Thursday, August 31, 2006

Memoirs and the Family Tree

I mentioned my great-grandfather the other day.

A recap which probably only family members will care about: Charles J. Finger was famous in his own day, although that fame hasn't extended to the present day. My grandmother worshipped his memory and I heard countless stories about author Charles J. Finger. My grandmother told me that he was a regular correspondent with Jules Verne (or was it H.G. Wells?) and would write letters at a big table which my mother inherited and that stands in her living room today.

Looking around I was surprised to see that he has a mention in Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica (though I didn't subscribe to read the whole article). There's even a park named after him though that photo makes it look more like a field. Well, knock me over with a feather. Grandmama would be so proud.

This prompted my mother to reminisce about her days with her grandfather. I loved these memories of a little girl for her grandfather and of time spent in the country back then.
In reference to your entry about Charles J. Finger; I had no idea that he was so interestingly involved both in the literary and the down to earth business of making a living.

He was my grandfather, and I remember him as delightfully indulgent of a little girl. There was one afternoon when he encouraged me to look for a four leaf clover, and after finally inding one we went into the house and found another surprise: books! I can remember stealing up the lane to his separate office, which also included a pool table room where I played with the balls. I wasn't supposed to go up there and interrupt him, but of course I did. He died when I was seven years old, but his personal impact must have been immense because I remember him vividly (I'm 72), he was definitely a Leo personality although born in December.

The house was surrounded on two sides by what were known as sleeping porches, screened, and comfortable in Arkansas's hot summers. I remember having an outhouse to go to, and a freestanding "shower house" with cold sulpher water. There was also a wash house, which had its own walled yard (filled with cornflowers) for drying clothes. Neighboring ladies did the wash, and I seem to remember It having a hot water boiler. Lockers on the front screened porch of the house held wood for the cookstove on which water was heated, and I suppose for winter warmth. There was a stove in the middle of the house which heated some rooms; don't remember what the heat source was.

As long as I have started, I might tell more ... just because it's a bygone era. Cows were milked and the milk left to stand in wide pans on another screened porch, after which cream was skimmed for butter. My first food memory is of oatmeal, in an island of cream and topped with sugar.
My grandmother made wonderful plum jelly, quite tart, from wild plums that grew on the farm.

I never fell down a well, although often warned to stay away; they were just irresistable open holes in the ground, often with unfortunate rabbits floating there in.

There was a creek to wander along, always accompanied by one of the family Airdales. Along one side were shale banks where you could sit at the top and slither down on the seat of your pants for an exciting ride.

There were lots of freestanding stone buildings: my grandfather's office, my uncle Charlie's chicken house, the wash house, the shower, and my artist aunt Helen's studio with its two rooms, one of which was for serious drawing and the other of props for her Ozark themes( stone fireplace, milk churn, etc. )The studio and the house both looked west for beautiful sunsets. Apparently there was lots of cheap labor, and of course lots of stone. And speaking of milk churns, we did ours in a glass job where you could see the tiny flecks of butter emerging from the milk until it got too hard to crank.

A small flock of sheep were nutured here; I can still remember the way they smelled (hello... wet wool) as well as the bran they were fed. Once the ram butted me, and my grandfather bapped him on the head with a long pruning tool. And once I took Beverly, a small child, into the sheep lot, where everyone said she could have been trampled and killed. Also, speaking of Beverly, this was the farm where we were walking down the lane and she had to go to the bathroom, so I told her to go home. Unfortunately she walked by the entrance ... no one could find her ... a party was dispatched to see if she had fallen into the outhouse. Eventually an old gent who lived up the hill brought her home, and I hope he was very liberally tipped. The road was suspect, because at the top was a slaughterhouse, so trucks seemed to roar up and down.

I can remember Sunday afternoons when people would just show up at friends' houses and yell "Yoo-hoo". Then they would have to produce iced tea and chat. Oh, and what a yummy memory is the church fest where we had chocolate cake and ate it sitting on a swinging bridge over a creek.

Is this sounding just too Laura Ingalls Wilder? Well, maybe this was a step between her culture and and the time when you were born.

What a lot of memories! Maybe boring to you, but something you might like to know about my childhood years in Arkansas. Just think, I actually lived with these years ... no computers ... no hot water heaters ... and absolutely no air conditioning anywhere. There was running water.

The property was actually called "Gayeta Lodge", which I was always told meant "old soldiers' home".

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