Happy Thanksgiving Weekend

Good morning,  Family Trails readers. 

It is a beautiful weekend here in The South…sunshine, breezy winds, clear skies, mild temps…exactly what we hope for when we gather for Thanksgiving here in the beautiful state of Alabama.

Once again, your faithful writer is experiencing problems with my computer, so I will not be able to post any pictures to enhance our post today. I thought I'd just wait until I could get some help, but as many of you know…

Today is THE IRON BOWL! 

The biggest game of the year for University of Alabama and Auburn University fans! 

There will be NO  family member who will want to help me with my computer…

not today! They are all "taping their ankles" and putting on the Bama crimson and white colors and a few in this family will be donning their orange and blue! 

So I will just leave this blog picture-less for today, but I thought I would share with you all with this post-Thanksgiving poem:

'Twas the night of Thanksgiving, but I just couldn't sleep,

I tried counting backwards, I tried counting sheep.

The leftovers beckoned, the dark meat and white,

but I fought the temptation with all of my might. 

Tossing and turning with anticipation

The thought of a snack became infatuation.

So I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door

And gazed at the fridge, full of goodies galore.

I gobbled up turkey and buttered potatoes,

Pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes.

I felt myself swelling so plump and so round,

'Til all of a sudden, I rose off the ground.

I crashed through the ceiling, floating into the sky

With a mouth full of pudding and a handful pie.

But, I managed to say as I soared past the trees

"Happy eating to all-pass the cranberries please. 

May your stuffing be tasty, may your turkey be plump.

May your potatoes and gravy have a nary a lump.

May your yams be delicious, may your pies take the prize.

may your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs."

…author unknown

I found this funny poem a few years ago in a "Senior Living" newspaper in a doctor's waiting room. Glad I saved it. 

Love,

Mariellan

Paris

Family Trails honors and remembers Paris and all the people of France this week. 

With our hearts and minds and prayers focused on Paris this week, I thought I would share this page our of a December issue of "Everyday with Rachel Ray." I have kept it on my refrigerator for several years. This little page is fitting for the times we live in when we ask, "What can one person do?" I hope you enjoy it. 

God bless you all and 

God bless the people of France.

Love,

Mariellan

Last Installment from the Time Capsule

Dear Family Trails readers, 

We have a short paragraph left for our last installment of Tee's article written for the Talladega County Historical Society's time capsule.

During the months after the summer crops were laid by, our father would walk about three miles to teach school and would teach until time to gather the crops in. Later in life he felt that he had been richly rewarded, for one of his pupils would write to him each Christmas, thanking him for the inspiration he had given him as a young boy. This pupil was Allen J. Moon who became Dean of Howard College (now Samford University) in Birmingham, Alabama. He was also Dean of Liberty College in Missouri. 


This was a short entry from the article, but it holds a great deal of information.
First, Grandfather Weaver taught school outside of Lineville, AL, yet he did not have much formal education himself. In something I have read about him, it said that since he had been born a few months before the beginning of The War Between The States, his schooling ended early in grammar school so he could help his father on the farm. C. S. Weaver's obituary states that he memorized poetry and many chapters of the Bible so he must have been a very smart man to have taken on the school in Lineville.

Second, this article mentions correspondence between Grandfather Weaver and one of his students in Lineville. Here are 2 letters from this former student on his stationary from the William Jewel College in Liberty, Missouri.

This next letter is especially interesting. Allen J. Moon is 71 years old. Think about this… a 71 year old man is still expressing his gratitude for the grammar school education he received many years before! He must have truly been so grateful for his education and did not take it for granted that he had a good teacher to help him in life. In the letter he writes, "I shall never forget how hard you toiled at your teaching job to help us poor country boys."

The letter is written in 1944. Allen Moon writes that his son is "somewhere in England as a radio operator mechanic for the 479th Fighter Group for the A. (illegible)  (8th)." Maybe the initials represent the Army Air Corps.

In the time capsule article, Tee wrote that Allen Moon was also the Dean of Howard College. Many of the Weaver family attended Howard College, which later became Samford University.

