Sanderson Negro quarters like?

     "Well, when I was big enough to get out from under my mama I went
looking for entertainment" said the amicable Bennie. "We'd walk to
Woodstock after a big pay day and somebody would have a little place
fixed up to dance with some music," he said. "They'd sell soda water
and crackers and peanuts and stuff like that. Mama used to get at me
about being off late usually after midnight, and," Bennie admitted,
"sometimes it was just before daylight before I'd get home. Actually
boys weren't mischievous back then like they are now. There weren't no
fightin' and killin' like now."

     Bennie said pay day was the biggest night in the quarters.

     "The older heads usually gambled, but us boys and girls just
danced," he said.

     Bennie said that girls from the quarters usually were not allowed
to attend any activity other than church after dark.

     "There were women around though," he said laughing. "The quarter
owners would bring in women from different places and furnish them a
big house and food from the commissary. See, you ain't got to worry
about the men stayin' on and workin' as long as they's got women
around. Men could go to that house and sit down in the yard or on the
porch and talk and that's how they'd get to meet somebody they liked.
They'd eventually take 'em to a house in the quarters where they'd
live together like man and wife. They didn't marry 'em with a
preacher."

     "You reckon' you need be tellin' that Bennie?" his mother spoke
up.

     "She wants to know the history mama and that's the truth, that's
how it happened, that's the way it was mama," he said. "Them women
that were brought in here could do like they wanted to, but them in
the quarters made their daughters come in at dark."

     "Every now and then us boys would get to walk into Sanderson or
to Woodstock with the girls but it would be more than one of us. You'd
just know the one you'd be trying to make it with and you'd kinda walk
along with her. Them girls had to be in the house behind closed doors
after dark," he said. "We couldn't walk off no place less it was
church and even then we could walk ahead of 'em or behind 'em and when
you walked 'em home you got to the door and turned around and left. I
lived around my wife all my life. Her daddy was dead, but I went in to
see her mama and grandma for her company one day. They gave her
release to me and that meant that if anything happened it would be on
me, cause I was responsible for us. We still couldn't stay out late,"
he said, adding "We had a schedule."

     Bennie eventually asked to marry Jessie Perkins.

     "Her mother studied it and said she hated to part with her but if
that's what we wanted to do it was OK."

     Bennie and Jessie were married in the Macclenny courthouse by
Judge Brown.

     "She wore a white dress with ruffles," he remembered "

     "Mama and daddy gave us a room with them. After the birth of four
of our eight children they moved their little store in our room and
let me and Jessie have the larger room where the store was."

     Bennie and Jessie raised eight children in the 12x18 room that
contained two beds, a stove, table and chairs.

     "After about 20 years we sold that old place and bought another
store. I built me this home I'm livin' in and mama and daddy built a
small grocery there," he said pointing across a small field.

     "Up 'til that time I'd always been right in the house with my
parents," he said with pride.

     And a big smile crossed Annie Blue's lips as she looked lovingly
at her son.

     Bennie said he left three years later and moved to Pompano Beach
where he managed to financially take better care of his family.

     "My daddy died while I was there and mama wanted me to move back
home," he said.

     In 1972 Jessie had a stroke and died. Later Bennie remarried
Callie Mae Jefferson from Pensacola.

     "Me and mama's got a little garden. That's her cane patch over
there. She planted it herself, and we goin' to make us some syrup. We
got us a small patch of greens planted and a few chickens too," he
said pointing to the side yard.

     "I don't have no car and I'm disabled now," said Bennie, "but I
can help mama some. She still sweeps and hoes," he said.

     Annie Blue nodded her head in agreement and smiled.

     FOOTNOTE: Annie Blue died in 1983. Bennie Blue and his wife
Callie Mae still live in the same house where this interview took
place.

_____________________________________________________________________________

           William Clyburn and Willie Mae (Mathews) Gilbert
                            Macclenny 1992

     William Clyburn Gilbert and Willie Mae Mathews have been
sweethearts from the time that she was 11 and he was 13. Today they
live together in the house they moved into on the corner of Seventh
and McIver streets in 1937. It is filled with memories on the walls,
in curio cabinets, and all around each room. Mostly it is filled with
unseen memories deeply rooted in their hearts. Memories they have
built together for more than 66 years.

