yesterday's tennessee

As It was on a Martin Farm in the Early Century - The Place - The Economy - Work and Play

By Holland McCombs*

THE WEST TENNESSEE FARM

Marvin Downing, Editor
Published by The University of Tennessee at Martin, 1979

It has been a full decade now since I made my last pilgrimage to the old place. After visiting briefly with a few old friends in downtown Martin, I decided to drive around for awhile. Somehow I expected the old home town to look and be like it had been in that good long time ago, in the early century — the years I remembered and loved the best.

  But things didn't look the same; either along those streets with memory-filled names, or around the country-side. I felt lonely and lost in the place from whence I had sprung, the place I loved the most. It was then, in a state of yearning for a beloved past, that I drove out to the campus of UTM. After parking the car I began to walk up the familiar rise, across what had been the baseball diamond of Hall-Moody playground, past the spot where had stood Miss Maude Johnson's little red brick school house. Here I had entered the first grade at age five; and promptly and unasked — walked up to the blackboard and made a "T". That should show them all that the new boy was no ignoramus among those six and seven year olds.

  I walked on to the spot that marked the old entrance gate to what we called "The Lower Lawn." And there, still standing, were some of my oldest and best remembered friends — the tall trees of Woodley. Most of these had been felled when the landscapers cleared for the campus — way back there in the mid-twenties. But some of the old landmark trees were still there — the "Twin Trees," the scaly bark "Hitch Tree," and our beloved "Big Tree." (Picture A)

  I didn't feel so lost anymore. So, like in the days when we were children, I lay me down in the hospitable shade of the Big Tree. Comfortable and drowsy I dozed off. When I opened my eyes again I was looking into the smiling faces of a good looking boy and a pretty girl. They apologized for waking me, said they were "preparing for history class." We started talking. But mostly they started listening! I began holding forth on the French Revolution. Maybe it was to stop all that, but one of them asked: "Where are you from?" I thought for a moment, trying to find a way to explain. Then I said, 'From Texas . . . and many places, but mostly from right here. I was born right up there! And grew up all over this place!"

  The boy looked at me for a moment, then asked: "Wasn't this once a famed old family home place?"

  Indeed it was! And as we sat there I began to regale them as to how it was on the old place a long, long time ago; how I had been born up there in the front room of "The Big House" early on the morning of the Fifth of August, 1901, the year McKinley was assassinated, and Teddy Roosevelt became president. Dr. Charles Sebastian had stayed all night to deliver me as he did in that same room for most all "the grandchildren" of our big family.

  At that time old Woodley Farm (named for the acres of great trees that surrounded the place) was a Matriarchy, presided over by my grandmother, Mrs. Elizabeth Freeman — "Miss Lizzie" to most people all around, and especially to those who worked and lived on Woodley Farm. Aside from the big and diversified farm, she cared for and was responsible for ten children, an ever-tncreaslng flock of inlaws and grandchildren, and some twenty or thirty black people who lived on the place. No one on Woodley in those days was ever in want, ragged or hungry. (Picture B)

  Miss Lizzie sent all of her children to school and/or college. She gave them all as much education as they would take. And the same for some of her grandchildren and relatives. She cared for the health and well being of everyone on the place — white and black — and lots of our kin. Sometimes that meant caring for some forty or fifty people and that was not just survival! No Sireeee! Miss Lizzie provided an awful lot of just about everything anyone needed, plus a great and good way of life — the first prerequisite of which was, literally, "the pursuit of happiness." All the people of Woodley worked, and worked for one main purpose. That purpose was to enjoy life and living. And we evermore did!

  Now don't get the idea that Woodley was any turn of the century Tara, nor any hifalutin plantation. No Indeed! When that early morning work bell rang out, the white feet hit the floor just as fast as the black ones (Picture C). But, conversely perhaps, Woodley's devotion to fun and hospitality over-matched the devotion and dedication to work and production. As I remember it, from first to last, we not only had a big family and farm population, we seemed to always have "company" and loved it that way. It was the norm to have a house full of company. Mrs. Macon Sebastian Green of Martin still bears lucid and vivid witness to the way it was in those early-century days. Recently "Miss Macon" wrote me, in part:

. . . I loved to go out to Woodley. I played tennis on its courts. I skated on the ponds — I ate great watermelons — red meat and black seeds — on that wide South back porch and I stayed for supper when asked (our mother admonished us not to invite ourselves.) I listened enthralled to the family talk — so much fun and warm affection.
  "We all were together a lot through many years. We were loyal friends, never suspicious or jealous of one another. I must mention those suppers: country ham, gravy, fried apples, hot biscuits — best in the world. We would sit out on the lawn, under those great spreading trees and talk and sing. Everyone said your mother (Annie Freeman McCombs) and I looked very much alike — which made me proud. . . .

