"Once Upon a Lifetime: in and Near Baker County, Florida," book - v.3 (file 2/3) File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by La Viece Smallwood (no email address), through Carl Mobley (cmobley@magicnet.net). USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. This file may not be removed from this server or altered in any way for placement on another server without the consent of the State and USGenWeb Project coordinators and the contributor. *********************************************************************** Once Upon A Lifetime Vol No. 3 In Baker County, Florida By La Viece Moore-Fraser Smallwood Copyright 1995 Copies available from the author complete with photos: 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: * Cincinnati Dicks Mobley (in file 1/3) * Edgar Kirkland (in file 1/3) * Annie Rhoden Combs (in file 1/3) * Sippie Canaday Harris Hartenstine (in file 1/3) * Josephine Kirkland Crawford Arnold * Lorayne Rhoden & Lillian DuBose * Mildred Wolfe * Elva Combs Dinkins * Nellie Hart (Day-Farris) * Williams Family (in file 3/3) * Brown, Raulerson Families (in file 3/3) * The Historic Franklin Mercantile (in file 3/3) * Acknowledgements (in file 3/3) _____________________________________________________________________________ Josephine Kirkland Crawford Arnold 1994 Macclenny, Florida When Dollie Estelle Carroll married Joe Kirkland at the age of fourteen, and began giving birth to the first of her 13 children at age fifteen, and later took on the task of rearing 10 step children when she married George Ealie Johnson, it probably never crossed her mind that she would one day be a study of fortitude for so many of her increasing posterity. When she was disciplining her children with a pear switch with such force that blood streamed down their legs from cuts so deep in the skin it would leave scars for the rest of their lives, little did she stop to think how that punishment would someday bring her praise for being such a caring and loving mother. When she sent her little children off to school on the bitterest cold days, barefoot and coatless, she never could have suspected that someday the experience would bring tears of deepest compassion to the eyes of her aging children as they looked back on those days with such great clemency for her efforts in doing the best she could under the most difficult circumstances. Those of her surviving children speak with the greatest of respect and adoration for the woman they thought of as mother and father, and they hope her legacy will live on with the deepest of esteem in the hearts and minds of her posterity forever. Josephine (Jody) Kirkland Crawford Arnold weeps easily when she looks back on the life of her mother, a tiny woman with a heart bigger than she was, and stamina and fortitude greater than anyone can imagine, she said. Josephine was the ninth of her mother's 10 children born to the marriage of Joe Kirkland, an alcoholic and abusive man. "My mother told me that when she gave birth to me in a country sharecropper's shack south of Sanderson on February 4, 1919, she took the influenza three days later, along with some of her older children. There was nobody there to help her out and she asked my daddy to hand her a glass of water and he told her if she wanted a glass of water, she could get up and get it herself. "Mama said blood, caused from my delivery, ran from her bed to the fireplace. She said when she changed my diaper my skin peeled off. She told me that it was a miracle I survived. She explained that she and her stricken children took castor oil, that's all they had, and they survived. When mama got to feeling a little better, she got up to try and clean the big old heavy iron pots daddy had left dirty. She said she was trying to fix her children something to eat, but she was still too sick and she passed out. Someone, she never knew who, put her back on the bed. She said her mother, Elizabeth Carroll, had the flu, too, and wasn't able to come help. Mama said she didn't know how she survived. "Mama had a hard time when she was growing up. She said she made all the family's clothes by sewing the garments with her fingers. She was the daughter of John and Elizabeth (Keen) Carrol and grew up poor. She didn't believe in divorce, but after she and daddy moved to Nassau County, she said she was laying across the bed and my daddy's face came to her in a vision-like appearance and she looked into his eyes and saw that they were red and very bloodshot. She said he looked like the devil, and felt that was her clue from the Lord to divorce him, because she doubted he would ever change. Although she was pregnant with her last child by my father, she gave a man all her chickens to drive her to Baker County in his horse and wagon with all her belongings and children. Edgar was born on the old Cox place north of Macclenny after she moved back to Baker County. After mama left our father, I was told by some of his nephews and nieces that he did change and was a loving man. I told them I was sorry but he wasn't nice to us. "After moving around some, we finally settled in Glen, where I grew up and attended school as long as I went, which was the 8th grade. I remember I was in Junior Crockett's class and our teacher was Mrs. Sheppard. Later, mama married a real nice man I grew up to call Papa. He was a widower with 10 children. Then he and mama had three of their own. That made 23 all together. Our house was always full. "I remember going to school barefoot in real cold weather when I was little. The teacher would let me sit by the old wood stove and warm my feet after I arrived at school. I really didn't think of us being poor. Most everyone was. I can remember being hungry for some things we didn't have, like a loaf of bread. I'd see some of the other students eating their sandwiches made out of bread and they'd have mayonnaise and lettuce and tomato. Oh, it just smelled so good. Mama sent her children to school with a little tin bucket, with maybe some grits in it. We always had meat from the hogs and we might have some tomatoes on our grits, maybe a biscuit, and if we were lucky a piece of pork. "Mama always made sure we kept our yard and house clean. She made her mops from corn shucks and she used white river sand and lye soap to scrub our floors with. In the kitchen we had a cook table and an eating table. I remember how we'd have to wash dishes in two pans. We'd sit one on the stove to warm while we ate and then wash our dishes in one pan and rinse them in the other pan. We didn't have a living room in our house. We used the rooms for bedrooms with at least two beds in each room. We didn't have living room furniture, we'd have some straight back chairs and maybe one or two rockers. There was a fireplace to warm by and I remember that mama could spit her snuff from across the room and it would hit perfectly in the fireplace. Our old house had cracks in it, the boards ran up and down instead of crosswise, and hogs and chickens stayed up underneath it at night. "Mama was real strict with us. She had a whole bunch of boys to manage and she said she could do it much better with all of us on a farm where there wasn't any other people, like there would be in town, and she could keep us busy with work. "I remember one time when I was in Mr. Giles Bethea's class at school and me and my step-sister, Ethel, played softball. Mr. Bethea was going to take us up to Sanderson for a ball game in his Model A Roadster and we told our brother we were going. He had to go and tell mama, and mama told him, 'No they're not going either, I've got something for them to do at home'. Well, we thought we just had to go to that game, so we went and I remember we beat Sanderson's team that day. Mr. Bethea took us home and put us out. Mama had done got supper and she was ready for us. Lord-a-mercy, she went out to the pear orchard for a switch. She got her two, about this long," she said, measuring about four feet, "and when she came back she got a hold of me first. It seemed like she never did whip Ethel as bad as she did me, and I thought she was going to kill me. She whipped me with one of 'em until it broke, and then she grabbed the other one and hit me a lick or two before she finished it out on Ethel. Honey, I didn't go to school for about a week and I still got a scar from it," she said," pulling up her slacks leg that revealed a definite scar. "But you know, I never did get mad enough with my mama to say nothing back to her. I never talked back to my mother in my life. The boys didn't either, even after they were grown and married. We all still respected our mother. She was just like an old hen with her biddies. She'd fight for you, yet she would get on to you if you needed it. I never disobeyed her again. If she hadn't been the mother she was, there's no telling what we'd have gotten into. "Mama never did tell us much about ourselves and growing up things like having a period. I think where I first learned that was from my sister-in-law, Corbett's wife. She was my sister-in-law and step sister too because they got married before mama and papa did. We were out there in the yard washing clothes one day and May told me about women having periods and all, and