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| Columbus Washington Taylor |
Columbus Washington Taylor was the
son of
Lucinda Swims and
George Washington Taylor, (1858-1926). George
Washington Taylor was a son of
Louisa Jane Curtis and
Charles Alexander Taylor,
(1834-1916).
Charles Alexander was a son
of
Eliza Cagle and
John Taylor, (1808-1880).
In the year 1905 or 1906
Columbus Washington and his father George Washington were our riding when
Columbus spied the most beautiful young woman he had ever seen. Having no idea who she was or what community
she was from, he could only dream about her until his father advised him to
visit a different church every Sunday until he located her.
We aren’t sure how many
Sundays it took, but eventually Columbus did locate this beautiful dark haired,
dark-eyed beauty at Posey’s Mill. It
seems that Arsula (Suler) Posey, daughter of Appleton Posey and Celia Jane
Jones, thought the young blue-eyed man was the one for her.
They were married in January
1907 and set up housekeeping in one large room with a lean-to which served as a
pantry for staples, dried fruits and jars of canned vegetables. At some point a long open porch and two rooms
connected by a open hall were joined to the original house. Another porch was added to the front side of
the two new rooms. Two double beds were
placed in each of the two new rooms. My
mother often told of how three or four of the girls would sleep in the same bed
in the winter in order to stay warm.
There was no “living” or “family” room as we know it today, no sofa or
lounge chairs.
This wonderful God fearing,
church going couple produced five daughters, two sons and ten
grandchildren. My mother, Annie Bea, the
middle child, told of gathering around the fireplace in the evening and
listening to her dad read the Bible. She
also told many stories of hosting the pastor or guest preacher for Sunday
dinner.
What talent! All the girls played either the pump organ or
piano, the sons played guitars, Suler played a zither. Columbus played the pump organ and led
singing at church for many years. You
can be sure their talents were also utilized at all day singings. For you young folks, a zither is similar to
an autoharp.
Being a hard working farm
family they produced the food need for their family. Columbus was also a master can syrup maker,
processing sugar cane brought by residents from all around Winston county. Suler was known for her dough-ball butter in
which a small ball of dough was used to start the ball of butter, thus ensuring
that the ball of butter would be round.
Watching my grandmother make
biscuits in the dough bowl kept in the flour bin never ceased to fascinate
me. Ma Maw made an indentation into the flour, added
leavening, seasoning and liquid, then proceeded to mix and knead until she was
satisfied that the dough was perfect. She never measured any ingredient and
when I asked how she knew how much to add, she would say that she just
knew.
Times were hard, eggs were
exchanged for needed supplies, clothes were made from feed and flour
sacks. In the fall after the crops were
in, one pair of shoes was purchased for each child. The toes were cut out of the shoes in the
spring so they could be worn until the weather permitted going bare footed.
Remember those straight,
ladder back, cane bottom chairs? In the
summer most of the adults would sit in a
long row on the porch with the chairs leaning against the house, cooling
themselves with feed store or funeral home hand fans. (Some of those fans had beautiful scenes and
look great in a picture frame). Pa Paw and some of the men squatted on the edge
of the porch. Everyone was afraid that
Pa Paw would fall, but no matter how many times a chair was offered to him, he
always refused it. This was a time for
adult conversations, with all the cousins sent to play. But we discovered that we could eavesdrop by
crawling under the house and hiding in the “root cellar”, which was noting but
a large mound of dirt with a big hole in the middle. Needless to say, the adults soon discovered
our shenanigans and we were sent away from the house.
Ma Maw’s favorite sitting
area was by a window in one of the bedrooms from which she could read her Bible
and see vehicles coming down the
road. Her chair was the only upholstered
chair in the house and eventually the back conformed to the shape of her
Dowagers hump. A little spit can hidden behind the curtain
was the only indication that she dipped snuff. Ma Maw waited until everyone
else ate breakfast, then she dipped a hamburger bun into a mixture of leftover meat drippings and black coffee. I
thought this must taste terrible, but she really seemed to enjoy it. Oh, what fun all of us
grandchildren had running around, chasing each other through the bedrooms and
off the porches, going to the creek, drawing water from the well, eating
watermelon at the edge of the porch, spitting watermelon seeds as far as
possible, making watermelon rind teeth, and making homemade ice cream in the
old hand turned freezer. In the summer
someone had to swat flies in the kitchen in order to keep them away from the
food. After everyone ate, the food was
placed on one corner of the table covered with a tablecloth, just waiting for
one of the grandchildren to sneak back and grab a piece of cornbread or other
leftover.
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"MaMaw" holding Scott,
Bea (left) and Kay |
I was in awe of the beautiful
quilts, and more that once, an aunt would come by and tell me to close the
doors of the quilt press. Each daughter
received 13 quilts when she married.
Even today I admire my portion of those quilts.
The beautiful crocheted
doilies also fascinated me. The oldest
daughter, Hattie Viola, could simply look at a picture and replicate it. All the daughters could look at a dress and
cut a pattern. My mother even made clothes for a chicken whose feathers had
been pecked off by other chickens. All
that training came in handy in making my clothes when I was in grade
school. It was so exciting to pick the
dresses I liked from a mail order catalogue, then watch as my mother measured,
cut and sewed my school dresses.
Of course, there are not so
fond memories such as the hen pecking at my face because I just had to see the
eggs in her nest. And yes, there really
was a mail-order catalogue used for toilet paper in the three hole outhouse located in the
barn.
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Front: Columbus Washington Taylor, Arsula, "Suler" Posey Taylor;
2nd row: living Taylor, 3rd row: Lonnie Taylor, Rose Altha Watts Taylor,
Claudie Taylor Brown, Robert Brown; 4th row: Dayton Taylor, Hattie Viola, "Ola" Scott
5th row: Annie Bea Taylor Davis, Pernie Taylor Ellenburg
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There aren’t many of us left, the old house has changed, the barn is gone, the chicken coop is falling apart, but I am so glad to have the fond memories of visiting Ma Maw and Pa Paw Taylor in Double Springs, Alabama.
Written By Kay Wojack
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