  Some of us were old enough to sit afar and listen. The songs they sang were such as Red Wing, Bill Bailey, Peggy O'Neil, Only One Face in Dreamland, Tenting Tonight On The Old Campground, "Don't You Remember Sweet Alice Ben Bolt," gay times, and plaintive melodies.

  As a little boy I can remember how we —the grandchildren — would be fascinated when they (parents, aunts, uncles, and their guests) would ride those sleek purebred saddle horses (now called "Tennessee Walking Horses") with side saddles, Whitman or "Plantation" saddles. (Picture D) They would show off the buggy "rigs" and trotting horses, have "gypsy teas" (outdoor party fests), hayrides, 'possum hunts, fox hunts, and play all sorts of outdoor and indoor games.

  In wintertime there would be song fests, plays and recitations in the Parlor. Some of those in the family of that generation could do Shakespeare for hours — without any books! Our Aunt Polly ("Nanina" to us) could and would recite pages of Virgil in Latin. "Uncle Price" (Professor R. N. Price) read the Bible in Latin and Greek. "Sis Nola," (Lucy Nola Freeman, our aunt), played the piano. Bubber (our uncle Otis Freeman) and our aunt Johnnie Freeman Bratton would lead the song fest. Johnnie had the best alto voice in the country. Those gay souls went on and on into all the home made entertainment that could be absorbed in the days and nights. It was a wonderful way, a wonderful and wholesome world. I have worked and traveled the world over, but have never found a better one.

  And through it all — work and play — there was the quiet, serene, and guiding influence of "grandmama" — Miss Lizzie. She was gentle and firm; endowed with a generous heart — and with a hard hand if necessary. When I was old enough to notice, she was already grey, her bright silver hair done up on her head and parted precisely down the middle. Her light blue eyes looked out calmly and wisely through shiny, silver-rimmed spectacles. Her face was fair and unwrinkled. The set of her lips gave her face a balance in favor of seriousness. She laughed at us, and often observed us with a twinkle in her eye. But all in all Miss Lizzie's miem was not one to encourage too much adult or childish tomfoolery.

  She ran a good and generous, but a tight ship. And there was rarely any mistaking as to who was the boss of Woodley. If things went too far out of line, this erudite, cultured and classic five-foot-two little lady in black satin and lace would pick up a buggy whip and painfully instill a proper remembrance. She even whipped us with complete dignity. But she could really whip that buggy whip! Like she did when my age-mate cousin Dick Price and I, purposely and for pure devilment, turned the calves in with the cows, let all the Kerosene out of the big cans, rode off through the woods at a lickety split on some prize mare just before foal — and things like that.

  How she stood it all and did it all was something to wonder about. If a young black or white was orphaned or left without sufficient care and guidance she took over completely and raised the child. She doctored people all over the place, day or night. Dr. Sebastian would come if the case was serious. Otherwise she cured us herself. She had her own Nature's remedy concoctions. Dr. Sebastian would laugh and say, "She's the best doctor west of Town."

  In addition to all the personal and entertainment and educational things, she had to run a big and profitable agricultural enterprise, early century style. How did she do it?

  I remember one occasion when she explained her foolproof farmstead economic policy. This was during one of my first appearances at the "first table." I was about ten years old — and felt pretty big about it. There sat grandmama at that long and heavily laden table, pulling the cord of the paper-draped pendulum that comprised a ceiling fan — the dining room air conditioner of the time. With one hand she would pull the cord that kept the pendulum swinging, and with the other she would eat. Among the guests this summer evening was a presiding Elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, our church. The elder seemed to be considerably impressed with Miss Lizzie and the way she had clothed, fed, educated, worked, entertained, and cared for so many people so well. He asked: "Miss Lizzie, how on earth do you and did you do it?"

