Grandma (90 years old) Remembers Western Kentucky Childhood

The Recollections of Mary Jo Woodson 1926-1939 The childhood years during “The Great Depression”

Introduction:

These are the recollections of My Grandmother Mary Josephine Woodson Humphreys-Barr born August 7, 1926 in Crittenden County, Kentucky to Samuel Leland Woodson and Elizabeth “Coot” Price Kimbell Woodson. I attempted to accurately transcribe the biography and stories as she wrote them in 1999, however, in order to enable the stories to be comprehensive to people who do not know or understand her dialect I have changed some word usage without changing the meaning of what Grandma was relating. I will attempt to clarify people, places, and dates. I have attempted to verify dates between 1926 and 1939 with pictures and census records which I will source along with the correct place-names and names of the people Grandma wrote about. 

Transcribed in Feb. 2013. By Granddaughter Lori Jo Humphreys.

“Suddenly all my ancestors are behind me. Be still, they say. Watch and listen. You are the result of the love of thousands.”

-unknown-

A young Elizabeth Price Kimbell is smitten with her new husband returned from World War I- a wounded soldier with one leg. (1919)

Update Correction: Photograph above is Samuel Leland Woodson and his new sister-in-law Mary Margorie Kimbell and brother-in-laws Walter M Kimbell (in dark suit) and James Warren Kimbell

Family Group: 

Samuel Leland Woodson (1895-1970)

married 23 October 1919 Paris, Henry County, Tennessee

Elizabeth Price Kimbell (1903-1991)

Sam was 1st married but later divorced Ersie Crider Berry (1879-1963)

Children of Sam and Ersie both born in Blackford, Webster County, Kentucky:

Aladene Woodson Felty b. 2 Mar 1915 d. 10 Feb 1995

Ollie James (OJ) Woodson b. 4 Sep 1916 d. 14 May 1972

Children of Sam and Elizabeth and places of birth:

Samuel Leland Woodson Jr.

b. 17 Mar 1921 Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky d. 1 May 2010

Richard Guy Woodson

b. 12 Jul 1924 Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky d. 19 Sep 2004

Mary Josephine Woodson (Author)

b. 7 Aug 1926 Herman McKinley Place, Crittenden County, Kentucky d. 20 Apr 2021

Sherman Ray Woodson

b. 27 Nov 1928 Marengo, Orange County, Indiana d. 15 Oct 1998

Gladys Virginia Woodson

b. 10 Jan 1931 Alex King Place, Crittenden County, Kentucky

Doris Jean Woodson

b. 13 Jan 1934 Uncle George Ewell Arflack Store, Crittenden County, Kentucky

Velma Woodson

b. 1936 Ft. Meade, Polk County, Florida

Elizabeth Woodson

b. 1939

Later Jim, Ben, Faye, and Tom were born after 1939.

Mary Jo is in the dark colored dress with flowers standing front center. Abt 1940.

I’m the Third Child of Sam and Elizabeth Woodson and the first girl. Born in Crittenden, Kentucky Aug 7, 1926, I was born at the Herman McKinley or Wilcox Place in those days they had the babies at home and all the places had names.

All of this happened just before the crash of ’29. People had no money to do anything with, times were very bad.

The first Place I remember living is out in the country close to Paola (Paoli), Indiana. This was on a hill side and we would pull a wagon frame without a bed on it up to the top of the hill and we, Sam Jr.(1921), Guy (1924), Sherman (1928), and I would get on it and Guy or Sam would guide it down the hill as fast as it could go. There was nothing to hold on to but this long thing down the middle of the wagon. There was a pond at the bottom of the hill and I was always scared to death this thing was really going fast and this pond was right in front of where the wagon was going down and we would get right to it and whoever was guiding the wagon would turn it real fast. I always knew I would one day fall off it and get run over and get killed but I had to do everything the boys did.

