SMITTY AND JEWELL:

THEIR DAYS AND YEARS

A Family Sketch by Grand Mom

Jewell Ellen Smith

for

Grandson Ed Allen Smith

October 22, 1998

My first day in this world, September 24, 1915, was a beautiful day down in South Arkansas, especially at the place known as Three Creeks. The air was brisk, the sun bright, the creeks low. It was a perfect day for being born, or for anything else, as far as that goes.

Since before daylight, Jodie Caney Ellen, a Three Creeks cotton farmer and storekeeper, and his field hands, his older sons, his aged father, Thad Ellen, and several cousins and neighbors had been at Jodie's syrup mill. They were grinding stalks of sorghum cane and boiling the greenish sweet juice until it thickened into molasses.

I was not at the syrup mill that morning, but here follows a fairly accurate account of what was said and done. (Papa Jodie did call me "another dishwasher.")

It was Puddin' Foot, Jodie's black mare, who plodded her way round and round the squeaking sorghum press that squeezed out the cane juice. The juice dripped through a white cotton cloth strainer into the huge cooking pan. A slow fire burned under each section of the copper pan.

Puddin' Foot--so named because her feet were big as a molasses pudding--seemed to enjoy walking through the steam which rose from the pans and drifted toward her and the squeaking, rickety press. Scum appeared, as if on some age-old schedule, and had to be skimmed off and dumped into a bucket to save for Papa Jodie's pigs.

Uncle Idd, who was the main skimmer-because he had skimmed more molasses than he could remember, declared that the steam, mixed with the smoke was "as sweet as a ‘tater cooked in ashes."

Uncle Idd looked at Mister Jodie.

Papa Jodie didn't say anything.

Uncle Idd kept talking. He must have decided to try to cheer up Mister Jodie. He could sense that he had more on his mind than making molasses.

"This batch is sho' lookin' good, Mister Jodie; we'll git 30 gallons--maybe mo'--befo' the sun goes down."

"I hope you're right, Uncle Idd."

Jodie turned to his father. "Pa, I'm going to step back up to the house. Doctor Stewart is already here, and Miss Mit. They may need me. 'Course, as you know, this is Nannie's ninth child but something could go wrong. Keep an eye on everything, will you?"

"Sure, Jodie, sure. Take your time and don't worry none about this syrup. Me and Uncle Idd will make every drop taste plumb larripen!"

It took Jodie Ellen quite a long time to return to the syrup mill. And when he did, he announced to everybody there: "Well, folks, we've got another dishwasher up at the house!"

When I was much older, my Aunt Mit Jones, who was Mamma's sister, told me that she and the doctor had had considerable difficulty in getting the newly arrived dishwasher to breathe.

All went well with the Ellen family for the next few years, and for all the aunts and uncles and cousins--as well as for the black families who had settled in Three Creeks. Two, sometimes three, of the black families lived on our Ellen farm.

It was in 1918 that I began to hear the grownups talk of some kind of "a war across the waters." Two of my brothers, Walker and Clyde, had to go away and train in the army. Exactly what the army was I didn't know.

When my brothers came home, Walker brought me a kewpie doll made of soap and Clyde brought a beaded purse that had a dime in it. I happened to drop the doll and a sneaking fat pig that had slipped into our back yard ate it up. He swallowed it whole. The little purse I have to this day, but I spent the dime.

In the early 1920's Papa Jodie was in his prime--about 45 years old. My Mamma Nannie was close to 40. They owned 305 acres of Three Creek land; and Papa kept a country store. They were considered "pretty well off." As was the custom in that region then, they had married young. She was 16 and he was not yet 20.

The way Papa Jodie explained how he came to marry pretty Miss Nannie Crawford was this:

The year Jodie was 18 years old, his Grandpa Archibald Cole died, leaving his wife, Nancy Wright Cole, a cotton farm to run. She couldn't handle it by herself; so she persuaded her daughter Mary Ellen Ellen (Jodie's mother) and his father, Thaddeus Rodolphus Ellen, to "set Jodie free." This was about the same as declaring him grown up, or "of age." That meant he could go live with his Grandma Nancy and farm for her.

Later, when Grandma Nancy decided Jodie was old enough to marry, she told him so. She had noticed that on many Sunday afternoons Jodie saddled his horse and rode over to Three Creeks to call on one of the five Crawford girls. This, despite the fact that he had "taken a shine" to a girl living over close to Big Corney Creek.

Grandma Nancy took Jodie aside and whispered to him: "Jodie, if you'll marry that Three Creeks girl whose pappy is a preacher-instead of that river rat girl living up on Big Corney--why on your wedding day I will give you a feather bed!"

Each time Papa explained how he got a wife and a feather bed, both on the same day, he would look straight at Mamma Nannie and say: "A fellow couldn't afford to pass up a bargain like that, now could he?"

Mamma would smile and answer, "Of course not, Jodie-you were smart, real smart."

That would make Papa laugh.

Another tale Papa Jodie delighted to tell and re-tell was about the first prayer he said in church. It happened when he was about 18, on the Sunday morning after Papa Jodie and several of his friends had been baptized in the deepest one of the creeks which crossed the road between the church and the Louisiana state line.

The evening service was ending when Grandpa Jim Crawford (Rev. James David Crawford), the minister, stood up at the pulpit and announced: "We'll call on Brother Jodie Ellen, one of our newest members, who was baptized this very day, to give the benediction."

Papa Jodie gasped, took a deep breath, and blurted out: "Oh Lord, don't let the devil get us! Amen."

The devil didn't get any of us; but when I was eight years old, Papa Jodie died. Mama Nannie must have thought that surely a band of angels must have come for him. She told us that his last words were: "Let's go."

What songs were sung at Papa's funeral none of the family remembers now (in 1997). The ones Mamma Nannie chose probably included the song about a band of angels. It had lines to this effect:

"Come, angel band:

Come and around me stand. ...