oh, I thought I can't wait until I'm a women. I was about 15 before I ever started, though. Back in them days, we didn't have sanitary napkins, just old rags and things, and on wash day we'd try to hide them. One day I had a pile of clothes to wash and we had this big old 60-gallon boiler that we boiled them in to get the dirt out along with mama's homemade lye soap. I had the clothes laying down there and some of those rags were laying there, too. My brother, J.B., was sitting there watching us and he started picking up the clothes and said, 'Oh, I know all about what that is. It's when a woman's going to have a baby; you know., all women's got babies inside them'. "J.B. didn't know no more about it than we did. He thought women had a bunch of babies in them and all you had to do was have one when you wanted it like a chicken laying eggs or something. "People back then just didn't talk to their children about things like that," she said. "I remember on wash day, mama would starch our clothes stiff. She would make us these cameo tops out of yellow homespun material to wear beneath our clothes," she said. "They were so stiff after she would starch them that when we girls would wear them next to our skin they rubbed us raw across our breasts. It felt like all the hide came off because we didn't have bras back then. I can't remember having a bra until I got big enough to buy my own," she said. "The first pair of shoes I ever remember owning was a pair of black patent leather shoes mama ordered from Sears and Roebuck. I bought them with the first money I ever earned. Several of us children walked about two miles to a neighbor's farm to hoe for fifty cents a day. Those were the longest rows I can ever remember seeing. After we got paid, mama got the Sears Catalog out to order us something with the money we made and I told her I wanted the patent leather shoes. When they arrived they were too small, but I wore them anyway even if the pain just about killed me. Look here at the bunions I still got from wearing shoes too small," she said, shedding her shoes and exhibiting a huge bunion on her foot. She confesses that today shoes are her passion and she can't resist buying pair after pair of them. "Mama must not have known how to buy the sizes we needed because she would order a coat and it would be way too large, or shoes way too small. "We had a good mother who tried hard. She was understanding and we could tell her most anything. Even after I got grown I used to get to thinking about her and wonder what I'd do if anything was to happen to her. I couldn't stand to think about her dying. Even after I got married I'd go back home just as much as I could and help her. I'd go on Saturdays and see if she had anything I could do, because there always seemed to be a bunch of people there. "My step-father had a stroke after they married. He couldn't do much. He was a nice man and I called him papa, and I felt by his children just like my own brothers and sisters. Papa worked for the county and once he had an accident and got a lick on the side of his head driving down a piling on a bridge. That's what caused his stroke. The county gave him $1,000 and mama took the money and bought us 35 acres that had an old house on it, north of Macclenny near the Macedonia section. We'd never owned nothing until then. Papa and the boys built us a body on a truck and mama made some curtains out of canvas on her sewing machine. They were fixed so they could be rolled down on the side if it was raining or cold, because the boys used it to drive as a school bus. Any money made, we gave to mama and papa to help with our family expenses. "I went to school in Glen all my life. When I finished the eighth grade I caught the bus over to Macclenny and was in Mrs. O'Hara's room, but I didn't go there long. I knew I was needed at home or to work to help out financially, so Lucile Johns got me on at the canning and soup kitchen in Glen. "Then one day she told me that Mrs. Ruth Cone over in Macclenny needed someone to help her clean house when she got out of the hospital and she would pay me $3 a week. So I moved into Mrs. Cone's house. She had a daughter named Emily. It was my job to keep the house clean and cook. She paid me an extra $1.50 if I did the laundry, so I tried to make the extra money. Her husband's name was Branch and he lived in Tallahassee during the week and came home on weekends. His brother, Fred, was the governor of Florida and he married Mildred Thompson. "Every weekend, I'd have to clean chickens on Saturday for Sunday dinner. I wrung their necks, scalded, and cleaned a couple of fryers, and Mrs. Cone would make her own mayonnaise in a little crock pot with eggs, lemon juice and oil. I stayed in a little room on back of the porch right off the kitchen. She was real good to me. She had parties, and I vacuumed her house with the first vacuum cleaner I'd ever seen. She had wicker furniture in her living room, and a rug. I'd never seen things like this before. She let me drive her car and I could go to the store for her, and she let me visit mama. "When she was moving to Tallahassee we went there and stayed in the governor's mansion for a week. During the day we'd go over to a house they were going to move into and clean and fix it up for their move. At the mansion, we had Negro maids and butlers that cooked, served the meals and waited on us hand and foot. I could have gotten used to it, I think. "When I left the Cone's house, I went to work for Will and Leona Knabb doing the same thing, except this time I had to kill and dress duck for Sunday dinner. They had a woman who cooked, but I washed dishes and cleaned house. Their children were Eloise, Billie and James, and their daughter Loyce lived with her husband, Jack, and son, Bobby, across the street. They treated me just like family. Eloise and I shared a room. When Macclenny got street lights for the first time, I can remember one night particularly when Eloise and I went with her dad and mother just riding around looking at them. Eloise and I were the same age, and shared the same birthdays. Their house at the time was a big old one story wooden structure on Sixth Street and it burned down. After I left the Knabbs, I worked for Loyce and Jack for awhile and took care of Bobby. "After I worked for the Knabbs, I went to Richard and Carrie Davis's home where I did everything but the wash. They treated me like family, too. Their children were Violet and Dickie. "It was about this time that I met my future husband, Frank Crawford, at the local skating rink. We went to the Methodist Church that night to a special musical program and he and his friend drove me out to mama's house afterward. I was 20 years old and he was 23. He was working in Jacksonville as a truck driver with Great Southern Trucking Company. We were married three weeks after we met. Judge Frank Dowling married us October 1, 1939 in Macclenny and we left for Frank's parent's house in Jacksonville, where we lived for the next few years. I worked at the Sherill McClain drug store and restaurant across the street from their Talleyrand Avenue home. "Then, when the war started, he wanted to join up so he joined the Sea Bees. I returned home and began working in the laundry at Camp Blanding. We had a Chevrolet Roadster car that I finished paying for while Frank was gone. "When he returned from service, I got pregnant with our first child. Frank Warren, 'Mickey', was born on February 4, 1945, which was my 26th birthday. I was so proud of our child. Frank started working for Roe Barber, riding horses, and then for Pine Top riding the woods. Our next child was Jimmy. Both boys were delivered by Dr. P.A. Brinson. Jimmy was born November 28, 1946, with a hair lip and cleft palate. That's when I learned about Hope Haven and, Lord, they were a God's blessing. He was three months old when they operated on his mouth and when he was one year old they did the cleft palate. I had lots of family support, and I tried to be strong. I've always tried to be strong and have a positive attitude about all the trials I've had in life. "Our third child was a daughter and I thought she was the prettiest thing I'd ever seen. She was born December 3, 1947, and we named her Carolyn. Our last child, Gwen, arrived on February 7, 1950." Two years later, in 1952, Josephine's life changed when she made the difficult decision to divorce Frank. Even though it would be hard with four small children, the drinking and womanizing were worse. With her family's support she moved in with her sister, Lizzie, and brother-in-law, Alton, and their family and her mother. She went to work for the King Edward Cigar Factory in Jacksonville to earn a living for her little children. The $25 weekly Frank was to give her for child support ended after he paid a few hundred dollars. One day Josephine was helping her two brothers, Shubert and Tex, at their service station located at the corner of Sixth Street and Macclenny Avenue. She glanced down the street and saw a man getting out of his fully-loaded lumber truck. "I didn't meet him that first day," she said. "It was later when he would come into the service station to trade with my brothers that we formally met and got to talking