I have to go back some because I remember where we were living when Gladys was born. She was born at the Alex King Place in 1931. We must have lived there in Indiana two or three different times. I remember Sherman and I were real small and we were playing at the edge of the pond and Sherman fell in and I took hold of his feet and pulled him out. Mother tells a story about us living in this house when I was a baby (Uncle Sherman was born there in 1928 so Grandma would have been 2 when he was born. If she was crawling it would have been in her first year 1926-7.) I always crawled backward and crawled into hot ashes and I still have a scar where I got burn on my leg. So we had to live at this place before because I was a baby at this house. We moved a lot while we were growing up. Along about this time we moved back to the Herman McKinley place because Mom had some ducks and Guy and I would run the duck we could have been 3 and 5 but anyway one day we got sticks and was hitting the duck and brake one’s back and Mom came out and gave Guy a whipping with the stick and Mom did not whip me and I think Guy still holds it against me cause I didn’t get a whippin’ HA HA

My father’s people, Dads father’s people lived around Blackford Kentucky in Webster Co. and Grandma Woodsons’ people were in Belles Mine near Mattoon in Crittenden County Kentucky, G.P and G.M. Woodson lived in Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida. They moved a lot so we moved a lot also. I remember Mothers people lived in Clinton in Hickman County Kentucky.

Back to the Indiana houses. While we were living at this house where we rode the wagon from down the hill. We had a screen in back porch but as I remember it was high off the ground as the house was on the side of the hill. We killed a hog and since it was cold Mom and Dad left the meat on the porch and we didn’t have freezers. Aunt Velma, Dad sisters, In-Laws lived down the road and they had two big dogs that night the dogs came down to our house and jumped through the screen was eating the meat on our back porch so Dad got some poison and put it on the meat and of course the dogs came back as soon as he went back in the house. The next morning when he got up the dogs were in our yard going around and around he had to go out and finish killing the dogs and take them off  and put them in the same hole. Dad had threaten us children with our lives if we told anyone about the dogs. (Not that my Dad was mean he wasn’t) But sure enough they came down to see if we had seen the dogs but Mom said she had not seen the dogs since early morning and truly she had not. But to this day I don’t think anyone has seen those dogs since 1932.

Then we moved to another house which was also on a hill. (I must say at this time in 1999, we went back to Paola, Ind. to my Aunt Velma’s funeral and I must say there is a lot of hill around Paola and they still call one of these places “The Woodson Place”)

From this house I started to school. We had moved from the Alex King place in Kentucky where Gladys was born in 1931 to these two different houses in Indiana. Sam Jr., Guy and I walked to a one room school that had all grades in one room. I remember going down in front and sitting in little chairs in front of the teacher to say our lessons. I remember if we could get the teacher playing some kind of game she would forget to ring the bell we really had a good time.

While we lived at this house we had to carry water from a spring down a hill. We had two rooms that I can remember we ate and cooked in one room and slept in the other. Mother and Dad and the baby (Gladys) slept in one bed. Sherman and I slept in another, so there MUST have been a room where Sam Jr. and Guy slept. There was a lot of things happened when we lived in this house.

Gladys was just a toddler and she could crawl up on the foot of the bed cross the bed crawl up on a lavatory table cross to the other bed and then back again. Mom use to say if she could get a toe hold on something up she would go. So that day someone had sat a Daisy Fly Killer on the lavatory table and it was sweet so she got up there and pulled out one of the centers and sucked on the felt part of the Daisy so when Mom found her she was sitting on the lavatory table. Mom called Dad and he had to go get the doctor. She was almost gone. The doctor gave her a shot of something and thank goodness we still have her.

As I said a lot of things happened at this house. I think it was a Smokehouse or a chicken house we saw a big snake inside and called Dad, he got the gun and shot the snake, the shot went through the wall and hit Sam Jr. on his boot and he started screaming holding his leg. Mom was screaming “Oh my God Sam, you have shot Jr.!” Dad came running out of the house pulled the boot off he just had some red spots. Oh Well didn’t get rid of Sam Jr. either, Thank Goodness. I don’t know how long we lived there but it sure was an active time in our young lives the rest of the time we lived very quiet.

We moved back to Kentucky to Sullivan in Union County Kentucky. We went to school in Sullivan in a two room school we walked to that school also only about 2 blocks. 

Bells Mines, Rosebud District, Crittenden County, Kentucky or

The Best of Times...