Oh, bear me away on your snowy wings

To my immortal home. ..."

On the day of Papa's funeral the church at Three Creeks was overflowing with people. Many had come from far away. Dozens of his black friends and many white ones stood outside, clustering near the open windows so they could see and hear the service. There were three or four preachers in attendance. One read from the Bible. The others talked about Papa. Jodie Ellen, they said, was a fine man, an upright man, and one who trusted God. He would be greatly missed.

One of the preachers told how Papa had followed the Golden Rule. And the Ten Commandments. And, most important of all, he had "kept the faith."

The congregation sang several more hymns. A favorite selection in those days-at anybody's funeral, was "In the Sweet By-and-By."

At that time--especially in Three Creeks--life was hard, often heart-breaking. People found comfort in thinking of and singing about a better life to come in the next world. "In the Sweet By-and-By" declared this hope and belief to be true. One of its verses and refrain presented the thought this way:

"There's a land that is fairer than day;

And by faith we can see it afar.

For the Father waits over the way

To prepare us a dwelling place there.

In the Sweet By-and-By we shall meet on that beautiful shore.

In the Sweet By-and-By we shall meet on that beautiful shore."

Papa Jodie was buried in the old Three Creeks graveyard, which lies some quarter of a mile from the church, on what was then the rough wagon road leading to Junction City.

The Ellen family was never the same again. People would say there was no laughter in our house. They were right. What one of Papa Jodie's nieces, Bess Ellen Evans, wrote to her Grandpa Thad and Grandma Ming was true. She wrote this: "Uncle Jodie was always smiling and was kind and sweet to every one."

Pretty soon, Grandpa Thad and Grandma Ming left their little house built beside ours and moved from Three Creeks back to Hope, Arkansas. This, to be near their other family members. Grandpa and Grandma Ellen are buried in a lovely old graveyard at Rocky Mound Church, some four miles from Hope.

In the early 1990s Smitty and two of my brothers, Dorris Ellen and Wiley Ellen, drove up to Rocky Mound and walked through that graveyard. It was a quiet place, except for the singing of the birds nesting in the many old oak trees which grew in and around the graveyard.

Within a few years after Papa Jodie's death, Mama closed the country store. Then there came a severe drought and after that the Great Depression. We could no longer raise and sell cotton. Times were extremely hard. There was widespread want, even in Three Creeks. We had plenty of food, which we raised ourselves, but no money to speak of. Fortunately Mama Nannie's older sons and daughters could help her. Even so, getting new clothes was out of the question. During those hard years, Mildred--one of my three older sisters, who was about 14--and I had plenty of hand-me-down silk stockings to wear--thanks to some rich ladies who lived up near the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. They had a cousin in Three Creeks. And when these fortunate ladies got "runs" in their pretty sheer stockings, they would toss them into a big sack. Then, every so often they would send sack-and-all to their Three Creeks cousin. She, in turn, gave the whole batch to Mamma Nannie-for Mildred and me.

We young sisters wanted, above all else, to be pretty. Wearing silk stockings would do the trick, we thought. But Mamma Nannie told us, over and over, especially on Sundays, that "Pretty is as pretty does."

During those Sunday morning talks, Mamma also told us we must wear our nicest dresses to church. "Always put your best foot forward," she would say. I had no idea what she meant.

I did understand that the way to get rid of something you didn't like was to throw it into a ditch. That's what my great Grandma Nancy Wright Cole did with her black iron molds she used to make all her candles. The very day she got her first coal-oil lamp, she dumped all her candle-making things into a deep ditch, and she never made another tallow candle, as long as she lived. (She was the grandma who had given Papa Jodie the feather bed.)

There were a few special tales my Grandma Ming could remember about her parents, Nancy and Archibald Cole. One was that Nancy could run like a doe. Another was that she never tired of cooking and eating bear meat. Bear meat was plentiful. A third tale that Grandma Ming passed down in the family had to do with the bears in Big Corney Creek bottom.

Grandpa Archibald was something of a fur trapper, as well as a cotton farmer. He sold dried animal hides, including mink, opossum, muskrat, squirrel, 'coon, and bear.

Since he was a Justice of the Peace, Grandpa Archibald was qualified to perform wedding ceremonies. His standard fee was one bear hide. He ended each ceremony with this declaration:

"Wal, son, that's it. The gal is your'n. The b'ar hide is mine. Amen. You may kiss the bride."

Grandma Nancy was remembered by her children and grandchildren as being rather hard-hearted. If one of her daughters-Mary Ellen (Ming), Elizabeth Indiana (Aunt Shug), Belle, or Becky-broke a plate or cup or saucer, that girl had to sweep yards all day long. In those times, say from the mid to late 1800s, people living in rural communities like Three Creeks did not plant grass in their yards. Instead, they scraped the ground all around the house of weeds and grass and swept the surface at least once a week, with a brush broom made of the branches of wild bushes. Usually, dogwood.

A sad thing that happened to Grandma Nancy was that her son Robert was killed out in the cotton fields when the horse he was plowing broke loose and dragged him and the plow a long way. This caused Grandma Nancy to cry and wail so long and so loudly that after that day she could never speak in a normal voice. She just whispered.

She had named Robert for her brother, Great Uncle Bob Wright, who built the oldest house still standing in what is now (1998) called Cole Town. It is situated some four miles from Three Creeks.

This dwelling, once used as a post office called Tubal Township, is in design the famous "dog-trot" style, with two big rooms separated by a wide hall which is open at both ends. It is through this hall that the dog can trot, at his pleasure.

The present occupant of this more than a century old structure is said to be an elderly, eccentric gentleman who does not like people prowling about, taking pictures of his home, even if it has become a historical landmark.