     It was 1923 when the Mathews family moved to Macclenny from Green
Cove Springs. According to Willie Mae, there were 981 people livings
in the town. Her father, William Lion Mathews, was in the hardware
business. Highway 90 was in the process of being paved, but all the
the other streets were unpaved and sandy. Cows and hogs often lay in
the path of the Maxwell and Nash cars that rumbled down the unpaved
streets.

     "My daddy had to stop our car many times and get a stick and get
them out of our way," remembered Willie Mae.

     Her family was among the first in the city to have indoor
plumbing. She remembers her young friend Mae Henderson (later Mae
Powers) visiting and exclaiming "Now you won't have to go to the river
to take a bath."

     "My family didn't go to the river anyway," smiled Willie Mae. "We
had large wash tubs we used, but most people went down to the river
when they needed a bath, taking their soap and a towel with them," she
said. The river was the St. Marys River that divides Glen and
Macclenny. That's where the "wash hole" was located!

     Willie Mae had established a special relationship with William
Gilbert years before when they both lived in Georgia, and even though
their lives had taken different avenues for awhile, they often saw
each other when Willie Mae would visit her grandmother in Helena, Ga.
Will Gilbert has done many things in his life and one was to join the
Merchant Marines. At the age of 19, he began traveling all over the
world seeing exciting and interesting things. He took a year out to
attend Georgia Tech. Then he rejoined the Marines and went back to
traveling.

     In 1926, he came home long enough to marry Willie Mae. After that
the two often met in ports when his ship would dock. Eventually
though, Will left the Merchant Marines and they moved to Jacksonville
where he worked in the Ford Plant In 1935, they moved to Macclenny.
The country was in a Depression and Will took a job selling sewing
machines. He held three licenses in engineering and Willie Mae
remembers once when he was called to help out in the Jacksonville
Shipyard to work on some big ship engines. He arrived there on Sunday
afternoon and because several of the men had the flu, he was asked to
stay and work some overtime. With only two hours sleep at night he
finally finished on Wednesday. When he arrived home Willie Mae met him
at the door with a bar of soap and a towel.

     "He was so dirty, plain black, and I sent him to the wash hole
down at the river to bathe."

     "Yes and it took about three good scrubbings before I got myself
clean," he said.

     He was so exhausted he slept 24 hours.

     Living in Macclenny had its problems. Very few people had toilet
facilities. Will Gilbert was contracted by the government to build
outdoor privies for the people.

     "I dug the holes 6 feet deep and 30 inches in diameter," he said.

     "The hook worm problem was terrible," remembers Willie Mae.

     "People used little houses that looked like a chicken coop, or
just went in their yards. it was a mess. The government was trying to
eradicate the hook worm problem by building out door privies," she
said. "Those little out-houses were a big modern convenience for many
of the citizens at that time."

     Will Gilbert opened up a hardware-general store in 1935 with
$55.60 in supplies. "They said I wouldn't be there but two months, and
I was there 38 years," he said. By chance he got into the house moving
business when a local merchant friend asked him for a favor.

     "I had a big 7 by 22 foot trailer," he said, "and Leo Dykes asked
me if I would go to Woodstock (near Lake City) and move a house that
was only 14 by 18 feet. It was 1938 and a hurricane was sweeping
through south Florida, the backlash hitting Baker County. I braced the
walls of the little house and left it half on and half off the trailer
until the winds subsided. When I returned the house had over turned,
but the fireplace and everything else was still in place. Today the
little house still stands in Macclenny."

     That incident led to other requests for house moving and the
beginning of a long and successful career. He had moved the first
house for $35 but said he lost money, so when he was approached by Mr.
Dykes the second time, the price had gone up.

     He charged $75 for the next two he moved and bought two jacks to
replace the 4x4s he was using. During the next 21 years, he moved
4,300 houses and buildings. He takes understandable pride in telling
about moving a hospital in Madison with the patients still in it.

     "One man died and one baby was born during the move 305 feet
away," he noted. "About 25 or 30 people from Baker County went just to
see me do he." The building weighed 250,000 pounds.

