Our main purpose was to visit Mother’s only living sister, Celestine.
We had brought lunch (Whitts Bar-B-Que). Tine provided one of her pound cakes for dessert and insisted that we bring the rest of it home with us. We had a nice long visit and Mother declared that “we needed to be on our way.”
Next stop: Porter town Cemetery. This is where most of Mothers family is buried, including my Daddy.
As we left the cemetery, I asked Mother, “OK, Mother, left or right?”, guessing which way she would choose. “Let’s go right,” she said. So off we go on country roads that take us back.
Mother talks as we drive: “Turner and Lellar Johnston lived here before they bought the school. It looked better then than it does now.”
Porter Town School…..this was a one-room school that I attended through sixth grade. Heat came from a big, black, pot-bellied stove. The school house was about l 1/2 miles from our house and we walked every day wearing long wool stockings to try and keep warm.
The next memory is “Mama and Papas.” 
Mother is too busy looking so you are just going to have to just imagine as I tell you what I remember…this is the highest point in my Granddaddy and Grandmother’s back yard. The corner closest to the road. This is the place where they killed hogs. It had to be really, really cold and they usually killed several in one day. There was a smokehouse and a chicken house in this area too. I remember Grandmother having an apron full of shelled corn feeding the chickens out here.
There were thirteen grandchildren. We all brought what Santa had brought us to grandmother’s on Christmas Day. One particular Christmas, I got a new bicycle. I started riding at the top of this hill. I was doing great until I needed to stop. I didn’t know how to use my brakes! I ended up in the pig- pen at the bottom of the hill! Speaking of the bottom of the hill…..this is in front of the house and across the road. Granddaddy had a molasses mill here. I remember chewing on a stick of sugar cane and dipping it in the molasses as it cooked.
Molasses makin’ was quite a process that required constant attention. Not everyone could make good molasses but granddaddy could and neighbors brought theirs to him to make. Like everything else on a farm in those days, it was lots of hard work. I only remember what an exciting time it was. Mother says she “ can just see Ol’ Beck” (the mule).The mules were harnessed to a pole that turned the mill to squeeze the juice from the cane.
(from google images)
This is getting long, sorry, but I want you to get the “whole picture.”
The old house burned not too many years ago. This lovely new home is there now. We had a nice visit with the owner,(he wanted to take mother over the “place” in his ‘gator.) and his mother, whose name is also “Nora Belle”(my mothers name)
This is part of the “original” barn.
OK, I’m almost done…..every 4th of July, we would all gather under these trees for a huge picnic. My Daddy always killed a goat and hung it from one of these trees to dress it. We had a big black pot of goat stew and one of chicken stew. We had blocks of ice that we bought to make several freezers of Ice cream. So much fun!
This is for my children and grandchildren….. “part” of where I came from.
