I was born in that house on May 13, 1914. I was four years old when we moved to the farm, but I have a few remembrances of having lived over in the house on Cooper Road near Elk Creek.
One of these remembrances was when George was born. A lady whose name was Clem Jenkins was staying while Mama was recuperating. She had a little girl named Ruby. Ruby was the same age of me. We had a big, yellow dog whose name was Frank. Ruby and I had seen Mama taking medicine so we got us a bottle of water intending to give Frank some medicine. I remembered he snapped Ruby. This ended our medicine giving.
I always saved every penny anybody would give me. We had shelves in the closet where clothes were kept. I climbed up there one day and lost my money in the clothes. But after so long a time I found my money.
Ben Sexton, a neighbor, always told how he would ask me to show him my knife. Whereupon, he said that I would reach down around my waist and start pulling a string up my pant leg. The string was tied into an old time tobacco sack- this is where I kept my knife.
Another tale that was told about me was the time that I went to the hen house and got two eggs. I took them down to the store which my grandfather Ayers ran. The store was about two hundred feet across the lot from our house. I took the eggs to Pappy and when he asked me what I wanted, I told him that I wanted a box of Billy Boys. Billy Boys were similiar to what we now call Moon Pies. At that time they probably would have sold for thirty cents a box. The eggs were probably worth a penny each. I gave him the eggs and he gave me the Billy Boys.
I can remember walking to church on Sunday mornings. The Eller family(which is Ray Eller's folks) walked from No. One. I especially enjoyed the walks because Ray had a sister named May and I was terribly struck on her.
I remember Wade McKechnie coming over to our house one day. He would have been two and a half years old at this time. Someone in the neighborhood had cut themselves badly with a knife. Wade, being upset by the incident, gave me a bit of advice when he said, "When you are whittling, never cut towards yourself--always cut away from
yourself--cause you're liable to get cut".
Aunt Allie and Uncle Sandy lived about a mile away on Uncle Sandy's father's farm. Their children and we all spent many happy hours playing together. Our families were very close.
Our grandparents, Ayers and Mollie Alexander, whom we loved dearly and whom we called Pappy and Mammy, owned and ran a general country store which they started about 1910. Times back then were really hard. We didn't have much money. We raised mostly what we ate and it was indeed a great treat to go over to their house and eat things out of the store that we were not used to.
Two things I never did get all I wanted of were cream style corn and Karo syrup. I always got ashamed and quit eating. Pappy was very generous, and, although I don't see how he afforded it, we grandchildren always had free access to all the candy and chewing gum that we wanted.
The store building was in the corner of the yard. When Mammy would get dinner ready she would come out to the front porch and ring a large hand bell(which I still have), to let Pappy know that it was time to come to dinner.
Besides the store, they owned about ten acres of land on which they kept a few cows, hogs, and chickens. They also had a sorrel mare whose name was Old Maude. She raised a colt every year.
My grandparents lived fairly comfortable at this period of time.