     Once he moved a house in Baldwin. The owner had been gathering
eggs. After the house was moved two miles away and crossed a ditch, an
egg and glass of water were still on the table inside the dwelling."

     His motto: The impossible we do at once, but a miracle takes
longer."

     The Gilberts were active in the community. With the late Vera
Holt and Mrs. Ida (Will) Knabb, Willie Mae, who was the PTA president,
started a soup kitchen for the children.

     "We held interviews with the children and asked them about their
lunch. We found that most of them just had a cold biscuit and a piece
of bacon, and some just had a sweet potato. It was obvious their diets
were inadequate so we were able to get the school board to build us a
small room with a stove, sink, and counter. It became known as the
soup kitchen because we served the children a free bowl of hot
vegetable soup and a glass of milk daily," she said, explaining that
Mrs. Ida Knabb had many cows and furnished much of the milk.

     Eventually, soup kitchens were built for the children in Olustee
and Sanderson. The Sanderson soup kitchen was later moved by Will to
Macclenny and today is occupied by their long-time family maid Mattie
Josey.

     The Gilberts prospered. They bought a summer home in Fernandina
and as their family grew to five (a sixth child died young) they spent
many hours during the hot summer months at the beach. Will often let
his employee drive a truck full of town children to Macedonia to swim
in the "wash hole."

     "I can't ever remember anyone of them thanking me, but not long
ago Barry Rhoden told me how much he appreciated it and what it had
meant to him and his family, and it made me feel good."

     Macclenny had a movie house owned by Earl Chessman, but according
to Willie Mae it was "full of bed bugs." in those days a lot of people
had bed bugs in their beds and they'd get on the children's clothes
and spread where ever they went, she said.

     "The children would come home covered with them and I wouldn't
let them come in until I sprayed them with a spray pump. I hated to
deprive them of the joy of going to the movies, so I just sprayed them
when they got home."

     The Gilberts, said almost all the people who lived in Macclenny
when they first arrived are now dead.

     "We've outlived almost every one of them," said Willie Mae.

     "Macclenny was very primitive when we moved here," said Will.

     "In the early days there were men all over town with big pistols
hanging out of their pockets."

     "Yes, and late at night you could hear them going off," said
Willie Mae. "They'd get at one end of town and fire a shot signaling
that the coast was clear and then you could hear cars going down the
road With their load of moonshine."

     Will Gilbert said he remembers when two of the shine cars had a
wreck and turned over. At the funeral the minister looked down on the
bodies and said, "All dressed up and nowhere to go."

     "I was told that 10,000 gallons of moonshine passed through
Macclenny every week," he said.

     "Right after we moved to Macclenny, the sheriff died from
moonshine poisoning," said Willie Mae. she couldn't remember his name.

     While passing through customs in New York once, Willie Mae said
custom's officer was inspecting a bottle of wine she was bringing to
her husband. Noting she was from Baker County, Fla., he asked her "Why
do you need this wine with all the moonshine you've got in Baker
County."

     "I never realized until then we were famous," she said.

     The Gilberts remember the 1938 fire that destroyed a city block
in Macclenny.

     "I'd just received a big shipment of galvanized tubs and
buckets," he said. "We took them all up on the roof, filled them with
water from a hose and took wet brooms to put out the sparks that were
hurled from across the street. Our efforts saved the fire from
spreading," he said. Destroyed in the blaze was the whole city block
where the current Standard Building stands. Will's store was located
where the office of Dr. Gary Dopson is presently located.

     Ice cream was delivered to Macclenny by train every weekend, said
Willie Mae. There was a little ice cream store down by the railroad
station and everyone would rush down to buy some. "That was the only
time we got any, and that was such a treat for us," she noted.

     During the war, the Gilberts said dances were held at the Womans
Club and servicemen from Cecil Field would come to Macclenny to dance
with the girls. "The boys didn't like that," she said.

     The Naval Air Station in Lake City would send a bus over every
week to pick up the Baker County girls and their chaperons to attend
dances, the Gilberts explained. "I wasn't afraid to let our oldest
daughter go, things were not as dangerous back then, and I trusted the
chaperons," said Willie Mae. She remembered two of the escorts as
Doris Crocket and Eva Ward.

