The Early Years of My Life
by
Jack Jeffers Scott
Back to Stith Valley, Back to Scott Hill Farm
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1 Homelife On The Farm in The 20's and 30's
2. The Fireplace Room
3. Old Meade County
4. Big Spring in the 1920's
5. The Formative Years
6. Tales and Musings From a Transition Time
7. Dad And The '37 Flood
8. World WarII December7, 1941
9. World War II Uncle Sam
10. A Year on The Farm 1948-1949
11. Blood On My Hands
12. Dynamite
13. My Flying Experiences
14. Ode To Jack On Turning 80
15. The Carriage
HOME LIFE ON THE FARM IN THE 20's AND 30's
We lived beside the road that joined the Stith Valley Road and the Big Spring Road. We
called it the "Big Road" to distinguish it from the farm road to Granny's that
went through the fields. A wagon or buggy would come by infrequently and once a week in
the summer a car might go by. We would all go out to see it. Hall School was a mile down
the road where the Big Spring Road joined ours. Burnett's Store was about a half mile down
that road toward Big Spring where the Flaherty Road turned off. About two miles further
was the village of Big Spring.
Big Spring had gone through its heyday in the mid -1800's when it was a stagecoach
stopover. There were two hotels then. At this time Big Spring had a Methodist Church and a
Baptist Church, a high school with one teacher, two grocery stores, a blacksmith shop and
a saloon. We went to the Methodist Church there each Sunday in a wagon or carriage. In the
winter we would heat bricks to put under the blankets for our feet and wrap up in old
quilts for the trip. What few groceries we bought such as salt, pepper and coffee, we got
at Burnett's Store.
Flaherty was south of us about two miles. There was a mill there where we had wheat ground
for flour and corn for cornmeal. The Cosby and Craycroft Store was in a large old building
that housed clothes, shoes, and cloth for sewing. I would ride a horse with a bag of wheat
across its back behind me to be ground. Our saddle was an old army saddle and not very
comfortable. We went barefooted all summer but would go to Flaherty in the fall if we had
the money to get shoes. Ma had some rich relatives in Arkansas that would send us clothes
their children had outgrown. We were the only kids at Hall School who wore knickers. The
mail route was on the Stith Valley Road almost a half mile across the valley. Cousin Gill
Wright and wife whom we called Aunt Lillie lived across the road from the mail box. Jim
and I walked to get the mail from the time we were 3 years old. Aunt Lillie usually had
cookies to give us for a treat when we stopped in there.
The house we lived in contained the two big log rooms with bedrooms above, and had been
built in 1804. The spring was about 250 yards behind the house at the base of the hilt In
the branch Dad had built a large box about 6 feet long, 18 inches high, and 18 inches
wide, with a hinged lid. The box was fastened in the bottom of the spring branch, and
water ran through it constantly. There we kept our milk, butter, cheese and left-over food
to be kept cold. You seldom kept anything after a meal. Before the turn of the century,
Aunt Lucinda Stith and her husband, Uncle Jessie Stith, owned the farm. She had enclosed
the dog trot between the rooms of the house, so that it was a hall. Weatherboarding of
yellow poplar planks was added to the exterior. They had aged to a beautiful gray color by
the time we lived there.
There was a large bedroom over each log room with a window in each end of the house. The
upstairs rooms which were unheated were a boys' room and a girls' room. The left log room
(downstairs) had a large rock chimney on the end and a big fire place for heat. We always
called this" the fireplace room". In it was a library table in the center, two
bookcases, and several chairs. Here all of us studied or read while Mom and Dad read.
Dad would sit there and make his tobacco into plugs for chewing and crumbled tobacco for
smoking in his pipe. I didn't find out till after Dad died that he and Ma got up at 4:30,
had their coffee and smoked their pipes together each morning after they had their private
breakfast before anyone else was up at 5:30. None of the children smoked until they left
home. Mom and Dad had a great relationship together. I don't ever remember hearing them
quarrel with each other.
When I was five I started to school. Early that year, Ma had to go to Arkansas to
see her sister who was sick, and Granny stayed with us. That was the time I decided to try
smoking and chewing at noon. An older boy gave me a homemade cigarette which I smoked and
a piece of Brown Mule chewing tobacco to chew. By the time school was out I was almost at
death's door. I managed to get home and crawl under the bed before Granny saw me. I
thought I was dying. To this day, I have never wanted another chew of tobacco or a
cigarette.
The farm had a nice generous garden beside the house. There were two sections separated by
a grape arbor. The front of the garden toward the road was the high side for spring
planting, and the back part was lower for summer planting. The garden was manured every
year and would grow anything put there. In a corner at the front side was a mound that was
used for burying cabbage and turnips to keep for the winter. There was an old orchard
behind the house toward the spring, and a newer one on top of the hill. We had June apples
and old-fashioned small peaches and cherry trees in the lower orchard, and fall apples and
larger peaches on the hill. Grapes were plentiful in the garden, and there was a fig bush
that Dad covered with fodder every fall to protect it from the cold. We always had a few
figs. In the old rail fence rows we had wild strawberries in the spring and blackberries
in July. There were plenty of walnut trees and hickories for nuts, plus a pecan tree that
was uncertain. Persimmons abounded for both us and the wildlife. Dad was an outstanding
gardener, and there were lots of tomatoes and okra, onions, lettuce, and radishes in the
spring, and later bush beans, pole beans and butter beans. We had lots of cabbage for
summer use and for burying in baskets for winter. We had lots of Irish potatoes and sweet
potatoes, for daily use and for storage, and corn and popcorn, plus a cane patch for
sorghum. On the steep hillside above the spring, Dad planted his wheat crop, and harvested
it by hand, using a scythe and cradle. It was raked together and made into small shocks
until taken to the barn.
Dad kept bees, and we always had honey. Eggs and chickens were abundant, and we raised a
flock of turkeys for sale each fall. We also had mallard ducks and a flock of geese. Milk
and butter were plentiful, as were cured ham, shoulders, and bacon along with sausage and
lard for cooking.
While Dad was the provider of the outdoor food, Mom managed the indoor preparation Lizzie,
the colored woman who worked for us, along with the girls, would can beans, corn, tomatoes
and okra. From the orchard we stored apples and canned peaches and cherries. We had jam
and preserves from the strawberries and blackberries, plus canned blackberries for winter
pies. There were peach and plum preserves, too. It was rare that we bought anything in the
way of food. Lye soap was made from surplus cooking grease and ashes. We did buy oil for
our lamps to read by. Dad kept plenty of wood cut for the cookstove and stacked for winter
use. In addition to the garden work, Dad always took time to help Mom can. He would get
fruits and vegetables picked and cleaned up for her.
In the early 1900's, Dad built a shed on the back of the two large rooms. On the right was
a bedroom for Mom and Dad, then a chimney, and the kitchen with a screened porch beside it
for summertime eating. There was also a large pantry. The smokehouse was divided into one
room for meat-curing and storage, and another to store canned goods in well-insulated
boxes. The porch in front of the smokehouse was used to keep dry wood for the kitchen, to
work on harness, to sit under and visit with neighbors on rainy days, and a play space for
us. The porch on the front of the house had flowers and vines growing on trellises, and on
summer afternoons we sometimes sat there, the grown-ups in rocking chairs and the kids on
the edge of the porch or on the rock steps.
The corn crib behind the barn was double with storage space for the wagon in the middle.
Above the right crib was a loft that Jessie and Mom had fixed up for a playhouse and a
place to keep little kids out of the way. We had a small wagon for the girls to pull us
around in. Dad made a double swivel-type wooden sled with steel buggy tires for runners.
The high hills above the house made for good sledding. When the pond in the pasture froze
over, Jessie and Mary would take us on the sled to the pond bank and build a fire. Then we
would spend most of the day playing and skating.