with each other." Guy Arnold was a native of Alabama. He was living at the Hotel Annie, and working for Batchlor Brothers Sawmill when he met Josephine. The couple began dating and were married about a year later in 1954. "He has been a wonderful husband and equally a wonderful father to my children," she said of her husband of 40 years, who has retired after 36 years in a road construction career. "Nowadays, he helps the county out as an inspector part-time when he isn't helping me change grandchildren's diapers, or attending to any other needs they have. He plays with them and entertains them as much as I do. He helps me cook and clean house and many times prepares our meals all by himself. I couldn't have asked the Lord for a better husband, friend and companion than Guy has been to me." Her daughter, Carolyn, was killed in an automobile accident on August 22, 1976, in Salt Springs, Florida. Mickey and Jimmy both work in construction work, and daughter Gwen is a talented designer of Indian artifacts, clothing and jewelry. In her cozy home filled with family relics and photographs from the ceiling to the floor and wall to wall, she spends her time sewing or tending to her yards. She loves for the grandchildren to visit. Mickey has three children, Guy Alfred, Angie Denise and Mickey, Jr. Jimmy has three children, one from his first marriage to Martha Gray, a daughter named Cynthia. He and his second wife, Laverne Barton, have two children, Jimmy Mack, Jr. and Katrina. Gwen's only child is Jody, who has two young sons. Jody and the boys live with Josephine and Guy. Surrounding her Ohio Street home is an array of lovely plants and flowers. A huge spreading oak drapes itself gracefully in her front yard, surrounded by a massive bed of colorful bromeliads. She and Guy have a vegetable garden and their pantry shelves are filled with attractive jars of the seasonal food they preserve. On any given day she can look down the street and revive memories as she views scenes from the past. Within view, memory lane leads to the place where some of her children were born, where her mother once lived, and where many members of her family reared their children. "My mama lived until 1966. When she died, I went off by myself and I thought, 'This is something that I always thought I could not take, but I had seen her suffer and couldn't hardly stand that.' "The way I feel about my mother is to try and honor her by being the same kind of mother to my children that she was to hers. She was a good mother who provided for us and would have given us, or anyone, anything she had. I've tried to be to my children what mama was to me, and I have always loved my children like she did hers. Sometimes I wonder if they know the depth I feel for each of them, because I would do anything in the world for my kids because I love them to death. A mother's love is something that is hard to describe." There's only one thing she feels she might do differently if she had her life to live over. it's a mistake in judgment she made long before she married the first time, but one made by many in the era of which she speaks. "It's a part of my life very few know about because I never talk about it. It happened back in the '40's. I dated a boy from Georgia that hauled moonshine. I went with him one night to take a load up to Lake City and the revenuers were waiting down the road. They shot up the car, but we ran and got away. We hid in the woods and later walked up to Lake City. They caught us and took us to Lake City jail that night. I didn't even have a change of clothes. "The next day they transported us to Jacksonville, and you won't believe this, but they stopped off in Macclenny at Sands Liquor Store. I was leaning over in the back seat, but everyone that came by knew me. Someone went and told mama. We went before the judge in Jacksonville and the lawyer told me to plead not guilty and that was all there was to it. That boy gave a friend of mine some money to go and buy me a dress and some shoes to change in. It was so beautiful, I remember it was the prettiest dress you ever did see. It was flowery with a big flair tail. "I've always been embarrassed it happened and I've just never talked about it, hoping it would go away." Like all the rest of her memories, it hasn't, and this kindly woman who believes in fairness for all and doing good for others really wouldn't want any of her past to go away. Instead, she will continue to instill faith and courage in her children and their children in hopes they will benefit from their own mistakes and the fumbles of others. She trusts that they will always maintain a positive attitude about making the best of the life they have been privileged to live and of the legacy they have inherited. Like the majestic oak whose roots run deep in the soil of her front yard and spreads its sturdy protective branches outward over the frame of her snug home, she feels you can meet with triumphs and disasters and still stand tail -- it happened to Dollie Carroll Kirkland Johnson and as Josephine tells her children, it can happen to you. _____________________________________________________________________________ Lorayne Rhoden and sister Lillian DuBose, daughters of John D. McCormick and Lillie Deliah (Leigh) McCormick Macclenny, July 1993 What was it like around the late John D. McCormick's home about seven decades ago in Baker County? Well, two of his surviving daughters say it was like, "John, my kids and your kids are fighting our kids." That's because John brought seven children to his November 26, 1923 marriage with Lillie Deliah (Leigh) Thomas, who brought seven children with her. Together they had four children and that made a total of 18 children beneath the McCormick roof. And that's another story. The two daughters say they could lie in bed and look up through their roof at the stars, or look down through the floor and count the chickens! Sound extraordinary? Well, it was. Though times were hard, and it was in the depth of the Depression, John D. McCormick never let his family go without food, clothes, or a roof over their heads. The McCormick family was taught Christian principles, spiced with laughter and music in the home with "yours, mine and ours." And today, his two youngest daughters like to remember the past with great fondness. Humble may have been their circumstances, but Lorayne McCormick Rhoden and Lillian McCormick DuBose roar with spirited laughter at their memories of home. "The wind blew through the cracks of our home. The children of this day and time would freeze slam to death in it," said Lillian. "It was during the 'Deflation' years, and our farm was foreclosed on," said Lorayne. "Daddy never did own any more property and we moved around and farmed, but daddy always took good care of us. "Yeah, he always provided," said Lillian. "He'd find work as a carpenter in the winter or he'd help make syrup. He has cooked syrup all over this county," she said. "And he could build a fireplace chimney that would blow all the smoke out and throw the best heat around in the home of anyone in the county. He's worked all over the county building chimneys for people." said Lorayne. "And he built many homes here in the county," remembered Lillian. Today they live next door to one another, each in a house he built. Lorayne agreed. "I would sit down and work with him after I got in school and learned fractions, and he'd have me figure out the footage he'd want in timber to build a house. Then I'd write it up so he could go to the mill and get the order filled," she continued. "He always managed to figure it out somehow before I got old enough to do it. I don't know how though, because he only had a 3rd grade education, but he did. After I had it figured, I'd always have to add a quarter inch to it to make sure he had enough lumber." The two women reflect mostly about their lives when they lived in the Manning section of the county, renting the same farm their father lost to the mortgage holder during the Depression. As the older children moved away, the work load fell on the two youngest girls. Their mother was ill and died while they were in their beginning teens. They remember her beautiful brown hair was down to the floor in the back. "She never cut her hair except for a few inches to keep it from dragging on the floor," said Lillian. "I did all the housework, even when mama was with us, because she was not always well," smiled Lorayne. " I learned to cook at an early age. I had to get up at 4 a.m. to cook breakfast and clean up the house, make the beds, and finish my homework before catching the bus at 7 a.m. to go to school." And where was Lillian while you were doing all the housework? "I was milking the cows, feeding the horses and mules, the chickens and the pigs," she said, roaring with laughter. "I didn't like the inside work. I preferred working in the fields and tending the animals. Anything that had to do with the outside work." "I'd go to school during the week, and have to wash and iron on Saturday to get our school clothes and the men's work clothes clean," said Lorayne. "Sometimes I helped by pumping the water," said Lillian. But usually it was agreed that she was needed in the fields, hoeing cotton