     The Gilbert's five children all live in other areas, but come
home often for visits. The oldest, Anita (Mrs. George) Gerson and
Rachel (Mrs. Herb) Nasrallah live in Tampa. Charlotte Ramirez lives in
Valdosta, Margaret (Mrs.William) Fusse lives in Hendersonville, Tenn.,
and son Peake and his wife Eleanor live in Fayetteville, Ga., where he
works for Delta Airlines.

     They have 17 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren. When
Willie Mae turns 90 years old on Nov. 14 they'll all be home to
celebrate. They have outgrown the house now and the Gilberts are
grateful for the nearby motels that help provide sleeping space.

     Last September the Gilberts celebrated 66 years of marriage.

     "We don't have any boxing gloves so we don't fight," said the
jovial Will.

     The Gilberts' are Episcopalian. Will built the quaint little
brick church that stands at the comer of Fifth and Minnesota Streets
in 1967 after a fire destroyed the frame one. A Jacksonville firm
wanted $650 to build and install the beams. Will took three hours to
design the equipment to fashion the beams and three hours to install
them. They acquired their beautiful century-old stained glass windows
from St. Andrew's Church, which was being torn down in Jacksonville.

     "Those bricks were supposed to be my new brick home," said Willie
Mae, "but I didn't mind him building the church with them."

     The Gilberts' are truly builders of varying degrees. The homes,
churches and businesses will eventually crumble into the dust and be
gone. They'll be remembered eternally for the permanent building of
character, family, enduring friendships and community bonding. That
kind of building will live forever and house their immortal souls. Few
of their kind will ever pass our way again.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                            A.L. FERREIRA
                       Sanderson/Macclenny 1980

     When your roots lie buried deep within Baker County soil, it
doesn't matter that you were born in Fernandina and raised in
Jacksonville. At least that's the way A.L. Ferreira feels about it.

     "Why, my great great grandpa, Elisha Green had a farm over there
on the south prong of the St. Mary's River a hundred years before I
was born," he said as we talked in the comfort of his lovely Macclenny
retirement home.

     This tall congenial man told me he felt like he had "come home"
when he retired in 1974 from the Seaboard Coastline Railroad after 38
years of service and moved to Baker County.

     "I had more wonderful memories about my life that centered around
Baker County than any other place," he said adding, "it was just
natural I'd want to come here. About all my kin live here and its just
more like home."

     His fondest memories were those he spent at the Sanderson home of
his maternal grandparents, William Daniel Mann and his wife, the
former Jane Greene. Their daughter Ollie was his mother.

     "It would take just about all day, best I remember, for us to
travel from Jacksonville to Sanderson in our Model T. Ford," he said,
explaining that at the time Highway 90 was yet an unpaved road.

     "My grandparents lived in a large home that stood right where the
new Post Office now stands in Sanderson. It had a big porch that
circled the house except for one corner and tall sycamore trees shaded
the lot."

     He remembers well the corn cob pipe his Grandmother Jane smoked
as she rocked on the big porch late in the evenings.

     "When it would begin to get dark Pa would wash his feet in a foot
tub, then Ma would wash hers, then the oldest child right on down to
the youngest would all wash their feet using the same tub and water.
That's when we knew it was time to go to bed," he said.

     "Once a week we'd go to what they'd call a washin' and we'd take
a bar of homemade lye soap and go to the creek."

     Any other kind of bath was taken in a wash tub.

     "I remember seeing a wash tub in the back room of the house," he
said. "I guess my grandparents used that."

     He said that sometimes the wash tub was left outside in the sun
to warm the water for a bath. "But us kids usually went a washin' in
the creek," he said.

     "I remember my Grandma making lye soap and I guarantee when you
washed with that you were clean-no doubt about it.

     "How I enjoyed going there," he said. "I remember many a morning
waking up to the old 'pitcher pump going and the smell of bacon
frying. My uncles would all be sittin' around the old wood stove, on
wooden shell boxes puttin' on their shoes. After breakfast they'd go
out back to the mule lot and hitch two mules up to the wagon for the
three mile ride outside of Sanderson to the farm. They'd all have
lunch pails and stay all day. When they'd come home at night they'd
bring back whatever was in season to eat."