  She explained that while her husband — James Evans ("Squire Jim") Freeman was alive he was many things and did many things — tobacco factory, grist mill, Tax Collector, Magistrate, Deputy Sheriff, investor in Martin real estate, operator of farms near Gardner and Martin, etc., etc. (Picture E) When Squire Jim died and she was left with the responsibility of ten children, upcoming grandchildren, many employees, and a considerable estate for the time and place, she winnowed things down to what she knew best. That was how to get most out of the surface production of the land: crops, plants, horses, mules, hogs, cattle (really purebred Dairy Cows and Bulls), animals, fowl, the use and production of trees, vines, wildlife, and so on — land use for its best economic production. (Picture F)

  In reality her policy made of Woodley an almost self-sufficient world within itself. Boiled down to its essence, Miss Lizzie's formula was indeed foolproof for her set of circumstances. She reasoned that if the people of Woodley produced all they needed for themselves of a product and sold the surplus, that there was no way to go broke.

  It worked out just that way. We produced enough pork, beef, fowl, corn, wheat, hay, syrup, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, peas, fruits, vegetables, grapes, strawberries, nuts, game, timber, etc., etc. for "the place" — and sold the surplus. No matter how low the market (mostly via the I.C. and N.C. & St. L. freight cars and "fruit express") for a particular product, there was always some profit in producing it.

  There were sustenance crops and "money crops". Main money crop in the early century was tobacco — which we sold to "the Italian people." Perhaps next best money "crop" was meat, milk, and "Dairy products." At times we had a "cotton patch" of maybe thirty or forty acres. Martin was not cotton country so this was mostly to satisfy our able and affable foreman and superintendant — Tom Smallwood, and his helpers: Sam Foster, Ben Freeman, Simon Sour, Will Barr, Johan Henry, et al. They seemed to feel that every self-respecting farm should make some sort of cotton crop! We also raised and sold horses, mules, hogs, turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks, and those cackling, prattling, chattering guineas — noisiest lookouts and guardians any place ever had. (Picture G)

  There was an acre-size garden with a great Grape Arbor which yielded grapes for the table, and wine for whomever. There were vegetables for eating, "putting up" and storing in the three-story red brick "cellar". Potatoes, tomatoes, beans, peas, and strawberries were produced in the fields. Some were put up. Most were shipped. Same with fruits from the big orchard, berries of the woods and fields. The woods and fields also yielded squirrels, rabbits, 'possums, 'coons, quail, doves. There were persimmons for persimmon beer, possom grapes, blackberries, etc. In the winter time, before we were allowed guns, we children (black and white) hunted succulent rabbits with "Tap Sticks" (tobacco sticks with iron nuts on one end) and "rabbit dogs." We would camp out in the woodslot or the Big Woods down by the creek and the N.C. & ST. L. trestle. We "parboiled" everything we snared or killed! That is until my cousin Jack Bratton, the oldest boy and the ringleader of the "grandchildren" concocted his "Squirrel Stew." We thought we were getting pretty sophisticated around the campfire with this stew. Only thing about the stew I remember is that it was hot! My cousin Frank Phelan wanted to keep up with Jack. So he made his version. All he really did was make it hotter!

  Dick Price, Carter Smallwood, Jadie Smallwood (sons of foreman Tom Smallwood) and some of the Foster children caught fish — but none of us really knew how to cook them. I swam around a little in the creek after frogs and crawfish — but mostly I called myself looking after the hounds and my half bulldog and half shepherd dog Bruce, holding him ready to "catch anything that jumps up." We felt that our smaller cousins, Clifford and J. E. Freeman should stay home. But that didn't wash with the elders. So we spent lots of time keeping them from drowning or getting burned by the campfire.