Our house was between the Hall School and the Shumate School, and was not too far from Big
Spring. The school seasons in those years were between 5 and 6 months long. As we fed well
and were well-known, most of the teachers boarded with us. They shared the large upstairs
girls' room with Rena Lou, Jessie, and Mary, and ate with us, fixing their own lunch to
take to school. I remember Mary Grinnell, Ava Burch, Ruth Foor, and others who
boarded with us. It brought in a little cash during days when money was so scarce.
When the Depression was at its height, sometimes people would come looking for a place to
work for food and a place to sleep. Major Walton's road-building business in Alabama shut
down, and two of his ex-employees came north to look for food and a place to live. They
came as hoboes on the train to Brandenburg Station, and Mrs. Walton told them to walk out
to our place. We took them in, even though there was not much farm work to do. They fixed
up the old chicken shed that was in the yard near the smokehouse to sleep in, and put an
old drum stove in it for heat. (Dad had just built a new chicken house.) They were
cheerful and honest and good musicians with a French Harp and singing. A family on a hill
above us were singers who yodeled at night, waiting for another family on the other hill
to answer with their yodels. With that, and Bob and Bennie to play and sing, we had good
entertainment on summer nights. Bob and Bennie helped in the house, the barn, and the
fields, and stayed with us about a year and a half until relatives up north got in touch
with them and asked them to come there. We recall with pleasure the friendships, the
singing and story-telling at night of those two young black men.
Usually we had a family in the tenant house, some good and some not. One day, Dad let a
family move in to help with the tobacco. They were a rather sorry lot with several kids
and a mangy dog. The first night they were there, Dad heard a commotion in the chicken
house. He took his gun, stepped out of the back door, and fired out toward the spring. The
next morning when he went to the barn he saw the tenants moving out. They later told
someone they didn't want to live "no place" where a man could kill their dog in
the dark.
The tenants I remember best were Tony and Elyce Poliafico. Tony had left Italy in World
War I to avoid the draft there. He came to Detroit where he met Miss Elyce (pronounced
Miss Elsie). She was a widow who was fairly well off, and they lived together several
years before they married. She had children in Louisville, and they came by our house
looking for a place to live. Dad let them move into the tenant house, use a cow, and have
a garden spot in return for raising the tobacco and helping at the barn. Tony would not
use a team of horses or mules, but did all his work with his "grub hoe". Miss
Elyse would cook spaghetti for him, and they liked to cook groundhogs. Dad did get after
him for sucking eggs down at the barn. Tony called me little Jackie and tried to
teach me how to suck spaghetti off the plate without ever breaking it. He had renounced
the Catholic Church, but one day when he ate some mushrooms that were poison, he asked Dad
to call the priest at Flaherty to give him Last Rites. He did pull through.
Dad was a unique father, and I wish I had known him better. He was rather quiet but liked
to talk to neighbors. He would get outdone with Ma's uncle, Allen Stith. Dad bought
a mowing machine, and Uncle Allen borrowed it and kept it for a year. Dad had to go after
it, and thought most of the "Dam Stiths" were like that, but he did like Uncle
Sam, Dr. Stith. Dad especially liked our Big Spring neighbors, the Hagers,
Hamiltons, and Bungers. John Burnett, the storekeeper, was also a friend, and backed Dad
strongly when he ran for Sheriff. Ma and Daisy, John's wife, were friends but competitors
in the community and church. Once Jessie was taking some eggs to their store to exchange
for groceries. The mare she was riding jumped aside to avoid a snake in the road, and
Jessie dropped the eggs. Jessie went ahead and got the groceries on credit and took them
home. When she told Mom what had happened, Mom was really upset. She sent all of us kids
out to look in hollow trees and rail fence rows until we found enough eggs that day to
take to Burnett's store and pay for the groceries. She said she didn't want Daisy Burnett
to say that Ma owed her.
Now back to Dad. He was kind to us children and was always helpful. He took good care of
our livestock. He was well-known and liked all over Meade county. Jury selection was
different in those days, and he served on the jury a lot prior to being Sheriff. He just
went to school through the Eighth Grade, but he could do algebra. He loved to read, and we
had a good home library. We took the daily Courier Journal and kept up on current events.
He had the books of James Fenimore Cooper and G. A. Henty. He also had Josephus, a book he
loved to quote. I can still hear him saying, "Josephus said...etc."
Dad showed me how to hunt. He could go out at night with his lantern and gun and show me
the trees where the coons and possums stayed. He would rarely kill them, as their meat
wasn't that good. Uncle Fletcher had hounds and liked to hunt foxes at night. Dad would
take us along with him and Uncle Fletcher sometimes. The thing I remember most about this
was them sitting around a fire they had built and talking while listening to the hounds
baying out on the hills. Dad loved to hunt quail, and the whole family enjoyed a quail
dinner after a hunt. He also showed me how to find where to set my traps and how to set
them. I was the hunter and trapper in the family. He loved to hunt and would go early in
the morning and often bring back squirrel for breakfast. He was interested in guns. He
owned an 1832 Joseph Manton muzzle-loading double-barreled shotgun with percussion caps,
and an 1875 32-20 Winchester Rifle, both of which he had inherited. He was a dead shot.
The first 16 times he shot the muzzle- loader, he got 15 squirrels and a coon. He would
use the rifle to kill the geese that were flying south, if we needed meat.
We had an old grindstone that was turned by hand for sharpening axes, scythes, hoes and
other tools. I turned the handle slow while Dad held the blade. I could never have the
ability to hoe the garden, tobacco, or corn as Dad could. He really knew how to use a hoe.
If we needed a new pond or to clean out an old one, it would be done with a horse-drawn
scraper. There was an art to doing it just right.
Our barn burned in the spring of 1927. We had recently bought our first car, a new Model
T. It was in the barn and burned, along with about 35 sheep and 8 cows, plus hay and some
farm tools and harness. We did save the corn crib. The neighbors all rallied round us; we
had $200 in insurance which was used to pay for the car which had been bought on credit
over Dad's protest. Camp Knox was expanding, so Dad was able to tear down a barn on the
reservation, for the lumber and roofing. Neighbors helped to do this and to erect a new
barn for us. Some of them also gave us a few cows and sheep to replace those burned. When
Dad ran for sheriff in 1932, he rode all over the county on his horse. He never liked to
drive a car.
In those days, the roads in the rural areas were kept up by the landowners. Every able-
bodied man was required by the County to put in three days or more each year to keep the
roads repaired. The County furnished equipment such as team pulled road graders and
scrapers, dynamite for blasting rocks out and rock crushers. Dad was elected Constable,
and one of his jobs was to supervise the road work. We had a small quarry on our land to
get out rock for the worst mudholes. The roads were fairly good in summer, but almost
impassable by car in winter and early spring. Tire chains were a must in winter. A few
cars now used the roads, but buggies, wagons and horses were still the major users.
US 60 was the main road through the county. It was good except for the stretch from
Brandenburg Station to Brandenburg. The farm trucks could run most of the time, but
occasionally livestock and grain that had to be shipped were taken to US 60 to be loaded
on the trucks.
Just after our barn burned, Jessie had pneumonia and was critically ill. Uncle Sam (Dr.
Stith) who was living on his farm near Ekron, rode his horse to our house to help Ma with
Jessie. Grannie came, as well as some of the neighbor women, and Jessie recovered. She was
to remember in later years that she was a semi-invalid all of that next summer, being
quite weak and without the desire to be active, which was unlike her.
The announcement Ma had sent to family members after Jack's birth in 1922, said,
"The cradle had been cut in sticks, when along came Baby No. Six,
Now we can only pray that Heaven holds on fast to Number Seven."
