THE MEM LUTON STORY. Last weekend at the Threshermen's Show I ran into a cousin of mine that I haven't seen in several years. Brian Luton was visiting from Ohio and he had brought three of his four kids to see the show.
Brian and I are second cousins but I can't say we are much more than acquainted. He is 19 years older than I and has always lived on Ohio. We have only met a handful of times.
Brian's wife, Mem, is from Thailand. They met when he had made some mission trips there. Mem's story of how she became a Christian and then how everything worked out that she and Brian would marry is simply amazing. I bring this up in case you would like to listen to it because her story was recently featured on the radio program Unshackled!
Unshackled! has been in production since 1950 and is still produced as a radio drama of that era. If features the true stories of people like Mem and how God has worked in their lives. Mem's story is told over two half hour episodes (programs 3197 and 3198). You can find them online easily enough by searching on the name "Mem Luton." By the way, it is rare for Unshackled! to do a two-part show on any of their subjects.
MY GRANDMOTHER. Speaking of oral history, I have accomplished something I've been struggling with for several years. Back in the 1990s Aunt Helen gave me a cassette tape of my grandmother, Joella Durrett Swann. Uncle Paul made the tape with a new cassette recorder he had purchased, however, he recorded Mrs. Joella without her knowledge. He must had thought she would not have done it if he had asked, though she seemed to figure out what was going on about halfway through the tape.
Mrs. Joella was born in 1886. She was the fourth of eleven children born to Ludwell and Callie Durrett, and the oldest of their four daughters. She married my grandfather, Caner Swann, on Christmas Day of 1905. They had five children, my dad being their forth. I barely remember Mrs. Joella. She'd had a stroke and was bedfast by the time I was old enough to appreciate a grandmother. She passed away in 1974.
The tape is extremely difficult to understand due to age and other factors. Since receiving it I have wanted to transcribe it so her story would not be lost. What follows are a couple of stories that were fairly easy to understand.
I have decided to do very little grammatical correction to my grandmother's comments so you're reading this just as it sounds on tape, only without some of the false starts where she was collecting her thoughts.
BUILDING A HOUSE. Toward the beginning of the tape Mrs. Joella talks about how her father, whom she called Pappy, built a house. My cousin, David, told me the house was decorated with spindles and such and was standing until a few years ago. I hate I never got to see it.
It wasn't no burden for us all to live. We all done right well. We done mighty well. And I tell you I ain't a saying it -- ain't bragging -- but Pappy made us a good living, but we didn't have sense enough to know it. How did the poor thing do it?My grandmother’s immediate younger sister was named Mary Elizabeth but she was called Mamie. I’m guessing this story was fresh on my grandmother’s mind because she and her sister had discussed it prior to this conversation.
He always provided us to have plenty to eat. We didn't have no great lot of clothes, nice clothes to wear, but in them days people didn't have it no way.
We didn't have no good ways to go, well now, we couldn't, he couldn't afford it. He had to have stock with him. He had to work. It wasn't any of them had no riding horse -- farmers didn't have no riding horse in those days. Well now, we never did have no way to go. Well, we couldn't afford it, couldn't have it. We done the best we could.
I think when he started that house up there. He started ours when Mr. Davy Jones started his house. [Unclear comments deleted.] He built several rooms upstairs, and then he bought nine windows to go upstairs. Nine windows! [Hits table for emphasis] Now you think about that. It wasn't big windows, it was these small windows.
And now, I don't know how he had money to get all that stuff. And he bought windows. I forgot how many windows he bought for downstairs. Some of these big windows, like that right yonder. He bought several of them. Doors. Window casings. All such as that costs money. [Sentence unclear though it sounds like she is talking about how much her father made himself in addition to the items he purchased.] And he done his own dressing his lumber. Done his sawing. And how in the world did he do it?
Uncle Tom and them had a sawmill, him and Pappy did. And they cut a lot of wood, logs there, tearing up ground, you know, and they had a lot of it sawed off. They sawed off a lot of lumber, and they used that about building a house. And Pappy, he furnished all his lumber. And he furnished Mr. Davy Jones' lumber to build his house. He sawed [unclear]. And when Pappy got his house done, and as Mamie was saying here awhile back, Pappy said he didn't have but thirty cents left in his pocket after he paid all his bills. He had paid for his house, he really did.