or corn. "I had to use three number-three wash pots filled with water, and lye soap that Mama made, to wash our clothes," said Lorayne. "We used those ole flat irons that had to be heated on the wood cook stove or in the fireplace to iron with," she explained. "After the clothes were washed we'd take our bath out in the yard in those tubs of soapy water," said Lillian. "We only bathed once a week, otherwise you just sponged off every day. We'd always arrange for our tub to be put back behind the shed or house to bathe, and the boys were very respectful. Daddy saw to that." "When it was cold weather we moved the tubs inside to the living room or into the kitchen and we'd go in one at a time to bathe, all using the same bath water," said Lorayne. "We had a little pan of clean water for our face." "We didn't think a thing about it, that's just the way it was back then," said Lillian. During the Depression the two women remember that they seldom had eggs for breakfast. "We used them to trade for sugar, coffee, flour and such," they said. "We'd eat our own grits and bacon and have gravy and our own butter from the farm, but we'd trade our eggs." They remember their first radio experience. "We'd walk three miles to Jim Starling's house to listen to the Grand Old Opry on a battery-powered radio. My daddy loved to hear Uncle Dave Macon sing," said Lorayne. "We all thought that invention was wonderful." "We had a graph-a-phone," said Lillian, "and when the spring would get broke we'd turn that thing with our fingers to hear them old 78s." It was a good life, they say. They seldom were punished but when they were it was with a leather strap. "We didn't get it often, because we were too scared to disobey," Lillian said jovially. Lorayne quit school in the ninth grade to marry 26-year-old Ollie Johns from Lake Butler. Together, they ran three service stations -- one in Hilliard, another in Lake Butler and one in Macclenny. Ollie also drove a taxi once in Macclenny for U.C. Herndon. "It didn't stay in business long," said Lorayne. The couple had five children: Porter, who lives in Waycross, Ga.; John lives in Tampa, Mamie (Mrs. Martin Cole) lives in Macclenny, Butch lives in Glen and Joan lives in Macclenny with her mother. When Ollie died, she married Obie Farris, then Rachie Rhoden who died in 1990. Lillian, understandably, takes great pride that out of all her parents' children, she was the only one to graduate from high school. She married Charles DuBose, a military man, after graduation and the couple had four children -- Lillie Mae (Mrs. Tommy Christian), who lives in Arizona; Grace (Mrs. Fred Paul Conner) of Glen, Martha (Mrs. Sorin Margean), who lives next door, and J.L., who lives in Lake City. Charles, who was a machinist at the Naval Air Station in Jacksonville, died in 1979. They have seven grandchildren. Lorayne says her greatest treasured memory is the time she spent with her parents. "They taught me the Christian way, the right and wrong of life; it was just everyday talk in our family. Daddy would read the Bible, along with me when I got old enough to read it. He'd try to explain it to me and of course I didn't always understand it, but it became a part of my life." She belongs to the Faith Baptist Church in Macclenny. Lillian agrees that their life is a wonderful time to reflect upon. "I think the kids of this day and time have it too easy. I really do. They have TV, VCR, and radios. if they aren't listening to one of them in the house, they got 'em hung to their ears outside. They've got telephones, and strictly have it too easy and they don't care if anything else is done, or not, except they get to do what they want to do. "They got cars, go where they want, have money to spend. They aren't developing the character and appreciation of things like we did." Lorayne agreed. "They're only interested in their selves." "I know they've got a hard life before 'em if they continue they're going now because life hasn't changed, the people have. Life's problems are the same and one way or the other they're going to have to face life's problems and deal with them," she noted. "Today, parents don't have much control over discipline because if you do, the HRS will get you," said Lillian, who belongs to the First Baptist Church in Macclenny. The two widowed sisters love visiting each other and talking about the "good ole days," and they each put their early training to use. Lillian, an excellent seamstress, loves sewing and is grateful to her mother, who taught her at age eleven. "I used to ride over to Hilliard, to the chicken farms, and buy the prettiest feed sacks to make my daughter's dresses. Everyone thought they were beautiful. I just love to sew," she said. Lorayne enjoys crocheting and lap weaving. She makes her friends gifts of her lovely handwork, and makes things especially for her eight grandchildren. Most of the family have died now, only a few still live, but they visit together and stay close. William Carl and Ola Belle (Burnett), the only two children from John's second marriage to Clarinda (Clark), live in Jacksonville. One half-brother, Ellis McCormick, died recently. He was one of five children from John's first marriage to Lou Vernie Rawl. He became one of the county's first circuit ministers, whose career span was 74 years. "Daddy was real proud of him," said Lorayne. "He started preaching when he was about 15 years old, standing up in the cotton field. Instead of pickin' cotton he was preaching to the kids and the other workers in the field," she said. "Daddy used to tell Ellis he was preaching more hard-shell than he was Southern Baptist doctrine, so that is why Ellis went over to the hard-shell Baptist." His parents were Southern Baptist. Other children of this marriage were Mary (Mrs. Ernie Johns), Oscar, Bessie Hilliard Steele, and Vernie. The sisters do not think they'll run out of things to talk about, or to tell their grandchildren. Their laughter and sunny dispositions are on-going, and contagious -- that is, if they can just get this younger generation to sit down long enough to listen. _____________________________________________________________________________ Mildred Wolf July 1992 When Mildred Wolfe was entering her teens she could easily pick 200 pounds of cotton a day. As she sweltered in the hot Mississippi sun, the little one-room schoolhouse where she should have been studying was in view. "I was embarrassed to be out there picking cotton when all the other children were in school," she said. Those were what the petite career nurse calls her slave days. Not the long, all-night vigils caring for the ill and lame. Not the all-night operations that went on in the hospital she would later supervise. No, the "slave days" were those back in Mississippi where she grew up -- hoeing in the dusty fields, plowing with a mule, washing clothes on a crude metal scrub board and ironing them with heavy cast irons. There were days she helped with the butchering of hogs and canning of vegetables and fruits while standing over a sweltering hot cast-iron, wood-burning stove in the heat of summertime. It all began for Mildred when she was born to Basil and Annie Jane (Crosby) Cooper on November 20, 1916 in Polkville, Mississippi, not far from Jackson. The modest little log cabin that was her humble home was shared with two older sisters, Hazel and Mary. Her parents were hardworking farm people who tilled the soil for a scant living. Times were hard until one day her father hitched up the old mule to the shabby wooden wagon and drove his little family to near-by Pelatchie. Things began to look up some when her father opened a general mercantile store. "He sent peddlers out in covered buggies," said Mildred, "and I think times were much better because daddy bought a brand new Ford and we took a trip to Texas to visit relatives. "In those days there were no such things as motels, so at night our little group camped out in tents, but I remember that daddy and the other men would sleep out in the open with their guns right by their head," she said. "You know, in those days it was still the wild west." She doesn't remember being frightened. Once the group crossed over into Texas she wasn't sure where they visited, but she said, "we went to the ocean to swim and I remember we had a family picture taken that is still in the family." Then things began to go wrong. Another baby sister was born and her mother -- at the age of 35 -- died, following the birth, from complications of measles and pneumonia. Her grief-stricken father took Mildred, her two older sisters and baby Beatrice to the home of their maternal grandmother, Cecelia Crosby. Here they lived a short time until her father remarried. "After our mother's death, daddy didn't seem to care for anything anymore. He lost the store, I think from giving too much credit, and returned to farming. Or, he did sawmill work and anything else he could find. We moved around from place to place," she noted. "I remember once I rode in a covered wagon to attend school in a one-room school house on the prairie." In the 9th grade, Mildred's family moved to Mendenhall. It was during the deep Depression, about the year 1932. "My stepmother made me a beautiful dress out