Good Ol’ Days

By Darlene Brown

Some may say growing up in the Sandhills area of Scotland County was a simple and uncomplicated way of life. Compared to the affairs of the world today, it may seem as such. Although families did not worry about home invasions or gang-like violence, the way of life for those who experienced it was all but simple. Growing up in a family of sharecroppers, country living was definitely not a life of luxury but a complicated life of hard work, necessity and family bonding. A close family friend, who experienced the life of working on a farm during the “good ol’ days,” revealed to me a real-life account of the tedious routines of growing up in the Sandhills of Scotland County.

My interviewee, whom we will call Mrs. H., told of her personal experiences living on a farm. Mrs. H. said she did not go to school because school was not a high priority. She recalls that at the age of nine her typical day was to get up at sunrise and go outside to the water pump; she would wash up with lye soap in cold water. Then she would carry water into the house for her younger siblings to wash their faces. She would next start the wood-burning stove to cook breakfast for her siblings because her parents had already gone to the tobacco fields where they made a living for the family as sharecroppers. Mrs. H. was so small that she had to stand on a soapbox to reach the top of the wood stove. She would prepare a breakfast that consisted of homemade biscuits, fatback meat, and syrup. Unfortunately, the fire would go out in the process of cooking; therefore, she would have to walk barefoot into the woods, chop, gather, and haul wood back home to keep the fire burning.

After getting her siblings washed and fed, it was time for her many chores. Mrs. H. said she had to “shoo” the chickens from under the porch of the house, which was a difficult task because the dilapidated porch, which had holes and cracks, allowed the chickens to see her coming, and they would run farther and farther underneath the porch and house. After that task was completed, she pumped water for the mules, fed the horses, milked the cows, and slopped the pigs. Next was the task of washing clothes; she drew water from the hand pump and collected it in a large tin tub. Lye soap was served for multiple uses of washing the body as well as the laundry. A washboard was used to scrub the clothes clean. After cleaning the clothes, they were drooped across the bushes in the yard to dry and watched carefully by the younger ones to keep the cows and mules from gnawing on the clothes.

Yet, the day’s work had just begun. Now she had to cater to her parents who were out in the tobacco field. She would wait for the iceman to come around and pay 25 cents for a chunk of ice, which she would wrap in a cotton sheet and chip using an ice pick. Then she would gather clean Mason jars, a bucket, and a ladle to carry the water and sandwiches to the field for her parents. She did this daily until her “time and age came around”; Mrs. H. was then taken to the field by her father and taught how to “suckle” tobacco — known today as topping, which is taking the flower tops off the tobacco stalks and clearing growth from around the roots of the plants.

During her childbearing years, Mrs. H. would carry her baby to the field in a crib, put the crib at the foot of her row under a big oak tree, and place a cotton mesh sheet over the crib to protect the baby from flies and mosquitoes. Then she would then go about her duty of “priming tobacco.” Along with working in the field, she also worked as a tobacco stringer and as a market preparer, which consisted of stringing tobacco leaves on sticks and hanging them in tin barn to be cooked.

Regardless of what Mrs. H. has been through or what has been taken from her, she still fines joy in giving someone a piece of her wisdom from her youthful years in the old South. She managed to survive on the food of her farm, which is actually healthier than the processed food we have today. She also made sure that her younger brothers and sisters went to school while she took care of the house when her parents were away in the fields. Mrs. H. also made sure that her parents had food ready after their long day of work. Her family benefited every day from her hard work.

Work Cited

McLaughlin, Hattie. Personal interview. 10 Sep. 2011.

Note: Darlene Brown, who is from Wagram, NC, is a student at Sandhills Community College in the medical office administration program.