This was in Ma's handwriting, and may have been her own composition. Jim was born in 1924,
and Ma had a long convalescence afterward, with complications. There was no announcement
after Number Seven. Later, Ma wrote an interesting account of Jim's birth and of all the
visitors who were in the house at the time.
Two major events occurred before my memory. When Walter was a toddler, he crawled through
the fence into a pen with a sow and pigs. The sow attacked him, and he was badly injured.
Uncle Sam Stith came to treat him, and he had a long but complete recovery.
One day Mary was carrying her doll and fell down the steps in the barn. The broken doll
cut Mary's face severely, and again, Dr. Stith took care of her. She was left with a scar,
but it was not deep.
Dr. Stith took care of most of our major injuries and illnesses, but for minor ailments,
Uncle Jake Williams, an experienced horse doctor who live on the adjoining farm, helped
us.
The Twenties and Thirties were trying times, but with fortitude and hope, we survived.
THE FIREPLACE ROOM by Jack Scott, 2002
I was born in the Fireplace room. It was on a cool morning on July 22nd, 1922 and there
was lots of company around. The old log room, with it's large fireplace had seen many uses
in the past 120 years. Birth on a farm in Kentucky in that era was a family affair. My
five siblings had been sent to Granny Scott's house about a mile across the fields and
woods, but plenty of people were still around. Lizzie, our colored friend and helper, who
lived on the hill above Granny's place was there, along with Aunt Maggo, Dad's sister. Dad
was there as was Mom's brother, Uncle Jess. Uncle Sam Stith, Morn's mother's brother got
there at the last minute, riding his horse from his farm near Ekron, about five miles
away. Ab, the black man who helped around the place and usually slept behind the kitchen
stove was around somewhere.
Uncle Jess and Dad helped when Mom needed to hold on to someone on each side. Mom was
great for planning ahead, so plenty of old clean sheets were on hand plus homemade diapers
and belly bands to wrap around my navel. Lizzie had seen to it that the customary axe was
under the bed to cut the pain. I came out, looking pretty scrawny and Lizzie was heard to
say, "lawsy me miss Ruth, you should have quit before you run plum out." The
good old family names had already been taken by two older brothers, but I was in luck,
just the same. Our white mare, Old May had a mule colt the day before they had named Jack
so all said that would fit me also.
As was the custom in those days, Dad took the afterbirth out on the hill to bury it.
Things move along pretty well and Lizzie and Aunt Maggo fixed dinner for everybody. Mom
loved to talk so while she rested some, she had someone to talk to the rest of the day.
The Fireplace Room was the center of our home activities. On the old library table in
front of the fireplace, Mom taught my sisters to sew. Dad would read to us and we did our
studying there, with the lamp lit in winter. The old log walls made it fairly cool in
summer and, along with the fireplace, it was the warm place to be in the winter. That was
the room where Dad made his cigars and tobacco plugs while we all read and talked. I've
often thought since that time of the many family things that went on in that room.
OLD MEADE COUNTY
Flaherty School is almost in the shadow of that big hill over there. What's the name of
that hill? Bee Knob Hill, that's right. Did you know it's the highest hill in Meade
County? My school, where I went, when I was your age, was on the other side of the hill.
It was a little one room school with an outdoor toilets, one for the boys and one for the
girls. In the middle of the room was a big iron stove to heat the room. The teacher sat
upon a platform, about a foot high, at the front. In the back of the room was a water
bucket for drinking water. There was a dipper in the bucket for everyone to drink from.
One day we were told not to all drink from the same dipper and that everyone was to bring
their own tin cup to drink out of. We put a board with, a nail for every cup, on the wall
above the dipper. On Friday afternoons the teacher would take all the school on a walk
somewhere. Sometimes we would climb Bee Knob and go in a cave up there. Our school started
in late July but we got out the middle of January. In the fall some of the bigger boys had
to take off from school to cut tobacco and pick corn. We all took lunches to school:
Sausage and biscuit, or a piece of ham on a biscuit, or maybe, a piece of homemade pie. We
all walked to school,, barefooted in warm weather and work shoes when it got cold. There
were about 22 of us in the school, from the first grade through the eighth. At recess, the
teacher would get a ball game started or ante-over on each side of the school. In this
game sides were chosen, one for each side of the schoolhouse. Someone on a team would
throw the ball over and if someone on the other side caught it, they would run around the
building and throw the ball at someone on the other side. If they hit them that person was
out. It continued till all of one team was out.
Back then all of the roads were dirt and mud roads except US Highway no. 60, which had
just been graveled. Our farm was in Stith Valley just over the hill. Flaherty was the main
village near us. There was a big store there that sold shoes, and clothes and farm
supplies. Next door to the store was a mill. We would take our wheat and corn there to
have it ground into flour and meal to make biscuits and cornbread. When I was your age,
Dad would put a sack of wheat and a sack of corn, over the horses back and a old saddle on
the horse. I would ride to Flaherty, about an hour away, and have them ground into flour
and meal to take home so we could have biscuits and cornbread. Another town was Big
Spring. That's where Meade, Hardin and Breckenridge counties come together. There were two
stores there and a blacksmith shop. Dad would
take the wagon to Big Spring to get the iron wagon tires around the wheels repaired and
shoes made and put on the horses. The blacksmith shop was a large barn like building
filled with farm tools waiting to be repaired, Pieces of iron, for repairing things, hung
from the walls. At the front of the building was the smith's forge. The forge was a large
bowl like Brick stand, with a place in the middle to build a fire. At one side was a air
pump that could be powered by bellows on the ground or by turning a large wheel. An air
hose went from this to a hole in the firebowl. When a fire was started, coal was put on it
and the air pumped under the coal to get the fire very hot.. The iron, to be into wagon
wheels, plows, horseshoes or whatever was held with a pair of tongs by the smith, and
placed over the heat. When the was a cheery red, the smith would place it on a large anvil
and hammer it into shape for whatever he was making. I knew the smith and he would let me
turn the wheel to blow air on the forge so the coals would get really hot. The iron would
get soft enough to hammer into whatever shape he wanted. There was a one room high school
with one teacher and only five students. Not many people went to high school
There were a few cars then but they could be used only in the summer when the roads
weren't muddy. Everybody either walked, rode horses, or went in buggies and wagons pulled
by their horses. Sometimes a wagon would have a hard time getting through mud holes. The
law then required that every man work on the roads twice a year. They would bring horses
and dirt scrapers, wagons of rock and sledge hammers to bread rock up and repair the worst
holes and use a homemade grader to drag the road so it would be fairly smooth.
We didn't have electricity then so all of our homes had no running water, bathrooms,
electric stoves, refrigerators, or fans. At home we had a spring, about 300 yards back of
the house, at the foot of a hill. We carried our water from the spring and kept our milk
and butter in a box the water flowed through. We had a big family, seven children and a
hired woman and sometime hired men. There was a grocery store about a mile and a half from
the farm. In those days we brought very little from the store. Do you know what Mom And
Dad bought at that store? It wasn't much. Just a little coffee for mom and dad only, a
little sugar, salt, pepper and vanilla. All the rest of our food we produced on the farm.
We had a large, good garden, an orchard, and wild fruits. In our garden we raised our own
potatoes, cabbage, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, lima beans, carrots, peas and
okra. We also had corn, pumpkins, peppers, asparagus, onions, radishes, and lettuce. Just
about anything else that would grow in a garden. Our orchard Several kinds of peaches, and
different verities of apples. We had pears, plums and grapes. A lot of grape juice and
tomato
juice was made plus we dried apples on the roof of our large hen-house. We had our own
milk and butter, our own meat house for salting and smoking meat and storing our meat and
lard. We raised chickens for eggs and meat, and a flock of turkeys to both sell and eat.
