YOUTHFUL MEMORIES OF SARAH NOLES KILGORE

November 24, 2013

Youthful Memories of

SARAH NOLES KILGORE

Feb 1883 - Feb 1963

By Ron McKeever  

 On this cold morning, I flipped the light switch for instant light, walked into the hallway to increase the thermostat for instant heat, and headed to the bathroom for instant hot water.  After washing my face, I headed to the kitchen where coffee was instantly brewing and breakfast was being prepared.  Granny Kilgore never enjoyed any of the “instant things” in the first 60 years of her life.  

Grandpa would rise first and build a wood-burning fire in the open fireplace.  He would then light his lantern and make his way to the barn to feed the livestock in preparation for the day's activities.  Granny would build the fire in the wood-burning cookstove to heat water, make the coffee, and prepare the breakfast.  Electricity did not come to the farm until the early 1950’s.  Appliances would come later.  

Since there was no refrigeration, care was taken with the fresh food. Fresh eggs were used soon after being gathered.  The meat preserved in the smokehouse was cut the night before a morning breakfast. Oftentimes, the pork was ground into sausages and canned.  It would be reheated at breakfast time.  Any excess milk was kept cool by lowering it into the well, or occasionally, it was placed in an icebox, if one was owned, after a block of ice was purchased from a peddler passing by.  Another option for keeping milk a couple of days was placing it in a tub full of sawdust.  Chickens were killed the day they were to be eaten.  If the preacher was coming to dinner, guess who got the choice part?  I have scars on my hands to this day from helping Granny and Mom clean chickens.  

  

When washday came around, several tubs of water would have to be drawn by hand from a drilled well. The wash pot had to be scrubbed and filled with water.  Then a fire was built under the pot.  The work clothes were boiled in the wash pot. Other clothing was hand-cleaned on a rub board.  The water in the clothing was wrung out by hand.  The clothes were  either hung on a line or draped over fences and bushes to dry.  

Soap? Now, that's another story.  Occasionally, washing powder would be available, but soap was homemade.  The ashes from the wood-burning fireplace would be collected and water would be allowed to drip through the ashes to produce a lye.  The lye was mixed with older lard that had passed the useful stage and this mixture would be hardened and cut into squares to be used as soap.  This soap not only removed the dirt, it could also remove skin if the mixture was not exactly right.  

Any clothing that needed starch got special treatment.  Starch was made by mixing flour and water.  It might have had another secret ingredient but it was not known to the kids.  

When ironing clothes, a heavy, solid cast-iron metal iron was heated on the fireplace.  To determine if the iron was hot enough, Granny wet her finger and stuck it to the iron.  Some clothes would iron better if they were damp.  A spray bottle consisting of a coke bottle with holes punched into the cap did the job.  

Almost nothing was thrown away.   Clothes were patched and patched again until they finally disintegrated.  Granny Kilgore would make work shirts and under clothing with fertilizer bags that had been washed and rewashed and rewashed to remove the Royster name and number.  Some of the cousins would joke about all our names being Royster and we were 8-8-8 or 4-10-7 or one of the other numbers that designated the strength of the fertilizer.  

Because of the lack of hot water, baths were a luxury, especially in the winter time.  Usually, a wash tub was placed in front of the fireplace, and water was heated on the stove or in the water closet in the cookstove. One bath per week was usually it, and that was on Saturday night.  

On Sunday, everyone went to church, getting there by walking or riding in a mule-drawn wagon. The closest church to Granny and Grandpa’s home was New Oak Grove Freewill Church, also known as Possum Trot.    I have forgotten  if they ever told me if both names applied.  

Granny was afraid of crossing bridges.  Often the mule pulling the wagon would hesitate to cross a one-lane bridge and that made Granny afraid that he would dump the wagon load into the creek.  She usually got off, waited until the wagon crossed, and then got back on.  In 195l, I went with her to spend a week with the Spains in Guntersville.  To those who know that area, the Arab causeway crosses the lake there for about two miles.  She  wanted me to ask the bus driver to let us walk across the causeway rather than ride the bus.  I explained that if he did, we would be left alone on the other side.  