In 1930, We then had an apartment above Dad’s Uncle George Ewell Arflack (1884-1940) store. Bell Mines, Crittenden County, Kentucky. Daddy later bought the store, a grist mill, rock quarry and strawberry patch. It was the only store in town and Uncle Ewell owned a hotel across the street. Uncle Ewell had three daughters. Guy and I would sit at the window and watch the girls clean the hotel we thought they were so pretty there was Evelyn, Georgia and I don’t remember the name of the other one. Seen Evelyn again in 1978 at a family reunion they had all moved to California. (George Ewell Arflack's daughters were Georgia 1912-2000, Virgie Evelyn 1924-?, Jessie A 1916-?)

George Ewell Arflack (1884-1940)

The store was three levels and big. The store and a big garage on the first level then went upstairs into the big kitchen which back door was on the level of the backyard with a concrete slab for a porch. This room was the kitchen and dining room then up another group of stairs into a very large room where we had 3 beds one in three different corners. This place Sherman had scarlet fever and was very sick.

We had to go down to Aunt Nell’s (Neighbor Hughie and Nell Lowey) to spend the night one night every one of us Sam Jr., Guy, me, Sherman, and Gladys. Of course Sherman was mad because we had to go. We had to hold on to him to make him go. But guess what when we got home the next day we had Doris, sweet, loving Doris this was 1934. This was not the last time Sherman got mad about having to go somewhere to spend the night. He said every time he had to go spend the night somewhere a baby came while he was gone and he was not going anywhere else. But of course, he did.

We had a good life while we were at the store. We had a mill to grind corn into meal and I think we made flour too. We had a big strawberry patch and pickers came and picked them. We also had a rock quarry where they crushed rock into lime. As I said this was one of the good times of our lives.

Mother would make a big freezer of Ice Cream and a lot of the cousin’s would come on Saturday Night to eat it.

Often we would have gypsies come through. The gypsies wore loud bright colored large skirted long dresses, wore lots of beads and wore big hoop earrings. We could here them coming, bells jingling and clanging metal from the caravan wagons coming up the road. Mom would stand in front of the cash drawer and make one of us children go get what they wanted off the shelf and bring it to her. Mother would say a Gypsy could get the money right through the counter like magic and I always wondered how they could get the money out of the drawer if there were no cracks in the counter, she said they could and we knew that Mom knew what she was talking about. We always had to run and help Mom when we heard or saw the gypsies coming. They always came in two or three covered wagons or trucks in a caravan. 

    One day me, Dad and Sherman were out at the well, (we had a pump and the gypsies always wanted fresh water) and the Gypsies came.

Stock Photo of 1930s Gypsy Woman

The Gypsy lady wanted Daddy to kiss her skirt hem for 50 cents and she would tell his fortune, but he wouldn’t do it. Dad told her she could have fresh water and that was all.

The Mean Teacher

I remember this being a good time for the family. But personally, I had a bad time. At this time when we started to school I had a real bad teacher. Her name was Ida Apple.

(Transcribers notes:1930 Census recorded 2 Public School Teachers at Bell Mines 1-lived near the Woodsons, Mrs. Allie G Howerton age 31 and 2-lived near the miners, Mrs Mary A Crider age 27)

 She gave me a whipping every day with a ruler on my legs the first period of school. She would call me up to her desk and make me read out loud and if I missed a word she would hit me with the ruler and of course I was so afraid of her I could not read so she got the pleasure of hitting me. I would start asking Mom if I had to go to school the next day by the time I got home and if she said yes then I would get sick and I would tell her I was sick until they put me on the bus crying I’m sick. But if Mom let me stay home she would tell me I had to take Castor Oil. I would take it and sit on the potty all day long. Since I couldn’t do my reading I had to stay in at recess and Guy would come and sit with me. We never got to play outside. This went on for a period of time until Dad and Uncle Ersel King (Transcribers note: According to the 1930 Census, Ersel 21 years old lived near the Woodson's with his twice widowed Mother Marthie E King age 61and half-brother of Grandmother Cora Elizabeth Arflack Woodson and Uncle Ewell Arflack.) took me to the doctor and he said that I was so nervous that if I went to school with that teacher I would have a nervous breakdown. Well, they stopped at the school on the way home and those two big men took me in the school room and told her off. Dad said it was a good thing she was a woman or they would beat her up. I wanted Dad to hit her so bad. They took me out of school.