We also hunted for wild meat such as rabbits, squirrels, quail, plus fish we caught. Two
of our relatives had ice houses . In midwinter when the ice was thick on the ponds, we
would help them put up ice. Once or twice in the summer we would get ice to make ice
cream. Occasionally a group would go together in the fall and kill a beef With no way to
keep the meat, each family got only what they could eat in a few days.
Sundays were always special days. We went to church in Big Spring. Mom was very active
there, playing the piano and organizing various events. It was a little over three miles
and in the winter time in the open wagon, that was a long way. We'd wrap up in blankets
and put hot bricks inside the blankets. We usually had company for a late Sunday dinner
and in the afternoons we would explore the woods and caves. There was a good cave on our
grandmothers farm next to our farm. You had to climb 20 feet down a narrow rock chimney to
get in, but it was a large cave. During the war of 1812 salt peter, used to make
gunpowder, had been mined in the cave. There were a lot of names on the cave walls going
back to the 1800's. A few month's ago I was in the cave and found my name that I had put
there in 1930. I was 8 years old then. This was before we had flashlights. We would take
an old lantern and candles to explore the cave. I would go in by myself sometime and spend
several hours there. Another Sunday afternoon exploring we did was hunting for bee trees
to get the wild honey. I remember one Sunday afternoon when our preacher and his family
were there. Dad took the whole group into the woods and found a large bee tree. We went
back to the house to get an axe plus buckets and a washtub. A large hole was chopped in
the tree and we got a washtub and several buckets full of wild honey. It was really good.
We didn't buy much sugar so honey was one of our main things we used to sweeten things. We
also raised a small patch of sorghum cane. A man in the neighborhood had a sorghum mill to
grind the cane in to get the juice out and boil to make sorghum molasses . A mule was used
to turn the grinding gears. He was hooked to the end of a long pole and walked around and
around. sorghum was kept on the table all the time to use with hot biscuits and butter
after our regular meal.
We're getting short on time now. I would like to come back some time to tell you more:
like when the railroad from Louisville to St. Louis started at Rock Haven and was built in
both directions, about river traffic at Brandenburg, or the big apple orchards around
Ekron. Also how the last Indian battle in Kentucky was just below Rock Haven and how the
underground railroad to get slaves across the Ohio River to Freedom in
Indiana had a river crossing at the same place. There is a lot of history that took place
in Meade County. It sure is worth knowing about.
BIG SPRING, MEADE COUNTY, KENTUCKY, IN THE 1920's
When I started life in rural Kentucky in the early 1920's, Big Spring was the first center
of my universe. The population was about 200 people but that was big to me. There was the
Methodist Church where I went to church every Sunday. Mom was the leading force in the
church She was the pianist, the leader of the children, the one the minister turned to for
advice. Dad was a quiet and staunch member whom the pastor looked up to. In those days US
60 was the only gravel road in Meade County. All the others were dirt and impassable in
winter except by horse- drawn vehicles. Cars were few and far between. We went to church
in a farm wagon drawn by Old May and Beck. Mom and Dad sat on the spring wagon seat,
holding the newest baby, while all of us children rode on quilts and blankets piled in the
back. On cold days, we had hot bricks wrapped in the quilts to keep us warm. The Church
was about four miles from home around the big road but much less over the hill if you rode
horseback. The church was the first building as you came into town, but just down the road
were two grocery stores and the hotel. Across the street was the Post Office and around a
corner from it was the Blacksmith shop. The Blacksmith Shop was my favorite place in the
town. You could get your horses shod, your wagon and buggy wheels fixed and farm machinery
repaired. As a small boy, I felt like a man when the smith would let me turn the crank
that fed the bellows to heat the metal for shaping. Miss Zell Moreman's house was a large
brick house across from the church There was a large rock stile--block to help you get off
your horse. In the house there were velvet setees and much fine furniture. Miss Zell was
the church treasurer, and it was said that she hid the church's money in various
mysterious places about the house. We visited her often and I felt I must be on my best
behavior in this elegant place.
Down from her yard, the Big Spring flowed from beneath a small rock cliff. Several yards
from the opening, the creek that poured from the spring went underground for a few more
yards before appearing again. Across from this natural bridge was a large Oak tree that
was famous as the corner where Meade County, Hardin County and Breckenridge County met.
There was a large grassy space all around it. Beyond that space was the frame home of Miss
Tula Meador, a close friend of Grandma Scott. Later, I was to drive Granny there many
times in her buggy, pulled by Old Mac, over the hill from her house to Big Spring. I spent
many a night there.
Back to the town: before coming into town you passed the large Hardaway farm that lay
back, down a lane on the right side. On the left side was the farm of Jim Moorman, Miss
Zell's husband. They had a strange relationship. He lived mainly on the farm while she
lived in town. When together, they bickered constantly. The Methodist parsonage was on the
left before you came to the church. As you approached the church there was a large grassy
area for hitching the horses and wagons and beyond that the cemetery. Between the church
and the commercial part of town was the school property that included a two--room
elementary building and a separate one--room high school building. This was the Big Spring
High School where Walter and Rena Lou attended their first two years. The white-painted
hotel, with Victorian overtones, was frequented by many drummers, or salesmen, who came
through on their way from Louisville to Nashville. In front of the grocery stores and
hotel was a board walk with rock steps leading to level changes. To the side of the hotel
was the old Clarkson /Hardaway Mansion. There were tall white columns with ivy, and
flowers grew beside the walk A broad stairway led upstairs from the impressive entrance
hall.. On up the road, on both sides were several nice homes. The road up over the hill to
Stith Valley turned off to the right and became a wagon trail.
Big Spring had its rougher side. There was a saloon and on Saturday nights, after a bit of
drinking, a group assembled around the grassy area of the old oak tree. Usually arguments
broke out and fights erupted. I remember one, where two "leading citizens" got
into a fight with much rolling around with punching and gouging of bodies on the ground.
One bit the other's ear off. He later wore his hair long over that ear. If things got too
rough someone usually called the sheriff. If the Hardin
County Sheriff came, the fighters went into either Meade or Breckenridge County and
continued the fight.
By Sunday morning all was forgotten and both the Methodist and Baptist Churches would be
full. Ma was great in putting on performances by the children on Christmas and Easter, and
each child had a part I remember one Christmas when I was about four, Marguerite Burnette
and I were to sing together. The church was decorated with a large tree and many
ornaments. New shoes were rather uncommon in those days. Before starting to sing I spoke
loudly, "I'll be damned Marguerite, where did you get those new shoes?" After a
long pause the program resumed. I was quite a singer in those days. Sometimes when we were
at Sunday dinner at a neighbor's home I was asked to sing. Several times I was given a
nickle to stop. Sunday was always a big day for neighbors and relatives to get together
for dinner. Many times we would have the preacher and his family come to eat with us. Dad
was a great woodsman. He always knew where the bee trees were. If he and Ma thought the
preacher needed honey to take home, the entire group would troop to the woods to cut a bee
tree and have honey for all to take home with them.
The spring in the center of town always maintained a steady flow. At times when we had an
extremely long and hard rain, the spring would flood and send water into the downtown
streets. This spring flowed underground a great part of its journey toward the Ohio River.
It was known as Sinking Creek and flowed near the Foote farm as it made its way through
Breckenridge County. It would still be underground much of the time. Adjacent to
Stephensport, Kentucky, there is a large wildlife preserve called "Yellowbanks".
Here at Stephensport, the waters of Sinking Creek, having had their beginnings at Big
Spring, flow into the Ohio River, starting a journey into the larger world.
The 19th century lived on in rural Kentucky in 1922. Life on the farm revolved around
families and land. In our valley lived our relatives and friends In our church and one
room school we knew each family. Food and fuel were plentiful and depended on the work of
each individual in our family. From my earliest memories there was water to carry from the
spring, wood to be brought in from the woodpile, chickens to feed and eggs to gather.
