Sunday Nite
Dear Girls, Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren,
I thought you might be interested in having a
history of my life. Your granddaddy and I married in 1928. [Walker
County Marriage Records says the year was 1927]. I had been living with
my parents part time and my sister in Jasper part time. While in Jasper, I was
accustomed to the conveniences of electricity, and running water, among other
things. I attended First Methodist Church (incidentally, it is still as pretty
as it was then). Owen and I made our home in Houston living in a two-room house
with a shed onto the long room. No electricity, no running water and a church
that did not have a good roof and not much floor and few window panes. Four
denominations attended this church for several years. I wouldn't trade, no I
wouldn't trade! I am proud of my life.
Owen and I farmed about twenty or thirty acres
of land. I went to the field, hoed and picked cotton, and thinned corn; bore
four children within four and two-thirds years. I always came to the house from
the field first at lunch and at night so I could cook our meals, feed the mule
and draw the water from the well for the mule to drink. We walked to Houston
to church on Sunday. On October 29, 1929, the Great Depression came on, cotton
sold for 5¢ per pound. The army worms or boll weevils got the cotton in 1928.
So we only spent $83.00 for the furniture to start housekeeping with. In 1929,
people lost everything they had, banks failed, etc. We had nothing to lose and
God was good to us.
When our youngest daughter was two-years-old,
I got the chance to teach an adult school in our community: I took it....made
$60 per month. Owen asked me what I was going to do with the money, "Buy you
and the kids some clothes?" I told him, no, we would use the money for whatever
it was needed. We had worn clothes made from fertilizer sacks. We did need clothes,
but we'd get by. In November 1935, Owen borrowed three hundred dollars and built
us a little five room frame house. We had two tiny closets in it. That was great
because I had had no closets in the old house. About this time I totally rededicated
my life to Christ. He did not promise me that I would not have any crosses to
bear. I started teaching school again following the adult schedule. I would
teach five months (a school year here then) and work in the fields the rest
of the year. I always made my girls clothes sewing at night by kerosene lamp
light. I was too thankful to God to worry about being poor and no able to have
things as I had been accustomed to. I worked harder and harder in the church
and it gave me the strength and courage to carry on. God will bless if we let
Him. I still had my crosses remember. He didn't tell me I would not have them.
After a few years, my girls were teenagers. The
responsibility of rearing the girls was on my shoulders except for providing
the food. Owen worked away from home in the lumber business beginning in 1939.
At times, he would not see the girls except on Sunday. I didn't mind the responsibility
placed on me because I knew he had a great ambition: get ahead. In 1940 I enumerated
the census in the Addison Beat. I made $210.00. Owen had saved $800 that year
so he asked me for $200 of what I made so we would have $1000.00 in the bank.
We were so proud! The War came on and our work was harder, at least for me.
My responsibilities got no lighter. The girls were growing up and their demands
grew as they grew. God was good to me during these years. I was able to keep
up my work in church, help out with sickness among old and young. Helping the
doctor with the delivery of children‹some rather spectacular‹nursing neighbor
children though crises in pneumonia, asthmatic bronchitis, and watching one
poor little fourteen month old boy die. I was the one who had to tell his parents
he was dying. I had helped nurse Owen's granddaddy, mother, grandmother, my
mother, and Owen's dad through their terminal illnesses. Through it all, God
gave me grace, strength, and courage to do what I had to do. He answers prayers,
you know.
The girls married and left the nest. Had I selected
the boys they picked, I could not have done better. My sons-in-law
are great.
In 1955, we built the house you grandchildren
know. I could not have everything as I would have like, I had to compromise.
As the years have rolled on, I have been able to add some things I had always
wanted, but I still compromise for less than the pie in the sky. God has been
so good to me. I have had a very full life serving Him, my community, and my
family. Remember, I have had my crosses, too. But I am so thankful that God
led me to see some one else's need as well as my own‹which I forgot in my quest
to serve someone else in His name. As I come to the twilight years of my life,
my advice to young people is get together, get involved in church, and forget
self. Jesus said, "Even as you do it unto the least of these you do it unto
me." "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end." Trust and obey!
I love you,
Mother -- Nanny
[The following are more notes transcribed from Nanny's own
hand; the handwriting suggests these notes were written some years after the
first set of notes. The difference in the pens used suggest these notes were
written over a period of time as she had time and inclination to write.]