of a feed sack. I was so proud of it," she said. "We were lucky if we had one pair of shoes in those days." As Mildred grew up, she and her sisters were given more and more responsibilities. "We worked hard, real hard. There were no conveniences. We cooked on a wood- burning stove, did without electricity or indoor plumbing and washed on scrub boards and ironed with hand irons heated on the stove. "We used the ole outdoor privy and my daddy wouldn't use the Sears catalog for toilet paper, he preferred corn cobs. I often wondered why he had hemorrhoids; now, I know." After graduation from high school, Mildred was sent to care for her stepmother's mother who had twelve children, some of them hard-core, hard-drinking sons. "They spoiled their mother and I had all the work to do. I was expected to comb her hair for one hour every night, regularly. No matter how tired I was from the day's hard work, I had to comb and brush grandma's hair for one full hour. "There were hog killings and, oh, how I hated the smell of that fresh meat," she said. "The work was so primitive and hard that to this day I call those days my slave days. We had to wash and clean chittlin's, and anything else that needed doing." Then something wonderful happened. It changed her life. Her oldest sister, Hazel, had married at age 16, divorced, and was living in Chicago. It was Hazel who made it possible for Mildred to enroll in nursing school. "My sister Hazel was as poor as poor can be, but she managed to become a beautician. In addition she sold magazines, did housekeeping and just anything to make a dollar so she could send it to me to pay for my tuition, books and uniforms." And she remembers that her other sister, Mary, sold a chicken once just to send her a dollar. A dollar went a long way in the Depression days, she said. "Mary also married at 16, and she had started her family, but she supported me and I won't ever forget my sisters for helping me to get out of that situation. Mary and her family were so poor that once when I visited them, they had to borrow money to buy food. I found that out later. But Mary would work at any job to help send me money." The private nursing school was at Meridian Sanitarium and it was a change for the young girl who had learned at an early age to fend for herself under all kinds of circumstances. "The director of the school was so hard on us, and mean, that we called him 'Hitler,' she said. "And since I didn't have any money, I couldn't pay for the cleaning of my uniforms like most of the other girls, so I had to wash and iron my own. The skirts of our uniform were the width of a sheet, and they, like the collars and cuffs, had to be starched stiff and ironed to perfection. It was an exhausting task." In addition there were no conveniences at the hospital. "I don't know if the young ones today going into nursing would make it. We were never idle. If we didn't have anything particularly to do, we had to get a rag and go to cleaning. We never stood around, never! "We had to make our own saline, our own cotton balls, swabs, bandages, and sponges. We had one room we called the cast room where we made casts. Those three years were hard, but we learned discipline and to appreciate what we have." Mildred said the last six months in the school she was confined to the school grounds as punishment for talking to her boy friend on the phone. "The day I graduated, I walked off that campus." After graduation, Mildred took the advice of a supervisor and travelled to Lake City with other graduate nurses to apply for work at the newly-constructed Lake Shore Hospital. "Those were the happiest days of my life. Everyone was so nice and friendly. They made us feel so appreciated and important. We were not used to that. It was 1940, the Depression was over and I made a huge salary of $45. a month." The first thing she did was buy her father a truck. "Up to this time, daddy only had a horse and wagon, so I sent him the monthly payments for a truck." Her generosity turned his life around. With transportation, he returned to productive farming and eventually owned his own farm and a nice home. She went to J.C. Penney's and bought her sister Mary's children about $50 in Christmas gifts. Within five months she was promoted to operating supervisor at Lake Shore Hospital. A few weeks after she arrived in Lake City she met John Wolfe of Macclenny, who was employed as a clerk for the Forestry Service. John had told his friend's wife, Roberta MacCoskey, also a nurse, to be on the lookout for a nice looking nurse for him to date. Roberta told him about Mildred. "We had a blind date and I didn't like him at first. He returned the next day and we drove out to Ocean Pond and sat on the pier. I really thought I was blessed to be dating someone who owned his own car. John took me to nice places and we did so many nice things together, things I'd never done before, places I'd never been. I wasn't used to it." In two weeks John proposed to Mildred, but it took him nine months to convince her to become his wife. It was 1941 and they rented an apartment in Lake City after their wedding. Those were very happy days for the little 'slave girl' until World War 11 happened and John, with his brother Robert, voluntarily joined the Navy SeaBees while their brother Jesse chose the Army. Like a flash the three brothers left for war. Mildred worked hard at Lake Shore. The Navy hospital was nearby and she remembers that sometimes the operations would go on all day and all night. Ofttimes she would meet John on rest and relaxation (R&R) for a long week-end. Once she even moved to California for a month to be with him. It was there that Robert's ship also docked and Mildred and John went to meet him. "Oh, we had the best time. We went out on the town and enjoyed being together so much. It was the last time we ever saw Robert," she reminisced. "His plane was shot down somewhere over the Pacific and his body was never located." Three years later, when John returned home from the war, he insisted they move to Macclenny. "At first I was devastated. There was no hospital, no doctor. We lived upstairs over his mother's house at first, then John got a job selling cars for Jesse Frank Morris." Eventually they moved to an upstairs apartment in the Walter Dopson home. Then Dr. John Watson came to Macclenny. And before long he was asking Mildred to take the place of his lab technician, Harold Bradley, who was leaving. That job lasted for 24 years. "And I'll never forget that wonderful man, he was a joy to work for." she said. Dr. Watson died in 1972. After that Mildred worked at Northeast Florida Mental Hospital for 11 years where she was promoted to supervise five wards after just five months on the job. The rest is Baker County history. Two wonderful sons graced their family -- Robert, a graduate of the University of West Florida, and Jimmy, a graduate of the University of Florida. Robert lives in Live Oak with wife Bennice (Champion) and Mildred's two precious granddaughters -- Amanda, 15, and Monica, 9. Monica was crowned 'Little Miss Suwannee County' and Mildred is proud of the fact her daughter-in-law's talented hands designed a replica of a $600. dress for Monica to wear. Robert, who has a degree as a medical technologist, teaches eighth grade science at Live Oak Middle School. Jimmy works near Lake City at the Olustee Prison as a parole officer. He and his wife, Kathy (Jones), live in Macclenny and have one son, Kaleb, who is 11 years old. Kathy works at Union Correctional institution. Her father lived to be 91 years old. Longevity runs in the family, as her grandfather, James Toliver Cooper, died at the age of 108. Perseverance is also a family trait. Her father, injured as a young man, lost the use of his right hand when a muscle was cut in his youth. "He had to learn to use his left hand for writing, and he could plow, and hoe and do anything else just as good as someone with both hands," she said with pride. "You'd never know he was handicapped." Today, she seldom looks back on those days when times were more difficult. She has excelled in her career, having been honored as Nurse of the Year in 1981 at NEFSH. She was elected by the Macclenny Woman's Club in 1991 as Woman of the Year. She presently serves as president of Friends of Wells Nursing Home. John died in 1977. She often takes time to browse through battered and torn scrapbooks that hold countless letters she and John wrote to one another. "We wrote 365 days out of the year. We never missed a day writing." she said. She has managed to find a fulfilling life with family and friends. Her sisters each returned to school for educations and have lucrative and rewarding careers. Their children are all outstanding and accomplished. She takes great pride and feels her parents would be very proud of the way each has turned out in life. As for her personal life, she says: "I eat what I want, when I want. I love to read, and I watch soap operas. I always thought if I could see all the movies I wanted to see and read all the books I wanted to read, it would be great, and now that I can, I do." But she is not likely to forget the past although she says much has escaped her memory. "Today, I thank God everytime