I didn't have skates

When I was a girl I didn't have skates like the girls in town. I wanted skates, but where would I skate on the farm? I did walk the fence top around the house. Then Mother took that out so the house would look more like a plantation home with the big yard out front. Closer to the house was where we played croquet and further down the way, in the grove, was the basketball court. The main gate was down by the spring and the barn.

I didn't skate, but I would catch a mule and go for a ride, or go down to the barn and play with a newborn calf. I had the feeling that some of the mothers of my friends in town did not approve of me. I was a tomboy and liked sports. I earned some money picking peaches or berries and I asked Forest to go to town and buy me a rope and tie it up high in the tree out in the yard. I learned to swing around and around that tree. I was a human tether ball. I learned to twist myself as I went around the tree so that I would always hit the tree trunk with my feet and push off again. Kids would come to our house and see me do that, and they would try it. But they would hit their backs on the tree trunk. I would show off for them. I feel bad about that- well, a little bit.

I didn't get to skate, but the boys played a game called mumble-peg. You take a pocket knife and open it to the shape of an L and then you throw it and try to get it to stick in the ground. I would challenge Jim, but I was never any good at it.

I always wanted to skate, but we had a swing on a tree up by the house. We would carry the swing up onto the roof and get in the swing and jump off. All of us except for John. He was afraid of heights. Even in the barn, dad could not ask him to go high into the loft. My dad was never afraid of heights, so I don't know why John was. None of the rest of us were.

(NOTE: I have a picture of me on a skate at probably less than 2 yrs old. Now I think I know why!-- Mom)

Halloween long ago

When I was a girl Halloween was celebrated with parties and bonfires
and practical jokes. The first time I ever heard of "Trick or Treat"
was when Edd and I were traveling and were in Wyoming. This was before
Leahbeth was born. Some children knocked on the door all dressed
funny and said, "Trick or Treat." We had no idea what they were
taking about. When I was a girl we sometimes had friends over to our
house for a bonfire. We had a place for a big fire in the grove in
front of the house. We would roast marshmallows and tell stories and
sing. The singing was great. Lester and Forest had friends who could
sing well and they would sing so loud. I loved it. Being in the
country, they could sing as loud as they wanted to. Most of the
parties were in town, so I missed most of those. Some of the pranks
played were common ones, like turning over outhouses. But one year
some big boys were somehow able to get a cow into the schoolhouse.
That was quite a surprise to everyone the next morning!! Happy
Halloween!!

Did you have any songs you sang?

When I was in school we had what was called "Chapel" about 9:00. School started about 8:00, but around 9:00 we all gathered in the big room. There was a lot of singing. We had songbooks. I have a copy of my mother's song book. Its called "The Everybody Sing Book". It cost 25 cents. It was copyrighted in 1930, but the books we used at school were similar. I probably had a more original form of this book. The forward of Mother's book says, "Nevertheless, although EVERYBODY SING, even in its original form, would logically be expected to reach increasingly greater heights of public acceptance, its publishers are not content to see it remain a static, inflexible collection of songs. They wish it to be entirely elastic in the adjustment of its contents to the shifting trends in public taste."

The songs in the songbook are divided into what are called "Classified Groupings." Mixed Voice Songs, Interchangeable Songs, Hymns and Carols, Unison Songs, and Song Texts.

The book starts with the patriotic songs and I liked those the most probably because everyone sang the loudest on those songs. My favorite song was Battle Hymn of the Republic.

Here are some of the songs (there are 128 pages) to give you a flavor of what we grew up singing.

The usual patriotic songs

The Christmas carols

Yankee Doodle

Dixie

Old Folks at Home

Old Black Joe

My Old Kentucky Home

Oh! Susanna

Home Sweet Home

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

When You and I were Young, Maggie

Good -Bye My Lover Good -Bye

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

Some Folks Do

Billy Boy

Little Brown Church in the Vale

Scotland's Burning (round)

Nobody Knows the Trouble I See

Three Blind Mice

O My Darling Clementine

Man's Life's a Vapor

Go Down, Moses

Santa Lucia

Row Your Boat

Carry Me Back to Old Virginny

I've Been Working on the Railroad

Bring the Wagon Home, John

Oh, Eveline

There's Music in the Air

You Tell me Your Dream, I'll Tell You Mine

Aura Lee

On a Chinese Honeymoon

Dinah, Won't you Blow

De Camptown Races

The Old Gray Mare

Home on the Range

Down in the Valley

Red River Valley

My Bonnie

The Quilting Party

Goodnight Ladies

Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here

Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow

Holy, Holy, Holy

Now the Day is Over

Faith of our Fathers

Cielito Lindo

Beautiful Dreamer

Didn't my Lord Deliver Daniel?