     He said his grandfather Dan Mann, owned a big commissary in
Sanderson.

     "I remember the mail was brought there, and every Saturday a
container of ice cream packed in dry ice was sent out from
Jacksonville by train. Joe Dobson was just a boy then, like me, and he
would sell it for 5 cents a scoop. That was the best ice cream in the
world," he exclaimed.

     The youths in Sanderson entertained themselves by such things as
sling shots and playing marbles. There was no TV in those days and
very few radios.

     "We'd watch the train pass through town," he said. "Many of the
trains would stop to fill up with water at the water tank in front of
Pa's house. Trains stopping in Sanderson or passing through after dark
were lit by kerosene lamps swaying from the car ceiling. There was no
air conditioning back then, we'd never heard of such luxury. I
remember that during World War II the soldiers hanging out the windows
dropping notes to the girls in Sanderson. "Children back then just ran
around and played a lot of things like tag. I remember we'd run and
play and get so hot. We'd go into the house, but there wasn't such
things as soft drinks to cool you off back then. We'd open up Ma's
safe and get us a bowl of clabber and a piece of cornbread. My, my,
my, that was sooooo goooood!! There just wasn't nothing better in the
world than that," he said.

     "In the fall of the year my mama would hang a ball of asafetida
around our necks. My it stunk! Wouldn't nobody come near you, but mama
said it would keep any kind of germ or cold away from us youngins if
we wore it all winter.

     "Times have really changed," he said, adding, "my children would
just soon have died than wear an asafetida ball hanging round their
neck .. but .... them was the good ole days and I really enjoyed them.

     "Of course," he mused, "these days you can buy asafetida pills."

     He remembers well a doctor telling his mother he needed some
iron.

     "To this day I can see my mama pointing to this big old iron
wagon wheel leaning up against the fence and instructing me to file on
it some and bring her the shavings. I did and she gave me a spoonful
with a dipper of pump water. I guess I must have taken it for a week
or so. Can you just imagine people doing that today?" he asked. "But
we were never sick though," he added.

     His grandfather (whom he calls Pa) served Baker County in the
Florida House of Representatives so admirably in 1891 that he was
re-elected without qualifying or seeking office.

     "My, what I wouldn't give to be able to sit down and talk with my
Pa and Ma today," he said. "There are so many things I'd like to ask
them."

     He now passes away his time fishing with his friends like his
neighbor, Buck Rowe. He and his old pal Joe Dobson (the long ago
ice-cream boy in Sanderson) get together every morning in a local
restaurant for a cup of hot chocolate and swap news as well as stories
about the good ole days in Sanderson.

     He helped to organize and is active in the Baker County
Historical Society.

     "Gotta preserve all the past we can," he declares. "I think
that's real important."

     UPDATE: AL Ferreira passed away June 4, 1987. He is buried in
Manntown Cemetery.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                          George Dewey Fish
         Of Taylor, Baxter, and Glen St. Mary Florida ca 1980

     Among the first pioneer settlers in the Taylor area of Baker
County were James Benjamin Fish and his wife Kizzie. During the last
half of the 19th century, they sold their homestead property over in
Charlton County Georgia and bought "a little place with just
improvements" south of Baxter. Improvements meant buildings of some
sort, such as a smoke house or barn, said their eighth son, George
Dewey Fish.

     "I felt like my parents were the greatest people there was," he
said from his retirement home in Glen St. Mary. "My dad farmed with
oxen before I was born, driving them to Jacksonville to sell produce
from his garden. That was about 1880. Later on he used mules.

     "Boys wore knicker pants, there were no radios, telephones, cars,
ice cream or candy. If you were lucky, once a year when you made your
annual trip to Macclenny you might get a piece of candy.

     "There were only four or five stores in Macclenny and all the
streets were dirt or clay when I made my first trip to town in 1907.
My folks would buy what they needed for a year, usually denim material
by the bolt for ten to fifteen cents a yard, and chambray for shirts
and underwear.