At about the same time my ever-so-great Uncle Bob Wright built this old house in South Arkansas, Smitty's forefathers were building dwelling houses along the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Two houses that his Grandfather Thomas B. Smith built in Biloxi, Miss. are still standing. Smitty and I saw them in the late 1970's.

My paternal grandfather, Grandpa Thad Ellen, never talked much about how things were when he was a young boy living in Tubal Township, Union County, Arkansas. He did say that when he was fairly big, he joined the Confederate Army. He waited a long time to get a uniform. Finally, when he turned 14, he was issued the standard Confederate grays. (Smitty’s paternal grandfather also was a soldier then, but his uniform was of a different color.)

While Grandpa Thad was a soldier, stationed far from home, he liked to hear the army bands play. He was sure the song "Dixie" was the best one ever written.

When Grandpa Thad came home from the Civil War, he learned that his father, Caney Ellen, had died, in 1865. Caney Ellen is buried in the old New Hope graveyard. So is his wife, Mary Etta Bishop.

Mary Etta Bishop lived on for a good many years after her husband's death. She was widely known and admired as a "medicine woman." It was said she obtained much of her knowledge about the curative powers of wild herbs from the American Indians. Also, it was said that she was probably part Indian, herself.

The Bishops had moved to Arkansas from Virginia or the Carolinas. Caney Ellen accompanied the family on that journey, working as an overseer of the Negro slaves which the Bishops brought with them. It must have been about this time that Caney married Mary Etta Bishop, daughter of the Mr. Bishop who had hired him to travel west with the Bishop caravan.

So far as the Ellen family knows, the Ellens never owned any slaves. It is believed that Caney Ellen's father was a medical doctor who settled in the Norfolk, Virginia area. Once, it was said, Caney traveled back to Norfolk; but he did not contact any of his relatives. This, because he disliked his stepmother very much.

When they became rather old, Grandpa Thad and Grandma Ming (her real name was Mary Ellen Cole Ellen), lived in a three room cottage their son Jodie (my father) had built for them right beside our house in Three Creeks.

Grandma Ming enjoyed poor health, as the saying was then. She stayed in bed most of the time; and Mamma Nannie fixed her a tray of food three times a day-for years. Grandpa Thad ate at the same table with us. His place was at the head of the table, and he always said the blessing. It had the same words, every time. These were:

"Merciful Father, smile on us,

Pardon our many sins.

Make us thankful for these

and all Thy favors. We ask

in the Redeemer's name. Amen."

In his younger days Grandpa Thad owned and operated a cotton gin in a place near Hope, Arkansas. The gin burned to the ground; so he and Grandma Ming moved to Three Creeks. There, for awhile, he operated what was called a "rolling store." That is, he fitted out a covered wagon with the same kind of goods which Papa Jodie sold at his regular general store. He drove the rolling store from house to house to show his wares. This was a great convenience to his customers, especially in planting and harvesting times.

After the rolling store was no longer needed, Grandpa spent his time helping Papa Jodie farm. And I spent my time helping Grandpa Thad. That was when I was about four or five years old.

We planted the garden, the watermelon patch, the pea patch; we looked after the peaches and apples and grapes and figs. We fed the chickens their corn and gathered up the eggs.

Almost every time we went to the corn crib and shelled a whole batch of corn, Grandpa would tell me that maybe if we could find red ears of corn and feed that to the hens, they would lay red eggs. It wasn't hard to find the red corn, but I never did see any red eggs.

Another way I helped grandpa Thad every day was to walk with him down to Newben Spring and get a bottle of spring water for Grandma Ming. She wouldn't drink water out of our well. Spring water was the only kind that tasted "worth a hoot," she said.

Some evenings, just at dusk, I helped Mamma Nannie milk our five cows. I was very good at milking; but Mama said that what she really needed was somebody to shake the burning gnat-rag--made of worn-out socks--and make its smoke go all through the cow pen to keep the gnats away. Gnats can't stand smoke, she said, and cows can't stand gnats. In time I became an expert gnat-rag shaker.

Decades later, when Smitty and I compared notes on our childhood experiences, we saw that at the same time I was learning to shake a gnat-rag in Arkansas, he was learning how to swim and to catch crab in the Mississippi Gulf. Each of us had the pleasure of spending much time with our grandparents. For the rest of his life, Smitty tried to find somebody who could bake crab cakes like the kind his Grandma Allen baked. I learned how to fix shrimp gumbo for him but I never could get the crab cakes just right.

Grandpa Thad and Grandma Ming took much delight in raising chickens. One summer they bought a chicken incubator. Grandpa called it a "contraption." It had a coal-oil burner to keep the eggs warm. All Grandpa had to do was to put about 50 eggs on the two trays in the contraption and then to turn each egg over every day--just as we had seen hens do when they are setting.

There was one problem: no mother hen to cluck to the drove of biddies and hover over them to keep them warm until their feathers sprouted out.

Grandma knew what to do. She got Papa Jodie to bring her three or four yards of black and white checked gingham from his store. With this she sewed up a great big fluffy hen and stuffed her with cotton. Grandpa built a big coop out of fence pickets and tied the checked hen right in the middle of it, in such a way that she could be lifted up or down, as the little chicks needed. Grandpa took a stick and beat on the sides of the coop and the chicks thought that was clucking.

Sometimes, but not often, when Grandpa That had time to unlock the gate for me, Grandma Ming let me walk through her flower garden. (She never walked through it, because she stayed in bed all the time.) She had many flowers that bloomed and bloomed. Three that I liked were the heal-all, the sunflowers, and the four-o'clocks.

The heal-all had blooms that would heal some diseases, but not all diseases. The sunflowers grew as tall as a man and had big round faces that turned all day towards the sun. The four-o'clocks had bright pink blooms that would not open up until four o'clock in the afternoon--no matter what happened or didn't happen.

