To start my story, I have to go back about a hundred years before I was born, to my great grandfather, and speaking of him, I do not know as much of him as I would like. What little I know was told me be my father.
My great grandfather was James McCord Dawson, born 3 May, 1803 and died 26 February, 1876. He had been married twice, both times to ladies named Nichols. Papa could remember this for he heard his Grandpa say, "No matter how hard times would get he would always be worth a dime, for both wives were Nichols". James McCord had two sons by his first wife. There might possibly have been more, but these two were known, James M. Dawson and Lee Mitchell Dawson. I can only guess, at the time being, that James M. Dawson was older than Lee Mitchell Dawson, by reason of ages of their children. The oldest of James M. was born in 1850, and the oldest of Lee Mitchell was born in 1853. I will get back to them later on.
The second wife of James McCord Dawson was Missina Nichols. Their children were: John Nicholas born 6 October, 1835, in Yorkville County, South Carolina, which later became known as York County. Next was Isaac Larkin, born 6 September, 1837, in Georgia, followed by Elizabeth, born in 1840, in Georgia, and Mary H. born in 1846, then Joseph Wesley in 1848.
When Joseph Wesley, my grandfather, was married 20 December, 1866, he brought his bride, Barbara Lossiphine Hill, home to live with his parents at Sonoraville, Gordon County, Georgia, where their first eight children were born. These children were: Isaac Benjamin, James Asaph, John Wesley (my father), Martha Missina, William Reubin, Charles Walter, Thomas Franklin, Lee Mitchell, henry Washington, infant son not names who lived three or four hours, Luther Cicero, George Crawford, and Joseph Alonzo. At the time I am writing this there are only two of these uncles living, Luther and Joseph.
Sometime after James McCord Dawson died, the 26 February, 1876, the family became dissatisfied living there. They moved to Section, Jackson County, Alabama, in 1880 or thereabouts. My great-grandmother moved with them, and died 24 January, 1887, and was buried in Jackson County. She was born 24 October, 1808. I got this information from her gravestone in Chisenhall Cemetery, which is a family plot at the back of a field on a place known in the area as the old George Allen Home, alongside the old road between Section and Dutton. Some others of our family are buried there also. Isaac Larkin and his wife Sarah, are next to great grandmother. The first wife of J.R.L. Erwin is there. She was Nettie A Erwin. Also, Orilla Nichols, born the 21 January, 1842, died 26 May, 1895. There was also a J.M. Nichols, born 27 April, 1837, died 10 June 1888. I do not know if these Nichols are related to us, but I suppose they were or they would not be buried in this same small cemetery. Buried there, also, is Delaney Chisenhall, born 1 April, 1796, died 2 May, 1876, a Private in North Carolina Militia, War of 1812. There are eight adult graves, one child, and two babies, all unmarked.
The family moved to Jackson County, in covered wagons, pulled by oxen and only gaining a few miles a day. It took some time to move as their stock had to be led along. Uncle Frank was a very small boy, but can still remember when they crossed the Little River on Lookout Mountain. A man lived near the river, who had a flat-bottom boat made of wide boards. He loaned the boat to the movers for the women and children to cross the river. The wagons forded the river as there were no bridges, as well as no roads, just trailways. Papa's sister, Aunt Martha, about 8 years old, wanted to ride the mare across. She rode bareback and the mare's colt following along trying to have lunch. The colt made a mistake and took part of Aunt Martha's skirt in it's mouth and held on. The mare proceeded on her way, while Aunt Martha was pulled off in mid-stream by the colt.
At this time Uncle Lee was a baby. Some of their friends told grandma if she would give the baby some "toddy" (water and whiskey sweetened), each morning, he would sleep and not be too much trouble on the trip. She gave it to him. She was also told to wrap him in a cloth so he could not move around much and get cold. I do not know if she wrapped him too tight for his blood to circulate, or if the whiskey harmed him, but he was retarded. He was not sent to school as much as their other children, and he never married.
