Monday, June 30, 2014

family tales

Grandma Powell's maiden name was Maples, she told me a uncle of her's went to California to seek gold.
She said he left Arkansas with a dog and a gun on foot , she said he was going to mine gold in Californian.
He was never heard from again. We don't know if he found gold or death on the road but he struck out with  his gun and his  dream.
Our neighbor Hugh Morris told daddy one of his uncles went to the gold fields and on the way he saw this Indian woman whom he proceeded to rape. The Indians hunted him down and skinned him alive.
Grand Powell had a relative who worked for judge Parker , Parker was a Judge who traveled in and  around Fort Smith  area and was known as the hanging judge.
Grandma Powell told me that a relative living above Carrollton Arkansas had soldiers from the civil war  come to her home asking for food. The only food they had was yellow corn meal. The soldiers took it but found it worthless and dumped it on the road then  pissing on the corn meal to keep the people from coming and getting the meal off the ground.
Grandpa Powell had a uncle named John Cooper whom was kidnapped by solders and made to drive a wagon which was the families wagon filled with property they took from the cooper family.
Grandma Powell told me that her father gave her a bag of wippor-will peas to plant in the corn patch which was the way everyone did in those days. Grandma said she planted and planted but she could hear her sisters playing and wanted to go play with them sooo she raised  a rock dumping her peas under the rock then covered them over with the rock and dirt every thing went fine until grandpa Maples  found the sprouting peas coming  up from under the rock. Grandma said she began to run and grandpa Maples was chasing her when she thought I can't run for ever so she stopped and took her whipping.
Grandma Powell said her family dug up their smoke house floor And boiled  the dirt to get the salt that had been falling on the floor for years. A woman named Mae Hoite  told me that her family lived above Carrollton   and her family boiled  the dirt from their smoke house to get salt. I didn't tell her my story. I thought she might think we were related and I didn't want to claim kin to her.
Daddy said their house was blown away by a tornado and some turkeys was blown away also. he said 3 days later the birds came walking home.
Grandma Powell said when she was young her parent left her home caring for her sister Omie and Bertha was a baby. grandpa Maples loaded the shot gun placing it by the door telling grandma if bears or wolves came around she was to shoot them with the gun. She said during the day she was chasing Omie and the gun fell over and discharged the shot gun the shout going under the bed where Bertha lay sleeping. grandma said she was scared. the reason for grandma Maples going to the store was to buy some crockery bowls up until this they had used wooden bowls and spoons grandpa had whittled out for the family.
A group of men from around Carrollton went fishing , one fellow was bit on th thumb by a cotton mouth snake which are deadly. The man lay his thumb on a stump and grandpa Maples cut the thumb off with a hatchet. the man had no trouble from the snake bite.

2 comments:

Galla Creek said...

Oh, how I love the old stories u tell,

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

I read every word to my mother. Really interesting these stories are.

I hope you write every single story you remember and publish them, no embellishment, same style, like someone's talkin'. Merican history.

Just yesterday, I was looking at the movie Mud and there were cottonmouth snakes in it.