Mamma Nannie grew flowers, too, especially roses. Some of the flowers and all of the ferns she planted in pots and set them on our long front porch. When cold winter came, she moved them all into her flower pit.

This flower pit was a big, deep hole which had been dug down in the ground three or four feet deep. The pit was lined with wooden planks and had a cover that could be opened like a door, to let in the sunlight. Mamma said that plants die if they don't get sunshine.

Many, many years after Grandma's flowers were gone, Mamma Nannie's were no more, and I was a grown lady, Smitty and I lived some six years in the Washington, DC area. One weekend we drove down to Mount Vernon, just to see the home of George Washington and his wife Martha.

We were permitted to walk through Martha's formal garden, and I thought again of Mamma Nannie's roses and Grandma Ming's little garden. This remembrance gave me much pleasure then, and now. In my mind's eye, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon--once listed as one of the Seven Wonders of the World--could not have been as wonderful as Grandma Ming's garden and Mamma's roses.

When I was six or seven years old, and should have started school, my parents didn't send me. I don't know exactly why. But I think Mamma and Papa thought I could learn at home. And, besides, talk around Three Creeks was that the teacher that year wasn't over 20 years old and "didn't have enough gumption to come in out of the rain."

So I studied at home, learning how to read out of the primer and first and second McGuffie readers which Mildred and Wiley had used. The desk Papa Jodie fixed for me was a Jim-dandy, made out of part of a wooden apple crate from his store. My chair was one that some of my old, old grandpas had carved out of hickory limbs. The seat of the chair was of cowhide which Grandpa Thad himself made out of a cow hide that still had the fur on it.

I learned how to read those readers, quickly. Wiley claimed I couldn't read, that I was just memorizing the lines that went by the pictures. (I can still see the page which had a big, fat red-breasted robin perched on a limb.)

When I did start to the real school, I was placed with several other children, in "The Second Reader." (In our school there were no grades. A pupil was classified according to his ability to read "The McGuffey's Reader.")

It wasn't many years before the Three Creeks school was consolidated with the Junction City school system--much to the dismay of many Three Creeks residents. I never attended the Junction City school. Instead, I went to live with my oldest sister, Gertie, and her family so that I could attend the Haynesville, Louisiana school.

In 1934 I graduated from Haynesville High School (as valedictorian) and then attended Dodd College--a junior college for girls--in Shreveport, Louisiana. In 1936 I enrolled in Louisiana State University, in Baton Rouge. I considered myself lucky, very lucky. At that time figures throughout the Nation showed that only 14 per cent of high school graduates were able to attend college--so deep was the Great Depression.

At Dodd College and again at LSU I had a working scholarship arranged through the National Youth Administration, which was part of a federal program designed to help financially poor students attend college. NYA students worked on campus a few hours each day; and for this, some $15.00 per month was sent directly to the college or university.

At Dodd College, I waited on tables the first year. The second, I was assigned to the college library and to reading for a blind student.

I resented having to wait on tables and being called "one of the dining room girls." Through the library work and some special assignments I had with the instructor who handled Dodd College publicity, I became acquainted with writers and editors at "The Shreveport Times," a leading daily in that section of the south. This led to an interesting summer of newspaper work.

In the spring, right at the time of my Dodd graduation, the college offered me a free dormitory room and breakfast for the entire summer. I never knew exactly why. Perhaps I was what had been described as a "promising student"--one who would promise almost anything to get ahead. This enabled me to do a sort of informal, free-of-charge, internship with the local morning newspaper. My assignments changed from week to week, as I took over the duties of the several full-time reporters as they went on vacation.

It was as-hot-as-all-get-out that summer (1936). In years past, the city editor of "The Shreveport Times" had often published a front-page picture of some fellow frying an egg on the sidewalk in the middle of town. This summer, he went one better. To test the heat wave that came in July, he assigned me to find a black iron skillet and try frying two chicken drumsticks on the roof of the "Times" building. I did it.

The chicken got soggy and then dried out; but the heat--'way above 100°F at midday--failed to bring the drumsticks to a rich, golden brown.

"Never mind, Jewell," the editor told me. "Write your article, telling how hot it was not."

Back home in Three Creeks, my Mama Nannie and all our folks laughed to see my picture in the "Times," standing on the top of a three story building, trying to cook chicken by the sun.

This episode made for a tale to tell again and again, lo these many years. The memory of it all still fills my heart with joy and laughter, ever fresh, ever delightful. I am young again--a slip of a girl from the hills of Arkansas, frying chicken on a rooftop far away.

At the end of that summer (1936) I made my way down to Baton Rouge and enrolled in the Louisiana State University School of Journalism. "Made my way" meant that I literally hitched a ride from Shreveport with a friend who was going to do graduate work at LSU. The friend and her family had befriended me on many occasions.

I recall that back then there was no bridge across the Mississippi at Baton Rouge. We crossed, from West to East, on an aged ferry-boat which I just knew would sink any minute.

Of course at this time (1936) I had not met Smitty. But while I had been in North Louisiana, learning to write newspaper articles, Smitty was in South Louisiana, leading a happy life, working with a team of U.S. engineers who were making a survey for the proposed intracoastal waterway.

Smitty's immediate boss was a Mr. Longie, who must have had a profound effect on Smitty's life. He convinced Smitty that he should get a college education. And, as a result, Smitty's parents and his Uncle Joe Allen arranged for him to attend LSU. For the rest of his life, Smitty talked about Mr. Longie.

The greatest thing about attending the LSU school of journalism was that I met Smitty-not in the Journalism building but on a train en route from New Orleans to Baton Rouge. One of the first friends I had made at LSU was a girl named Clyde Clark. Her dad worked for the rail line running from New Orleans to Baton Rouge and he was able to get free tickets for Clyde, any time she wanted. One day in the spring (1937) she got two roundtrip passes to New Orleans and invited me to go with her and spend the day seeing the city.