While the family lived in Section, the two oldest boys, Ben and Jim, has an exciting, unusual experience. There had been a revival at the church where they lived. When the visiting preacher, who helped the local pastor with the revival finished there, they moved on to another neighborhood about four miles distant. Grandpa and grandma would go to that meeting also, taking their little ones in the wagon. The big boys had been keeping company with girls at both churches. The boys from the second church told my uncles to leave their girls alone and only keep company with girls from their own area or they would run them back home by throwing rocks. Uncle Ben and Uncle Jim decided they would not be run off so, they pooled their money and bought a pistol. One of them put the gun in his hip pocket, his coat would cover it, he thought. As their parents and the little ones went up front near the preacher's stand, the older boys sat on a bench near the back. The boys who had threatened them entered and sat directly behind them. They had sung the opening hymn and the preacher was giving the prayer when it all happened. As Uncle Ben and Uncle Jim leaned forward, putting their forearms on the back of the empty seat in front of them, the coattail raised up, exposing the pistol. Also leaning forward were the boys behind, who saw the pistol, and with little effort, took hold of the gun and pulled the trigger. The shot went through the seat of his pants and through the floor, breaking up the prayer and the meeting, then and there. My uncles jumped out the nearest window, while the other boys ran out the door. They all ran all they way home. The preachers and their parents talked over the situation, and it was decided the boys would all be arrested the next day, and be charged with disturbing public worship. Ben and Jim Dawson knew they would not get out of this situation easily. The only thing they could think of was to leave, which they did before morning. They came to Birmingham, Alabama, and both got jobs with the Water Works at the Cahaba River pump station under construction.
Uncle Jim could drive oxen anywhere, so he got the job hauling the pipes into place for the pipe line from the Cahaba River to the filter plant on Shades Mountain. There was no road where the pipeline was to go, but he drove the oxen and put the joints of pipe at the right places along the way.
Uncle Ben was good with an ax, so he went to work cutting cross ties for the railway that hauled coal from the mines to the pump house. The pumps were steam powered, and coal was to fire the boilers.
Uncle Ben met and married Miss Mattie Brasher of Vandiver, Shelby County, Alabama. He died leaving five boys and one girl. Aunt Mattie died about five years after Uncle Ben.
Uncle Jim met and married Miss Martha Aramenta Wright. They had three boys and three girls when he died. The youngest of these were twin girls.
Neither of these Uncles went back to visit their parents until the parents had moved from Jackson County to Jamestown in Cherokee County, Alabama. They moved to Jamestown before the 4th of November, 1890, for uncle Joe was born there at that time.
While they lived here, they had a neighbor who had tools and the skill to make tombstones. I'm not sure of this location, but anyway, Papa helped with the quarrying of flat sandstones, and they made several tombstones. They made one for my great-grandfather, and Papa carried it back to Sonoraville, Gordon County, Georgia, and set it in place. I had opportunity to see this gravestone in 1926, when with my parents, my husband, our oldest son, and my oldest sister, we visited Papa's cousins. This gravestone was beautifully done with the Tree Of Life carved in bas relief, and a verse from Job, as well as the birthdate and deathdate. Several children of Elizabeth (Mrs. Lee M. Erwin) were still in the area at that time.
While James McCord Dawson was living at Sonoraville, he was a licensed Exhorter and a member of the Board of Trustees of Wesley's Chapel Methodist Church, for forty years.
December 23, 1891, John Wesley Dawson married Lamaggie Ann Tunnell, at Jamestown, Cherokee County, Alabama. I got this information from their Bible, bur later I was checking records at Center, the County seat of Cherokee County, and found that John W. Dawson, my father had bought their marriage license with Mother's name as Baker, which was a natural mistake for him, as she was living with an older half-brother who was Thomas Pinkney Baker, and his wife Maggie (known as "Big Maggie Baker"). My mother was resultantly known as "Little Maggie Baker".
Mother had another older half-brother near there, who lived in Shinbone Valley, north of Menlo in Chattooga County, Georgia. After her mother died, 30April, 1883, she lived the rest of her childhood first with one half brother then the other.