Milking, feeding the cows, the hogs, the horses, and the sheep were added as we grew.
The garden was a source of food and of pleasure, as I watched the plants grow. The orchard
supplied fruit all year. To me work was a pleasure as well as a duty. There was always
time to play, to roam in the woods, to explore caves and to fish in the ponds. Picking
wild strawberries and blackberries, gathering nuts, hunting wild roots to dig and sell;
these things made my life interesting. Later Dad taught me to trap and hunt. Dad would
take us hunting showing us where to find the squirrel trees. We would go coon hunting with
him at night and occasionally there would be an all night fox hunt, consisting of building
a fire, sitting around it and listening to the dogs, with their many voices, following a
trail.
Almost every Sunday, after church and Sunday school, we would have the preacher and his
family or neighbors for dinner or go to someone's house to eat and spend the afternoon.
There was always singing, around the piano. Mom was good at playing the piano and
organizing group singing. Occasionally there would be a large family gathering or a party.
School plays or 4H meetings, with mom as the leader, added to the getting together.
Spending the weekend with my widowed grandmother and helping her with special things such
as making candles from tallow and learning to harness and hitch her horse to the buggy
expanded my learning. To drive her to Big Spring in the buggy to spend the night, where I
could watch the blacksmith and learn from him, was a treat.
I saw few people from outside our valley but occasionally the Raleigh Man came through in
covered spring wagon selling spices, salves and medicines. He would talk of what went on
outside our community. When I was 6 or 7 I would riding our old mare to Flaherty with
wheat and corn to be ground for flour and meal. It made me feel pretty big to go that far
from home.
The Sears Catalog was a source of wonderment to me. It contained things I had never seen
and couldn't understand. I learned from it. With rough mud roads cars were a rarity and I
must have been 10 before I saw an airplane fly over from Fort Knox. The twentieth century
was on it's way to the valley., I do know that in my first 10 years of life I knew that
work was essential to living and that it was a pleasure to me.
TALES AND MUSINGS FROM A TRANSITION TIME
This was a life-changing time. In 1936, we were still in the Depression, but hope was
coming back. We lived in Brandenburg at the old Fontaine House on top of the hill above
the Baptist Church. We moved into that house after living a year in Dr. Stith's house near
the Old Buckner Home and the W.D. Ashcraft place (in Brandenburg). Our place was rented
from John Morgan Richardson, an odd character in the town who had ties to the Fontaine
family.
We had 4 acres of land with cow pasture, chicken yard, and garden. There was a useable
outhouse, a large smokehouse, and henhouse. In the smokehouse were shelves with glass jars
containing various things. Two half-gallon glass jars were filled with tapeworms, of which
John Morgan was the victim. We had a good garden, a few hens for eggs, two Jersey cows (we
made butter, sold some milk and the calves) and also my Duroc Red Sow, Daisy, who produced
pigs for our meat and for market.
Our neighbors were Mr. and Mrs. Jim Bondurant, the 4th District Highway Commissioner at
that time with an office in Elizabethtown; the Jodie Thompson family with several children
who lived in the old Hamilton house; Mrs. Mollie Hatcher and Cousin Barb Shacklette; Mr.
and Mrs. Oscar Rice; Eugene Fontaine, president of the bank, and his wife Mable; Mary
David McGehee and her mother, whose ancestral home was the old Dr. Pusey Place with its
pretty flower gardens. They rented part of the big old house to the Ned Brown Family with
their several young children. Next to them was a large open field owned by Cousin Mary
Ashcraft and her husband, W.D. (Will) who lived in the old Lewis mansion, home of Cousin
Mary's family. Below us on the alley were three nice colored families, Aunt Polly Poole,
who washed for people; her daughter and husband, Phoene and Ruie Jackson, who had their
own house and worked at jobs; and Uncle Anderson Goodman of Civil War vintage. The latter
lived in a small shack alone, and neighbors shared food and necessities with him, checking
on him when the days were cold, and he was not sitting out on his porch I could go on and
on, but these were the families right around us. We lived in a world of days gone by.
Both grade school and high school were a short walk from our house. I finished grade
school in April of '36. My brother Walter decided to rent a farm and tobacco farm on US 60
about halfway between Lexington and Winchester. He asked me to come there to help with
milking and the tobacco crop. The owner was an old lady, Susan Darnaby, who lived in a
large old house set back from the road. The tenant house was down a narrow road beside the
Windmill Restaurant. Walter, Amanda, and I were comfortable in the house. Amanda was a
nurse and worked in Lexington.
We had a path through two fields from the house to the barn. We planted a garden beside
the tenant house. Each morning at five we were at the barn milking the 27 Jerseys. There
was a day labor hired man to help us. Usually I milked seven cows while Walter and the
hired man did the rest. On one weekend, both Walter and the hired man were gone, and it
was up to me to milk all of the cows, morning and night. This took most of my day.
When it became time to set tobacco, about six acres as I recall, we were able to get a
used horse-drawn setter. We had three work horses that had been purchased for about twelve
dollars each from the Dust Bowl areas of Kansas. It was my morning job after milking to
bridle two of the horses and ride them bareback, as fast as they could run for about 30
minutes each. This was to get them so tired that they would settle down and pull the
setter at a slow pace. I got my fill of riding that spring.
Across the road from the tenant house a farmer raised hogs. His fences were not good so
some of the young shoats would get out, cross the road and get in our garden. It soon got
old, running them out of the garden. Walter had a 410 shotgun so one day he took a shot or
two at them from a distance. That kept them out of the garden, but the neighbor claimed
one of them he had planned to keep for breeding purposes lost a testicle from the
shooting. He went to court in Lexington and sued Walter for damages. Walter got a lawyer
from nearby, who had a brother in Meade county, to counter-sue for damage to our garden.
The whole thing turned out to be a farce. I was called on as a witness to both the garden
damage and the shooting. The court was in an uproar of laughter over the case? and it was
thrown out. It did color my opinion of courts and lawyers for years to come.
By late June and early July, the drought of '36 had set in. The pasture and hay dried up
as did the tobacco and garden. The milk production went down and by late July, Walter was
broke. He sold what little he had left. Amanda's income kept us in groceries, but it was
time to move on. Walter packed what was left of their furniture in the farm wagon, along
with a little feed for the horses. Driving the team with the extra horse on a rope behind
the wagon, we started for Meade County. Amanda drove the car. It was a long and slow
journey down Highway 60 through Lexington, Frankfort, Shelbyville, and Louisville down to
Stith Valley. I went with Amanda back to Brandenburg.
Jessie and Frank were visiting there from Washington. Jim and I went with them to spend
the rest of the summer in Washington. We left home on my birthday, July 27, 1936. I was
now 14. Near Shelbyville, we met Walter, with his wagon and horses camped on a farm. After
we had lunch with him, we went on our way. We followed 60 east to Washington.
Jessie and Frank had an apartment at 230 E Street Northeast in downtown. We were a short
walk to the capitol, the White House, the House and Senate Office buildings and the
Supreme Court. The main railroad station was also close. We could even walk downtown to
the ten-cent store where Jessie worked. Frank worked for the government. The apartment was
comfortable, and even had a small walled outdoor backyard. Jim and I got well acquainted
with the Library of Congress. There was a small subway between the House and Senate Office
building which we learned about and rode. It was almost 50 years later that Washington
developed a subway system. We went to a swimming pool in a mixed neighborhood not far
away. Washington was a safe place then both night and day and it was a great education for
two country boys. When we returned to Brandenburg, I started my first year of high school
It was the period of the 1940's that brought tragedy to this place and to our country. In
1942, the old house burned on a beautiful Sunday morning. A boy who was living in the
house with his parents, lost his life in the fire. Ruth Scott, Jack Scott and Alice, Rena
Lou and her son Scott, drove up the road just as it was happening. Ruth grieved for the
family who had lost their son. She also grieved as she remembered the years of raising her
seven children in this house, and now it was gone. In the ensuing years, Ruth took up
painting, and she was to paint a likeness of the house many times, in oils and acrylics,
and in water colors. Her husband Walter had passed on in the aftermath of the 1937 Flood
when he, as sheriff, supervised the care of refugees day and night, wearing his health
down, and dying at Baptist Hospital of internal infections. It was Ruth's hope that her
son Walter, who by now was the owner of the place, would once more make it a family home.
