Something has been on my mind awhile now and with two foster children, I haven’t had the time or took the slack time I’ve had to write it down. I have always been drawn to our ancestors. Mountain men who came into this country with an ax and a long rifle and a wife, usually. They built homes, and churches and used the churches for schools also. They cleared the land with mules and horses and oxen and plows and axes and fire. They worked can see to can’t see. At the same time keeping wood for cooking and keeping food, Plants and animals of every kind, for food. They were and are fiercely independent. They, for the most part, would ask for nothing but would give you the shirt off their back. In general, even if one didn’t like you he would be there when trouble came or a barn needed raising. It wasn’t named but it was played out in real life, Love your neighbor, be a neighbor, help your neighbor. And they wouldn’t have accomplished half of this without their women.
My grandmother Annie Anders Burris was a granny woman. A midwife who was in great demand. Probably seldom paid in much real money. They were considered well learned in ‘plant’ medicine and child birthing. But the money my grandmother generated helped in ways I probably don’t understand.
The first settlers heated with fireplaces. And the women cooked over them. In the hot summer, they cooked on outside fire pits. But can you imagine cooking in a hot fireplace? Timing the meal and having dinner and supper ready when the menfolk came in from the fields? The families always ate together. They planned the day’s work and the next day’s work while gathered together around an ax-hewn homemade table and chairs. The woman had a huge job keeping up with the fireplace, sweeping and cleaning what pots, dishes they had. Fireplaces are messy and required work. I have been told breakfast was a big meal and diverse by today’s standards. Fried chicken and corn on the cob and potatoes were items on many tables at sunrise. I heard a story once that has always resonated with my emotions. There was company came to one family and of course, he was invited to eat with them. The story is there was only a jar of molasses and a pone of cornbread. The old mountain man told the guest, now you just help yourself to everything, theys plenty here.. Another fellow said he always had plenty, reason he knew they did, was when he would ask for a second piece of chicken his Mom would say, No, you’ve had plenty.
Women planted and hoed and kept up the garden. They picked the vegetables, cleaned them, cooked them and canned them. The woman usually did the milking and churning. For those who don’t know, milking is twice a day, every day. And then there are chickens and eggs. And of course, some flowers if possible were always around.
But those mountain women were so adaptable and ‘hardy’. They would get together and help each other make quilts. They made those get-togethers a social event. They would share recipes, not written but trial and error recipes. They would share remedies for sickness, they supported each other in deaths and sorrow.
The women of the mountains were usually the ‘backbone’ of the family’s spiritual life. Their prayers and commitment to God and their Churches kept Him forefront in the family. One thing that always tickled me was that a large number of mountain folk made moonshine. And they sat in the amen comer on Sundays. Somehow it wasn’t preached against or about. They considered it part of making a living and necessary. Also, there were many women in the mountains who could plow with a mule and swing an ax when necessary. A lot of these dipped snuff, chewed tobacco or had a pipe when they finally got to sit down. My Grandfather dipped right alongside my grandmother who dipped. I can still smell that smell when they hugged me when I was a little boy. You have heard the saying, Behind every good man is a good woman. I beg to differ, right alongside every good man is a good woman.
Along with all the chores to do they also made clothes out of printed feed sacks, or any kind of material they could find. Now let’s not bypass washing clothes and beddings’. Water from a spring or creek heated on an outside fire in some kind of tub and the clothes washed with lye soap, homemade out of ashes, and hung to dry. Just another woman chore about once a week.
Another almost social event for the women was molasses making, hog killings, dinner on the ground at Church, and “wakes”. Sitting up with the dead out of respect. Breaking and stringing beans were often get-togethers. Our women found ways to socialize and take some pressure off of having such a hard row to hoe. It used to be when someone was getting married the community came together and made a wedding quilt. I would suspect most ladies saved up pretty pieces for just this quilt.
As you should be able to tell by now, I have the utmost respect for the women who had a huge role in making America great.
Now some may have thought I had forgotten this part. But this part is what amazes me. The women would work all day cooking and cleaning and milking and churning butter and here comes Elvis out of the field, sweaty and smelling of mule leather and tobacco stains on his cheeks. And he wants loving and assumes she does too. And the remarkable thing is, she evidently didn’t say no, many times. My grandmother had 8 children and died at 32 years old. My other Grandmother, the ‘granny woman’ had 8. And yet they did their work plus carried a baby on a hip while nursing one on the other arm, and Tom Jones kissing on their neck. Think of that? How did they do that? My aunt raised 11-and some of those years her husband was gone. Just a little woman who did what she had to, she used it up, wore it out, or did without. She was the best quilter I ever saw. I don’t think most mountain kids knew they were poor. One of the greatest gifts parents did for their children was not telling them that they were poor and inferior.
You tell kids negative things and it really affects them. I told this little 2 year old when she got mad and threw something that she was a bad girl. She went to my wife later and said, ‘I not a bad girl.I had to hide tears. And remind me again, ‘it’s not her fault’.
Here’s the deal. Women are overall more emotional than men. Men will get together and talk about their truck, or work or their golf game. Women will get together and talk about their children, grandchildren, and family. It’s their life. Its why they could raise large families, cook on a fireplace, milk cows, raise gardens, sew and quilt, wash clothes on a scrubboard and smell good to that sweaty old man who is killing himself plowing and cutting and fencing and building trying to make a home for his woman and family, cause down inside he knows what’s important to her.
Just getting the smelly, tobacco chewing, Elvis, to say that would be considered a miracle. But women can weasel it out of us with some good smelling perfume like •raise cane on Alabama street’ or catfish number 10. It will do it every time.
Just like the line in Jeramiah Johnson, I loves the wimmens, I shorley does.
It took families to make America. Forged out of hard work, Worship, and a willingness to help their neighbors. Not only here in the great Appalachians but all across this great land.
Its been said that their devotion to God was outstanding. One fellow summed it up this way-If your ox fell in a ditch on Sunday, get it out maybe twice-after that either eat it or sell it God Bless our women folk, I love you, every one.