My maternal grandmother wad born Rachael Marilza Johnson (Johnston), 9 April, 1842. She married a Mr. Baker first, and had a son, Seaborn Montraville Baker, born 23 November, 1860, and died 5 September, 1916. Also a son, Thomas Pinkney Baker, born 10 September, 1863, and died 1 March, 1930, and a daughter, Apeachie Eugenia Baker, born 30 July, 1868, who died about three months before her mother's death. Mr Baker died 16 April, 1869. My grandmother married 10 June, 1875, to Samuel William Tunnell, who was born 4 July, 1846. Prior to marriage he had been a tightrope walker in a circus, also a woman impersonator, and had come from Germany to the United States and could not speak good English, so was very hard to understand. My mother, Lamaggie Ann Tunnell, was born 22 April, 1876, in Chattooga County, north of Menlo in Georgia. My grandfather, Samuel William Tunnell went away on a trip and supposedly was killed in a storm, when my Mother was a few weeks old. He was a Watch Tinker and worked well with tools. His leather tool kit was found near the river by hunters. They knew him and recognized his tool kit, as he had been to their home to fix their clock and umbrella. His body was never found. Grandmother married a MR. Maples afterwards, and had a son, William Maples. He was a year or two old when his mother died and a neighbor took him to raise. He fell in a pot of broth where a hogshead had been boiled, and was scalded to death a few months later.
After their marriage my parents bought a small log house at Jamestown, Alabama. These children were born at Jamestown: James William Ira, 26 October, 1893, Nora Lavada, 7 October, 1895, then a son stillborn, not named, 4 March, 1898, at Menlo, Georgia, where they had moved while Papa worked for a few months as a Section Foreman for the railroad. They then moved back to Jamestown and Hattie Mae was born 2 April, 1899.
There was a grist mill near their home. During a dry season the mill pond began to dry up. The stagnate water smelled bad, and mosquitoes increased. Several people in the area became sick with malaria (chills and fever). While they lived there, Papa worked as a Section Hand on the railroad tracks of a line known as the TAG Line (Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia), a small railway between Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Gadsden, Alabama. In December, 1901, they sold out, packed their few belongings in a large wooden box and a small valise, and came to Birmingham, Alabama. They came the first night to Rosedale, which later became Homewood, to the house of Rev. Dow Lewis, who lived on what later became 28th Avenue South. The next day the family walked to Cahaba Valley, near the Water Works pump house, to stay two or three months during the Winter with Aunt Martha (Uncle Jim's widow). Two days later Aunt Martha's father, Mr. Jim Wright, took a mule and wagon to Birmingham to get the wooden box and valise at the depot. While living in Cahaba Valley, Papa worked at the pump house a short time, then got a job at the iron ore mine on Red Mountain, and rented a house in Waddell (later known as Mountain Brook Village), in early spring of 1902. This house was owned by Mrs. Drucilla Goode, and was near what is now known as Montevallo Road and Drucilla Drive, just a block or two east of Mountain Brook Village. All they owned was in the valise and box they brought with them. Mama had two feather beds and some cloth bags with an opening near the center. These were shaped like a mattress and were called "bed ticks". These were filled with crabgrass hay, put on the floor with a feather bed on top. She also had what was called a "Dutch Oven". This was a heavy cast iron skillet with three legs under, and a heavy lid that had a rim around the edge, and a loop handle in the center. She would cook bread in this Dutch Oven by dragging out hot coals of fire on the hearth of the fireplace. She would set the Dutch Oven on these coals of fire and put other coals on the lid. She could raise the lid with an iron poker hooked in the loop on the lid. This iron pot and a few dishes were brought in the big box from Jamestown. She took the box apart and used the boards it was made of, to make a table. Papa got a few boxes from the grocery store to use for chairs, also a nail keg or two. He bought a cook stove with his first pay, and later, two bedstead. They had moved off and left a corded bed, and, as it was very uncomfortable to sleep on, she was glad to be rid of it. It had a foot and head board and rails with holes bored all around with rope stretched from side to side, and from head to foot. A tick of hay and a feather bed were laid on this, no springs at all. Papa soon bought some straight chairs, and when he bought Mama a rocker, she felt rich. They were opposed to indebtedness and would buy nothing on credit. She kept house on almost nothing while they were accumulating these few belongings. While they lived here, they bought milk from Mrs. Jane Bearden, the mother of J.B. Bearden, who later became a well-known dairyman in the area. The Bearden home at the time was on the plot of ground now occupied by the Mountain Brook Elementary School. My parents later moved to the west of there to a place later named Edgewood, in what is now part of Homewood. They lived in two or three different houses in the Edgewood area east of Columbiana Road, and west of the now Homewood Park.
I was born 13 January, 1903, near Oxmoor Road, just west of Homewood Park. Papa was still employed at the iron ore mine. He never went underground, but filled the cars with ore from outcroppings, called strip-mining. Where he worked was between Green Springs Highway and the road just east if where Vulcan is now located. This road was really "over the mountain" then, and Vulcan was not there at all.
