A Visit to my Aunt and Uncle's farm in Chilton County

(Photos of Joe Arledge, husband of Lena Lucas. My aunt and uncle during the war and standing as a couple outside of the Wilson Home on Island Street near the library.)................................................................................................................................................................. My mother's sister, Nora Belle Barnett, married my uncle "Check" Carlee. They lived on a farm a few miles southeast of Montevallo in Chilton County. I grew up on a dairy farm that is now Orr Park, but my Uncle Check's farm was an entirely different matter. There were no boring fenced in fields on his farm for herds of milk cows to graze; on the contrary, my uncle's farm consisted of acres and acres of all sorts of vegetable rows, and not a barb wire fence in sight. My mother and I would visit for the day back in the 1960's. I remember picking huge strawberries and field peas ( shelling a bushel was guaranteed to turn your thumb purple !) , and seeing the endless rows of corn. If you don't know, the taste of hot strawberries in the field is just as good if not better than the cold ones in the refrigerator. We also would eat an ear of corn raw, and ended each day with watermelon in the back yard. We only ate the heart of the melon; the part with seeds was given to the pigs. On this farm, I experienced my one and only hog killing day. The sight of a half dozen hog heads with their long tongues hanging out on a harvest table is one I shall never forget. At dusk, the chitterlings ( we said chit-lins ) were cooked in large pots over an open fire. ( I always shared with Dr. Mahan the love of oak or hickory burning with that unforgettable smell of the smoke all day in the air.) I remember playing games with my two cousins on the red banks of the road, and walking to the lonely little cemetery on the hill where Joe Arledge, my great grandmother's brother-in-law, was buried. My grandmother told me there used to be a church there called Free Springs Baptist. My mother's cousin, Mr. Willie Arledge, would come ever so often and tend to the grave. My aunt had canna lilies , and phlox, and all the old pass-along plants that Alabama families shared with the generations. She had hens-and-chicks, a succulent plant that one must not water very often. These were planted in old iron tea kettles and passed down for generations, an heirloom that was highly valued and often fought over by granddaughters. I know that roaming the hills and woods with my cousins caused much happiness, and I share the same childhood memories that many other baby boomers share: that there was always cool water to drink out of a garden hose, and always something good to eat inside an aunt's house. Yet one particular time, I remember that I was not happy at all. My mother had gone home and left me there to play for the afternoon. My cousin, who was about my age, was actually my second cousin, because his mother, my actual first cousin, was eighteen years older than I was. She gave us both hotdogs to eat, but they were COLD. I had never eaten a cold hotdog straight from the refrigerator, and I expressed my concern and dismay to my cousin saying that I could not eat anything that was RAW. She called my mother who told her, "Just boil it in some water for 10 minutes and he will eat it." That solved the problem, but I think my cousin must have thought me to be quite a spoiled and bothersome child. My Aunt Nora Belle also crocheted, and quilted , and canned and froze about 200 quarts of food every summer. The best of the best had to be her tomato chow chow. I think she and my uncle knew everyone in Chilton County south of Montevallo and he could tell some amazing stories of his growing up in and around the county, digging wells for people at a cost of 50 cents per well. She had the habit of rearranging her furniture often, and liked to place beds catty-cornered, which perturbed my mother to no end. My Aunt and Uncle are gone now, but the many memories I have of driving down past Lucas Valley to visit them and my cousins will always be a special memory.