I was born January 2, 1908 in Arkadelphia, Alabama,
Cullman County, the second daughter of Robert J. and Sarah E. Robins Miller
(7th child). My living brothers were Robert Fred, George W., Claude M., and
John P. My older sister Eula. I was told that I would try to step off to go
see the neighbors new baby. I must have come into the world loving children.
Some of my earliest memories is of having whooping
cough, my mother being sick and a black woman from the Colony taking care of
mom. Of course, I remember my dad's old mill at Arkadelphia, (also built onto
the house still standing in all appearance 90 years). The mill consisted of
a planer, saw mill, gin, grist mill, and was powered by a huge steam boiler.
I entered school when I was five-years-old. My
first principal was Mr. J.A. Keller who later became President of UNA Florence.
My teacher was Miss Mattie Jones [James?]. By the end
of that year a law was enacted that required a child to be seven-years-old by
Oct 1 before he could go to school and I stayed home and played the year I was
six. I started back to school after I became seven and soon caught up with the
ones I had started with when I was five.
1913, 1st car bought by Dr. Parker in Arkadelphia.
When I was 4 or 5 years old, I saw and rode in an automobile. Older sis and
I ran to see Dr.'s car come down the mountain with its lights on. Such sights
had never been seen in our sleepy little town before. Dr. Mitchell from Warrior
came to Arkadelphia to visit his brother. He stopped at Dr. [?]'s
house where my brother and I had gone to play. His brother lived beyond our
house, so he insisted my brother John and me to ride. John had to make me get
in that monster.
When I was 10, my sister, her mother-in-law, brother-in-law
and I went to the State Fair in Birmingham....my first trip to the big city.
Boy! I thought I had been somewhere! I saw a street car! I had seen a train
first when I was seven. It surely did look big. Well, that made three things
I had not encountered before. Then when I was 10 I also saw my first airplane.
It was Springtime, raining nearly every day. Sipsey river had Mulberry backed
up (out of banks). At first when I heard the plane I thought it was a car. Suddenly
realizing no car could get to us, I looked up and saw the plane.
I was also privileged to listen to the first radio
in 1922. One teacher from Birmingham had a radio but then there was only earphones.
Needless to say, we took turn about listening.
I had been brought up around stock, mules, horses,
cows, etc. My youngest brother and I enjoyed riding horses on Sunday afternoons.
One of my classmates had never ridden a horse and the cousin he lived with had
a beautiful fat, shiny black horse. I invited my friend to get his cousin's
horse, come up, and go riding with me, brother John and friend Es. John and
Es were on mules, my friend Hugh on the big black, and I was on our bay named
Bob. Bob wold not let you reign him in to get a switch. He wore open face bridle
and could see what you were doing. We had gone over the mountain across a little
creek and turned to go back (we were nearly five miles from home). I finally
managed to get Bob close enough to grab a switch. Of course, he saw what I did
and took off. As I passed the big black, I gave him a rap with the switch. He,
too, took off. As we passed the mules with the horses running the mules took
off. Boy, did I ever get it when we got home. Brother John just about gave me
a whipping. I still chuckle when I think about that Sunday afternoon ride. Makes
me sad too, because I am the only one of that group left to tell the tale. John
and I had a lot of fun as we few up as teenagers and playing hide and seek at
night when our city cousins came to visit, etc.
My older brother married in March 1916. My older
sister married in August 1916. My parents moved from Arkadelphia to the Bremen
area where my dad's people, the Morgans lived. My older sister took me to live
with her in Jasper when I was ten. Meantime, my dad got a call to go to Manchester
and operate a big sawmill, which was cutting the long leaf pines around Manchester
and South Lowell. This occurred in 1917 and 1918, during WWI. I attended Jasper
public school that year as a fourth grader. I actually learned how far the earth
is from the moon and dreamed that some day people might go there. I didn't know
how far that many miles would be.
On Feb 9, 1918, my niece Eugenia Williams was
born. Gee! Was I ever proud. But my sister wouldn't let me get her every time
she cried. So, I cried too! I spent many hours pushing a big wicker baby buggy
up and down 6th Avenue North in Jasper, Alabama with Eugenia and her cousin
George Miller, Jr. in it.