Beware of the village Dentist

Dad’s Uncle George Ewel Arflack had a garage or work shop at Belles Mine near Mattoon Kentucky. He worked on cars and wagons. He was also the local dentist. He didn’t fill teeth he just pulled them. I had a bad tooth so Dad took me to the garage so Uncle Ewel could pull it. He couldn’t get his tool to hold on to the tooth so he put a screw driver to the side of the tooth and hit it with his hand and out came the tooth.

From Kentucky to Florida

Grandma and Grandpa Woodson had sold their place in Indiana and moved to Florida and just after Doris was born Grandma Woodson came to visit and she talked Dad into selling everything and going to Florida. (1934) Mom and Dad had been to Florida before I was born (1926) so they knew how to get there.

James Guy Woodson and Cora Elizabeth Arflack in Opa-Locka, Florida

Back to the first trip to Florida. The car had to be a big one because Grandma Woodson, Sam Jr. and OJ sat in the back seat, Dad made a bench and set this over their lap and Guy, Sherman, and I sat on the bench then Mom and baby Doris, Little Gladys was in the front seat with Dad. We must have had the luggage on top of the car.

We started out and stopped at a man’s house called Johnie Brantley (Transcribers note: Johnie R Brantley, wife Ersie, and son Herschel on 1930 Census Bell Mines, Ky, I wonder if Ersie Brantley and Ersie Crider, Sam's 1st wife were the same person?) and he gave me two chickens so Dad tied them in a little coup on the back of the car. It took three days to go from Kentucky to Florida and we would stop in little cabins for the night. This was the type of Motels we had in those days. They had two bedrooms or ours did anyway. They had a little stove in it to keep warm and it had two eyes so you could heat or cook on it.  The first night we were on the road, Dad killed the chickens and Mom cooked them. Dad and Grandma dressed the chicken. Dad liked the gizzard of the chicken and Grandma wouldn’t clean hers from her chicken so Dad cleaned it and found a dime in it and he wouldn’t give it to Grandma and it made her mad. She said it was hers because it came from her chicken. The dime was mine because the man gave the chickens to me! At that time a dime would buy a gallon of gas. Most of the time on these trips we would buy a loaf of bread, bologna, cheese, and drinks. We would stop and have picnics in parks which we children enjoyed. We had to go over three mountains; Lookout Mountain, Mount Eagle, and Mount Signal.

1930s stock photo of The Smokey Mountains

On the first day of our trip (going North or South) we would get to the mountain foothills, day two we would go over the mountains and on day three we would get home, either way.

Dad’s Wooden Leg

Samuel Leland Woodson (1917)

Dad was in World War I for a short time only because he was on a “Troop Train” and there was a train wreck in which he lost his foot. During his life he had to have several operations on his leg. The artificial legs the government gave were solid and his leg could not get air and the stump would get sore and infected and he would have more of his leg taken off so it would heal and he could walk on his wooden leg. The leg was removed to the knee so he could walk on the knee using his peg leg. He could sit the wooden leg on the gas pedal and use his left leg on the brake and clutch while driving. Dad was a good driver but going over the mountains I was always afraid we would fall off the mountain as you could look down and see where you had been and look up and see where you had to go. There were no four lane highways back then.

The Frostproof House & Florida Crackers!

This was a big house; two rooms downstairs and big room upstairs. Stairs were on the outside of the building. Mom, Dad and us girls slept downstairs and I guess Sherman, Sam Jr., Guy, and OJ slept upstairs. It had a big garage and in the front was like a carport.

We lived there when Florida had open range and the men would move this big herd of cattle from one place to another. They would come down the highway. We would hear the crack of the whips and we knew to run for house! The house had windows across the front and we would get on the couch and watch the cattle, they would come across the porch and the yard. They had big long horns and we loved to see them. This house belonged to Grandma and Grandpa Woodson they had another house a little way away. It was only two rooms and Grandma and Grandpa plus Aunt Velma and Uncle Charlie Stroud and their daughter, Wilma Jean all lived in that house. Grandpa was a carpenter and Uncle Charlie worked in the canning plant and later worked in the groves. Mother, Sam Jr., and OJ all got jobs at the canning plant.  Aunt Velma was always supposed to be sick and Grandma had to do all the housework.