Walter later built a house and with his wife, Delean Brown, raised a family on this land.
The era of World War II saw segments of the family move in many directions to work in
Defense Plants, and to serve in the Armed Forces. Walter and Delean kept the farm going,
using methods of conservation to produce all that the land could provide, and going into
the dairy business to help with the nation's food production.
Walter and Ruth's other three sons who served their country overseas were:
William Fontaine Scott - Army Air Corps, flying bombing missions over
Germany, and receiving several medals for heroic action
Jack Jeffers Scott - Navy, serving as part of the Task Force that captured
the German Submarine, the only ship captured on the high seas since the war of 1812.
Because of this capture, German codes were broken.
James Fontaine Scott - Army Infantry - participating in action in Europe
moving toward the Bulge prior to that famous battle. He was a part of tEhe Army of
Occupation in Germany.
Standing now are family members of each of these veterans. Nicholas Scott represents his
father, William. William Lee Scott represents his father, Jack. Brenden Scott represents
his father, James Scott.
Dad and the Thirty Seven Flood
1936 was the driest year I had ever seen in Kentucky. There had been a series of hot, dry
years in the mid Thirties. The dust bowl of the mid west spread dust all over the center
of the country. The Depression had already taken its toll on the nations morale. January
'37 came in with rain. It would rain and then freeze, Rain and freeze, and so on. Then a
little ways into January the rains started in earnest.
Dad, (Walter Lee Scott) was the Deputy Sheriff of Meade County. As the rains continued Dad
had to be away from home day and night warning people about the rising waters and helping
them get to safety. Many roads were blocked and these had to be seen about. The Ohio River
started rising rapidly. West Point was soon under water and U. S. 60 to Louisville was
closed. As rains continued boats started in to Brandenburg loaded with refugees from
Louisville. Dad would come home for a little while to eat and sleep a little but calls
kept coming in that he was needed here and there. He began to look tired and run down but
he kept on helping others that he thought needed help. Finally the flood waters went down
but the clean up remained. Dad had developed an infection and Dr. Stith put him to bed at
home. He continued to get worse so Dr. Stith sent him to the hospital in Louisville. There
they found he had developed uremic poisoning. This was before the days of antibiotics. The
doctors were unable to help him. Dad died on 12 March, 1937. Our entire family and Meade
county mourned his death
WORLD WAR II MEMORIES, MEADE COUNTY, BRANDENBURG DEC. 7, 1941
Fort Knox was building up. There was a need for housing for soldiers and their families so
Mom had made two apartments in her house and two Fort Knox families were living there.
Alice and I had remodeled a small barn into a house and lived nearby. The Methodist Church
was full that Sunday morning. Several single soldiers were in attendance. As usual, Mom
asked two of them to come home with us after church for dinner.
Some time that afternoon the radio announced the attack on Pearl Harbor and directed all
military personnel to report immediately to their post at Fort Knox. Our two guests left
along with the two renters.
I was working with construction crews at Fort Knox at that time and the pace picked up
immediately. The war effort was 'all out'. I was 19 at the time . In 1942 I joined the
Navy . I knew nothing about the Navy but thought it might be better than what I saw of the
Army. Looking back, I'm not so sure.
WORLD WAR II MEMORIES, MEADE COUNTY, UNCLE SAM
I came home on leave from boot camp in the fall of '42. Alice was teaching the Rock Ridge
School, a one room school that stood at the corner of 933 and Rock Ridge road. She was
boarding with Mrs. Jennie Cain and walked about a half mile to school each day. Some
students were older than she was. I got a ride from Brandenburg to the school and we spent
the night at Cain's. Saturday morning we walked down the hill and crossed Doe Run Creek,
going up the hill to Weldon where we got a ride to Brandenburg. We went to my mother's
house for the weekend.
That afternoon mom's uncle, Dr. Sam Stith, came to the house to ask me drive him out in
the county to deliver a baby. Dr. Stith was in his 70's and came out of retirement due to
wartime doctor shortages. Mom still had our pickup truck so off we went. The place was way
out on a rough dirt road (as were most of the roads in Meade county). The surroundings
were rather poor with the chickens and a few pigs in the yard with a pile of wood for the
winter. I stayed out in the yard with the father and children while Uncle Sam proceeded
with the delivery. When all was over he came out and said to the father; I know you can't
pay me anything but fill Jack's truck up some of your firewood.. We did go home with a
nice load.
Late Sunday night, he came by again and asked me to go downtown with him to an apartment
over the old picture show building. A man had drank a bottle of roach poisioning thinking
it was a bottle of tonic. He was in a bad way, but we finally got a needle in his veins
and got him able to stand a trip to Louisville to the hospital. He survived and spent many
more years working in Meade county. I don't know if all of Uncle Sam's weekends were as
busy as that one.
A YEAR ON THE FARM
1948-1949
Fifty years ago, in July 1948, Alice and I bought the Guston Farm. Joan was five, and
Rachel was two. When we got out of college in the Spring of '48, we had taken a job
teaching Agriculture at the Horse Cave High School and moved to the old Moss farmhouse on
the Hill above Bear Wallow. We hadn't been there but 3 months when the school board
announced that they were closing the school and forming a new school district with Cave
City. They had a Ag teacher with seniority at Cave City so I was offered the Ag teaching
job at Cub Run. That really didn't look too appealing. Alice and I both wanted to go back
to Meade County. In looking around we found that a teacher was needed at Irvington to
teach a veterans' farm agriculture class. They also offered Alice a job teaching in the
junior high school there. We had talked about living on a farm ever since our marriage in
1941. Now was our chance to find a farm we could buy in Meade County. We did a lot of
looking and found just what we wanted near Guston. It was a mile from that village and
close to both Irvington and Brandenburg. The house was comfortable though heated with a
wood stove plus an oil heater There was no bathroom. The out house was a "chicken and
hog variety", which we soon moved to a pit we dug. There was a good smokehouse out
behind the house, plus a fairly good chicken house. The hand-pumped well was a good one
and located on the path to the barn. The barn was some distance from the house. It was a
combination tobacco barn and stock barn. It was a rather large barn about ten years old
and in good condition. Wathen Kennedy and his family had lived there and also owned a
larger farm next to it. About one third of the farm was on the north side of the L&N
railroad which ran through it and the balance on the south side of the railroad. South of
the barn were gates and a railroad crossing for machinery and livestock. There was a good
garden beside the house. A gravel road that ran from Salem Baptist Church to Guston ran in
front of the farm It crossed the railroad on the west end of the farm and then ran beside
the railroad on in to Guston. Ekron was just east of the farm and on the railroad. The
fences were in pretty good shape. We didn't get possession of the farm until September. We
were kept busy moving, getting the farm in shape and buying some livestock and farm
machinery.
Both of us kept busy. We took the children to Brandenburg in the morning where Mrs.