I went, saw the city, and got so tired I thought I'd die in my tracks. As soon as we boarded the train to return to Baton Rouge, I slumped down into a seat and was asleep before we pulled out of the station.

Somewhere up the line, a half hour later, Clyde shook my arm and said: "Wake up, Jewell! I want you to meet Smitty. He's in our 8 o'clock class, and he lives in New Orleans."

"Hi, Smitty," I mumbled and then drifted back to sleep. What he said I'll never know. The next time I saw him was after class, the following Monday. He invited me to attend the annual ROTC Spring Ball. I told him I would let him know. What I didn't mention to him was that I didn't have a long evening dress, much less any dance slippers.

Later that day I asked my two roommates if they thought it would be all right for me to "go out with that cute blonde kid from New Orleans--the one who always sleeps through my 8 o'clock journalism class."

One roommate wanted to know how old he was. I told her "About 19, I Think. But me? I'm already in my twenties."

The other roommate said, "Yeah, Jewell! Go. If you don't, I will. It's not every day a girl gets invited to the ROTC Ball!"

So, I went to the ball with Smitty-in borrowed dress and slippers. Smitty was very proud of the big band hired for the occasion. I was careful to brag on their performance, but I was careful not to tell Smitty that I found it difficult to dance to their "straight out of New Orleans jazz." Back home in Three Creeks, our dancing music was always furnished by my Jones cousins. The could make the rafters shake with their fiddles and guitars, foot-stomping and singing.

Two years after that ROTC dance, Smitty and I were married on Saturday afternoon, August 5, 1939, at 5:30 PM. The ceremony took place on the front porch of our Ellen home in Three Creeks, Arkansas.

Smitty's parents came all the way from New Orleans. His older sister, Florence Taylor of Winnsboro, La., her husband Roy Taylor, and their children were there. So was his Aunt Lottie Allen from Baton Rouge.

Many, many of my relatives were on hand. My brothers had moved benches from the Three Creeks church and placed them in the shade of the black walnut trees that surrounded our home place.

The preacher who officiated in the ceremony was a Revered Geren of El Dorado. He had been a close friend of my late maternal grandfather, Reverend James David Crawford. My oldest brother, James Walker Ellen of El Dorado, escorted me to the East end of the porch, the place of the ceremony. Dr. Cleburne Modisette, my nephew, played the piano.

The couple who "stood up with" us were my niece Farris Modisette, and Dr. Arlan Hand, whom she later married.

The details of all that happened, and what was said--or not said--escape me now. I do remember that Mamma Nannie had stitched, by hand, the bride's dress and that it was adorned with intricate hand smocking. My Aunt Vada Jones had baked the wedding cake.

My second sister, Bess Ellen Jean, who lived in Iola, Kansas, had brought her finest, handmade lace cloth to use on the bride's table. My other sisters, Gertie and Mildred, and my sisters-in-law Hazel, Anna Mae, Irene, and Verda had decked the house with flowers.

The vows we said that day we kept.

Weeks before the wedding Smitty and I decided on some unwritten rules: There would be no fussing in our house. None. I would keep the home fires burning; Smitty would bring home our living. Any slight ripple of discontent, or the ruffling of any feathers, was to be smoothed away before the sun went down.

To return to Jewell's fuzzy memories of the wedding in Three Creeks--somebody thought to add merriment to the occasion by slipping a sack full of half-grown stray kittens into the trunk of Smitty's car. But my brother Wiley Ellen told us of this little prank. The terrified little cats were sent elsewhere, and did not have to ride with us all the way to Hot Springs, Arkansas, our honeymoon destination.

It was the custom in those days for a bride to toss the bouquet over her left shoulder; and the young lady who caught it was certain-it was said-to be the next bride. I did not toss my bouquet. I gave it to Mamma Nannie.

Smitty's dad, a lovable little man if ever there was one, welcomed me into the Smith family immediately after the ceremony. What others said I can no longer remember. I could have been mistaken, but it seemed to me that Smitty's mother's heart was crushed. She truly thought Smitty (William, as she called him) had made the greatest mistake of his life. In the coming years, she never changed her mind--that is, not so far as I could see.

After our wedding trip through central Arkansas, we had to hurry back to Louisiana, where we both had newspaper jobs. Smitty worked in advertising for two weeklies in Opelusas; I was society editor of "The Morning Advocate," a daily in Baton Rouge. I had held this job since the final term of my School of Journalism studies at LSU.

Our newspaper salaries were so low that neither one of us could afford to feed the other. The result was that Smitty lived in Opelusas-in the heart of the Louisiana Cajun country-while I set up housekeeping in Baton Rouge. This arrangement was in effect for about a year. Smitty drove over to Baton Rouge each Saturday, and we spent Saturday afternoons shopping for groceries. Each time we bought a frying-sized chicken. I fried it, baked a pan of biscuits, and we sat down and ate the whole thing.

A common saying at that time was: "I have (or don't have) a rich uncle." Well, Smitty had a rich, blind uncle. He was Uncle Joe Allen, Mrs. Smith's brother. He was a member of the faculty of the Louisiana State School for the Blind, in Baton Rouge.

Uncle Joe had been totally blind since his childhood days, due to an accident at school. But Uncle Joe had in him "a heart as big as a mule"-to use an old-time cotton farmer's phrase.

Uncle Joe and Aunt Lottie built for Smitty and me a four-room cottage and they furnished it. Our monthly payment to them was $20.00. What a wonderful thing for an old blind couple to do! (The house still stands, on Government Street in Baton Rouge.)

Then came events which cut short our happy time in that little white shotgun house in Baton Rouge. (A shotgun house is one designed with one room right behind the other, with no halls or other rooms attached.)