Now I'll tell you, you know now, they was doing mighty good to have a great gang of young 'uns and putting up a house like that. Now didn't they? We couldn't. I had five children. Me and Caner couldn't do it. I don't know how he ever got by and done as well as he did. And he put up two or three barns. He put up a stock barn. And there was several things he done. I don't know how he done it -- I sure don't.
I used to think he could have done better than he did do, but Pappy done ... I don't know what with these young 'uns. What a gang of young 'uns. Had eleven children. Eleven! Seven boys and four girls. I don't know how he come out that well. Shucks. I know he didn't have nothing to build a house on. But we had to have a house of some kind, as many young 'uns as we had.
GRANDPA DURRETT. There’s a bit of confusion on the tape before things clear up enough to make out the next segment where she talks about he grandfather, William Dawson Moore Durrett. (Her other grandfather passed away when she was two years old.)
I was just thinking of him. I believe I must have had one of the best granddaddies in the whole world: Grandpa and Grandma. He must have been a [worker], and a smart man on top of it. He made money. He worked long as he lived. He'd go out walking, he'd always have a hoe with him. Every time I seen him he'd always have a hoe in his hand.I am assuming from the context that Maw is Mrs. Joella’s grandmother. The tape begins to get really unclear at this point. From the snatches of conversation I can understand she talks about her grandparent’s house and a large pear tree that grew in their back yard. It sounds like her grandparents loved children and would fix little baskets of pears for the children in the family.
And he had good gardens. And he had good everything! Some of the best orchards you ever eat fruit from. He had 'em. He grafted all of his trees.
And I know how to graft those trees. Do you know how to graft a tree? I seen him graft 'em. He had a big old wooden box about that long, about that wide, and about that deep with sand and dirt in it, you know. And he'd pick two kinds of plants, a peach and an apple [unclear due to mic adjustments] ... himself. He'd cut that, you know, and fix those that would [be able to] go together with those that the heart of that there little branch that would go together, would hitch. And the bark would [hitch] the same. And use yarn thread [and] scraps. And then he'd bury down in this here dirt in that little box. And he'd put just a tiny [pitch? wad, oh it might have been a little over two or three drops of wad in it.] And, you know, he [unclear] raising all the fruit trees he wanted. And Grandpa, that's where he got all his trees. He grafted peach trees. He grafted ... it was some big horse apples [or hedge apples] and such. Great big old horse apples. I don't even remember. They say he grafted every one of those trees, and they was great big old trees, as big as oak trees.
And Mammy got fruit off of them trees. He had a bunch down there on one corner of the place, three or four trees, and over there at another place in the corner of the field, had two or three more he had grafted. And they had a lot of apples on them, great big apples. And they'd be full every year. He would trim them back every [year]. Peach trees, cherry trees, pears trees, he had everything! And then he had there at grandpa's, he furnished Mammy, [unclear] mammy, a great big orchard with the place that she got, three or four acres. And Uncle Tom had a big orchard. Uncle [Huell? - unclear] had a big orchard. He grafted every tree. He fixed that the children all had 'um a big orchard. We never starved for fruit when he was living. We had all we needed.
And grandpa made a living he had [unclear]. I guess you could say he was a rich man. Poor thing didn't know it. Back in them days you could work yourself to death. If they had any money they didn't appreciate it.
And he raised tobacco. And if he'd go out walking he'd always have his hoe. He had to have a hoe or something to walk with anyhow. He had had two strokes and he kept him a walking stick or something to walk with, and he had his hoe, and whenever he run up on a spring of grass or weeds he'd cut it down. He wouldn't let 'em get ahead of him. And the biggest garden you ever laid eyes on. He had it.
He always took a lot of interest in [Maw's] garden. [Maw] had a garden. She had a pretty walk up through the middle of it. On each side of the walk she had all kinds of flowers. And he helped her tend to them.
It seems that she discovers the tape recorder after this and there’s a lot of breaks in the recording before it settles down again. There are a couple of other good, clear stories which I will share another time.
Joe