Bondurant kept them. Alice and I went on to the Irvington School. My classes were on
Saturday mornings and Tuesday night. The rest of my work time was spent visiting the
students on their farms and advising them on their farming practices. Each was required to
keep a workbook. Most of my time was flexible so there were times I could keep Joan and
Rachel when I was working around the farm. I know it was a very stressful time for Alice
with two children and no bathroom, an outside toilet and water supply plus teaching in
Irvington. We were both young and glad to be back in Meade County on a farm. I was 26 and
Alice 23. We had good neighbors. One was an older couple, the Mills.
Henry Allen and his son, William Henry had a farm implement company at the old tobacco
warehouse on top of the hill in Brandenburg. They sold International Harvestor equipment.
At this time great strides were being made in new types of equipment. We bought a new
International Cub Tractor with a plow, disc, and mower. It was about 15
horsepower but adequate for what we needed. We also bought a trailer to pull behind the
wagon. The Allens sold it to us on credit. We went to Louisville and bought 26 Blackface
ewes and a ram. Mr. Bondurant loaned us a Jersey cow for our milk and butter, and we
bought two cows that would calve in the spring. We needed feed for the coming winter. We
were able to buy about 8 acres of corn a neighbor had cut and shocked and left in the
field. It was a pretty big job to shuck the corn and haul it and the fodder to the barn,
but we now had winter feed for our livestock.
That winter our son-to-be, John was on the way. We needed a telephone urgently. John was
due in March A neighbor, across the field and Alice got together with a plan for Alice to
hang a sheet on the front porch if she needed help. In the meantime I contacted Johnny
Bircher who was in charge of the Meade County Telephone Company. He told me he would hook
up a party line at the exchange if we would build the line. I went to Frankfort and got
several rolls of war surplus copper wire and some insulators. I got together with four of
our neighbors who wanted telephones and were willing to help me build the line. We cut
Locust and Cedar telephone posts and started building the line from Brandenburg to our
farm, about nine miles. Frank Penas found an old army surplus phone for us, one that you
talked, then pressed a button while you listened This was all right for necessary
conversations, but not good for chats and visiting. The system was the tried and true
method where each one on the party line had a different ring. Two longs and a short, two
shorts and a long and on and on, so each would recognize their ring. We made good progress
and by April 1st had the line built and the phones working. A far cry from the phone
systems of today. John came on March 29th
Alice had quit her teaching job well before John came. On the day set by the doctor, I
took Alice to the Brandenburg Clinic where John was born several hours later. She was
taken by ambulance to our home late that same day. Mrs. Bondurant came with us and stayed
a few days. Joan and Rachel stayed with Aunt Maggo in Stith valley. Lizzie, the colored
woman that was with Ma when I was born, came and stayed a little over a week. Alice had a
rough time. Ma came from Washington and stayed several days. Now we had three to take care
of. My teaching schedule allowed me a little free time. The farm work was busy. The sheep
were penned in the barn and the lambs had arrived in January. It was a cold winter and it
was necessary to have a bottle of Bourbon at the barn to give the lambs a drop of if they
were slow getting started . Alice helped with that part, if a ewe was having a hard time
with the birth.
If a lamb was too weak, we brought it in the house to stay warm, and bottle-fed it. There
was the cow to milk morning and night plus feeding the livestock. The hen house was close
to the house so it was convenient to feed and water the hens and gather up the eggs daily.
Joan was a big help around both house and farm and Rachel learned from her. That spring,
when Joan was six, she learned to drive the cub tractor. I cut some poles and found some
used lumber and metal roofing and built a machinery shed just outside the yard gate to the
left of the farm road to the barn. I knew a little about shearing sheep but was not good
at it. We got Deward Durbin to help with the shearing. Wool was a good price that spring
as were lamb prices. The sheep profits were good. We had wintered 10 feeder calves that we
bought in the fall One late afternoon when I needed help in getting the calves to the
barn, it was freezing and thawing, and Alice left Joan and Rachel to care
for John, and she helped me drive them through the mucky barnyard. She had on slip-on
shoes, and when they went down into the mud, her feet pulled out of them, and she kept
running in her stocking feet through the mud and slime. She did not recover the shoes. I
think she made a decision that day. Returns when we sold the calves were good. I borrowed
a manure spreader from Gerard Foote, and got the winter manure cleaned from the barn and
spread on the fields That spring we planted eight acres of corn and put out an acre of
tobacco. Some of my ag students helped with the corn planting and tobacco setting. We had
a sickle mower we bought when we got the tractor.
There was always pasture to be clipped and fence rows to be cleaned out. The farm railroad
crossing was ok. We had the pasture and hay fields across the railroad. Sometime it was a
job driving the cattle and sheep across when they had to be brought. From the barn. One
day the jersey cow we had borrowed from Mr. Bondurant for our milk cow was contrary in
going across. I picked up a small rock and tossed it at her to get her across. A neighbor
driving along the road saw the incident and told Mr. Bondurant about it. We then bought
our own milk cow.
Growing tobacco was a year around job. In January we prepared the plant bed by piling
brush and logs on the site for the bed and then burning it thoroughly to kill the weed
seed in the topsoil. The job took a couple of days. We then raked and tilled the soil
lightly, to mix the dirt and ashes so it would be ready to plant. The outside perimeter
was lined with logs so the tobacco canvas that covered the bed after seeding could be
attached and stretched tightly over the bed after the tobacco seed were sown. The tobacco
seed are extremely small and must be mixed with ashes or sand so they can be sown. On a
pretty, sunny day in late February we were able to get the seed sown. Throughout the year
there was always something to be done for the tobacco. We had to thin the plants in the
bed, and if a dry spell came, water them. When warm sunny days came in late April we took
the canvas off so the plants could harden before being planted it the tobacco patch. We
got the land tilled by plowing and disking until we had a good seed-bed. The land was
fertilized with 10-10-10 and laid off with a small single shovel plow, with cross rows 3
feet by 3 feet. On a sunny day in early May, after a nice rain the day before, I got some
of my class to help. We pulled the plants and set them in hills made with a hoe where the
3 by 3 rows crossed. With extra help we had the plants set out by the end of the day. In
setting the plants a person walked down the row with a basket of tobacco plants. A plant
was dropped on each hill prepared for the tobacco. The person setting the tobacco carried
a wooden "tobacco peg". He bent and picked up the tobacco plant, made a hole in
the center of the hill, placed the tobacco plant in the hole and tamped the soil around
it. This continued until all the tobacco was set. Each farm had a tobacco allotment which
had determined how much tobacco we could grow. Ours was l.l acre. Tobacco setting went
well that day and we were done by dark.
All summer the work went on. Plowing and harrowing between the rows to control weeds and
hoeing out with a hoe if needed. Then there was the job of picking the tobacco horn worms
off the plants. If these worms were left they would soon have the leaf eaten. The
procedure was to pick the worm off the leaf with your fingers, throw it on the ground and
step on it. Late in July and early August the tobacco was topped, suckers developed that
had been broken off. Late in August the tobacco started turning a pale yellow. Soon
it was ready to cut. Tobacco sticks were checked over and taken to the tobacco patch They
were driven into the ground with one for every five or six tobacco stalks. Cutting was
hard work. A cone spike was placed on the top of the stick. Using a tobacco knife the
stalks were cut off about six inches above the ground You grasped the stalk with both
hands and pushed down on the sharp cone and on down the tobacco stick. If the weather was
dry we would leave the sticks in the field for a couple of days to start curing there. The
tobacco was loaded on the wagon and taken to our tobacco barn. It was quite a job to hang
the loaded tobacco sticks on the tier poles high in the barn. Our barn was fairly new so
the job went well. Again I was able to swap some work with some of my students so help was
adequate. In November it was time to take tobacco down from the tiers, take it off the
sticks and pack it the barn so it would be ready to strip. For this to be done the tobacco
had to come into proper "case" or moisture so it could be stripped from the
stalks. In those days the tobacco was divided into five categories depending on where it
grew on the stalk. These were trash from the bottom of the stalk, bright leaf, leaf, lugs
and tips. Each leaf of the same kind were carefully arranged into hands of about 20 leaves
and tied around the rib end with a tobacco leaf. Each type was carefully arranged in a
stack so they could be loaded and unloaded from the truck taking them to the warehouse
without mixing. We looked at warehouses in several towns and decided we might get the best
price by taking the tobacco to Bloomfield, in Eastern Nelson County. Our tobacco was
placed in line with other crops on the warehouse floor. The buyers walked down each row of
tobacco, quickly examined each crop and made bids on each type displayed. Tobacco sold
well that year and we were happy with the price we got. We sure needed the money to pay on
some of our debts. This was the money most farmers depended on for paying annual debts and
for Christmas money.