     "Our school was a one room shanty at a deserted sawmill that had
been destroyed when a terrible storm hit in 1896. All us kids studied
out of the same books, had the same lessons. We didn't have no report
cards. When school closed, we'd mark our book where we stopped and
when the next teacher came we'd show 'em where we left off. I figured
I finished 'bout the sixth grade.

     We attended church once a month. Main thing I went for then was
to see the other boys and girls. It was really a meeting place, to
gather up and see our friends. Over the settlement it was known as
North Prong, but in the minutes it's listed as Mt. Zion Primitive
Baptist.

     "We didn't do too much for recreation. Sometimes we'd have
dances, and our parents would let us go if we so desired. I never did
care much about it, it was too much fatigue in it for the little bit I
did get out of it.

     "Our parents taught us there was no harm in dancing if we behaved
ourselves, and that's what I told my own children when they were
growing up.

     "After the sawmill came to Moniac we soon got a train. I had four
older brothers and there was 18 years difference between me and the
oldest one. it was a pretty big thing to get up enough money ahead to
travel to Jacksonville, but sometimes they would. People would leave
books and magazines on the train and my brothers would bring them
home. My mother didn't want us reading all the things they'd bring in.
Once such book she disapproved of was Peck's Bad Boy, and one I
remember that was OK was Slow Train Through Arkansas."

     In 1913, Benjamin Fish died, leaving Kizzie with four young
children still to raise in their four-room hewed log house with a
chimney made of sticks, clay and moss.

     On December 19, 1918, Dewey married Lottie Rhoden, who died with
pneumonia in a little less than a year, December 6, 1919. Two years
later, November 10, 1921, he married Lottie's cousin, Vertie Rhoden,
and soon after moved into the old home place. The next year he bought
it from the heirs. He reared his family of eight children, four boys
and four girls there.

     "I started in the Chicken business in 1929," he said. "Disease
hit the chickens and Hoover Prices hit the eggs. The most you could
get if you were lucky, was 10 cents a dozen."

     He tried the cattle business next.

     "It was just about as bad," he said. "Screwworms, cow rustling
and no re-forest took its toll." (Re-forest meant if the woods were
not burned off to allow new grass to grow the cattle would not
prosper. Old grass would get tough and dead pine straw would cover the
grass if there was no re-forest). "The cattle would go wild, so I had
to get out of that business too," he said. "I grew tobacco, had my own
timber and made turpentine on the approximate 660 acres."

     Dewey Fish united with the Primitive Baptist faith. It was the
opinion of the church, he said, that he had a special gift to preach,
so he accepted, and says they "have never turned me a loose."

     "A lot of churches sprung up, some went independent of the
association, but I have stayed with the original by-laws and still
preach the original way today," he said, explaining the particular
church he pastors is a small country church over in Georgia with 16
dedicated members. They meet once a month.

     As a staunch pioneer of the Taylor community, he served as a
trustee in the first group of trustees for Taylor High School. He
helped select the very first group of teachers in 1936. He served on
the Baccalaureate services 1944-1952, and at one time had two of his
children graduate the same year. He remembers that one year a flag was
draped in the chair for one son who was in the service at graduation
time.

     He served as the first mayor of Glen St. Mary, helping to
organize it as a city, paying for the charter with five other
citizens, Freddie Roberts, Claude Rhoden, Philip Taylor and Claude
Dinkins. The first meeting was held in his Glen St. Mary home.

     One of his sons, Morris, was the first deputy sheriff to be
killed in the line of duty in Baker County. He was 36 years old.

     "I was taking inventory the other day and I could only count
about five of us that are still living from my generation ... I don't
see well or hear well anymore myself. I've spent all my life right
here in Baker County," he said, "and if there was ever a better place
to go I'd have tried to go there. But there was never a better place."

Footnote: Dewey Fish and his wife Verdie are buried in North Prong
Cemetery north of Sanderson.

_____________________________________________________________________________

                            MOLLIE WILSON:
                            Macclenny 1979

     Mollie Wilson has lived in Baker County for more than 50, yet has
never set eyes on it.

     I just knows what I hear," said Mollie, as she sat in the home of
her friend of forty years, Marguerite James. "I ain't ever seen her
face either," said Mollie "yet I goes just about every where I go with
her."

