Tom: Well, she had seven kids to feed, on a limited budget, and her first, where I was born in Hawkinsville, it was out in the country on a farm owned by the Candler family. My daddy ran the farm. And I had a brother that was born back in the malaria days, and they were down on the river, and he died from malaria — I never knew him. His name was Allison. So then I was born next, and she wanted to move immediately away from there, which she did.
But the interesting thing to me about that trip: it was nine miles out of Hawkinsville, and that was back in the wagon days, and on Saturday she had to go to Hawkinsville to get groceries — whatever groceries they didn’t raise on the farm. It was an all-day trip, nine miles in a wagon to go to Hawkinsville and back.
Took her all day on Saturday. Today it’d take you what, fifteen minutes? [laughter]
She was just a very understanding, kind of heavy-set lady. And the rule around my house was: my mother came first over anything, and anybody. And when my daddy got home, my excuses didn’t count — it’s whatever my mother said. So she was just the boss, but in a very pleasant way.
Only time I ever saw her kind of set a firm hand was when my granddaddy came down to visit from Tennessee. And back in those days, on Sunday afternoon, you kind of ride around, just look at what’s going on around the town. So he got in the front seat, my mother got in the back seat, and my daddy was driving — he was an awful driver. I heard my mother tell my daddy, she said “Now Ben. I’d like for your daddy to visit, but I want you to understand when we go for a ride on Sunday afternoon, that front seat is mine.” So from then on I noticed my granddaddy got in the back seat. [laughter]
That was my dad’s father. He was a great fellow too. The only time I remember, he raised some tobacco for his own use, and he’d twist it and make chewing tobacco out of it. So he’d take that chewing tobacco, and I just wondered about what it tasted like. It looked like kind of wound-up rotten paper to me.
They never had a fight in their life that I know of. No fussing — but there wasn’t any fussing around that house. All the boys, and girls, and none of us — I can’t remember any of us having a fight with one another.