Stories told by my mother about my early childhood

            After my birth they would take me to the field and put me on a pallet in the shade of a tree and my sister would have the task of looking after me while my mother and dad worked. She would have to look after my brother also who was 17 months older than me. So it was early in life that I learned to lay dawn in the shade while others worked.

            I was a compliant child according to my mother. I did not make demands but did as I was told. One day when she was going to a ladies bible study I ask to go with her. She told me I could not go because it was for ladies so I said to her, “Will you give me a drank of water then”, which she did.

            One year we went to Mississippi County to pick cotton. I was close to six years old at the time. I would go in front of my father and pick cotton and put in little piles for him to grab and put in his sack. When I would get tired of that I would take a bucket of water with a dipper and walk up and dawn the cotton rows and sell a drink of water for 1 cent. So I sold water before the bottle water becomes the fad.

Place of birth

            The town of Witts Springs was named for the man who found the spring which is the main branch of the middle fork of the Illinois Bayou. The spring is located behind the old rock school house which was the principal school building for the town of Witts Springs. I know nothing about Mr. Witt. I don’t know if he ever lived there or if he only used the place as a place to camp out. The only building that I have any knowledge that was at the spring was a canning factory. The canning factory was long gone during my years at Witts Springs. The building in bad repair was still standing when I began attending the rock school house which is located on the top of the ridge which separates the spring from the town of Witts Springs. Some time before I started high school the building was tore down or the wind blew in down. At least while I was in high school there was no trace of the building left on the propriety.

            Witts Springs at one time had several general stores, a U. S. Post Office, more than one lumber mill and a stave mill (staves were used to make oak barrels). By the time of my early childhood there was only one general store with a small room in the front right hand corner which housed the Post Office. The store was owned and operated by Thomas and Xula Johnson and Xula’s father John Loftin ran the Post Office. Mr. Loftin would look at me over the top of his glasses to see who I was when I ask for the mail. After her father died Xula and Thomas ran the Post Office and the store.

            The school at Witts Spring was from first grade through 12 grades. When I started to school all the classes were housed in the one rock building along with a basket ball gym. By the time I finished there was a separate cafeteria and another building that housed the grammar school and sometime after I graduated they build a separate gym. Today the school no longer in use and gym is used as a community center.

            The house where I was born was about 2 miles from the general store. It was a one room log building which was not very large. When I saw it last it was in serious disrepair and is now no longer standing. We left that dwelling while I was small so I have no memory of living there. The trees had just about completely taken the fields and turned it back into forest.

            All of my family worked on our farm. My folks would get up before daylight to begin their day. Mom would start breakfast and dad would go milk the cow and feed the animals. He would come back from his chores and help mom finish breakfast. When breakfast was ready they would wake up the children and we would eat. After breakfast dad and the children would leave to work in our crops and mother would clean up the kitchen then come to the field to help. She would leave early to fix diner (lunch) which was a substantial meal. Mom would clean up after diner and dad would take a twenty minute nap. Then it was back to work with the same scenario for the afternoon. When we came home for supper mom would have it ready and then it was chores. One of my chores was drying the dishes which my older sister washed.  

Mother and Father

            My father was William Franklyn Chadwick.  He went by the name Frank. He was 6 feet tall and weighed 178 for his peak weight. He was highly respected in the community of Witts Springs and the surrounding area. One man in our community who was a staunch Church of Christ member who said that only people who were members of the Church of Christ would go to heaven when they die was challenged by another man on his stand. The man said are you telling me that Frank Chadwick will not go to heaven. The Church of Christ man allowed as to how that might be some exceptions because he respected my father so much.My dad would play checkers with his dad and with my mom. He loved working more than playing.