The company he worked for had a doctor employed to care for their employees and dependents. At that time no one had prenatal care so all the doctor did was the actual delivery of a baby. When the time came for my birth, he was called, and after examination, left saying it was not yet time. Papa had to get a colored mid-wife, as the doctor had gone back to Birmingham in his horse drawn buggy.
Right after I was born we moved to a house located on the site of Homewood Junior High School in Edgewood, north of Dawson Memorial Church, of course that was long before the church or school was there. When I was seventeen months old, the house burned in the night. We lost everything but an alarm clock, sewing machine, a quilt or two, and Papa's camera. They had to start from zero. People in the neighborhood donated or loaned the necessary things so we could start housekeeping again. Mr. Joe Massey, a family friend, gave us rent-free, his house on the South side of Oxmoor Road, for a few weeks until we could find another place. Mama made some drinking glasses by tying wool yarn around whiskey bottles, putting kerosene on the yarn, and setting fire to it, then dipping in cold water while they were hot, breaking off the bottles evenly. Then she ground them smooth on a flat rock, so we would not cut our mouths when we drank from them.
In a very short time we moved a half block south of where the house burned, and this was where my brother, Thomas Seaborn was born, 20 January, 1905. Right after his birth Mama had pneumonia and was in bed five months. The neighbors took turns caring for Mama and us children. At this time someone gave my sister a pair of shoes her child had outgrown. My sister got the itch from the shoes, and it spread to the other sister and our big brother because they slept together in one bed. I was sleeping in a separate bed and did not get it. Hattie had it worse than the others. Her hands were too sore to hold a spoon to feed herself before any notice was taken.
Seaborn, the new baby had to be fed with what was called a "Sugar Tit", made with a piece of thin cloth with mashed up teacakes tied in the cloth. The baby would suck the cloth after it had been soaked in a saucer of warm cow's milk. The baby was fed this way for five months. We really had good neighbors in those days, there were not many people in the area, but they all helped each other.
We later moved one block east of the place Seaborn was born, to a new two-room house owned by Charles Stillman and W.H. Hassinger, jointly. These men had an experimental chicken farm, and employed Pap to keep records on egg-laying. There were also fruit trees, vegetables, and strawberries. The berries had to be picked and taken to market daily by Papa and those not sold were made into jam by Mama, working until late into the night sometimes. He farmed this place two summers, then we moved a mile or two east of the Hassinger-Stillman place, when I was about four years old, to a house near the east end of White Street, which is now called 28th Avenue South, Homewood. We rented this house from Rev. Dow Lewis, the same man who had kept my parents overnight on their arrival in Jefferson County, Alabama. It was called White Street, as it was where the white people lived. All the streets in Rosedale, north of this one was where Negroes lived. I remember a few times my brother Willie, and one or two white boys of the area would have rock battles with the Negro boys there. They would throw rocks at each other. These rocks were not even as big as one-fourth a brickbat. The Negro boys were not mad at us, or anyone. They seemed to enjoy dodging as they would come close to the white boys and call, "See can you hit me?" Naturally they would try. I don't remember anyone ever getting hit. The smaller of us would pile up the rocks the Negro boys threw, for the white boys to throw back at them. It all seemed to be a sport of throwing and dodging. We stayed there almost two years.
Sometime before I was born, Papa bought his camera in Jamestown, and learned photography, developing the negatives, and doing the printing of the pictures. When we moved to White Street, he took out his camera and added to the family income this way. He had quit working at the ore mines, and was doing carpenter work now. Before, he had made pictures of the family and a few friends only. As his skill and reputation improved, he made it more of a weekly practice in good weather to go out and make pictures of other families. He would make the picture one weekend, then go back the next to take the prints. He did this until about 1915. The camera was an old type, with negatives made on glass, and had to be put in the back of the camera, for the exposures. A black cloth was hung over the camera to keep out unwanted light while the exposures were being made. Papa would make the exposures mostly on Sunday afternoon, while the menfolks were home from work, and the sun was right. Mama learned how to do all the finishing of the photography, and later on, Lavada and I learned how to do the darkroom work.
At this same period of time, Papa was Constable for the area, working under two Justices of the Peace, Jim Walker of Edgewood, and Perry Bailey of Waddell. He held this position several years.