Frostproof, Florida Cannery 1930

I can’t remember what Dad did, he couldn’t work in the plant because of his peg leg. Guy and I had to take care of Sherman, Gladys, and Doris.

One Day we were all out front and we looked up as Doris was running (she could barely walk) down the road in front of a school bus and I ran out and grabbed her. Guy and Sam Jr. gave me, Sherman, and Gladys a good talking to. If any of us told Dad or Mom we would all get a whipping. They made believers out of all of us, we didn’t tell.

We had a path from Grandma’s house to our house so we wouldn’t have to walk on the road. We had a window on the end of our house where you could see right into our kitchen from the path. One night Guy was washing dishes and he told me to dry them and I wouldn’t do it so he slapped me. Dad was coming down the path and saw this so he came in and slapped Guy. Dad made me dry the dishes though.

Our Dad’s brother, Uncle John Woodson, was a preacher and he was in Miami. 

Uncle John Woodson wearing a tie in Florida.

They had a toy drive and they brought a big box of toys to us that Christmas. We all got skates and I don’t know what else. But Santa Claus brought me a doll with a white fur coat and hat. After Mom and Dad went shopping and came home they hid Santa Claus in a big barrel in the kitchen. Guess who showed us where all the goodies were hid, Guy showed us the things in the barrel and said there was no Santa Claus, its Mom and Daddy.

This place was also where my Dad slapped my face, just broke my heart. He really didn’t touch me. That was the only time my Dad ever hit me. I was playing jacks and every time I threw out my jacks Gladys would pick them up and I would have to take them away from her. So I just slapped her face. Dad was reading the paper and he told me to come there and he just tapped my face and went back to reading his paper. I died I thought he had killed me.

Some of us would have to go to Grandma’s and wash her supper dishes and we hated that she wouldn’t let us eat…not even the leftovers.

We went to Frostproof school one time I guess it was, we didn’t go very long if we did. If we did go Sam Jr. drove us. We went back to Crittenden County, Kentucky after this house. We lived in this house twice.

The Nunn House in Mattoon, Kentucky

In 1934 we lived in the Nunn House. We didn’t live here very long but I don’t know how long we lived in any of these houses. We lived there during the summer and started school there. It was Mattoon School again but the mean teacher was not there as before. Guy, Sherman, Glenna Nunn and I played in the Nunn’s wheat bin.

Aladine, my half-sister was married and her son Norman Dale Felty was born. I remember she brought the baby to see us there.

Sherman and I were sick all the time and I remember Dad saying “I am taking my family back to Florida!” It was late enough in the year of 1934.

Miami Places

What I remember about the Miami trip, we went to Uncle John Woodson’s. (I can’t get these trips in order.) These were very hard times, keep in mind these were the times right after the stock market crash of 1929. The Great Depression.

Uncle John Woodson lived where the Everglades used to be outside of Miami. He lived across the canal from a Seminole Indian village.

1930s Indians off the Tamiami Trail

 At that time the village was out in the country but it would be in the middle of Metro Miami today. Uncle John and Aunt Margaret had two girls and one boy. Doris was a baby so there were eight of us. Their place was not exactly a house, after a twenty foot driveway there was palmetto and bushes along the front of the lot. Uncle John had one building, one trailer, and a brush arbor. Since it was warm in south Florida we ate all of our meals under the brush arbor. The arbor had a bordered floor. The men slept in one place and the women slept in another. The boys liked to sleep in the car. Some of us would go to the road and watch the Indian women wash their clothes in the canal. They would beat their clothes with rocks. We stayed there at Uncle John’s until we found a house in Coral Gables. The house in Coral Gables had a pretty pine grove across the drive and we would slip over there and play among the trees. We were not supposed to play over there.

Dad would go to the bakery and get bread by the barrel and Mom would fix a lot of things out of this bread. Bread pudding and French Toast we ate a lot of bread. Dad only paid 25 cents for the barrel. He got it once a week and we would feed the birds what we didn’t eat when it was time to get fresh bread.