Ezekiel Saw De Wheel

All God's Chillun Got Wings

Are You Sleeping"

Little Annie Rooney

Daisy Bell

Oh, Dem Golden Slippers

Loch Lomond

La Cucaracha

She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain

Funiculli, Funicula

Blow The Man Down

I'll Take You Home Again, Kathleen

The More We Get Together

When the Bees are in the Hive

The Rose of Tralee

The Merry Widow Waltz

Vilia

Of course there are more, but you get the idea.

Did your mother work outside the home?

Bessie Able Neergaard, Mother - 1930 - Age 65

No. She helped on the farm and had a large vegetable garden. She raised chickens to sell in town to the residences there. She also had laying hens and sold eggs by the crate to the stores in town. One year she raised turkeys to sell at Thanksgiving. In the summer we helped. We picked berries, peaches etc for canning that we would use all winter. My mother quilted for warmth on cold winter nights. She sewed and made my clothes.

What did your father do for a living?

Farmer.

What is the date and circumstances of your Father's birth?

John Theodore Neergaard - 07 Feb 1880

Dad was born on a farm on the Tennessee River, about 3 miles out of Kingston, Roane, TN. The Doctor was probably Dr. John Patton, a grandfather who was a family doctor and came on horseback.

What is the date and circumstances of your Mother's birth?

Bessie Ophelia Able - 09 Feb 1885

Mother was born at home a couple miles out of Rockwood, Roane, TN. Several other Abel families lived on this road. She was the 9th child in a family of 10 children. There were 2 boys, the rest were girls.

Name your brothers and sisters, the years of their birth

1927 - Jim - Area where we played catch and other sports

Ruth 02 Apr 1905, died 15 Jun 1905 - My dad said she had the bluest eyes.

John Robbs, 29 Apr 1906 died 17 Feb 1987

William Forest 15 Jan 1908, died 11 Jun 2003

George Lester 04 Nov 1909, died 26 Mar 1996

James Theodore 18 Mar 1912, died 24 Sept 1998

Pauline 24 Sept 1913

How to kill a chicken

I have watched my mother kill a chicken many times. Here are two ways to do it. There might be more. One is to grab the chicken by the head and with a good snap start to twirl it round and round. Soon the chicken is off in the yard and the head is in your hand. You go pick the chicken up and pull out the feathers. The second way is the pick up the chicken and tuck the chicken under your arm with its head tucked in also. Then your rock the chicken a minute or so and it will be dizzy and you can lay its neck out neatly on the stump and chop its head off with the ax.

My houses

When I was born I was born at a very nice, new house. My dad and a carpenter had built the house. My brother Lester was a baby when the family moved there so Jim and I were born there. The home had 4 fireplaces downstairs and 2 upstairs, so it was a warm house. It had tile floors and the mantle in the main area had a mirror over it. This was the nicest house my mother ever had. When I was 6 my dad bought a bigger farm. The new farm was actually closer to town, while still adjacent to the old farm that he sold to his brother. However, the house on this farm was big and old. It was built in the 1800's and looked like the homes in the movies, like Gone With the Wind. (I lived here probably until I was finished with High School. I think that is about right- leah's note) This old house actually had slave quarters, which we used as a smoke house. The floors were big, wide planks. This house was always cold and its where I have most of my childhood memories. There was a big tree where we had a swing. There was a grove of trees, and somewhere in that we had a basketball court. We also had a croquet set. Once a man visited our house and challenged me to a game of croquet. I was still young then, and I don't think he expected it, but I beat him. At this farm we had a big big barn. It was probably the biggest barn around the area. It burned down. At the time, John and Forest were married and Lester was in the Army. Jim was working for TVA on bridges. I was the only one of the children home at the time. Dad used to let men passing through sleep in the barn. Not that they had permission, just that Dad did not stop them. He wondered if one of them was careless with smoking or if the barn just went up in flames. The next house we had was one Dad and Lester built. When Lester was in the Army he was in Morocco and he built a church and did other carpentry work. This house was smaller and was just fine. I lived here when I was teaching school. Actually, I lived there when the weather was nice. In the winter I boarded with someone closer to where I taught school. That was where I lived when I got married. In the 1940's my dad and brothers left Roane County and moved to Bledsoe and Sequatchie Counties. John and Margaret moved first and lived in the house that would be my mother and dad's. When my mother moved there was no place to put her things except on the porches, so a lot of her things were ruined because John and Margaret could not get into their house just yet. This was an old house and the only house Leah ever visited. It had 4 rooms and 2 fireplaces. Later a kitchen and bathroom were added. John had his own farm. Lester and my dad farmed together. They did 2/3, 1/3. My dad got 2/3 of the profit, but bought the machinery, animals etc. and paid the bills. Lester got 1/3. John had the farm adjacent to theirs. Forest was closer to Dunlap. He had an old house that had no indoor bathroom until about 1964 when they built a new house on the spot where the old one was. When Jim retired from the Army he bought a farm closer to Pikeville. He seemed to have more trouble- rattlesnakes, and the land was somewhat closer to the mountain and not as nice as river bottoms like Forest's or in the valley like John's and my dad's.