Maw and Paw, Herbert and Mary Blackwell
Today I am thinking about the only grandfather I ever knew, my mother's step-father, Herbert Blackwell, known to us as Paw. The fathers of my parents, William Allen Chancery and Christopher Columbus Johnson, had died before I was born, but I had Paw.
When I knew him Paw lived on a farm outside Evergreen, Alabama with my grandmother, Mary America Ridgeway Johnson Blackwell (better known as Maw) and my cousins, Willie (Buddy) and Janie Johnson.
We looked forward to visits to the farm to see them. Life on their farm was quite different from my life in McDavid, Florida. Their water came from a well situated a short distance from their house. The men and older boys lowered the bucket hanging in the well by a windlass and brought up the cool water.
It was stored in buckets in the kitchen for use in cooking and on a bucket on the water shelf of the front porch for drinking. Some people today would cringe at the thought of drinking from the dipper stored in the bucket for everyone's use. We never thought about it. It was the way it was done.
Heat, when needed, was provided by fireplaces at each end of the house. Cooling was usually accomplished by sitting in the shade of the china berry tree near the front of the house or just sitting in the slat backed chairs on the front porch. Ironing was done by using one of the flat irons always in position on the hearth in front of the fireplace.
Clothes washing was done out in the yard in the cast iron wash pot and its line of wash tubs trailing from it. Light came from the sun and from kerosene lamps. Cooking was done on the wood stove and leftover food was stored in the safe situated above the stove.
There was a refrigerator, generally referred to as the ice box, for food that had to be kept cold. There was no freezer; its traditional functions done by the smokehouse and by the canning jars in the pantry.
Paw's domain was outside. He plowed the fields with a horse drawn plow, later actually a mule drawn plow manned by Kit the mule. I was never allowed to help with the plowing.
I did get to follow Paw across the pasture when he went to check on the cows. (If you've ever walked with me and had to tell me to slow down, you should know my walking speed developed as I tried to keep up with Paw across that pasture.)
Paw, Buddy, and whichever visiting males were deemed old enough put the corn in the crib to be used for animal feed through the year. The crib (sort of a small barn) stood in what Paw referred to as the lot, the fenced place Kit stayed when he wasn't plowing or pulling the wagon or the sledge. The lot was out past the wash pot and the well.
On Sundays Paw hitched Kit to the wagon for the trip to church. My cousin Janie seemed to be ashamed to be seen arriving in a wagon when most of the church attenders had cars, but I loved it. The sledge, basically a wagon with no wheels, was used to bring in crops from the field. I love the memories of the times I spent on the farm with Maw and Paw.
Our next ASHS meeting will be Thursday, August 20th at 6 pm in the Leach House Museum near 4th and Jefferson in Century. Our speaker will be Mark Ward who has a lot of information about local history. If you're on facebook, check out his site Unique History of Pensacola. It also includes some references to Century and Flomaton.