I turn on a light or use a washing machine. We are truly a blessed generation to have all these conveniences." _____________________________________________________________________________ Elva Combs Dinkins 1994 Elva Combs Dinkins was born on the banks of the Middle Prong of the St. Marys River on May 5, 1908 in northern Baker County. She traveled to Macclenny with her parents in a horse and wagon before the streets were paved and remembers the special beauty of the towering shade trees that lined the lanes. She recalls how she romped and played in the bright sunshine as a cool breeze graced her brow. And she fondly recalls home, where, in an atmosphere of love, she was indulged with kindness and devotion by God-fearing parents. I didn't think of it being the good times at the time," she told me in an interview as we sat in the comfort of her Sixth Street home where she has lived for the past 52 years, 34 of them as a widow. I thought at the time we were having the worst time in the world," she said with a sigh. Her parents, James Jackson "Boss" Combs and mother, Martha Dowling, dealt with the times in which they lived in a remarkable way, remembers their youngest daughter. They were the parents of 14 children, rearing the 12 that lived and one grandchild on their 300-acre farm in north Baker County. "My oldest sister, Belva Elizabeth, died in childbirth three weeks before mama gave birth to me," said Elva. "And mama raised her baby right along with me. We were like twins, sometimes I think we were closer than twins," she said of her niece, also named Belva Elizabeth. Their rambling country home was built by Elva's grandfather, Jim Combs. Later, Elva's "papa" added a kitchen set apart from the main house, yet connected by the large front porch that adorned the front of their home. Martha Combs had a wood-burning cook stove where she prepared her family's meals, but when company came, and bigger pots were required, she made a fire in the fireplace and simmered large containers of greens, beans, peas -- or whatever she grew in the garden -- along with a huge pot of chicken pileau. "Mama went to the garden daily to get food for our table, then she'd come home, prepare and cook it for us," she said. "After dinner, I remember that daddy would always stretch out on one of the two large church-type benches on our front porch and tell us younger girls, who he always called his 'dolls', to fan him," she said. "And oh, how we enjoyed doing it for him." Martha Combs raised chickens and turkeys to sell. The money afforded shoes and clothing for her children. She would load her wagon with the foul, drive as far as Marietta, spend the night with her sister; then, with either her husband or one of her sons, drive the horse and wagon all the way to Jacksonville to sell her stock. "Mama would buy whole bolts of material. She could look at the picture of a dress in a catalog and make me and my sisters and Belva dresses that looked just like the pictures," remembered Elva. "Even our neighbors would ask mama to sew like that for them," she said proudly. "We had lots of cows, and always plenty of milk to drink," she remembers. "As we grew older, Belva and I had to help with chores. I remember sweeping our yards every Saturday with the broom brush and, if mama washed clothes during the week, then we had to iron them with the heavy cast irons we heated in the fireplace on Saturdays as well. If mama didn't get to wash during the week, then we had to help with that, too," she said. When her mother washed clothes it was done in handcrafted logs called troughs. One was used for washing, one rinsing. The sugar boiler was used for boiling the dirt out of the clothes, she said. And the sugar boiler was used for Saturday night baths. "We'd build a small fire beneath it, just enough to warm the water, and on Saturdays we all got a good bath," she remembered. Her parents were Primitive Baptist and in those days attended the once-a-month meetings with eagerness. "Mama and Daddy would bring home up to 25 people sometimes to eat and spend the night because they'd come a long way, usually by horse and wagon. The all-day meetings often lasted into the night," she said. " Mama would fix beds on the floor for the children. Our house would be full of people." It was at one of those Primitive Baptist meetings that Elva met handsome 'Dunk' Dinkins, ten years her senior. She was sitting in the car with a good friend, Nora Mae Dowling, when he walked up. He was, she remembered, a neat dresser, and very nice. They courted for two years, then on July 2, 1925, the couple married at the home of her parents, who had moved north of Glen to a much smaller farm by this time. Belonia Robert Dinkins the III was nicknamed "Dunk." He was working in Miami during the land boom when he married 17-year-old Elva. He was 27, had his own car, and had learned to do a variety of things to make a good living. After two years the couple moved back home to Baker County. For a while Dunk farmed, then dipped cattle, before moving to Macclenny in 1932 and running a "filling" station. Some of their young friends in the community were Myrtie and Verge Walker, Edna and Hardy Harris and Ira and Eva Walker. "There wasn't much to do during those days but go to church, and most of us, especially us ladies, were churchgoers," she said. Elva was kept busy tending to the couple's four children: Verna, Lois Lorraine, Robert and Linda. They were actively involved in school and community activities. Dunk acquired the Ford Dealership which he operated for 25 years, until his death from a heart attack in 1959 at the age of 61. Elva, with an 8th-grade education, was fortunate to obtain work at Northeast Florida Mental Hospital where she was employed for 10 years. At the age of 61 she returned to school to acquire a GED degree, equivalent of a high school diploma. Inspired by what she was learning, she continued her education by enrolling in Lake City Community College where she accumulated 55 credit hours. "I might have finished the whole four years but at the time I would have had to drive to Gainesville," she said, explaining that was before Jacksonville instituted a four-year college. Today, only Elva and one sister, Lois, are the surviving siblings of 'Boss' and Martha Combs. Gone are Belva Elizabeth, Mattie, Ethel, Sarah, Eddie, Joel, Virgil, Ernest, Forrest and Glen. Roy died as an infant, as did another little son. Her niece, Belva Elizabeth lives in Miami Springs. She is 85 years old, the same as Elva. They often talk on the phone for an hour together, reminiscing about the "good ole days." "We talked just last week," said Elva. "We like to relive the memories we share like the one we especially remember that happened on a bright sunshining morning when a fresh wind swept across our faces as we ran down the lane that ran in front of mama and daddy's house. We could see Papa across the windswept fields plowing, and Lois and Virgil pulling weeds in the corn and peanuts. Me and Belva were little, but we decided to help, so we climbed the fence and jumped over in the field where we saw these tall weeds growing right in the same rows that Virgil and Lois were weeding. Belva took one row and me another and we pulled up a third of two rows before we hollered at papa to "look at us" helping to pull weeds. We saw papa stop ... and look ... and then he started running toward us. We could see he was mad. We didn't know what for, though, so we started running. I made it over the fence before papa caught up with us, but he caught Belva and swatted her. I was running as fast as my long legs would take me, thinking "I've just got to find mama, she won't let him whip me."' I saw mama standing on a fence rail throwing some swill to the hogs, but papa caught me before I reached her. He tapped me, I think it was the first time he ever had, and it hurt my feelings lots more than it hurt me. We had pulled up his corn, thinking it was weeds," she laughed. She loves to remember those good old days, times when her parents were strict, but also loving and kind. "We did what they wanted us to do, not what we wanted to do," she said. "And that was good for us, we found out later in life." What does she enjoy most? Well, of course, her children and grandchildren, although none of them lives in Baker County Her walls are filled with their pictures, though. Across the street from her home is where her heart dwells. It's the Church of God where she has held` membership for 67 years. "I joined the church when I got saved, and honey, that's the best feeling in the world. I'll never forget the peace I felt, it's a feeling you'll never forget," she said with conviction. And neither are those feelings of yesteryear something she'll likely be able to forget, she said, as she reflects back on the family she remembers growing up with and the home they each filled with their love. _____________________________________________________________________________ Nellie Hart (Day-Farris) July 1994 Macclenny You can scarcely see it from the main road, the quaint little cottage covered by vines and blooming hibiscus trees. Friends who regularly visit Nellie Day Farris turn left off Highway 90 just east of town and circle the vine-covered