  Martin was "town" but in those early-century days we didn't go to town much. Too much excitement and things going on at Woodley. We would pile on corn, wheat and cotton wagons when they'd go into Martin for ginning or grinding at Stafford's Mill, and visit around a bit. Seemed to me that when the wagons made the return trip loaded with barrels of flour and cornmeal and things there'd always be a big dog fight between the town dogs and our dogs, the "country dogs." (Picture H)

  On the farm our play games were mostly kicking the can, steaking sticks, marbles, tops, somersaulting from haystacks, hiding in the big barn, swimming in swimming holes, swinging, riding, fishing, playing Hawk & Chickens, Red Rover, Ante Over, Cowboys and Indians, pitching horse shoes, cob battling — and "circus!" We did "circus" with what we called "trained" horses, mules, donkeys, dogs, pigs and even turkey gobblers. To witness these animal and fowl acts we charged pennies or pins, buttons, or anything the elders and visitors would fork over. Sometimes these circuses would break out into a wild melee of kicking, bucking and gobbling — with us having one hell of a time trying to control our "trained animals!" (Picture I)

  In the summer, aside from the usual, we enjoyed such games as stealing peaches, apples, pears, plums, muscadines from the big orchard; watermelons and cantaloupes from the "watermelon patch." In the fall and winter it was hickory nut hunting, 'possum grape hunting, wild bee tree hunting, rabbits, squirrels, quail, doves, 'possum and 'coon hunting, and playing in the big red brick cellar building, corn cribs, hay lofts, carriage house, riding the "bucking colts," calves and pigs — and messing up things generally.

  When we socialized in town, like going to Horace Sharon's and Faye MacDonald's birthday parties, we either rode or were "carried" in surreys and/or buggies. We would all play ring around the rosie, spin the plate, pin the donkey, and all of that. Then would come that four leaft clover contest. My cousins did very well at it. But I could never find any! However, Jake Hurt, my buddy and really the champion, would slip me enough to keep me from being humiliated before all those six and seven-year olds. I was humiliated enough the time my cousins Sis Price and Dick Price told on me for accepting two helpings of pineapple sherbert at one of Horace Sharon's birthday parties. This got me soundly spanked.

  For our cultural advancement we would go to the Opera House in Martin, and ride trains to see plays in Jackson. We once rode all the way to Jackson to see one play — St. Elmo, which was playing at the Marlowe Theatre.

  You moderns and new departures might be surprised to learn that aside from the Opera House, we had lots of such entertainment right in Martin! — a town of some twenty-five hundred memorable people at the time. There were: Mr. Aydelot's tent picture show; stock companies, which came through regularly and played in tents on vacant lots; skating rinks were also in tents. Carnivals called from time to time. Then the Circus would come to town!! That meant we small fry from all around would be in the railroad yards at a dark four o'clock in the morning to watch the unloading, the putting up of tents, the parade through town — and finally the unbelievable excitement of the Circus itself. The Wild West Show with Buffalo Bill, the yelling cossacks riding every which way, the bands, the trapeze acts, the fat lady, the carnival shows outside the Big Top, the animal acts, and of course, the popcorn, peanuts and cracker jacks.

  I remember once the Circus was put up down in the lower lawn of the Woodley Farm. We all got passes. And my Uncle Ralston House broke the chains and rang the hammer bells and out-performed some of the Circus people in feats of strength. They asked him to cease and desist. He was winning too many prizes. So, dear, gentle Uncle Ralston, perhaps the strongest man for his size I have ever known, did indeed cease and desist — despite our unfeeling pleas for him to "break the Circus."

  Eastertime was the time for the eggs, the rabbits, chicks and goslings. We'd rush to the creek to let the little goslings swim all in a row and yell out! "Here they come around the bend!" But also at Eastertime the town children would come out to Woodley for a gigantic Easter Egg Hunt in the lawn. Again I could never find those beautiful eggs. But again, I had a partisan; the youngest of the in-house adults, my youthful and gay Nanina, that is Pauline ("Polly") Freeman House. She must have been about twenty-three or twenty-four at the time. Anyway she did not want me to be humiliated in front of my seven and eight-year old peers —a delightful, but rather teasy group. So Nanina would traipse gaily by and say in asides, and soto voice, such as: "in the crook of that tree, under the wagon bed, down in that mole hole." She knew where they were because she had hidden them! God rest her good, gay soul'.

