Back in the early 1920's Grandma Emma Stockton already had 9 children, but one died leaving her with 8. She got pregnant again with what turned out to be her last born child.
Now, Grandma Emma was born in 1879, so by the time she had this pregnancy she was already 44 years old. She turned 45 before the baby came having had her birthday on December 3rd, 1924. The family was living in the old Benjamin R Stockton house, Henry’s father having passed away in 1923 and his mother Paulina having moved out to her sister’s house for company. The house sat up on a big dome rock at the end of Stockton Road, and it is still there today. They used to have a post office at Stockton, Tennessee but it had closed down when the court house and post office were built at Jamestown. They still lived in that house in 1951 when I visited them on the occasion of losing Uncle Lloyd in a car accident. I remember there was snow in the yard which my mother sent me down off the big porch to gather some, which she then used to make ice cream.
Well, anyway, back to 1925. This story takes place way out in the country in Fentress County, Tennessee. The standard of living was such that most of us now would think of it as a pioneer style of living. Almost everything that was used was either grown or made by the family. The exceptions were store-bought dresses for Sunday and some of the farm implements. This was at a time when animals were used to draw the plow and human labor was what it took to plow, cultivate, plant, weed and pick the grains, vegetables and feed hay for the large animals. Of course they had chickens for eggs, cows for milk, sheep for wool and meat, pigs for bacon and pork, and so on.
So, in those days the only way anybody got dinner (or breakfast or lunch) was when the women-folk would make it. And making dinner was not like opening a can or heating in the microwave. This is the story of dinner getting made on that chilly day in March of 1925 when my Uncle Joe (Jr.) was born.
The kids were Ertsel (16), Horace (15), Lloyd (13), Don (11), Frank (9), Edna (7), Edith (5), and Bennie (3). Grandpa Henry Stockton always went out early to tend the animals then took the older 3 boys across the hollow to the mill where they cut wood all day, or loaded on the rail car that came down the spur line to get their product. Grandma Emma had to get breakfast ready for all nine (8 kids and Henry) and also make the lunch for Grandpa and the older boys while they ate their breakfast. Even when the older boys were out with their dad, Grandma still had 5 kids at home. Some of them helped with chores and the younger ones looked after each other.
So, from about 5:30 in the morning, Grandma Emma did all this and got Henry and the boys out the door to start their day of work. But that was about all she got done that morning after milking the cow, feeding the chickens, collecting the eggs, setting the goats out, slopping the 3 hogs, and putting out hay for the horses, sheep and mules. Of course, she had already taken Don and Frank down to the creek to haul back water, and after the water was in, Grandma brought some firewood up from the yard. The older boys had fun chipping up some kindling to get the big cast iron stove fired up for cooking. So they all had breakfast after the chores, and Grandpa took the big boys out to the mill.
By about 10:30 that morning, Grandma felt she had to lie down for a while and then she gave birth to my Uncle Joe. That took a bit out of her, so she stayed pretty close to the house the rest of the day. Now, I already told how the house was pretty far out from town, and there weren't any hospitals or anything like that around. Grandma never went into any details about it, but she had to take care of herself after birthing that child, and it took up a bit more of her day to get herself situated. Still, she had to keep busy with the new baby, so she boiled water to wash him up, carried the crib up from the cellar, and pulled all of the baby linens out of the big locker to make up his crib.
It wasn't no time at all until she had my Uncle Joe all set up at the foot of the bed in her room where she could hear him from the kitchen or at night if he made a noise. She was so busy with the new baby that she ran right past lunch for the other 5 children and they all started crying and fussing about being hungry. Shoot, the oldest was only 11 and the youngest was 3 years old.
By early afternoon, Grandma could only give the kids some cornbread and some milk for lunch, but even that was more than they got some days, so they went back to playing outside in the mud and chasing the dogs around with sticks.
