The Grands... family notes continue...

Pa, who sat in a big chair in the living room, beside a big stand-up console radio, read the Charlotte Observer every morning.... would read me the comics, especially "Bringing up Father". I think he related to Jigs... I loved the funny shaped people and the pictures on the wall with people and objects that did not stay in their frames, like in Harry Potter stories.... Pa often had a card table in front of him, playing solitair which he taught me... the 7 card and the 9 card spreads! Occasionally he had some friends over and they played bridge. Sometimes I could go with him to his "Men's" club where they played cards, and probably poker, as well as bridge. But Bridge was big with everybody we knew, except Nana and Boo and that generation....

He owned a big Hudson auto, probably vintage 1932... but had almost stopped driving by the time I came along. Mama was the official driver. She said that he had taught her to drive back in the teens when she was quite young. Being the oldest of her siblings, and times were prosperous, she had some advantages... like a horse, named "Queenie", of her own, kept at the local livery stable... every town had one then! After she had been driving a while, she said, Pa told her that she needed to go to the court-house and get a permit to drive... something called a driver's licence. A new rule. Earlier, Pa traveled a lot, worked for a New York clothing firm selling clothes. Swartz and Co.... I think was the name of the firm. When he went to New York, the he brought back presents and tales of the big city, Mom said. Pa had grown up on a farm near Rocky River, in Cabarrus County, and claims he graduated from the 3rd grade before going to work. Hunting was his favorite sport, and would come in winter nights with birds he had shot in his coat pocket. Nana would not cook them so he cleaned them and had Nonne do it. (Nana only cooked cakes and special souffle´s I remember.) The birds, Doves and quail, mostly. Sometimes with Uncle Jack they would go east Duck Hunting. I do remember pheasants... do not know where they shot them, not local birds!!! The guns stayed in a huge wardrobe on the back porch, and cleaning took all night, it seemed. Loud noise hurt my ears, and I did not like to go with them. One story he told stood out. A big scar on his leg, he told me, came from when he was a boy chopping wood in a distant field, and he hit his leg, opening up a huge bloody gash. Could not get any fast medical help, he found some raw-hide string and sowed the would closed himself. You could see white hole spots on either side of his scar! Probably true.

When Pa undertook to polish the brass andirons, I would try to help. But one time he got very mad at me for spilling the Brasso, and accidentally turning one of the heavy things against his bad leg!!!! I think that is how I got the above story. I remember that at Christmas time, It was a big deal getting in the Christmas tree, probably from his family farm or near by, which may or may not have been sold at that time. One year the tree was so big, they cut the top off!! no room for a star or angel or anything. The ceilings were nine feet high... The decorations were out of date, and a lot of candy canes and shiny ribbons and fancy balls and all. I loved this. Mama told me of the real old days when she was growing up, they would light real wax candles!!! Carefully!!! And the presents... I shook them all and guessed what might be in them for me. There was this big pecan tree between our house and Boo's, and every fall, a man would come by, climb up and shake the nuts down. There would be a lot, so many Pa would sew together these orange sacks, and there would be a bag for each of his children and friends... When the grandchildren came along, he loved them but too many at a time bothered him. Mama quoted him, saying you should have all your children before you are 30, and your grandchildren after you are dead! You could not tell that he believed it! Always loving, Pa.

Something that tells me global warming was... has been occurring for a very long time: When it got cold in winter, and Nana or someone would complain, Pa said it was not like it use to be! He remembers when you could drive a team of horses across Rocky River, it froze so hard!!! And Boo told me about the ice house at the Richmond place, down Corbin Street toward the Railroad Station where my great grandfather worked. The shed was over a pit lined with saw dust, and each winter, people would go the the lakes and rivers, and cut blocks of ice, bring them back to town and they would be put in the pits... and would last the summer. The refrigerators before electricity had a hole in the back, or where the freezer compartment was later, where you put a block of ice in daily. Ice came in horse carts daily. Before refrigerators, I guess, they just went out to the ice house and left their milk and eggs.... And the well house, they would sometimes build a trough that carried water to the kitchen. Boo tells that at one time, they had a wind-up fly shoo contraption that sat on the table. Had this propeller on top that created a breeze and kept the flys away from the food!!! Few houses had screens, it seems... The kids sometimes turned it into a toy and sent biscuits flying when the parents were not looking!

But Pa did not talk too much about his family... According to the White book, put together by our cousin Eugenia White Lore, Pa had 2 half brothers, five "real" brothers and a sister.... Nathaniel Green White, (1825-1895) his father, and mother was Nathaniel's second wife, Eleanor M. White (1835-1912)... I do not remember hearing anything about her, Mama was 7 or 8 when she died. Nana and the Richmonds talked about their family all the time, but Pa said very little... He was closest to his brother Thomas Jackson White, who married Maybelle Culp and had lots of children, favorite cousins of Mom and siblings... 3 girls and 3 boys... lived close by, moving to Concord when their father Nathaniel died.... Aunt Maybelle was one of those big talkers... and visited a lot. There were plenty of other related Whites in the town.... it sometimes seemed that who were not related to Mama, were related to Daddy... and there were some common to both families!!!!

Pa got more and more dependent on help, hired a black man, Mack who had his own car!, to help him in and out of bed. Mac took me to the fair once. Pa paid! But the Christmas before he died, when my brother's and cousins were coming on, he said he had enough and would not see another Christmas! And sure enough he died the next September... I was in the 6th grade.
He said that the Whites died at 75, long enough for a human to live. The Richmonds were built to last longer, but their mind died at 75.... he did not want his body to survive his mind... He saw Nana going into senility. And discovered how to humor her... I can see her now after his funeral... asking me where he was... It scared me, as I did not know what to say.... Did she not know he had died? Had she forgot? We had just been to the funeral. The funerals of both Pa and Nana, took place at their house. They lay in their coffins overnight right down stairs! lots of flowers all over the place. The funeral processions went through down town Concord to Oakwood Cemetery, the policemen at the square with their hats over their hearts... a mocking bird sang as the coffins were lowered. Uncle Jack noticed and said it was very nice and a good sign. Pa loved birds and new their calls!!! He could predict rain: "I knew it would rain... heard the rain-crow." A man can leave the country, but the country never leaves the man.... Pa died in 1946 and Nana in 195l.