Dad would take us all fishing along the “Tammie Ammie”. (Tamiami Trail)

Everyone got to fish but me, I had to sit in the car and keep the baby because there were snakes. Me, Doris, Gladys, and Sherman a lot of times had to stay in the car.

We would travel down Highway 41 and when we got down between Frostproof and Ocala we would take Highway 27. We went through Avon Park and Sebring, down below these towns we got into cattle country and open range. The long horn cattle would be in the road and we had to go real slow because they would not move. The cattle would walk beside the car, they always scared me. I was afraid we would have car trouble. I guess we would still be sitting there if we had because nobody would get out of the car, there were very few cars on the road then. We would drive for miles and miles and not see a car and never a house. I remember once coming home (to Kentucky) we had a flat tire and Dad had to take the trailer off the car and go to town to get the tire fixed. We went and sat on the porch of a house to wait for him to get back and the woman there gave us a drink of water. The water was sulphur water, it was so bad. The woman said it was real good.

I think we only went to Miami one time during these years.

On one trip to Florida, we came home in a truck. Dad put everything we had in the front part of the truck then set a bed up in the very back so we could sit on the side and look out over the tail gate. We had to go through the truck scales and they asked Dad if there was any fruit in the backend, Dad said no only to look back and see Guy peeling an orange and throwing the peel out onto the scales! Needless to say Dad was not happy with Guy! (At that time you could stop on the side of the road along a grove and pick the fruit to eat.)

Dad cleaned typewriters for a living and I remember we started home one time and Dad ran out of money. He stopped in a big town and cleaned typewriters to make money to go on. I don’t remember which trip that was.

Grandpa Richard “Wash” Kimbell

Richard Washington Kimbell (1878-1955) of Hickman County, Kentucky

Grandpa Kimbell was the Superintendent of the Home for the Feeble Minded at Frankfort, Kentucky. 

We stayed with them for a while and then again we stayed with them one summer in Clinton, Kentucky. 

circa. 1911 The Clinton, Hickman County, Kentucky Richard Washington Kimbell family home.

Grandpa Kimbell spent a lot of time at the Hickman County Courthouse Square talking with the other men from around there. I supposed they were solving all of the world’s problems and talking about the “Old days”. Grandpa Kimbell loved to fish and about once a week he would come home and gather us all up and say “Let’s go to Columbus and have fish for supper!” So, Mom and Grandma would get the skillets and whatever we needed to fry fish in the park.

Aunt Laverne Kimbell

We would stop and get Uncle Wesley “Wes”, Aunt Laverne and their three girls Margaret, Juanita, and Mary Sue and off we would go. Grandpa would go down where the fishermen were coming in from the days catch on the Mississippi River and get the fish. Grandpa would pick out only the live fish for the man to clean and fillet. Mom and Grandma would fry them up right there in the park and boy, was it good. I remember walking out to the anchor with Effie and Juanita. The anchor had been left there by the bank after the Civil War now at the Columbus Belmont Park.

The Anchor now proudly perched at the park in Columbus, Kentucky.

Fort Meade, Florida 1936

We went back to Florida. The reason, I know the years, because guess what? Sherman had to go stay all night with the neighbors, Adams was their name. And sure enough the next morning there was a new baby. The new baby was Velma that was in March 1936.

Dad had bought a new car that year, a Chevy and I remember we had caught a small alligator; we went to a creek down a sand road to catch minnows for it. We had dug a pit for the gator. We later took the Alligator home to Clinton at Grandpa Kimbell’s. We had company, I think it was the Sheffields, anyway we had a car full of kids. Sam Jr. was driving and we met a car on the sand road and the car turned over, the only one that got a cut was Gladys. Gladys had stuck her little finger through the dome light.

We went to Ft. Meade School. I was in a school play and wore a purple paper dress. I had a little yellow plastic handbag and on the way home a mean little boy ran by me and grabbed it out of my hand. He ran and got on another bus than us, I never saw the handbag again after that.