It gets dark kind of early in the hills of Tennessee in the early Spring. Grandma knew she needed to have a dinner ready for those hungry men when they got back from the mill. Cutting lumber all day will make you hungry. So she went out to the chicken coop and pulled out a fat one. She didn't wring its neck until she had already started a wood fire and boiled the water in the galvanized tub. Then she wrung its neck and plunged it headfirst into the hot water. That made shucking the feathers off a lot easier. Then she threw about 12 ears of corn in that tub to boil.
Next she had to butcher that chicken and dig a hole to bury the entrails. She walked back to the house the long way around going through the vegetable garden on the way to pick some celery and some leaves off of the various herbs she had planted, which were sprouting nicely even in the cold March weather. Back in the kitchen she chopped these all up with the left over cornbread and some bacon fat to make a stuffing for the chicken. Then she put that in the oven of the big old cast iron stove which was still burning a low fire from the morning.
Thinking about how hungry Grandpa Henry and the older boys were going to be, and the skimpy lunch that the children had, Grandma figured that she needed more food. Down in the cellar she had some beets she had canned in the early part of the previous summer, and there was enough corn meal to make another frying pan of corn bread. She could see that she would soon need to grind some more corn for the meal. Tomorrow maybe.
Only thing else she needed was some potatoes. Now potatoes are a tuber, and they grow underground. The normal way to get potatoes is to take a hoe and a shovel out to the field, and working off to one side of the potato plants, turn up the earth to where the potatoes could be separated out from the roots and dirt without killing the whole plant. Now, this usually took some time. Grandma Emma was in a hurry as it was starting to get pretty dark.
It was for all these reasons that she went out to the barn yard and got that biggest old billy goat hooked up to the little plow that she used in the vegetable garden. It had a little iron spoke wheel in front that if you held the handles up high you could roll it along behind the goat without plowing. Grandma got little Frank to lead that goat down to the potato field while she held the handles of the plow up at shoulder height.
Once they got down there, Grandma plowed 3 long rows of that potato field while Frank picked up what potatoes he could clear. When they got to 12 Grandma figured it was gonna have to be enough. It being kind of late, she left the plow in the field and only took the goat back up to the barn while Frank used his shirt to haul those potatoes back up.
Grandma picked the corn out of the tub, since it was done enough anyway, and then threw the potatoes in to wash off the dirt. She gave Frank her apron to put the corn in and he took it up to the house while Grandma peeled the potatoes. She used her skirt to carry the peeled potatoes up to the house. When she got up there she was really pleased that Edna was rocking little Joe, the new baby, and Don had brought in some firewood and had chipped some kindling. Soon the old stove was roaring with the chicken and the corn in the oven and the potatoes and corn bread on the top burners. Grandma put out all the pie plates, bowls, spoons and forks that she had, so there was at least one dish and one implement for each of the kids.
She saved the real plate and knife for Grandpa and put herself a little place next to his chair. Just in time too! She barely had time to nurse little Joe and change him up before Grandpa and the older boys were starting to crowd around the table. She put out all the food and let them all get started before she brought the baby out, all nonchalant and slow like. It was almost 5 minutes before Grandpa looked up, then he asked, "Well, Emma, he looks pretty good. What did you call him?" Smiling, but embarrassed with her pride, she said, "I called him Joseph Junior after Uncle Joe."
“Well done!” said Henry, “We can call him Junior.”
And that's how dinner got made that night, and that is how the family was completed, in 1925, with baby Joe Junior making nine children that lived and the 10th, Edith's twin sister Gladys Lorene (RIP), still there today, planted under the little pine tree in Stockton Cemetery.
.. plumb played out just reading here Benjamin R. but figure with a little break n rest up catch my breath a bit so to get on to readin what was for lunch.. (ie ‘dinner’ as was known as in Wellington County.. lotta Mennonites up our way..) this ain’t ‘Pulitzer Level’ nope.. it’s Smithsonian Institute Level with a heaping side order of Women’s Institute Hall of Fame