hoop in front of her house to enter the labyrinth of colorful floras and reflecting ponds. Plants of every color and description flourish from her green thumb and playful chirping birds and rambunctious squirrels delight in the outdoor splendor. It's a thicket wonderland where the spritely 83 year-old lady works diligently every day to maintain her picturesque compound. And she loves it. Nellie was born about 20 miles from Detroit, in Mount Clemens, Michigan, on May 21, 1911. She arrived in Macclenny two years later by train with her parents, Allen and Linda Hart. Cattle gaps crossed the dusty unpaved Highway 90 at the east and west entrance to town when Nellie's parents built their home on the high pitch of Trail Ridge, an area she would always call home. Her father had been a chef in the north and after contracting pneumonia and pleurisy -- caused from entering a cold refrigerator for food, then trotting into a hot kitchen -- was admonished by his physician to seek a warmer climate. The couple and their daughter travelled by train to Jacksonville, where a family friend working in real estate recommended that they live in Macclenny. In 1913, Nellie was joined by a brother, Roy, and when the two began school they used a horse as their mode of transportation. Instead of a saddle, the children used a riding blanket, and trotted the three-and-a-half miles into town together. They left the horse grazing in a friend's field while they attended school. "There were very few homes in Macclenny back then and those I remember were built of wood. I don't remember block homes at all," she said, reminiscing about the turn- of-the-century days. "Most of the citizens had a vegetable garden and a chicken house. Cows roamed all over the area, and most people were still using a horse and wagon for transportation. None of the streets were paved and they got mighty messy and muddy when it rained. "I remember that Mattie Hodges had a dress shop on Main Street in the block where the Chamber of Commerce is now located, and the lovely home of Mae Powers was located on the busy corner of Main Street and Fifth, at the red light. Mae had a picket fence to protect all of her beautiful flowers. Her porch was inviting with a wood-slatted swing at one end and a long row of wooden rocking chairs. She was a downtown legend." Nellie said she often traveled on the train with her mother to Jacksonville to shop. "We'd catch the train to Jacksonville at Maddox where the viaduct is located. Macclenny didn't have a depot at the time. The only thing at Maddox was a couple of buildings for the railroad hands and a section foreman. We'd leave our horse with the section foreman until we returned," she noted. When Nellie and Roy were older, they rode their bicycles to school and at one time the school board, made arrangements for the Greyhound bus to stop in front of their Trail Ridge home and pick them up. In the afternoons the two would ride home in the car with their father. Nellie prided herself as Roy's big sister and protector. "I punched that big old Eulie Dugger one day when he was aggravating us while walking to school," she said, with obvious pride. "That sucker was twice as big as me, but he never messed with us again," she roared with laughter. In school Nellie was a star basketball player, and about her performance on the track team, she says, "There wasn't a rabbit in the country that could beat me." A school cafeteria was unheard of in the early years when Nellie and Roy attended school and their lunches had to be brought from home. A 'soup kitchen' was later available at the school, primarily for the undernourished children who often had nothing to eat from home. She remembers her first teacher was Miss Rosa Wolfe, her first principal as B.J. Padgett and one of her first boyfriends was Lonnie Jones. She graduated from Macclenny High in 1931 with classmates Marie Rowe (Burnsed), Marguerite Mathis Dugger, Edwin Fraser, Ruth Frank Turgeon, Mildred Fraser (Green), Roy Hart, Rudolph Brown Loadholtz and Audrey Thompson Pendley. "There wasn't alot for us to do for recreation in those days," she said. "Television wasn't invented and we had no phones, radios or electricity." She saw her first movie projected on the wall of a building in downtown Macclenny. "I think we paid a dime or something like that to see it," she said, explaining that enterprising folk travelling through town on occasion would show the movies for one night. "They were mostly western-type movies," she said. "We enjoyed them even if the quality was poor and we had to sit on the ground." Later, she said, the Chessman Theater was built in downtown Macclenny. She doesn't remember the town having a newspaper in her early years. The Press arrived in the late '20s. "We heard about things just by word of mouth," she quipped. "Some of the men in town wore guns and the bad ones would shoot it up. Some men would play poker all night and sometimes into the next day," she said. "They often had hard feelings when they'd lose big money." In the '30s, she began to see development and growth within the county. "In the late '20s, they paved highway 90, and that was a great day for all of us when that opened up. After they built it, they covered it with dirt for one year to help seal it. We were a happy bunch of people when they scraped that dirt off with a bull dozer and it was ready for traffic," she said. She remembers a terrible train wreck at Maddox east of town near the rise of the ridge. "I have photos of the wreckage in an album because mama was a great picture taker," she said. "The train's water boy threw cold water on that hot engine and blew up the train," she said. "Twenty to thirty cars were derailed and it killed two train engineers." She remembers her parents being strict, but very loving and caring. "Our mother never laid so much as her little finger on us, and daddy only did once," she said. "Of course, we were obedient children and never questioned their authority. We understood and believed they knew what was best for us. We were very proud of our parents, especially our mother. She was an accomplished artist, having studied under a man who had a studio in Paris, so she received the same training that she would have received abroad. When mother graduated from his studio, he asked her to join his staff. I think he felt by mother like the daughter he never had. She never worked for him, but she was so accomplished at her talent that she painted a large portrait of herself by sitting in front of a mirror." Nellie vividly remembers one day when two men and a woman drove up to her parent's home and inquired about their next-door neighbors by the last name of Rich. "We saw a for sale sign in their yard, but no one answers the door," the threesome said. "Well, I'll go up to the house with you," Nellie said she told them and explained that Mrs. Rich was often shy. She and her mother had noticed a light on very late in the Rich home the preceding night, but had not noticed the couple outside that day. "I'll go over with you and call out to her so she'll know it's ok," Nellie assured them. After calling out to her mother where she was going, she rode with the three to the Rich home which was in sight of her own home. When no one answered the front door, Nellie went to the rear of the house. Finding the door ajar, she peered in and was aghast. She found the Rich couple slain. "They had been killed with a hatchet, and blood was everywhere," she said. The authorities were alerted and an observant Macclenny businessman, Rudolph Powers, reported that he had noticed two men in town the preceding day with Mr. Rich. Sheriff Joe Jones and Mr. Powers immediately drove to Jacksonville and rode around on Davis Street where Mr. Rich's Pressing Club business was located. Their alertness paid off when they observed the murder suspects in the vicinity. The two were later electrocuted for their crime. It was later learned that Mr. Rich had hired the two men to drive him to Baker County overnight because of his bad eyesight, and the two men conspired to rob the couple after observing them in their home. The robbery netted them four dollars. The trauma caused by discovering the Rich couple murdered in their home created nightmares for Nellie for a long time. "I had to go to court and testify about what I saw. That scared me, too. I was really in shock and back then people didn't know how to treat shock like they do today," she said. Nellie was by nature a zealous and independent spirit and when the need arose she competently assumed responsibilities. In 1924, fourteen years after Roy's birth, another brother named Gail joined the family. Four years later, when her mother died at the early age of 41, Nellie took over his care. "Daddy didn't want Gail raised alone. He was so lonesome on the Ridge after mother died, so we went to Jacksonville to the Children's Home of Florida and asked about adopting a little boy Gail's age. They didn't have a boy in Jacksonville, so daddy contacted the home's worthy matron in Winter Haven. She called him back and said she had a little boy she'd really love to place." The little tyke was sent to Jacksonville and Nellie and her father drove in to meet him. "This little