Kimbell Corner – Hickman County, Kentucky

Alva Rilla Weaks Kimbell posing at Kimbell Corner in Clinton, Kentucky 1920's

Richard "Wash" Kimbell and Alva Rilla Weaks Kimbell (1940s)

Great Grandpa Benjamin Kimbell moved in with Grandma and Grandpa Kimbell leaving the farm that he had inherited from his Father-In-Law, Finis Weaks,(see note) with no one living on it so we moved to Hickman County and I lived there until I married in 1943.

 

James Benjamin Kimbell (1859-1938)

 

William Finis Weaks (1848-1938)

(Transcribers Note: Finis Weaks was the brother-in-law of Benjamin Kimbell and the Father-in-law of his son Richard Washington Kimbell the Farm was inherited by both Finis Weaks and his sister Elizabeth Bell Weaks Kimbell since Grandpa Wash and Grandma Alva Rilla were 1^st cousin the family actual relationships were confusing.) 

Elizabeth was the first child born there, and Ben was born in the basement.

Burning Down the Old Ben Kimbell House

In 1940, the farm had a four room house on it and I was going to bake a cake for the 4-H dinner. I built a fire in the cook stove and it was so hot it burned down the house. I remember Dad was taking the U.S. Census and all he tried to save was that trunk with the long forms of papers he had been taking around and writing everyone’s names and information on. Dad had to redo the census.  In the new house, Faye, Jim, and Tom were born there.

The new "Woodson" home on the old Weaks-Kimbell Farm

I think I was 10 years old when we moved to the farm and I was 13 when the old house burned down. We had some real good friends and neighbors. One family was The Simmons. They had several children, Mary Helen and Buddy that were mine and Guy’s close friends. Their Uncle would come and take us to the show in Clinton and one night coming home we had a car wreck and Buddy was killed. We had this wreck right after the house burnt down and Guy was in a body cast. Guy stayed in the hospital for six weeks. Guy had also broke his leg and he has had to wear a built up shoe ever since.

When the house burnt down, Grandpa and Grandma Woodson came up from Florida to help us build a new house. Grandpa Woodson was a carpenter by trade so they built what was later the chicken house. We used it for a kitchen while the house was being built. They put floors down and put big tents over them and that is where we slept. When Guy came home in the body cast after the wreck he was put inside one of the tents. We ate out under a big tree. Most of the neighbor men came and helped build the new house. If it rained, I don’t remember that.

Of Course we had a lot of farm animals. When Uncle Wes’ Old nag was too old to work, she came out to the farm, her name was “Old Burch” we would ride her all the time, she was so gentle. One day my cousin Helen Jane Rushing was visiting us. She and I went to get mail riding “Old Burch” and Guy and Sherman were riding another horse. There was a steep hill and Helen Jane slid off and pulled me off too. My dress had wrapped around “Old Burch’s” hoof and I was lying under her, she just held up her leg until I got my dress from around her foot and got out from under her. I can’t remember whatever happened to that good old horse.

We lived on a dirt road, about ¾ miles off of the paved road so when it rained it sure was a mess. The mail and school bus did not come down the dirt roads. Sometimes Dad would take us to the paved road in the wagon. Mrs. Gertie Watts was a wonderful old lady living at the end of our road. When it would rain we had to carry our shoes and socks to meet the bus. Mrs. Watts would let us wash our feet when we got to her house. The bus stopped in front of her house and when it was cold she would let us wash our feet in the house and when it was warm we would wash them on her porch. I sure can’t see anyone letting kids in their house today. Later the old dirt roads were graveled until the 1980’s or so when they paved all the roads in the county.

While we lived in the old house Dad and Sam Jr. would go to Florida in the winter time and Mom would tell Guy and Sherman if they would hurry to get the animals fed and milking done she would read to us after we ate supper. Most of the time I would help Mom get supper and help with milking on occasions.

The place never had any water on it so we had to take the wagon and two barrels down to the country store that had a big well and we would fill these barrels to drink, wash, and cook with.

Aunt Velma Woodson-Stroud & Samuel L. Woodson of front of the "new" house.

They dug a full size basement. Grandpa and Dad got the upstairs partly finished; the kitchen was finished before winter set in so we lived in the basement for a while. I know Ben was born down there in 1941.