  But with all of the fun things and more going on I believe the most exciting times on old Woodley in the early century had to do with the works! The works-life of the Farm was divided into times: Hog Killing Time, Hay Saving Time, Wheat Threshing Time, Tobacco Curing Time, Horse Breaking Time, Cotton Picking Time, Pea Picking Time, Canning Time, and so on. (Picture J) These were hard working times but to us they were more like hard playing games or competitive socials. Big tables were spread out under the trees to feed the "hands." Threshing was done by traveling troups of colorful characters, who sometimes camped out in the fields and woods at night — and we'd go visiting. Haytime was joined in by everybody at once — and tall tales were told as the wagons were heaped high. Cotton chopping was like a gossip and sing song fest in the fields — along with pain and sunburn. There was lots of arguing over the Bible. I remember having to go to the house and get my Methodist Minister Uncle Jim or my Uncle "Fessor" Price to come settle them to prevent fights. Strawberry time brought in pickers and packers from all over. It was probably the most fun of all. Mrs. Ed Lovelace and other ladies from town came out to help pack the crates. We hauled wagon loads of crates to the iced fruit express cars. The pickers were spread out all over a twenty-acre field.

  But there were other times not so much fun: wood chopping, chores, feeding the stock, slopping the pigs, bringing in the wood, pumping water, building fires, cleaning lamp chimneys, stacking up things in the cellar, tending the smokehouse fires, tending the tobacco barn fires, suckering tobacco, worming tobacco, gathering eggs (we were afraid of those flogging hens), killing grubs and army worms. Things like that. The adults disliked doing these things. We hated doing these things. (Picture K)

  We, the youngsters, wanted to do things just above or way above the things we could do. Miss Lizzie started us all out (black and white) chopping weeds — those plague-take-it Jimson weeds, sticker weeds, dog fennell, milkweeds, and pulling that pesky Johnson grass, that got into everything!

  We didn't like any of. this. We wanted to work in the fields, "with a team", like the big boys and the men. And finally, when we were about eleven or so — came the big day. Foreman Tom Smaliwood told Miss Lizzie he would take us to the fields and turn us over to the "straw bosses." This he did. And the first job they gave us was harrowing with the "tooth harrow" — making big clods into little ones, shaping for planting. As Will Barr, Sam Foster, Simon and others worked with us they got somewhat exasperated over what we didn't know and couldn't do! Simon said: "That mule Kate knows more 'n they'll ever learn." And so she did. But that is another story.

  It was along about this time that we began to pull on the traces to be real field hands — and act like it. We harnessed the mules and horses, hitched up the surreys and buggies. (Picture L) And, down in the tobacco barns we began to shoot craps and play with "spot cards" — Pitch and Poker. Never mind anymore of those games like Rook, Old Maid, and Flinch that we had been playing with the elders in the Parlor of the Big House.

  Sometime after this our ego and machismo got a big boost when Tom and Bubber (my Uncle Otis, who was beginning to oversee things) let us begin to drive the wagons. That was the day! We first drove them through the woods and into the fields. And finally, we drove them right on into town — wheat and corn wagons to the mill, tobacco wagons to the tobacco "factory," cotton to the gin, loads of those big milk cans to the creamery, heaps of strawberry, apple, peach, pear, plus, bean, and tomato crates to the Fruit Express trains for the markets in St. Louis and Chicago.

  By now we were exercising the high-stepping saddle horses, driving the mules to the pulley needle in haytime, working around the sorghum and cider mills, scaling way up into the tobacco barns to "check the leaf." A little later we were plowing with the teams — the double shovel, the middle buster, then the turn plow. Then at last we were "permitted" to work the "riding cultivator," the hay balers, the thresher and wheat binder.

  Ah, what a wonderful world it was. I can still see the sunset scene in a far wheat field, when Number Five of the N.C. & St. L. would blast out that plaintive whistle under the practiced hand of Engineer Bud Scott as the lighted cars trundled through the woods and over the trestle. I can still hear the melody of the rumble of the wagons of Woodley — through the fields and the woods and on to the big barn.

  *Mr. Holland McCombs, who now lives in Texas, was born and raised on Woodley Farm, just outside of Martin where the University of Tennessee at Martin campus is now. He began his journalistic career on the Weakley County Press at the age of thirteen. This article was written in 1972 and was submitted as a part of Martin's Centennial celebration that year.

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