Waive Junior Remembering
On The Farm

Great Grandfather & Grandmother Schwander, Grandmother Ruby feeding chickens, Aunt Hazel and my mother Waive is little girl in white hat. Written on Back by Barbara Junior Mixson.

            We use to rent pasture land from a neighbor for the young cattle but the mile road that led to it was very hilly and bad.  I would go with Dad to bring the cattle home, and riding in the buggy, he would sing this song to me:

“We jumped in the buggy
and all gave a yell,
the horse ran away and broke
the buggy all to h---.”

I was singing this song when we got home thinking it was a pretty good song to sing but I was wrong for Dad really got a bawling out from Grandma and Ma for teaching me such things!
 
            When Uncle McKinley Simmons (Uncle McKin) Ma’s brother and Aunt Leah first got married they lived in Michigan down from us.  They later moved to Cartersville, Georgia where they still live today.  It was here that Ruth, their oldest daughter was born. Hazel and I liked her a lot and we loved to hold her and play with her. We took turns going down to their house with Dad, who helped Uncle McKin, chop wood.
 
            I remember that we would can and put away potatoes, apples, onions and cabbage in the cellar for the winter. Dad wouldn’t be very busy in the winter and we loved that. He would peel apples for us, track nuts, and make tops out of empty thread spools. Sometimes he would take potatoes and onions, put them down in the hot ashes of the stove and cook them for as -- we really thought they were good.
 
            When I was about ten years old we moved from Grandma’s. The folks bought a sand farm about four miles from Grandma’s farm. I remember crying until I was just about sick for I wanted to stay with Grandma.  When I aid stay with her, and if it was in winter time, we would eat by the fire on a little table with a red and white checked table cloth.  I loved those days. . . it was at this time Jack nearly died with pneumonia.
 
            One time Grandma’s youngest sister, Aunt Tillie brought me a canary from Ohio. I named it Freddie after Grandma’s nephew.  We also had an all-white cat (which was pretty rare in those days) that always stayed up in the barn.  On one particular morning, Dad got up to build the fire and there the cat was in the house.  Dad was suprised to see him in so let him out, then built the fire and uncovered the canary.  There lay my canary in the bottom of the cage with no head!  When I saw it I cried and cried.....Dad threatened to kill the cat, but we never did see that cat after that.
 
            We raised a lot of baby chickens on the farm and in May or June the crows would come by the hundreds and steal the baby chicks and carry them off, many a time the farmer would have to replant the corn because of the crows.  On a Sunday that I remember, Dad took his shotgun and went looking for the crows.  He found a big nest, shot at it and 2 or 3 little red squirrels fell out.  Dad brought them home at that time to us.  Jack wore little bib overhalls and they would crawl up his pant legs.  At this same time, we had an old cat that had kittens in the barn and she raised those squirrels right along with her kittens.  People would stop by just to look at that cat nurse those squirrels.
 
            Another time, Jack had another lamb whose name was Mary.  The doctor that took care of Jack when he was so sick was Dr. Joe Do Pree, and his daughters also had a lamb, but he was getting too big for city life (Burnips) so they gave him to Jack.  We called him Joseph. Dad didn’t like sheep and when they got big he took them to town in the wagon to sell.  On the way into town, they got into his chewing tobacco and ate it all up -- boy, did all of us kids think that was neat.