After the house burned Dad got us a washing machine after a time it got to where it was hard to start and since I did the washing and ironing I would pump on the old washing machine and turn a little screw and after a while it would start. We heated the water outside in a big old black wash kettle and carry it to the window of the basement and I would hand it down to Mom. Than I would do the rest myself, I washed one day and I would iron the next day with a quilt and a sheet on the table. I would heat the irons on the stove; we never had electric while I was home.

I married Robert Humphreys in Nov 1943, I think we had electric. The road was so muddy they had to pull Roberts car in to get me then pull us out. They shouldn’t have pulled us out… Faye was born in Jan 1943 before I was married in November but I can’t remember about her birth.

I will add this as I remember that big basement always had beds down there and we would have three day measles. One night I was washing to go to the ballgame and Mom was washing my back and she said “Young lady, you are not going anywhere but to the basement, you got the measles!” We always had to go to the basement when we got sick so no one else would take whatever it was we had at the time.

The basement was good for parties too. The kids from school would want to have a party so they would always ask me if we could have them in our basement. Peggy and Keith Watts would always ride a horse to the house. Several of the kids would have to spend the night. We had a couch down there that made into a bed and the Hopkins boy was so tall we would put a chair on the end of it for him to put his feet on. When we got older we played “Spin the bottle” in the living room and we would go outside to kiss the boy.

1941

When Ben was born in ’41 in the basement he was born in the daytime. I had to stay home from school and Sherman didn’t have to go somewhere to stay all night. Sherman got off the bus at the country store and all the old men around the store would tease Sherman all the time. I think it was because he cussed them so bad and he was just a boy, they thought it was funny. So, the afternoon Ben was born they said to him, “Well Sherman you are not the baby boy anymore!” And Sherman called them a few choice names and was so mad when he got home.

Ben was a sick little boy and could not hold any milk down except goat milk. There is a picture of him milking the goat bought for him. He was milking it into his bottle then he would put the nipple back on and drink it. I think he gave the bottle up when he started school. Ben made a fine young man but has a very bad heart at 59 years old. (At the time these stories were written in 1999.) 

We started to Fulgham School the year we moved to the farm. There was Sam Jr., Guy, Me, Sherman, and Gladys. Gladys was in a play at school, I can’t remember why we did not have a car because we always had some kind of car. But I know Mom wanted to go to Clinton to Grandma and Grandpa Kimbells’ and Gladys had to go to school to this play. It was raining and all’s we had was a buggy wagon and team to get to town. So Dad made an old time covered wagon and Mom got to Grandma Kimbells and Gladys got to school anyway.

Guy was our farmer but he was too young to drive the team to Clinton. Sam Jr. had started school in Fulgham but only went one year because he was going to Florida to live in the winters and helping Grandma and Grandpa Woodson as they were getting old and he went to high school in Frostproof. 

James Guy Woodson and Cora Elizabeth Arflack Woodson

Everyone learns a trade

Dad helped the boys with a trade when they got grown. Sam Jr. went to Western State College to study millwright.

Guy was sent to an Electrical apprenticeship with a man from Crowley.

Sherman & Ben went to work for the railroad.

Mahlon Stroud, my brother in law, Doris’ husband Dad paid his way through Barber School in Memphis, Tennessee and paid Doris’ expenses to stay with him.

Robert Humphreys, my husband, studied law and became a lawyer and I supported him through school and we moved Detroit.

James Pewitt, Gladys’ husband was a salesman and made more money than any of them.

Robert Hancock, Velma’s husband was a farmer.

Dick Finley, Liz’ first husband, no one could do anything with so he was traded in for James Cook.

Of course we all did some trading some better, some worse.

Charles McBride, Faye’s husband was a career soldier in the Army.

Jim was a very successful truck driver.

Tom studied Law.

Dad had 14 children. Mom and Dad had 12 Children. We all have made a good living and that’s about all you can ask for these days.

To be continued…

These are the written memories of my dear Grandmother and there are plans to compile the complete biography and photograph collection into print form in the near future. All photographs used are within the Samuel & Elizabeth Kimbell Woodson Family Collection and stock photos were used as well. Grandmother is alive and well as of the publishing date living in Lake County, Florida. Mary Josephine Woodson Humphreys-Barr will be 90 years old this year.