Mama began to do sewing for the family of W.H. Hassinger, whom we rented from before moving to 28th Avenue South. The Hassinger's lived at 2028 Highland Avenue, near Five Points South in Birmingham. They would bring the cloth and patterns on their Sunday afternoon ride. They came out almost every Sunday in a rented surrey with the fringes around the top. A big, fat Negro man would drive the two horses if Mr. Hassinger could not come with the family. Mama continued sewing for the Hassinger family until I was a teenager, but when I was about ten years old they bought an automobile, and came in that. Mrs. Hassinger would give us their outgrown clothes, also school books. That would help allot. They had four girls and two boys who were growing up as we were.
Mama always helped Papa with the financial part of our living. While he worked at the mines, she took in men boarders, doing all the cooking and laundry for them. She washed the clothes without even a rub-board, and clothes from the ore mines were really hard to do, but she did it. About the time I was five years old, she quit taking in boarders, except sometimes one or two of Papa's younger brothers would stay awhile with us. I don't remember if they just came for visits, but uncle Henry came and also Uncle George, Uncle Luther, and Uncle Frank. About this same time Papa's brother, Jim died, and his oldest boy Wesley, came to live with us. He lived as one of the family until he was a grown man. Papa took him to the job with him, and he would carry drinking water for all the men. As Wesley grew older, he learned carpentry work, and became a very good worker.
While Mama was sewing, my oldest brother Willie, and sister Lavada, had to wash the dishes and Willie would make Lavada drop the dishes to break them, so he would not have so many to wash. Mama would spank them, but he told Lavada if she did not throw them down, he would beat her when they got outside. One time there was a big, heavy, iron skillet to wash, which he did not want to do, so he told Lavada to drop it and break it. She dropped it several times, but it didn't break, so he told her to hide it under the house.
When I was four years old and Seaborn was two, Mama took the two of us to visit the relatives, both Mama's and Papa's. This was about 1907. I don't have much memory of the trip, but I do know we went in a horse-drawn wagon to the train station in Birmingham. I remember it was early morning or night, for I saw the moon while we were in the wagon. After we had been at grandpa's house for sometime, I saw the moon, and wanted to know who had gone home and brought it to grandpa's house. They all laughed at me, and I cried with frustration for no one would tell me who had brought the moon. The more I asked the more they laughed at me, and I did not enjoy being laughed at so much.
Willie had a yearling calf we had raised. He made a wagon with four wheelbarrow wheels, and had a box from the grocery store that "Arbuckle Coffee" had been shipped in. Some of the small children could get in this coffee box bed and ride down the hill going east on 28th Avenue. But mostly, Willie would go up the hill southeast of our house, to a place where a man had cut down a lot of trees, and used the trunks for making charcoal. Willie would cut the treetops into stove wood for Mama's cookstove. The place he got the treetops is now a part of Hollywood, at about English Circle and in the area east of Shades Cahaba School. He would haul the wood home in his wagon pulled by the yearling.
While we lived on 28th Avenue South, I started school. I was not quite six years old. I had lost two front teeth, and had a small spot of gray hair on my head where there had once been a bad sore. I was told to tell my teacher, if she asked my age, "I am getting to be pretty old, as I am snaggle-toothed and gray headed." I was six years old before the school year was out, but was allowed to go to school as it was not crowded. The principal of the school was rev. John B. Kilpatrick, and his wife was his assistant. She was my teacher, while he taught the children in the big room. The school had two rooms, one of which was the old church house. The second room had been added to the side, making an L shaped building. The earlier settlers had used the same building for church and school, but when the church members needed a new church building, they built the new one next door to the old one, and kept the old one for school. This church and school was named Union Hill. The Union Hill Cemetery is still there, but the church was torn down a few months ago, while the school was torn down many years ago. There is a new four-lane highway under construction at that spot at the present time.
One of the best known teachers of the whole area was a pupil of Mr Kilpatrick, the year that I started school. She is known as "Miss Bertha" by hundreds of people in the Homewood area today. She was Bertha Franke, then but Mr. Kilpatrick encouraged her to go to summer school and take tests. She started teaching while she was very young, and has been a very successful teacher in the Shades Cahaba School. She later married Mr. Charlie Pool, but she is still known as "Miss Bertha" by all the people, and loved dearly. She helped me with this story by telling me the way to spell the teacher's name, what his first name was, and lending me the school picture so I could have a copy made. She taught all my children their first year of school and one of my grandchildren. She went to Jacksonville, to school, then on to Howard College until she had her degree. She encourages all her pupils to get all the education they can, and teaches good morals, too.