     Mollie Wilson became blind when her youngest son was one month
and three weeks old. He is now 51.

     "I seen my babies, I know what they looks like," said Mollie, who
has forgotten how old she is, "but I ain't never seen my
grandchildren. I don't know what they look like."

     "My mama knew how old I was, but she's dead. My first husband
knows how old I am, but I don't know where he is. I sure wish I knew
how old I was," she said wistfully.

     Not sure of the exact year she arrived in Baker County, she is
sure she and her husband and their two small sons lived in Croff's
Quarters at first in a two room wooden shack. Her husband, Joe Wilson,
worked in the turpentine business for 50 cents a day.

     "I did my own cooking, washing and ironing," said Mollie.

     As a little girl, Mollie, who thinks she was born in Savannah,
Ga., grew up in Yemassee, S.C., where she went to school. She was
raised by her maternal grandmother.

     "I never seen my daddy. I don't know nothing 'bout him" she
explained, "but when my grandpa died, my mama come and got me and took
me to Reynoldsville, near Bainbridge, Ga. Thats where I lived when I
got married," she said.

     After her second marriage to Joe Wilson, they moved to Newton,
Ga., where he was working turpentine for P.L. Morris of Macclenny.
They started their family. Her first son Tommy was born in 1927. A
year later Joe Jr. was born.

     "I went to sleep one day on my front porch. When I woke up one of
my eyes was burning. I just went to the doctor in Bainbridge. They
wanted to take one of my eyes out sayin' it was dead. I wouldn't let
them, so's my husband, he took me to another doctor in Albany.

     "I asked 'em if theys could save one of my eyes 'cause I'se got
to raise my children, but he says he wanted to take out the dead eye
too, saying the other eye might die. So I just let them stay in my
head and die side by side. I didn't want no hole in my face. They died
a year apart. Doctors say it was "eyeritus."

     A year or so later, Mollie's not sure exactly when, they moved to
Baker County.

     "My babies were just sucking babies. As they grew I kept them at
home and played with them. When theys got big enough to find their way
home I'd let them go 'round in the neighborhood to play," she said.
"I'd tell 'um what times to come home and theys would.

     "After my boys got up big I wents to work at the Morris House and
Hotel Annie washing dishes, but one day a state man come in there to
eat. He heard me in the kitchen just singin' away lik! I always do. He
came back there to see me and sees I'm blind, and he said I couldn't
work no more.

     After that Mollie took in washing and ironing.

     "Some of these white folks here, they loved for me to iron for
them," she said with a big smile. "I'd catch rain water in lard tubs
and a barrel. I had a big wash pot in my yard and the little children
would throw trash on it for me. I never got burned once. "Sometimes in
the heat of summer I'd iron out on the porch. I'd build a fire
outdoors, and put the coals in a bucket to keep my flat irons hot."

     Mollie cooked on a wood stove, managing her family well, but she
still went to doctor after doctor hoping one of them would come up
with a miracle to restore her eyesight None ever did.

     Finally, when her sons were teenagers, Mollie was sent to Daytona
Beach to a school for the blind. There she learned to create things
with her hands such as crochet and rug making, was taught skills such
as recognizing coins and making proper change.

     "And this new style had come in with electric irons," said
Mollie, "and they taught me how to use 'um too."

     Then Joe died. Mollie fulfilled his wishes and accompanied his
body by train to Bainbridge.

     "But I'll be buried right here in Baker County," she said
emphatically.

     After Joe's death, everybody pitched in to help me a little bit.
Now I gets a little pension from the blind, but it ain't enough. I've
been in the hospital three times."

     Mollie's pride and joy is a granddaughter she raised from an
infant, her two sons and four additional grandchildren.

     Though she lives alone and manages fine, she counts friends her
greatest blessing.

     "Theys takes me everywhere I wants to go, fishing, shopping and
trips out of town," she added.

     "I can't see, but I can hear things," she added.

     "Have you ever seen the Ocean?" I asked her.

     "No mam, I never did see the Ocean. Oh, I wents one time down
there to Ocean Pond, but I never got in the water except to the top of
my feet.

     "But I sure wish I knew how old I was, yes sir'ee, more than
anything, I jest wish I knew how old I was."