After Grandpa passed on (December 25, 1949), Granny was never left alone at night.  When she got an Emerson television, she had all kinds of volunteers to stay.  Of course, she was in bed 15 minutes after dark, but we could watch through the snow on the round screen and enjoyed every minute of it.  As the years accumulated, she would spend time with her scattered family but always wanted to be at home at bedtime.  She passed away on February 2, 1963 while at Mom's (Lois) house.  Both Mom and Pop died in the same room where Granny left us.  Almost daily, I thank God for the grand heritage of some of the greatest people this old world will ever know. 

YOUTH MEMORIES OF JOHN WESLEY "VIRGE" KILGORE Feb 1880---Dec 1949

by a Grandson of John Wesley "Virge" Kilgore,

Ron McKeever

The McKeever family moved from Nauvoo, where I was born, to the house at the location where the present house now stands in 1936  (the original house burned in 1954).  My first memory of Grandpa was about 1939 when my brother, Glen and I discovered that Grandpa had built a store attached to his house.  He sold the items people couldn't grow on the farm..sugar, salt, baking powder, several kinds of dry goods and candy.  I was 4 and Glen was 3 and Grandpa traded us a piece of candy for each egg we brought him.  We discovered where his hens laid their eggs so we were kept in candy.  Mom told us later that he knew what we were doing but it suited him fine.  

I remember stumbling through the fields to carry Grandpa water when I was 6 years old.  I recall feeding the ears of corn into the sheller so he could go to Iver Prestridge’s mill to have the corn ground into meal.  In 194l, Pop began to work regularly at the coal mines near Nauvoo, and he had to walk 5 miles from the farm , work 8 or 10 hours, and walk back to the farm.  For that reason,  we moved to the No. 2 Brookside-Pratt mines.  Because Grandpa grew more than was needed on the farm, he sold veggies and fruit to the coal miners.  He would come by our house, load up Glen and me, and away we would go.  Grandpa drove the mule and wagon and our job was to go from house to house, selling anything he had on the wagon.  Oftentimes, he would have milk, butter and maybe, a couple of roosters.  Two or three years later, he traded up to a pickup truck,  so now we traveled in style.  We would work the coal mines and then go to Nauvoo and sell any excess.  The only drawback was that Grandpa chewed tobacco and we were teenagers before we found out the spots on us weren't freckles.  

On weekends during the summer, we often walked the 5 miles back to the farmhouse to spend the week with Grandpa and Granny and all the cousins that would pile in.  The Chadwicks  (Ruby Kilgore Chadwick, 4th child of Papa Virge & married to  Johnny Chadwick) lived in the old place a couple of years, and then the Spains (Ruth Kilgore Spain, 7th child of Papa Virge & married to Ted Spain)  lived there for several years, so we always had loads of cousins to visit with.  It seemed that every Sunday was a reunion with other family members coming to visit.  Grandpa was a hard worker.  He coal-mined, drilled wells, farmed, did blacksmith work, and anything else he could do to support his family.  He traded, bought cattle and sold them, and even did a little real estate.  Mom told how he was plowing in the field one day in the early '40's and someone came by wanting to sell 40 acres of land. Grandpa gave the man a double-eagle ($20) gold coin in payment for the 40 acres. It was 2 or 3 weeks later before they ever recorded the transaction.  

The mines at Nauvoo closed in 1947 and Pop (Carl McKeever) found work in Affinity, West Virginia.  That meant moving.  We came home on vacations in 1948 and 1949.  Mom (Lois Kilgore McKeever) told us after Grandpa passed that he hated to lose his 'boys' because we were of some help to him.  The last memory I have of him is his reading his Bible by a kerosene lamp, sitting in a rocker by the fireplace.  Living so far away, Mom was the only one able to come home for his funeral.  Almost every snapshot I have of him, he was at Possum Trot Church (present-day New Oak Grove).  Mom told us that there tons of flowers at his funeral because everyone knew and respected him.  What a legacy !