We attended Union Hill Church, which was Methodist, after we moved away from 28th Avenue South, but before that we attended a Presbyterian Church that was located in what is now called Homewood Park, at Central Avenue and Oxmoor Road. The first Sunday School teacher that I had, was Miss Kate Cummings. She was very old. I learned later, that she had been engaged to a soldier in the Civil War. He was injured, and she went to the improvised war hospital to nurse him until he died. She stayed on and nursed until the war was over. Mama had a copy of a book Miss Cummings wrote called, "Gleanings From The South Land". but this book got burned after I married. Miss Cummings never married, but taught music in our neighborhood, and lived on Oxmoor Road, just east of and across the road from Our Lady of Sorrows Church, which was not there then. I never knew the real name of this first church we attended, but it was called "Frog Pond", for the Rosedale Branch flowed nearby, and the frogs would make a lot of noise. This church merged with the Oak Grove Church, and became Edgewood U.S.A. Presbyterian, with their new building located on Oxmoor Road west of Broadway. The Frog Pond Church building was torn down. We started to union Hill church when I was about six years of age, as it was too far for us to walk to Edgewood. It was only a mile or so to Union Hill, the only church near us. My parents did not send their children to church, they took us. Mama was always active in "Ladies Aid", and Papa was on the Board of Stewards of Union Hill Church. I became a member of this church when I was about fourteen years old.
Just before I was six years old, Papa bought a small plot of ground, less than half-acre, from Mr. J.R. Tillerson, about a mile south of 28th Avenue, on the road which later became Montgomery Highway and U.S. 31 He and Mama built the house with their own hands. Mama helped almost like a man. The house was fourteen feet wide twenty-eight feet long, with a small porch on the front, about five feet wide and twelve feet long. There was a stone foundation under it all. We had two bedrooms in the upstairs part, and the kitchen and dining room downstairs, with a bed in the dining room. Mr. Tillerson gave Papa all the trees he needed to build the house as he had almost eighty acres of land, most of it in woods. Papa and Mama, and of course, Wesley and Willie helped some, cut the trees and sawed them to proper lengths, enough to make all the frames for the house. I mean all of the framing, all the rafters, studs, overhead joists, floor joists, only buying siding, flooring, window casing and doors and window sashes, nails, etc. They hewed off the sides of these logs with an ax to make a flat surface to nail the lumber too. They even made the shingles for the roof with a "froe". Mr. Tillerson loaned them the froe and showed them how to use it. They even made palings for the fence around the small garden plot. Mr. Tillerson gave them all the trees they needed for this work. We had to have the garden fenced in for all the cattle in the neighborhood ran loose then. Most every family had their own cow, we did. In putting on the roof of the house, the decking was not put on solid. There would be a board and a space. To hurry up our moving, they put a tar paper on first to keep out the rain while the shingles were being split out. This tar paper was very light weight, and in the night there came a storm that blew the trape paper off, and we all got wet. We moved in on the first day of December, 1908, about six weeks before I was six years old. We had moved in before the concrete floor was poured in the downstairs part. When they were ready for this they put the kitchen things out in the backyard. Sure enough, our luck was holding out! There came another storm that night, too! They had to turn the stove over, and pour out the water from the place where the ashes were, before we could have breakfast the next morning. We always had biscuit for breakfast and cornbread for dinner and supper in those days. We only had yeast bread when Mama had time to make it, as she worked so constantly at sewing, helping to make ends meet. Lots of times the ends did not meet, and they never lapped over.
We had not been in this house long before a mad dog came in the night, and had a fight with our dog. Papa opened the door to stop the fight, when the mad dog jumped at Papa, and he slammed the door shut, catching the dog just in front of his hind legs with the door. Papa stood there holding the dog with the door until Willie and Wesley came from downstairs, and brought a big piece of wood and beat the dog to death. All the time the dog was trying to bite Papa. Papa had to stand with his feet as far from the door as he could, and still lean on the door with both hands to keep the dog from getting to the rest of the family. The door was warped out of shape and always stayed warped inward at the bottom as long as the house stayed there. The house burned after I married, but my parents were not living in it at the time it burned. Soon after the mad dog incident, we were given a collie puppy by Mr. Frank Latham, who lived between our house and Shades Creek. Our dog had to be killed after having the fight with the mad dog. The puppy was born a few days after the mad dog was killed, but the mother Collie dog had been bitten too, so all her puppies had to be killed, too. The puppy we had been given, ran under the bed and had a "fit", and Papa killed it with a shotgun while it was under the bed. He would not use the shotgun on the first mad dog for fear of hitting our own dog, not knowing the dog was really rabid until it was dead. It had bitten all the dogs in the area, and all the dogs had to be killed for the safety of the people.
