Saturday, March 21, 2009

The Keys in the Early years!


I want everybody to know this is my childhood memories and fantasies as I remember them. My life story begins a long time before I was a gleam in my dad's eye. My dad is James Fred Key and my mother Gerturde Mandy Little Key. Dad was born in Tennessee, somewhere around Camden. I have never been to this wonderful place but as a child I heard stories of how my great grandfather was in both the Confederate and the Union armies. The war between the north and the south must have been like the movie of "Gone with the Wind." I'm sure there were a few horse thieves and murders in my past, it seems that from the stories that most of the Key(spelled Kee in the earlier years) men in those days were rugged, hot tempered, hell raisers, and womanizers.My grandfather, Calvin Venable Key (known only as CV) was married three times, with a total of 21 (so I was told, I can only count 17) children, my dad was from the second marriage. My grandmother's name was Molly Brackin and they had four sons and a daughter. Fred, Chester, Irvin and Lester. I never knew anything about the daughter but apparently she died young. These guys had numerous cousins, CV's brother Andrews had 24 (so they say)children, when I was about five I remember sitting on the steps when CV and Andrew were sitting in rocking chairs on the porch trying to out boast each other about how many children they each had. Andrew had more fortune because he had all those children to help him work his farm and help make a living in his "old age." He said this was the best insurance a man could have. I remember one other great uncle and his name was Daniel . His wife was "Miss Lily" as my dad called her. Since Molly died young, CV married Nancy Beggs, dad called her "Miss Nancy" because she was only five years old than he was. This made more aunts and uncles for me, some even younger than me. When I was almost eleven years old Grandma Nancy had a tumor and we were all so worried but it turned out to be Leon, another uncle. We played in the grudge ditches around grandpa's farm, we caught "crawdads" from the ditch and roasted them on a piece of tin over a campfire. Our little blond haired cousin, Jeannette, came to visit from Memphis and this was the first time most of us had seen a store bought bathing suit. Of course the mosquitoes had a field day.Grandpa died at 91 and I think Leon turned 21 that same year. Grandpa's mind was good up until he died, he loved crossword puzzles and reading. He was a teacher in his younger days. He told us he sold a wagon load of corn to get money to go to college to become a teacher. He had the bluest eyes I have ever seen on a man, I see those same eyes in some of his grand and great-grand children. Grandpa was a slight of build and not tall but he was a giant in my eyes. My uncle Andrew was one of those kind kid loving men, I thought of him as old but it was because I was so young. His overall pockets harbored treasures, he never saw me that he didn't reach in this pocket and bring out something for me, a pecan, a nickel, a peanut ---- it was always something interesting.I never saw my uncle Daniel very often but when I did see him in town on Saturday afternoon he bought me "BIG NICK" ice-cream. I 've never found anybody else except my husband who remembers what "Big Nicks' were, I guess that is why it is nice to be married to someone your own age. A "Big Nick" was a solid bar of vanilla ice-cream dipped in chocolate, it was packaged in a cardboard carton and could be torn down as you ate it, but it looked kinda like the boxes a dozen pencils comes in today.Grandma Nancy made us sorghum molasses candy and we pulled it while it was still warm. Country folks said "it looked like sorghum and butter mixed together. Hum, hum, I can remember the taste now.They planted sorghum and it grew into a cane that looked kinda like a fishing cane. Then when it was ripe they cut and carried it to the Sorghum Mill over on "Last Chance" road. The men fed the sorghum stalks though the Mill to press the juice from the them, the juice would drain into a vat that had a fire under it and they cooked the juice and while it was cooking the raw foam was skimmed from the trough. The mill press was kept turning by a mule that walked round and round as the men put in the stalks. It took around six men to operate the mill and when the syrup was all cooked off the syrup was divided for each family to take home to be eaten with hot biscuits and butter. Us kids chewed the sorghum stalk, you could strip it down and bite off the sorghum and after the juice was out of it you spit out the husk, it had a heavenly taste. Sorghum making only came around once a year just like a crop of cotton. But that is another story, post more soon.
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