KYRESEARCH-L Archives

From: Sandi Gorin <>
Subject: TIP #205 - MEMORIES, PART 1:
Date: Tue, 08 Dec 1998 07:02:31 -0600

TIP#205 - MEMORIES - PART 1:

As we approach the Christmas season, I would like again to publish
something that is not genealogical, but a part of our past. Recently on one
of the lists that I moderate, people began just remembering their childhood
days. Coming from a diverse background, these were so interesting that it
doesn't matter if the individual was Kentucky born or not. This is our past
- what makes us what we are. Let me share some of these memories with you!
I've removed the names from these as it could apply to many of us.

AMUSEMENTS:
· Television was not only unheard of, you were doing good if one out five
had a Dome Top Radio. To this day, Glenn Miller music is among my favorite.

· The hit parade? Giselle McKenzie. Dorothy somebody? "Lady of Spain",
"What's Behind the Green Door?" "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"
I loved to sit by the radio and listen to many of the radio programs - Just
Plain Bill, Stella Dallas, Portia Faces Life, and several other radio soaps
of the day. I also loved to listen to the Philharmonic Orchestra on Sunday
afternoons.

· One of my uncles played for dances when he was 9 or 10. They never took
lessons, just picked up any instrument and played it. What a honky-tonk
piano my grandmother and aunts played. Several of my uncles were in the
band behind Tex Ritter in the movies. They knew "Dutch" Reagan and many of
the people on the Grand Old Opry. Played with Flatt and Scruggs. Also
played on WHO in Des Moines. My grandfather stomped his foot so hard, in
time to the music, that they had to put a pillow under his foot so it
wouldn't be heard over the radio! I still love that country music!

· I remember being entertained in the evening by my other brother making
animal shadows on the wall. He made the GREATEST animals in shadow.

· I had one uncle who was always telling ghosts stories.

· My sister and I used to play dress up and pretend we were movie stars.
She was always Betty Grabel and I was Deanna Durbin. I can remember when
Frank Sinatra first started singing and it was a battle to see who was more
popular, Frank Sinatra or Bing Crosby. The big bands had wonderful music.
My favorites were Tommy Dorsey and Xavier Cugat.

· Beaded dresses from the 20's, Shirley Temple dolls, every Little Golden
Book, china tea sets, real silk parachutes, dotted Swiss curtains that I
could tie around my head and run down the sidewalk, pretending that I was
The Running Bride.

· I have memories of my grandmother and the girls would getting dressed up,
in perfume and hats and gloves and suede pumps, and ride the streetcars
downtown to go to live radio broadcasts: Bob Hope, Amos n' Andy, Bing
Crosby...I remember being disappointed that it wasn't real thunder you that
heard when you listened to the radio at home: I found out that they shook
a metal sheet in front of a microphone. I imagined that they were telling
stories on someone's back porch during a real storm!

CLOTHING:

· In winter we had to wear those ugly long brown stocking in that somehow
attached to our winter underwear.

· I wore feed sack shirts and dresses and even underwear for years. Ours
was chicken feed sacks but my mother has been saying those weren't chicken
feed sacks--they were flour sacks. I liked those feed sack patterns. The
flowers and the colors were really pretty.

· Didn't everyone's grandmother have a scrap-bag? Where else would you get
your material to crochet rag rugs from and well as make your quilts? New
material would be much too dear for rugs & quilts. And of course feed
sacks were important. It was awful not being able to get them in later
years & having to settle for that unbleached muslin/cotton at the 5 & 10.
I used them to learn to embroider kittens on dish towels, one for each day
of the week of course!

DISEASES & ILLNESSES:
· What did they call those awful bags the kids had to wear around their
necks to ward off germs? To break a fever, my dad used to hold me under the
covers until I broke a sweat. Remember when every July and August you
couldn't go swimming for fear of getting polio? And the diseases that are
no longer...mumps & German measles & smallpox. And when you had a baby you
had to be in bed for 10 days!

· Coal oil for every injury too. Syrup of black draught or calsodine
tablets. Cod liver oil. Giving the babies paregoric... full of OPIUM!!!

· Mom went to the old Doc ( I still think he was the town drunk). He told
my Mom to make a certain tea to give my brother and she did. Guess what
kind of tea??? Chicken droppings in hot water!

FARM LIFE:
· Killing chickens. I also remember the awful stench of burnt chicken
feathers, after my grandmother had chopped off the rooster's neck. I use to
help mama pluck the chickens, dip them in a boiling tub of hot water set up
outside and flat out CRIED the whole time I had to do it! Had one rooster
get my brother on the chin with his spur....needless to say...that one
became a meal shortly thereafter...and I have school photos of him with the
sore on his chin from that rooster!

