Big Tom the Ox
ASHS Column for 12 15 05
Margaret Collier
Hear ye, hear ye! In case you
haven't heard, The Alger-
Sullivan Historical Society has
a number of quality gifts to
make your shopping easier
for those people on your list
who have everything or are
just plain hard-to-please. From
that beautiful keepsake 3-D
gold finished replica of the
historic steam engine, #100,
for $l5.00, all the way across the spectrum to mugs for $5.00 and coverlets with woven area historic scenes for $50.00. Really, you should give us a call when you are ready to shop or just want to look around the museums. We are always happy to share our preserved heritage with you, so pick up your phone and dial 256-2029, 256-2661, or any other of our eager-beaver members.
Speaking of shopping, at our December meeting on the 20th, we'll be having a Stocking Stuffer Sale for last minute shopping. You see, we have several items from the recent Flomaton Antique Auction that was just the most fun ever. We have a nice variety of books, knick-knacks, ceramic pieces, boxes, and just plain stuff, but mainly of good quality, so come prepared to pick up a few of these one-of-a-kind items for a donation to the Society.
Members, if you have any white elephants around your house just bring them along for the sale. Who knows, you may have just the item that someone else is panting for. At any rate, it should be great fun for the Christmas-time party and will help with the work of the Society.
Now I want to share with you a few more of Lillian Green's memories from her girlhood...
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Daddy had a big black ox named Tom. Daddy raised three oxen, but Tom was the biggest and weighed about a ton. Tom got too big for Daddy to handle so he sold Tom to be used with some other oxen for logging. I think Tom was sold once in between to the Bowman brothers and they sold him to Mr. Will Chancery, my precious daughter-in-law's grandfather. (All my daughters-in-law are precious because we didn't have a daughter to live.)
The other two oxen that Daddy raised were smaller than Tom and worked as a team. Red and Bullie were their names. You have heard of bulls sulling, but one of these was the worst. My brother got the scrap lumber from Jones Mill and sold it to people for a small fee.
We had an old red cow called, "Butthead". She had to be milked early in the afternoon because the milk just poured from her. Daddy got two fine milk cows from the Bowman brothers. One of them either got snake bit or ate Mountain Laurel. The other was a brown Jersey named, "Shug". Mavis started milking her when I got married. Our youngest sister is twelve years younger than I, but she would come out where Mavis was milking and Mavis would spray the milk into her mouth. She was the only daughter in our family who would drink sweet milk.
One time Mavis was working at Grandma's and a pig was eating either the cow feed or chicken feed so Mavis threw a rock to run it off. Unfortunately, her throw was on target and the pig died. Mavis jumped up and down because she had killed the pig. We were not hog farmers and only had that one sow.
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From these few memories you can see that life in McDavid was hard back in those days and quite different from today. As time goes by, we'll share with you more of life in various nearby communities and, eventually, Lillian's account of Grandma (1860 - 1946) and Grandpa Huie (1853 - 1936).
Don't forget to come to the meeting in The Leach House, Tuesday, December 20, at 7 P.M.
This page last modified on Sunday, December 25, 2005