Mamma Nannie died.

Uncle Joe died.

Then on one dreadful Sunday morning of December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, killing thousands of U.S. servicemen and civilians. The USA declared war on Japan, Germany, and their allies.

To Smitty and me, it seemed our world had been turned upside down.

While Smitty had been a student at Louisiana State University he had accepted a reserve commission in the United States Army. Now, he was called into active duty, with instructions to report to Fort Jackson, South Carolina within ten days.

As soon as I could save up a little bit of money, I resigned my job at "The Morning Advocate" so that I could accompany Smitty to the Army posts to which he was ordered for training and other duties. From Fort Jackson, S.C. we went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, then to Camp Ritchie, Maryland, and finally to Washington, D.C.

It was while we were in Maryland--on October 19, 1942, to be exact--that the stork caught up with us and presented us with David, a baldheaded seven pound plus fellow who liked everybody and everything he saw. He smiled all the time.

Of course David was a great delight to us. And we took excellent care of him. Among the many presents sent to him there were six blankets. When we took him into Hagerstown, Md. for his first checkup, I wrapped all six blankets around him.

A civilian doctor, Dr. Hubert L. Porterfield of Hagerstown, had delivered David, as "part of my patriotic duty," he said. He would take no pay--not from us or any other young Army couples who became parents during their tours of duty at Camp Ritchie.

At Thanksgiving time, when we were dinner guests in the Porterfield home--along with several other Camp Ritchie couples--Dr. and Mrs. Porterfield ushered us down into their basement to see their newest "toy." A deep freeze! None of us had ever seen one before. "Fantastic!" we all said, and we speculated how wonderful it would be to keep frozen turkeys in such a chest so that we could have roast turkey any time of the year, not just at Thanksgiving.

In the early spring of 1943, when David was still a lap-baby, Smitty was transferred from Ritchie to Washington, D.C. A few weeks later he was ordered to London, where he was to be attached to the American Embassy.

We were obliged to sell our beat-up old Ford car for $350.00 because gasoline rationing was so strict that we could not obtain enough gas to keep the auto going. We set aside the $350.00 and years later I used it to buy myself a fur coat.

When Smitty received his orders to London, David and I boarded a train in D.C. and went down to El Dorado, Arkansas, which was the county seat of Union County. This was where three of my brothers (Walker, Clyde, and Wiley) lived. Smitty knew little or nothing of El Dorado, but he insisted that I should rent a house "befitting of a Captain's wife." I finally found a small duplex cottage and spent almost three years there-until Smitty returned from Europe in the late fall of 1945.

For a short time in 1944 I worked on "The El Dorado Daily News," as a reporter and then as City Editor. But that was not a good arrangement, for I worked at night and could find no one to take good care of toddler David.

During World War II the American service men had their letters censored, so great was the danger of revealing secrets to the enemy. As an Army officer, Smitty censored his own letters, with the result that I never knew what he was doing or exactly where he was.

Smitty's letters and notes-read now, more than 50 years later-reveal that he was working hard, that often he became homesick and discouraged. Yet, throughout most of 1943, all of 1944, and into 1945 he was optimistic that the Allies would win WW II. He admired the British.

Smitty turned 30 years old on April 15, 1945. Almost 10 years later, Smitty took pleasure in reading the book (and seeing the movie) titled THE MAN WHO NEVER WAS, by Ewen Montagu. The operation described is a true story which has been called "the most brilliant ruse of World War II;" for it fooled the German High Command into changing its Mediterranean defense, which resulted in the saving of many, many lives.

Smitty was permitted to play a very small role in setting up the hoax. This, soon after he arrived in London in 1943. The book was published in 1954. Smitty acquired two copies, a first impression and a fifth impression.

As is well known, the day the Allied forces launched their WW II invasion of France became known as "D Day." Smitty's group landed on "D plus one." His unit had as its mission the collection of enemy documents which the Germans left behind in their flight back toward the East.

These materials--many priceless to the Allies--included German army records, tapes, papers, moving pictures, other items, even booby traps. There was so much of this "stuff" that when it was assembled, in or near London, it was enough to fill an entire Liberty Ship.

In the fall of 1945 this document ship sailed to the United States. Smitty was on board to see to its safe arrival and the delivery of its contents to the proper officials. Smitty was presented with the ship's American flag, which a few years later, he donated to the small elementary school in Virginia where our older children were pupils.

While the fighting still raged in parts of France, Smitty and his unit set up their document collection center in downtown Paris, little more than a stone's throw from the Eiffel Tower. The first day Smitty was in Paris--the day after the city fell, that is, when it was liberated from the Germans--a German soldier hiding high in the Eiffel tower took a rifle shot at him. Thank heaven, the guy missed his target.

(Here, permit me to digress to tell of another sharpshooter in Smitty's life: his own father, William Henry Smith, Sr. who during the Spanish-American War in 1898 took great pride in being a crack marksman in the United States Army. However, Volunteer Smith had an unfortunate experience. One day when he was climbing a rather high tree--his rifle ready--a limb of the tree gave way. Sharpshooter Smith hit the ground and broke his left wrist and forearm. It never healed properly and for the coming years it was a great bother and handicap to him.)

When Mr. Smith became old, his war-time tales always included his having yellow fever, laying brick in the Army hospital being built in Atlanta, Georgia, and his sharpshooter accident. His voice had in it a tinge of regret when he spoke of how he had always longed to have a Krag-Jorgensen rifle.