            When he sold his farm and moved to California I got him a job at Trojan Battery Co. where I was working at the time.  He worked at various task there and was the shipping clerk for the company at the time of retirement. To beat the Los Angeles traffic he drove to work two hours early and spent the time studying his Bible. Reading was his favorite pastime. He had no hobbies that I know of. He did fish once in a blue moon but had no tackle. He used someone else’s tackle. In retirement he read and gardened. He was a farmer who loved the land. He loved growing things. During his retirement years he lived in the city and turned his back yard into a garden.

           

            My mother name was Clara May Taylor Chadwick. She and dad married when she was 13 years old. He was 9 years older than she. They first lived in a one room cabin with make do cast off. A stove that had bricks for one leg and their first mattress was stuffed with corn shucks. She had three kids by the time she was 18 years old. She gave birth to a total of 4 children, Charlotte Wanda Lucile Chadwick, William Leroy Chadwick, Alvin Kenneth Chadwick and Evelene Chadwick. She had been drug from pillar to post as a child. Her folks divorced when she was a small child. Then she suffered through two other marriages that broke up. Then she and her mother lived with first one of her older siblings then the other. She had a hard time believing that she was loved and needed a lot of attention. She was very smart and could look at a dress in a Sears or Wards catalog and make the dress for one of her girls. She could crochet, quilt and do almost anything with needle and thread.

Ancestors from England

My cousin Carl Taylor has written a book about the Taylor part of the family where he traces the Taylors and Starbucks back all the way back to England. Both families came to Nantucket Island and settled before coming to the main land. Anyone interested in this can read his book.

My grandpa Taylor was born out of wedlock. When his mother married she married a Drury. Her name was Jermima Taylor. I remember her well. When I was a boy she lived with my great uncle Audie Drury her second son. Many times after church my family would go to their farm for Sunday dinner (lunch). She did not get around very well so she used a cane with a crook. She had some bantam chickens and we would chase them to make her mad. If we got too close to her she would catch us around the neck with the crook of her cane and pull us up close to her and with her boney knuckles go over our head and really work us over. When she was on her death bed my mom and dad took their turn during the week going over to uncle Audie’s house to set up with her at night. We would be at home by ourselves and my dad would come home in time to make our breakfast and get us off to school. On the night she died when my dad started to leave uncle Audie’s house the cat had crawled up the screen door with its back to the house door. When dad open the door the cat squalled and slide down the screen door and my dad almost had a heart attack. You need to know that my father was afraid of dead people. He always said that if he had a flat tire on his car at night by a cemetery he would set in the car until daylight before he try to change the tire.

            My Grandma Taylor’s maiden name was Starbuck. Her dad was an itinerant preacher and had no affiliation with any denomination. Grandpa Daniel Starbuck and Grandma Sarah Gunter Starbuck died before I was born. Grandma Taylor married three times. All of her children were born of her first marriage.  Their names were Floyd, Loy, Lola, Viola, Gladys, Homer, Webby, who died as a baby, and Clara. I am not sure of the order of birth but Floyd was the oldest and Clara was the youngest.

            I do not know the names of her two other husbands except the last one was named Taylor also but no relation to the first husband. Her first husband was a drunk and a womanizer. Grandma told me that many nights she went to sleep with him standing over her bed cursing her. He would leave home and be gone for months at a time and come home and leave after she was pregnant. She finally divorced him when my mother was a small child. My grandmother’s name was Gertie Taylor. Her mother was Sarah Elizabeth Gunter Starbuck who died July 1, 1920. In Sarah’s obituary grandma Taylor’s name is listed as Gertie Roselia. My uncle Homer Taylor who died May 11, 1907 obituary listed his mother as Gertie Starbuck. Her grandchildren put the tombstone at her grave site without contacting my mother and they wrote her name as Gertrude. This upset my mother because she said her name was Gertie not Gertrude. Aunt Gladys confirmed what my mother said. All of the other children were dead at the time of the placing of the tombstone. I have Grandma’s Bible where she wrote the family names and she has her name as Girty. I lived with her during my high school years and we talked much about her family and her marriages. We talked about why she divorced her husband’s. She told me many stories but more on that later.