· Hand and one row corn pickers. We still own a one row corn picker and
used it up until 3 years ago.

· I still remember going to the barn with my grandfather when he milked the
cow. Sometimes he and I would go pick blackberries. We were doing that one
hot day, when something was gleaming in the warm sun. My grandfather dug it
out of the ground and wiped the dirt away. It was an old whiskey bottle,
with the picture of a beautiful clipper ship on it. I loved it so much, he
gave it to me. I couldn't wait to get back and show everyone, my treasure.

· My father and those like him that I knew growing up had gardens they
burned off every year...even today you'll hear that ashes are a
"fertilizer" of sorts.

· Both my grandfathers always planted large vegetable gardens, so I grew up
helping to pick beans, peas, corn, okra, tomatoes, etc. and to help with
the canning and preserving that took place each summer.

FOOD AND MEAL TIME!
· Apple dumplings: The apple quarters were put inside rolled dough and they
were boiled in sugar water and served with cream.

· "Butter" came so white it looked liked a hunk of LARD, with a small
packet of food color [yellow/orange]?

· When you could get a BIG SWEET 'TATER' from the market man for a link of
chain, that is on the days he and his horse and wagon came down the main
streets of towns.

· Staying up till midnight and making the best divinity, fudge, popcorn
balls, and the like.

· Breakfast: Country Ham (going out to smokehouse to get one down and wipe
the mold off), Country Eggs (going to hen house in the am to gather) (fried
up and put on a platter), Fresh Milk (got to milk cow first thing), Hot
Homemade Biscuits (with real butter that I churned tonight), Homemade
Jellies and Jams (grape, apple, peach, musidime, fried Tators (of course
they are stored in the cellar for the winter), Flap jacks (homemade of
course), Sorgum Molasse(made in our sorghum mill), Fresh Apple Cider (from
our cider mill), fresh ground sausage ( we killed hogs yesterday),
Scrambled eggs with the fresh brains of the hog we killed yesterday. Fried
chicken (yes for breakfast also, will ring necks in the am and get ready)

· Fresh leaf lettuce chopped up with green onions chopped up and wilt with
hot bacon grease along with fried cornbread. My dad poured hot bacon
grease over chopped up green onions and soaked his flat, unsweetened
cornbread in buttermilk! He thought that was the best. My grandmother made
the best biscuits in the world...and apple pies. She always had a pot of
beans on the back burner, but the fried potatoes were crispy on the bottom
and crunchy (not quite done) on the top! Green beans were cooked until they
were just almost falling apart, with ham hocks. And her apple butter was
the best!

· The foods Mother made were the greatest. She made hominy from home grown
corn and cottage cheese from our cow's milk. I still love black eye peas
and cornbread better than anything---especially with chow chow on top.
Nothing wrong with navy beans or pinto either. She also made hominy from
home grown corn and cottage cheese from our cow's milk. Gravy went on
anything from sliced tomatoes to fried eggs. It was a "universal topping"
in our house. Daddy used to pour hot bacon grease over his green salad in
summertime. I thought I should try drinking my milk through the "straw" of
a green onion top. It didn't work too well. I only remember apples or
oranges at Christmas (in TX) and also ribbon candy.

· My grandfather used to eat the brains out of fried squirrel heads!!! We
has to taste pig brains. I also wouldn't eat tongue.

· Home-made ice cream with raw eggs in it, as well as raw cookie dough and
cake batter. And not too many years ago we used to drink from any running
stream that LOOKED clean.

· Whole milk, with the cream on top .Red apples that tasted the way an apple

· Although not a real "farmer"...dad always had a garden...mama
canned...they even killed hogs...I remember them squealing and just bawling
over it! I remember the taste of hog's head cheese. I remember eating pork
chops from the ones he killed, sitting at the table and daddy "squealing"
every time I took a bite - set me to bawling all over again..and I wouldn't
eat my supper...many times mama had to smack him and say..."Let the child
eat her supper and hush!"

· I remember CHITLINS!!! Cleaned and "rendered" hog intestines...believe
what they say about them....it'll drive you out of the house when they're
cooking. Ate many a chitin in cornbread. Believe it or not...but pigs feet
when preserved (pickled) are a treat to behold.

· Grandmother Sally still cooks for anyone that comes to see her. Our
favorite is breakfast she always cooks us Choclate Syrup and Biscuits

To be continued. (c) Copyright 10 December 1998, Sandra K. Gorin, All
Rights Reserved,

Sandi Gorin - A Kentucky Colonel
205 Clements Ave., Glasgow, KY 42141 (502) 651-9114
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• TIP #205 - MEMORIES, PART 1: by Sandi Gorin <>