Recently (Summer, 1998) I found an article about the rifles the U.S. Army used during the Spanish-American War. This was printed on pages 43-44 in the AUSA's ARMY magazine. It was titled "The Army of 1898." A portion of the article follows:

"At the start of the war, the U. S. Army had only enough new Krag-Jorgensen magazine rifles--which fired smokeless powder--to issue to the regulars. Volunteers were armed with the single-shot 1873 Springfield, originally firing only black powder. The Ordnance Department Bureau placed a high priority on producing smokeless cartridges for the old Springfields, pushing production to 180,000 cartridges a day at the Frankfort Arsenal, and the chief of Ordnance believed that the Springfield was the better weapon for volunteers: "Strong, simple and able to fire at rates appropriate to the training and marksmanship of new soldiers."

In 1942 Smitty--then a young Captain at Camp Ritchie, Maryland--saw crate after crate of the 1898 Krag-Jorgesens. They were well-preserved and were destined to be sent to Great Britain. Smitty's dad was greatly disappointed that Smitty couldn't just take one of the rifles and ship it to New Orleans to his old soldier dad. From this, we gathered that Mr. Smith had served as one of the 1898 "volunteers" who had had to be content with one of the 1873 Springfields.

When World War II finally ended, I expected Smitty to return to the U.S. in two or three weeks, at the most. It was more than two or three months. The day he did arrive was the happiest day of my life--barring none.

David and I were still living in the small duplex in El Dorado, Arkansas. That day in the fall of 1945 when Smitty walked in the front door, he found me standing before a mirror, pulling out the white hairs on my head. Somehow, he wasn't interested in how gray I was at age 29. After a big kiss and a quick bear hug, he said, "Where's Butch?" Before I could answer, he fairly ran down the hall to the room where David was taking his afternoon nap.

My Arkansas folks wined and dined Smitty for several days and then we went down to New Orleans to visit his parents for a few days. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were surprised to learn that Smitty had decided to remain in the Army and that he had been assigned to the G-2 (Intelligence section) in the Pentagon. It was impossible for David and me to accompany Smitty back to Washington, because Smitty had been unable to find an apartment, or any other place, for us to live.

Later, in that winter of 1945, David and I did join him; and for the next six years we lived in Arlington and Fairfax counties, in Virginia. We were able to buy two small houses and we settled down in the house on the historic Braddock road.

Nantelle was born while we were in the Fairfax house. That is, she was born at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C. What a pretty little brunette she was!

Next, there came a major change for us. Smitty was ordered to a three-year tour of duty in Germany. (That six year stay in Virginia had been very pleasant. One year, my niece Joyce Modisette Preston had lived with us and she was married from our Braddock Road house.)

Living three years in Europe was an education in itself. At that time, there was a saying among young American couples stationed in Germany: "Each couple takes three things home with them as they leave Germany. These are a cuckoo clock made in the Black Forest, a fine, purebred dog, and a baby." We voted to keep the saying true.

Our Black Forest cuckoo clock was adorned with hand carved figures which depict the fable of "The Fox and the Grapes." It still hangs on the wall in our Alabama home. The dog, a red, shorthaired dachshund, we named Ludwig, after Bavaria's celebrated king known as "mad King Ludwig." That little German weenie dog lived with us and loved us for many years. He even went with us to Taiwan.

In Taiwan Ludwig almost lost his life when some of the natives tried to stab him to death so that they could eat him! Because of the way the dachshund bone structure is formed, the would-be dog killers did not stab Ludwig in the right place to hit his heart; and he escaped. In some areas of the Far East, dog meat is called "fragrant meat" and is considered a great delicacy.

A Christmas Day I will always remember will be December 25 of 1959, for on that day we visited Ludwig in Taipei at a nice Chinese veterinarian's clinic where we had taken him for treatment. Ludwig was recovering nicely.

To go back to the items young American couples in Germany brought back to the USA--the baby? Oh, yes, we brought home a baby. He was born in the 98th General Hospital in Munich. When his dad first saw him-cradled in my arms-he asked, "Do you mean to say you are going to make a man out of that?"

"Oh, yes, Smitty," I said. "He's going to be a fine fellow." And so he is. He is now Colonel Wiley Allen Smith, MD, who with his lovely wife Karon and their four children live in Ozark, Alabama. These grandchildren are: Erika, Deanna, Nathan, and Isaac.

While we're on the subject of bringing home babies, let me tell you of David's and Lee's bringing home a little fellow from Hawaii. This, some 28 years ago. He is Ed Allen Smith, now a tall and handsome graduate student at Rutgers University. Ah, he is our first grandchild, our "Number One Grandson."

Smitty's next assignment after the one in Germany with the U.S. Southern Area Command, was at Fort Benning, Georgia. Then there was a brief tour of duty at Fort McPherson, Ga. This was followed by the assignment to Taiwan.

In Taiwan, Smitty served with the U.S. Navy. Fighting between the Chinese on the mainland and those on Taiwan was still going on. We had a newly constructed bomb shelter in our front yard. Fortunately, we never had to go down into it. Despite the hot, humid weather, and being far, far from home, we enjoyed this two years on the Island of Taiwan, or Formosa as it was once called. Even Wiley liked it, or, at least he enjoyed the attention he received from the maids working for us and the Chinese girls who took care of the area telephone system. They taught him to eat with chopsticks and how to sit on his heels. When we left the island, they gave him gifts of hand-carved water buffalo--just like the ones that pulled the ploughs in the rice fields near our house.

David and Nantelle did well in the American school. Their scores on school IQ tests were exceedingly high. The school principal suggested that it would be best not to tell either one of them that he or she was a genius!

Smitty and I regretted that we did not know the Chinese language. The only words I can remember are "ding how" and "boo how," or good and bad.

From Taiwan, Smitty was given an assignment at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The following year (1960) he completed his 20 years of Army service and retired.

As Smitty and I looked back and counted all the places we had been, all the things we had learned in the Far East and in Europe, all the friends we had made half-way 'round the world and back, we counted ourselves richly blessed. Never mind that in those 20 years we had been required to move 13 times.

