Summers in Glen Allen

by

Billy Whitehead

My Grandmother, Ira Bell Womble, was married to Charlie Weaver Whitehead. Charlie died January 14, 1921. They had three children; Lottie Bell, Charles Benford and Joe Weaver. Joe was born March 10 1921 after his father’s death. Ira Bell Whitehead married Willie Vester Stokes about five years later.

As a small boy this puzzled me for years. All my friends had grandparents with two names. Their mom’s carried one name and their dad’s parents carried another. But my grandparents were entirely different with a third name. How could this be? Were we different? As a young preteen dad explained it to me that his dad had died before he was born and grandma had remarried.

Joe Whitehead married Gladys Waldine Kent, February 26, 1944. After Joe was discharged from the US Army he bought a farm in the Claytown Community of Winston County. From the time I was about four years old I spent my summer with Grandmother Stokes in Glen Allen Mississippi.

Glen Allen sits on the bank of Lake Washington which is south of Greenville and close to the Mississippi River. To go to the farm you went south from Glen for a about one and one-half miles then to the east two or three miles. At the end of a gravel road was the house. There was no worry of public traffic so we could play almost anywhere around the house. Just before their house was the Gamble house. There were three boys and two girls. Sometimes we would be allowed to spend the night with them. After dark we would tell ghost stories. Somehow Mr. Gamble could tell them so real.

At the Stokes house we had good times following Robert and Willie around as they fed the cows and horses or other chores around the farm. When Jimmy Dale and I were to ourselves we might hide under the cedar bushes in the front of the house. These cedars were low with bushy limbs which we could crawl under.

Along the driveway were chinaberry trees. We would climb up into the limbs to sit and talk. Sometimes Iva Nell or Marion would walk under the tree and we would throw berries into their hair. I think they may have not cared about us hitting them but sometimes the ripened berries would get into their hair or clothes.

One Saturday morning there was excitement around the house. Tubs were carried to a building near the house. A fire was built under a wash pot; I wondered what was going on. It is wash day. Something was put into a tub of water to soften the water. Hot water was put into a washing machine then the dirty clothes were put in it. As they came out they were put into the tub of clean warm water. They were stirred for a few minutes then twisted to ring the water out then tossed into another tub of water. After this rinsing the clothes were hung on a line to dry. This was one area we were not allowed to go until the clothes were dry and carried into the house for ironing. The ironing was a chore that took some time. One or two girls ironed, another folded and another put the clothes away in the proper place. That evening we boys found another chore, “Cleaning perfectly good dirt off the shoes.” Jimmy and I were to clean the dirt from the shoes using a brush and wet cloth. When they were clean we carried them to Willie who polished them. All this because there was a firm rule at the Stokes household, everyone was to be ready for church Sunday morning.

Sunday morning started with a bath then the best clothes. When all were ready we were to get into grandpa’s pickup truck. There was a board across the bed behind the cab then there were three or four ladder-back chairs along the sides of the bed. Usually the girls go the place behind the cab with scarves over their hair. We would then go to the Hampton Assembly of God Church. On the ride back we had the chairs because the girls usually had a ride back with a boyfriend.

Sometimes grandpa let us go to “the section” with him as he checked his cows. He had the lease on a 16^th section where he had some cows and horses. There we picked up pecans or hickory nuts which we ate or put in our pockets to eat later. One Saturday in the fall all went to gather pecans and other nuts. That Christmas grandma made many delicious eats with these nuts. I think they sold some too.

One day grandpa and grandma went to Glen Allen for groceries. They went to TY’s Grocery. Mr. TY Quong owned the store and lived in back with his family. Sometimes grandpa would get a jar of oysters, put salt and hot sauce into it then eat the oysters right out of the jar.

One day mom and dad drove into the yard. It was time for me to go home. I did not want to go but of course I did. However, one time I did go home. They had moved to the north end of Glen Allen to a home across the highway from Lake Washington. He had sold the farm and was going to fish commercially. He would gather his fish all week freeze them then sell them the next weekend. Sometimes he went to Louisville to sell fish and sometimes to Macon. Both were all the way across the state. The following week he repeated the same task.

His goal was catfish but whatever he caught, there was a market. Sometimes he went frog gigging. Once he had several Garr which he could not sell. After selling everything he still had the Garr. He had a choice, throw them away, which was against his thoughts, and give them away, which he would if all else failed or find a way to sell them. He decided to skin them. He skinned the gar then went back to Macon. On his first stop there was interest in the dressed fish. He had a young man helping so when someone ask what kind of fish they were, Sam quickly said, “Those are speckled Trout!” They sold every fish in that one stop!

I went to school there in Glen Allen being in the first grade. On Weekends I still got to go to grandma’s. One Christmas there was real excitement. Uncle James was coming home from Japan or Korea, I do not remember which. There was a girl with him too. Geraldine King was with him. He had a large trunk which he could not open because he could not find the key. Dad had done the same thing and I saw him open it with a coat hanger. I got a hanger and bent the end and opened the foot locker. Inside there were pictures and other gifts he had brought home. Later he and Geraldine were married. I remember that they both played accordions and sang at church.

After a year of fishing dad decided to go to Indianapolis Indiana where Aunt Annie lived and worked at the Western Electric plant. He found work at the Borden’s Milk plant canning milk with a silver cow on the label. We lived close enough to the plant for him to walk to work. After the first winter we moved to a place called Tittletown. The apartments were old military housing. There was a potbelly coal burning heater. That winter my job was to keep coal in a box close to the heater. Television was a somewhat new thing to us. We had a radio but no TV but there was a couple across the street who had on. They allowed all us kids in the place to come over Saturday morning to watch Howdy Doody Time. That winter snow was piled from the ground to the roof peak.

The next summer dad heard that one of the supervisors was being transferred to Mississippi. Dad told him that he wanted to go back too so it was arranged. That summer dad got a transfer back to Mississippi. He was through with snow!

In 1961 dad and mom bought a house on Hale Street in Macon. Soon Grandpa and Grandma Stokes built a house across the street from them. They lived out the rest of their life there. Willie Vester Stokes died January 1, 1978 in the Winston County Hospital in Louisville. He was buried January 3 in the Vernon Assembly of God Cemetery.

Grandma Bell loved to see company come. Oh, sometimes she would fuss about something being rushed up but in the end she loved her kids coming When dad went over to check on her it was not unusual for her to get a domino game going. If Clyde or one of her sons were there it was for sure that the dominos came out. Double nines were favored.

Ira Bell Stokes died March 8, 1991 at home in Macon and is buried in the Vernon Assembly of God Cemetery.