As I look back I enjoyed the year. I'll add more later, but this needs to be said. Alice
and I had talked, many times, of a pleasant pastoral life on the farm. During this year I
enjoyed many aspects of our life and yet I was always looking ahead for bigger and better
things. We lived out in a very rural neighborhood, and while we had pleasant neighbors
they were not very inspiring. We only had one car. When I was away on my job Alice had no
means of transportation. We did have a washing machine but water had to be carried from
the well, heated on the stove and poured into it. When the washing was finished, the water
had to be emptied from the washing machine and from the rinse tubs. The washer had a
wringer attached, but the clothes were taken outside to dry both winter and summer. They
were carried out of the kitchen, through a screened back porch, then to a clothesline. In
late afternoon, they were brought back into the house, and if all were not dry, they were
re-hung on the screened porch to finish drying. A colored woman came one day a week and
helped Alice with the washing. Alice did the daily diaper washing. All of the water for
drinking, cooking, dishwashing, and bathing had to be carried from the well, too.
When the vegetables were ready in the garden, Alice canned tomatoes, green beans, and
beets. We cooked vegetables every day, and had eggs from the chickens and milk from the
cow to make pies every day. Joan started school that fall, and Alice sewed her clothes for
school, as well as clothes for Rachel and John. Our money was short, so Jessie sent a
winter coat for Rachel. Joan had one from the past year that she could still wear. Joan
caught the school bus in front of our house and rode to Ekron School to First Grade.
We went to church at Brandenburg Methodist Church on Sunday mornings, and that was our
only social life, so Alice was lonely for adult company. We had little time for reading
and of course no radio or TV. Sometimes Alice would pack up the children and go with me to
visit Mary Foote while I was teaching my class in Irvington. John cried with cold almost
constantly the first few months, and that made life difficult. Alice joined the Ekron
Homemakers Club, and went once a month to that.
Altogether this added up to Hell for a young wife to contend with Alice bore it all fairly
well but it did great harm to the dream of a pleasant, pastoral life.
When an opportunity came for me to take a job in west Kentucky with the Farmers Home
Administration, we decided to sell the farm and take the job.
MY FLYING EXPERIENCES by Jack Scott
In my early days on our farm, airplanes were never a part of my life.. World War I had
ushered flying into another method of waging war but little of that came to my attention
Lindbergh's Atlantic flight made himMa a hero to all. As the rumblings of war in Europe
and the Japanese attacks on China came into the news airplanes became a renewed interest.
In the early thirties Fort Knox acquired an airfield and a few planes. Our entire family
would gather on the hillside to watch the planes engage in aerial maneuvers, on a few
summer evenings.
My brother Walter was the Soil Conservation Agent in Boyle County and lived in Danville
prior to WW11. He took flying lessons and purchased interest in a small plane. He took me
eying with him a few times to look over the farm projects he was working on. After my
brother Bill finished West Point he became apart of the Army Air Corp and became a pilot
of the B17, the Flying Fortress. He had an illustrious career as a pilot over Germany
during the war.
After my time in the navy Alice and I attended college m Lexington . After teaching and
working with the Farmers Home Administration, We moved to Henderson to work with the Ohio
Valley National Bank My main work was managing some 16,000 acres of farm land on 36 farms.
The work was interesting and kept me busy from daylight until dark There was a small dirt
airport, just out of town on the way to Smith Mills. I decided it was time for me to take
up flying as a means of keeping a better eye on my far flung farming operations. The owner
of the airstrip had a much used Piper Cub. He took me under his wing, so to speak, and
taught me how to fly just a little. We flew low over the various farms checking on the
crops. I sat in the front with the stick between my knees and thought I was quite a Pilot.
It was the days of simple small airplanes.
Another friend I got to know, at the airport, Had been a test pilot for the Airplane
Company in Evansville, Indiana, who built, the built the P47 Thunderbolt, during WWI I..
This was one of my favorite airplanes of the war. It had a massive single engine in front
and was heavily armorer The P47 was our best plane for ground support. It's powerful
engine and massive firepower made a difference during the war. The former test pilot had a
Stearman Biplane he kept at the Henderson airport.. I flew with him many times as we
looped, rolled and dived over the cornfields.
One sunny afternoon when I went to the airport, my friend asked if I wanted to go up with
him. I got in the rear seat of the open cockpit. Jim suddenly turned to me and said that
he would like to do some low level stunts for a photographer who was there and that I
might want to get out for a few minutes while he did this and then go up higher. I agreed
and got out of the plane. Jim took off and did a loop above the field and then came by me
doing a slow roll. Suddenly the plane's engine missed and the plane dipped so that a wing
tip hit the ground just past me. The plane was build of wood and was very lightweight. It
totally disintegrated. I ran down to see if could help Jim. I did get his tongue out and
got him started breathing, but it was no use. He was dead when the ambulance arrived. I
was almost in shock, as I could see myself in the plane.
I went home and laid down to try to get back in focus. Alice came home in a little while
and asked me what had happened. She said I looked like a ghost. While I was to fly more
with others, I gave up any thought of flying my own plane. Perhaps it was for the better.
Our Dad, Walter Lee Scott, was named for his cousin, Walter Jeffers, as was I, Jack Jeffers Scott. The Jeffers family were prominent citizens of Frankfort, Kentucky. We were an "old" family with deep roots in Stith Valley in Meade County, Kentucky.
A dreadful disaster occurred in the life of our family in 1925 when our barn burned.
Our losses were great—our Model T Ford, horses, cows, sheep, feed, a buggy and other farm equipment. The loss was enormous to our family. Then neighbors, friends, and family members made many contributions to help us, including livestock, feed, farm tools and other things needed to carry on a farming operation.
Cousin Walter Jeffers gave us a handsome 2-horse carriage, suitable for the mansions of Frankfort, but a bit ostentatious for Stith Valley and Big Spring. The carriage was totally enclosed, had 4 doors, and windows front, back and on the sides. There was a flap in front which the reins slipped through, from the horses to the driver. Fenders served as a cover for each wheel, keeping mud off the passengers as they climbed the steps into the interior. The seats were leather, with springs for a gentle ride. Ornate lights on each side gave a touch of elegance.
While Dad appreciated the gift, neither he nor any of the family would ever drive the carriage. It would have seemed inappropriate in our neighborhood. After much deliberation and many thoughts on how best to get it out of our family, Mom and Dad decided to give it to the Sipes family who lived over the hill and farmed a large farm in Big Spring Valley.
The Sipes family had several children, and every day their children drove to a High School at Flaherty about 3 miles away. It was a cold ride for them in their farm wagon, which was totally unenclosed. The family were most appreciative of the offer of the enclosed vehicle. My sister, Jessie who was high school age, started walking over the orchard hill to the Sipes’ every day to ride to the high school at Flaherty. This enabled her to go to high school without boarding away from home as she had been doing previously. The arrangement worked very well for all of us.
This was the closest our family ever came to living in high style.