Howard College, Birmingham, Alabama

Samford Unviersity today

So readers… this ends our few weeks of examining Lora Weaver Ragsdale's time capsule article. In our next "Weaver Wednesday" we can prepare for Thanksgiving. Yum Yum!
Love,
Mariellan 

"Watermelons by the Carload"

Happy November to readers of Family Trails. 

We are still digging deeper into the time capsule article that my great-aunt, Lora Antoinette Weaver Ragsdale wrote for the Talladega Historical Society.
This week let's read how Lora, "Tee," described her father's store .

photo from the book, "Images of America: Talladega, Pathways to the Past"

Working hours were different from today. You could open and close your store any time you chose. No one opened on Sunday. Our father opened his store at 6 o'clock in the morning in order to sell to people who had come from a long distance, like Lineville or Ashland, and who needed to get back home before dark. 

Father's store was a general store, selling dry goods, groceries, hardware, shoes and many other items. When farmers would come in from any distance (like 25-30 miles) and sell their goods, usually bales of cotton, and buy what they needed, it would often be too late for them to go home that night. So, they would spend the night in "Wagon Yards" enclosed by fences. They could feed their horses and mules there, put down a quilt in a large room and spend the night for 25 cents. There were two watering places in town for the animals. One was on the east side of the courthouse and the other at the Big Springs. 

Up to 1912, our father's store was located on the south side of the square. After that, he moved to the north side of the square. He had been renting from Leon G. Jones who needed his site to organize The Bank and Trust Company. This Bank remained there until 1928 when it merged with the Talladega National Bank. The Talladega National Bank (now First Alabama Bank) was organized by John H. Hicks in 1905 and was located on the east side of the square. The Isbell Bank (now First National) was organized in 1848 by James Isbell, and was located on the northeast corner of the square. 

In the store, eggs sold for 10 cents a dozen, and 3 dozen for 25 cents. Lard came in 50 pound tin cans and sold for 10 cents a pound. Compound lard, made of cotton seed oil, was 7 cents a pound. Flour, bought by train carload,
 came from Louisville, Kentucky, in white cotton bags with the name printed on the bags. Syrup was bought in barrels from New Orleans and sold for 50 cents a gallon. Red Salmon was 20 cents a can but Pink Salmon was less.

 Live chickens were kept in wire coops on the sidewalk and bunches of bananas hung on the outside of the store.

There were dozens of woven baskets used for picking cotton. These were made by farmers after they had their farms planted and had some extra time. These sold for $1.00 each. 

Several hundred bushels of whippoorwill peas would be sold in June and July. Farmers would harvest their oats in June and then broadcast the peas to enrich the soil. Some of these peas would be eaten also. 

Watermelons would be bought by the carload (rail car) in June from South Carolina.

In the early part of the 1900's, apples, cabbages and rutabaga turnips were shipped in January and February from Louisville, Ky. Later on, there was a produce house in Talladega. Carloads of hay came from Marion, Alabama. Father bought huckleberries from the surrounding area and shipped them to Chicago where they became blueberries. 

This was started in 1915 and lasted until the 1930's depression. 

Every Thanksgiving a turkey was brought home in a basket filled with hay. 

At Christmas time, our father sold tons of candy from New York and a carload of oranges from Florida. The candy sold for 10 and 15 cents a pound, and fifteen sticks of candy sold for 5 cents. Bread came from Anniston, Alabama, unwrapped and not sliced. Brown and white sugar came in barrels and sold for 6 cents a pound. Green coffee beans and regular coffee came in barrels too; later there was a coffee grinder in the store. The only cheese was hoop, which sold for 10 cents a pound. No cigarettes were sold. There was something like a cigarette called "Cheroots" and some cigars. Tobacco sold by plugs or cut pieces. Piece goods, millinery and umbrellas were displayed in glass showcases.

Tobacco license from 1940 found in C. S. Weaver's scrapbook

Note: All pictures in this post were found on the internet unless noted differently.

Much love to all of you, especially as we all prepare for the special holidays ahead.

Love,
Mariellan