I can remember a cut was put through Red Mountain after I was six years old, and a streetcar track was put over the Mountain to Edgewood. The men used slip-scrapes to do the grading. These were scoop shaped steel scrapes, that would hold about twice as much as a wheelbarrow. There was a wooden handle on each side, and the men would hold these handles at a right angle to scoop up the plowed dirt, while another man would drive the mule hitched on to a metal loop that was fastened on each side of the metal scrape. It all looked so primitive in comparison to the modern road making machinery the have now in 1964. The men would have to lift up on the wooden handles to turn the scrape upside sown when it had been moved to where the dirt was wanted.
One day, a man came to arrange for Papa to take some pictures of a group of men working on a bridge being built across Shades Creek, just south of us. They never worked on a bridge before that had steel beams, and the man said they all wanted pictures. Papa asked how they were going to raise the beams in place, and he said that they would raise the steel with block and tackle. I had not heard of block and tackle before, so I determined that I would see it. When Papa started out the next day with his camera, I took Seaborn by the hand, and following Papa, keeping just far enough behind him so he could not see us, but not letting him get too far ahead of us. I seemed to know if I asked to go with him, I would be denied, so I went, knowing I would be punished when I got back. I knew that if I did not take Seaborn with me, he would tell on me, and I would be called back before I got out of sight of the house. It did not take us long to get to the Creek, and we watched the bridge go up. I found out that a block and tackle was just several pulleys made together side by side, with lots of rope going through them, back and forth, through each of the pulley wheels. I had seen a pulley at the well to draw water with, but did not know that they could be rigged up with lots of ropes to lift heavy loads before. While we were at the bridge, Mr. Billy Cane came in his automobile and offered Papa a ride back home. Seaborn sat on Papa's lap, and I sat on the toolbox behind. The car was a Stanley Steamer, my first automobile ride! I was not worried about the whipping I knew would get when I got home, no matter how much whipping I would get, they could not take away the thrill of seeing a bridge go up, or an automobile ride. It was worthwhile to, for I had two new things that day, that I would always remember. I was just six years old then.
Later on that year, my brother, Luther, was born, the 11th of November 1909, Aunt Martha came and stayed a few weeks with us. This Aunt Martha was Uncle Jim Dawson's wife. I had plenty of Aunt Martha's. Papa's only sister was Aunt Martha Miller, Papa's brother Jim's wife was Aunt Martha, also his brother Will's wife was Aunt Martha, too, but was called Aunt Mattie. Papa's brother Ben's wife was also Aunt Mattie, making it rather confusing at times!
During this same winter Papa took Lavada for a short visit to Jamestown, to see his parents and some of his brothers. Grandpa had been wearing a mustache and chin whiskers for many years, so had his brother Larkin, who still lived at Section, Alabama in Jackson County. Grandpa shaved off all of his, and went with Papa and Lavada and some others of the family to Section, to visit my great uncle Larkin. He planned ahead and left most of them in their vehicle, while Papa and Grandpa went to knock on the door. Uncle Larkin did not recognize his own brother nor his brother's son, whom he had not seen in several years. He had not seen Grandpa shaven in many years. Lavada was fourteen years old at this time.
