TALES PAPA TOLD

Although my father was an invalid most of my life, I relish the “story times” I had with him. He was a devoted reader of the Bible. Family devotions at the breakfast table were a vital part of the meal. But I particularly enjoyed those times when I crawled up into his lap in the rocking chair and he read to me a special story from Hulburt’s Bible Story Book or told me about the old times when he was growing up.  His father, who was a nursery man, died when Papa was 12 years of age.  His mother was his father’s second wife, so that Papa had a half-brother, Edwin Hart (Buddie), who was twenty-five years older than he. In fact, Buddie’s children were his contemporaries. So I grew up in a neighborhood of a host of half-first cousins who were my elders.

Papa had a very caring mother.  He told me of a time that his mother took into her home a man who had been injured in a balloon accident at the fair grounds (later to become Highland Park). I suppose this was a time before hospitals were available. She nursed him back to health in her own home only to have him leave without a word of thanks or a payment for care.  Home nursing was performed by his mother more than once, and strangers were welcomed into their home. Papa had a younger sister who suffered from what was thought to be tuberculosis at a time when little was known about its cure. The family took her to the drier climate of Texas in hopes that this would cure her, but she died at the age of 24.

Papa told a tale about a horse running away from him, but I can’t recall the details. Papa was engaged to be married to my mother when he came down with typhoid fever.  After being near death, he was recuperating at Aunt Annie’s home next to where he built the home for his bride. Mama came up from Laurel for a visit, and they decided to wait no longer. They were married by Dr. Cody, a Presbyterian minister and Jim Cody’s brother, right there in his sick room.

Weather and poor roads caused a lot of problems in the old days. Papa told of more than one time of getting caught in the rain and mud far from home.  He told me of one time of getting soaked by a storm and going to a nearby home to get dried out.  In the process of drying out by the fireplace, he took out some folding money to dry.  When he started to leave for home, he asked his host what he owed him for his help, and he “’lowed as how” that folding money would just about cover the cost.  He also told of the time that he and my brother, David, got stuck in the mud between Laurel and Meridian, and had to spend the night out in the swamp. After hearing a train in the distance, they managed to walk out to the track and get help. In the early days of automobiles, car trouble was expected on any trip. I remember that  when Papa got home from one of his business trips, Mama always asked, “Did you have any car trouble?”