I spent the next year at home with my parents
and family. Went to school four or five months in the winter and six weeks in
the Summer. Meantime, my parents had moved back to their old home place near
Harmony Church in Blount County. I enjoyed living here because I had so many
relatives and near relatives living close. My next older brother married a neighbor
girl that I loved very much. Her sister and I thought it was great. We would
get to be together from time to time.
I returned to Jasper later Summer 1920. I had
been in these little schools where we didn't get report cards or anything to
transfer me back to Jasper. So my sister carried me to Jasper City School again.
I had had a little 5th grade and a little sixth grade. They put me in the "high"
sixth where I stayed about a week. Then I was sent to "low" seventh where I
finished the first month. The principal came for me at the end of the month
and put me in "high" seventh. My head was in a whirl. I didn't know what would
come next, but I worked hard and made straight 'A's.
My nephew Milton, Jr. was born September 16, 1920
and that really made my day. I'm a baby lover. In March of 1921, I had appendicitis
and surgery at St. Vincent's in Birmingham. When school was out in May 1921,
I went home for the Summer. I was thirteen-years-old, and had no idea if I would
get to go to high school or not. My dad had a plan but had not bothered to consult
me about it so the Tuesday after Labor he got up, had me, my brother, and younger
sister get bathed, and dressed to go to school. I had never heard of Corner
High School. It was five miles from home on the mountain. It was a new small
school, and was the first year to have any graduates. A Mr. Little was the principal.
His daughter Juanita was the only girl and there were two boys, Alfred Mitchell
and Ezra Torrence, who graduated that first year. My favorite teacher that year
was Miss Irene Lamnert of Birmingham. She and Miss Margie Lou Willis of Sulligent
(the 5th grade teacher) were my idols. We also had a new principal on the scene,
M.C. Sandlin of Florence.
During the first two years of high school, my
younger sister and I drove a little red pony to a buggy. In bad weather my dad
would put big rocks in the fireplace at night, so they would be nice and warm
in the morning. He would wrap those rocks in "tow sacks" and put them at our
feet in the buggy to help keep us warm. We had a big heavy lap robe to cover
us up, and umbrella if it rained or snowed.
Along with this new principal, we also got a drama
teacher. Of course, a drama club was formed. I tried not to miss anything and
was a part of that club for three years. We put on plays at home, also at other
schools....great fun! We gave a Negro minstrel every year. We gave a long operetta
my senior year as well. Schools then went on the 7 - 4 system, in other words,
eighth through twelve was high school.
My parents moved up on the mountain near the school,
which gave me a chance to really get into the social life of the school. We
had chaperoned dances about once a month. These I really enjoyed. It would be
amiss not to say I had my first date when I was fifteen and a half. The boy
was the son of the Dr. Mitchell whose car I was forced to ride in when about
five-years-old. What irony! That lasted until Fall when he went to Alabama (Roll
Tide) to enter college.
I spent all my summers with my older sister in
Jasper. By now she had four children: Eugenia, Milton Jr., Doris, and Jackie.
If I went home, they went with me. How I loved and enjoyed those children.
When I was 16, my oldest Brother Fred was injured
in an accident in a mill in Jasper and died leaving a pregnant wife and there
children. It was really my first experience with death. My sister, her children
and I had driven over to Warrior that day to visit her friend from Arkadelphia
who now lived in Warrior. As we started back to Jasper, she suggested we drive
by home and see our parents. When we came in sight of home I saw my younger
brother and sister sitting on the back steps. I said, "There's something wrong
at home." There really was.
The evening before I graduated my brother's son
Joe Miller fell backwards in a tub of almost boiling water and burned his back.
My older sister had come up for my graduation. She told my mother to go on to
the graduation. She would stay with my brother and sister-in-law to help take
care of the child.
In June after graduation, my sister and her husband
sent me to Florence to Teacher's College as it was known in that day. Today,
it is the University of North Alabama. I was interviewed while there by the
Superintendent of Education of Winston county and accepted a five month school
at Nesmith. My salary was $60.00 per month. I liked it but did not like being
so far from home, my family and friends. Brother John wasn't there for fun and
foolishness I was use to. I got through the year (the five months). Was I ever
glad to get back home.