My fifth, sixth, and seventh grades were taught by Mrs. Olive Neelly. Mrs. Neelly was the principal while her daughter, Miss Catesy Neelly, was her assistant. Mrs. Neelly taught the pupils the love of music along with our other studies. She brought her old-time reed organ to school. It was the usual kind in those days. To play, it had to be pumped with both feet. Nowadays there are electric organs, but not then. We did not even have electricity in the school or our homes. She allowed us to vote to come to school one hour earlier than required, and she would let us sing. We gave a play and used the money we earned to buy some song books, published by A.J. Showalter. We later had other plays and bought a piano for the school. She was a very understanding person. I loved her so much I named my second daughter for her. Her name being Olive Catherine, and my daughter Sarah Catherine. She taught sixth grade later at Shades Cahaba. She took me to town with her one day, soon after school was out, after I completed seventh grade. I walked from where I lived then, our home being across the road from where the western end of Windsor Drive is now located, to where the Neelly family lived at what is now the northeastern corner of Mountain Brook Village. I rode with Mr. and Mrs. Neelly and Miss Catesy Neelly, in their surrey to downtown Birmingham. That trip to town was the first time I had ever eaten in a restaurant. Also it was the first time I had seen a flush toilet, ours at home was a little house at the back. They also took me inside the First Baptist Church in Birmingham, my first time to see stained glass windows. We went inside Central High School, the forerunner of Phillips High School. I had been downtown only three or four times before then. Once when I was ten years old, Mama took Seaborn and me to see Buffalo Bill Show, the last time he brought the show to Birmingham. He was William Cody, a former scout for "Uncle Sam". I saw him in person.
All my grammar schooling was at Union Hill School. My second and third year were taught by Miss Susie Bailey, who married John Hallman, about Christmas time, during my third year of school. Her cousin was principal of the school then, and she was assistant. His name was Mr. Albert Franke, an older brother of "Miss Bertha". My fourth year of school was in his room while Miss Lurlie Barrett was his assistant. She later became his wife. He quit teaching, but she continued and taught many years as one of the teachers of the second grade, while "Miss Bertha" was teaching first grade at Shades Cahaba. She taught all my children also, and some of my grandchildren. She retired a year or two ago, as Mr Franke became too ill to be left alone.
The early part of May, 1911, my oldest brother, Willie, joined the Navy. That same year in December 15, Flora Olga Dawson, Mama's last baby was born.
Sometime during the summer of 1912, mama went to visit the relatives again. This time Hattie went with Mama, and the two youngest children Luther and Olga. They stayed several days, so as to visit the relatives of both Papa and Mama. Hattie was thirteen at that time, and had already begun dating, by that time.
The 11 of March, 1915, Olga died, being ill with Scarlet Fever only a few days. She was buried at Acton Memorial Cemetery, near where Papa's brother Jim was buried, in the same cemetery.
December 15, 1915, Hattie married, Herman Edgar Stone. Their son was born 13 October, 1916, and named Herman Albert Stone.
After Lavada and Tom Cox married July 26, 1917, they took me to town one Sunday afternoon to see my first moving picture show, "Charlie Chaplin and Fatty Arbuckle". Mama went along thinking we were going to an all day singing at the County Courthouse.
I did not start dating as young as Hattie, and did not have my first date until I was 17 years old. I wanted very much to go to high school but there was no money for books or carfare. If I had gone on to high school, I would to have had to walk a mile to the trolley, then transferred at 15th Avenue South, then to downtown and transfer again to Tarrant City, to the only high school, at Boyles, belonging to the Jefferson County System at that time. I would have been over and hour on the way each morning and evening, not safe coming home alone after dark.
The next time I went to visit the relatives was in December, 1917. Grandma and Grandpa had their 51st wedding anniversary near Christmas time. I was almost 15 years old at this time. Papa had bought an old Maxwell car, Tom Cox and Lavada had a Ford Model T. Both these cars were known as "Touring Cars", having no windows to keep out the cold. Seaborn and I rode with Lavada and Tom in the Ford, while Mama and Papa had Luther with them in the Maxwell, and a neighbor, Bill Wilson did the driving for Papa, because Papa did not know how to drive a car. We started early one morning and did not get out of sight of the house before an axle broke. This was the inner axle, not the housing. We had to jack up the Maxwell, and take the rear housing apart to get out the broken part and put it back together again. We finally left about 11:00 A.M. There were no paved roads then, and lots of places no bridges. We only got to Attalla that night. We were lucky to meet up with a man we had known in Rosedale, who directed us to a friend's house in Attalla, where we spent the night, most of us sleeping on the floor. Next day we got to Fort Payne where Grandpa had moved years before. While we were there Grandpa, Papa and Mama, Tom and Lavada, Luther, Bill Wilson went to Section to see some of Uncle Larkin's girls who still lived in that area. Uncle Larkin died earlier in 1914. Seaborn and I stayed with Uncle Frank's family while the others were gone a few days. I should say here that Uncle Frank and Uncle Henry lived near grandpa.