child came out looking at his feet, never looked at us, and dad said, 'Would you like to live on a little farm where there's lots of cattle, and pigs and chickens and things'? "He nodded his head, and dad said, 'Well do you think you'll be happy'? "He said, 'uh huh,' so dad said, 'Go get his clothes', and that's the first time I saw any emotion on that child's face," she said. "It was obvious he wanted to come home with us. His name was Robert. "He was pale and looked unhappy. He was lost and anything else you could say, but he was as sweet as he could be and he's made a wonderful addition to our family." It's obvious Nellie holds her adopted brother in high esteem and shows no favoritism between him and her biological brothers. "When he first came to us I could tell his diet had not been proper and we always had a big garden and I'd have four or five vegetables each meal." she said. "I'd tell him to taste them even if he didn't eat all of what was on his plate, and he'd grow up to be strong like Roy. He idolized Roy, so he started eating and in no time he was eating more than us and became as robust and healthy as Gail and Roy." The little boy proved to be ingenious, she said. "The boys had a little army camp in the back yard, and Robert would make these little round wheels for his trucks. He was clever," she said, smiling. When the boys reached teen age, Nellie commuted to Jacksonville daily and obtained work with the City Recreation Department in charge of physical activities in Brentwood Park. Classmate Mildred Fraser introduced her one day to the Suwannee Store Manager, Cecil Day. The two dated for seven years before marrying. "We both had family obligations," she explained. "Cecil had his mother and I had my boys and dad." One day they drove to Bronson, Florida, and as she tells it, "we dug us up a preacher, I think he was the county judge, and he got someone to witness for us and we married." The two drove to Chiefland and encountered a terrible rain storm. "The total swamp was covered with water and we couldn't tell if we were in the ditch or road and my wedding dress was all muddy and his suit as well. It was a mess," she lamented. "Cecil's health was not good, but we had a good life. We lived in a little bungalow north of town on highway 228 and had a garden and chickens and goats and a cow. We sold lots of goat's milk, especially to people with ulcers; it's good for that, you know." Tate Powell, the Baker County Press editor was her best customer, she said. The couple bottled the milk and sealed it with sturdy paper caps. Customers brought the bottles back for refills. "My cottage was a dream house with our huge bed of poppies down the fence line and pansies along the walkway. People always admired my blooming flowers year'round," she said. Nellie worked with Cecil in the Suwannee store, located on Main Street where the Wells Insurance Agency was once located and across from the famous Hotel Annie. Her jack-of-all-trades father constructed the building and installed the plumbing. "He was a self educated man. He studied out of books and learned how to do all he did," she said proudly. Nellie's grandfather Ellery Appleton was a civil engineer who had previously come down from the north to lay out the railroad that runs through Macclenny and all the way to Pensacola. Her grandmother, Lillian Appleton, visited them in Macclenny on many occasions. "When her sons, Les and Charlie, went into the service during WW I, she lived in a house next door to us until they returned home. Then they returned to Michigan," said Nellie. During the Christmas season the talented Nellie was known to always have an all- blue-light Christmas tree in the Suwannee store window. Her love for flowers prompted her to open a small florist shop in Lewis Covin's Five and Dime on Main Street. The couple eventually bought a 50-acre farm south of Macclenny, near Blair's nursery, and hired sharecroppers to work for them. "We grew the best vegetables," she said. "Cecil was a good farmer because he had been raised on 500 acres in Alachua County. When our corn was planted, it was spaced far apart and then in July we'd fertilize the middle row between the corn and plant our fall greens. The tall corn would shade the greens from the hot sun and along about September, before anyone else had a chance, we'd have the best turnip greens this high," she said measuring a considerable distance from the ground. "We had watermelons with the most gorgeous flavor; we never used chemicals on them, just natural fertilizer. Our cattle was Cecil's pride and glory." Seven years after their marriage, Cecil died from a heart attack. It was an inherited condition suffered also by his father and brother who, like Cecil at age 41, died too early in life. The couple had no children. After Cecil died, Nellie moved to Jacksonville and went to work as manager of Samples Shoe Store on Main Street in Jacksonville and later the J.C. Penney Company. She retuned home on week-ends and cleaned house for her father and "the boys." Eventually she met Obie Lee Farris from Geneva, Alabama. He was living at the Hotel Annie and at the time was recovering from an accident. "He was okay, I guess, but our marriage didn't work out," she said. "Something good did come from it," she noted, "and that was his five sons I inherited." About this same time, Nellie went to work for the Riverside Presbyterian Church as housekeeper/hostess. "I was there for a long time, most of the time I was married to Farris. it was my job to buy the food and see that it was cooked properly and served on time. I attended to the church socials, family night, and made sure the building was always clean and ready for the events. There were about 300 people to feed on family night. I had to decorate for the weddings. I also kept the palms around the building pruned," she said. About three years after Cecil's death, Nellie's father built her the home where she now lives. She purchased the 10-acre site for the $14.87 state taxes owed. "My brothers, Gail and Robert, had gone into the service after I married the first time. They had returned to Baker County and then helped me and daddy build the house," she said. Nellie said she drew the house plans. She and her dad cut the trees down on the property and had Jim Rowe, who owned a saw mill south of town, saw them into lumber on halves. "It was two thirds what I needed to build my house in 1941," she said. Over the years Nellie added a maze of shrubs and three fish ponds to the property. One afternoon the family gathered and caught more than 220 fish from one of the lily-laden ponds. The fish averaged two-thirds of a pound each. Her dad lived with her until his death in 1959. When the WPA built the Macclenny community center, Nellie became the first activities director. Later, she became the first librarian for the county. In 1962, she went to work for the North East Florida State Hospital and worked in occupational and Recreational actiities until her retirement in 1977. "About five years before I retired, I had a chance through the Baker County School Board to work at North East State Hospital in the green house and agriculture. That job gave me my future income because I couldn't maintain my home without that." she said. She retired in 1983. Nellie sells her many plants; some, she says, are rare wonders. "It's things that are unusual and hard to get," she said, "like Grannie Gray Beards, Mahaws, and White Wisteria." Today, she takes long walks in the quiet of the morning and again when the sun is settling in the western sky. Hybrid perch and channel cats swim freely in the pond amid the colorful array of dainty water lilies. Off in the distance, not too far away, live her family and they come home to visit often. Those are the sounds she cherishes most. Billy Farris lives nearby on part of the property. Harland, oldest of the Farris boys, lives in Graceville, Gerald in Port Charlotte, Don in Hartford, Alabama, and Hershel in near-by Taylor. Roy Hart married Mary Brownfield from Ohio and the couple became the parents of four children -- Linda, named for her grandmother, and Janice, Glen and Nancy. Robert, who lives in Macclenny, married Yvonne Hicks and they have three children -- Bobby, Brenda and Becky. Gail married Leona Maddox and the couple has four children -- Donna Gail, Jonell, Butch, Allen and Rhonda. "Several years ago, Robert got a letter from his brother who had also been adopted," said Nellie. "I took him the letter after the home contacted me. Robert looked at it and didn't say much. His brother, whose last name was Pigg, lived in Tampa and wanted to be reunited with him. Robert drove over there and met him, but didn't even spend the night. He wanted to hurry back home. I think he and his brother correspond occasionally, but Robert said we were his family," she said, smiling. Each spring Nellie throws a big birthday party for herself. Friends and family gather at her multifarious hacienda and enjoy sharing good food, old times, old tales, and fellowship with their long-time friend. As each year grows more precious, they pay tribute to a life that has lived before their time, a part of their history that can now only be found in the depth of history books.