Our next venture, or long range plan, was to settle down and "never move again." At the same time, we would get the three kids through college and into their careers. David had already decided to become a medical doctor. We didn't know it then, of course, but Nantelle was to become Alabama's "Presidential Scholar of 1963" and later would graduate "summa cum laude" from Emory University. Then, she would become a research chemist, and with her husband Marwin Kemp, would purchase a bookstore.

Wiley at this time was in the second or third grade of elementary school. His future was one of those labeled GOK, that is, "God Only Knows!"

Smitty and I decided to live in the Atlanta, Georgia area mainly because David had already enrolled in Emory University and we had learned that the Georgia public schools were right good. Also, we owned a little house in East Point, Georgia. Smitty's Army retired pay amounted to $315.00 per month; so it was critical that we live in that house, at least until Smitty found a civilian job.

Soon, Smitty had several job offers, but none in the Atlanta area. He did work for a few months with a detective agency in Atlanta.

Finally, Smitty accepted a Civil Service position at Fort Rucker, Alabama, as a member of the editorial staff of the Army's "Aviation Digest." This magazine was published at Fort Rucker. It has since been discontinued. It was with much reluctance that we left the Atlanta area. Our long-time friends, Virginia and Bill White, arranged a farewell for us. We packed up the cat, the dog, and the kids, and struck out for Alabama. (This move proved to be a great blessing in disguise.)

We lived in Enterprise for a short time. Then, in the early '60s we bought (on credit) some 25 acres of heavily wooded land situated in Coffee County, Alabama, along the historic "Wolf Trail" the Creek and Lower Creek Indians had used in going from what is now Eufaula to Pensacola, Florida. Other names given this narrow state road are "The Pensacola Trail" and "The Ridge Road." The natural ridge which centers the road for miles and miles was said to regulate the natural flow of water in the region. As travelers went north the streams on the right of the road flowed to the East, while those originating on the left of the trail flowed to the West. Be that as it may, the road, now numbered 51, is one of the oldest used by early white settlers.

In 1961, or perhaps it was 1962, we hired a local contractor to start building a two-story, ten-room, red brick house. He was to work "as long as Colonel Smitty's money lasted." That wasn't long. Smitty finished the inside of the house himself--eight years later. We lived in it, unfinished and then finished, and enjoyed it for more than 30 years. Of course, I am still living in it.

After we had established ourselves on our 25 acres of Alabama woods, and after Dave, Nantelle and Wiley were well into their careers and had made homes of their own, Smitty and I had time to write, or dig in the garden, or build furniture; time to do whatever we wanted to do.

All through our 58+ years of marriage I made It my duty (as already mentioned) to keep the proverbial "home fires burning." To me, it seemed better not to work outside the home. I refused to be a part of the "Women's Lib" which swept the country. Instead, I wrote a novel titled GREAT JEHOSHAPHAT AND GULLY DIRT! That hillbilly-who-done-it took six years of my spare time.

While I was waiting (another four years) for the publisher to bring out JEHOSHAPHAT and make me rich and famous, I began writing and directing a series of biblical Christmas and Easter plays. It was a great pleasure to see these dramas (more than 30) staged at Good Friday Breakfasts and at Christmas dinner theater shows at Fort Rucker, Alabama, the U.S. Army's Aviation center in South Alabama.

These presentations were open to the public and there was always a sellout. Over a 25 year period, hundreds and hundreds of people attended. There is no knowing how many people's lives were changed and enriched by the unusual religious stories on stage. Smitty crafted the props and much of the scenery. I could not have written and directed these productions had it not been for Smitty's strong support and encouragement. Other writing I enjoyed was 17 years of preparing a monthly column for the Fort Rucker Officers' Wives Club magazine, called THE HEDGEHOPPER. (These essays, and the plays, were volunteer efforts.)

On winter evenings, as Smitty and I sat by the fire, remembering the past and talking of the future, we often discussed which would be the wiser course for us to take in our corner of Alabama--sometimes called "The Wiregrass" because of the unusual grass that grows here. Should we sit by the fireplace, or under one of our aged oaks, and let the world go by, or should we get up and join our neighbors in trying to make the area a better place? We decided on the second plan.

One of the early results was that I was asked to serve as the organizing president of the Coffee County Arts Alliance. Then, Smitty advanced enough money to enable the CCAA to bring in professional players to stage the first opera, ever, in local county and city schools. The CCAA continues to contribute greatly to the quality of life in Southeast Alabama, especially through its annual Piney Woods Arts Festival. The CCAA is now in its 25th season.

Much of our social life and religious activities centered around Fort Rucker. Some years Smitty was a lay reader at the main post chapel; he served a term as president of the Fort Rucker Chapter of the Retired Officers Association. We joined and worked with various civic groups in Enterprise. One was the Pea River Historical and Genealogical Society. Through it, we learned much about this corner of the state. One year I was flattered to be named "Enterprise Woman of the Year."

A short while after that our Enterprise friends urged me to enter the annual state-wide contest for the title "Alabama Mother of the Year." I won! Or, rather, I should say our children won; because each contestant was judged, to a great extent, on the success of her offspring. This activity was-and continues to be-sponsored by the national organization American Mothers, Inc.

In 1975 the city of Enterprise commissioned me to write a historical drama to be staged on the sports field of the local high school in 1976. This was to be the city's biggest event marking the Nation's Bicentennial celebration. The pageant, titled "This Place Called Enterprise," turned out to be a big to-do. It was a two-hour extravaganza with a cast of 400 players.

Speaking of extravaganzas, when Smitty and I saw our 50th wedding anniversary at hand, we sent out invitations to a three-day Golden good time, at our house and at Fort Rucker. Smitty's relatives came. Mine came. Many friends gathered 'round and we had a wonderful celebration. We held a reception at the Fort Rucker Officers Club and a supper at our house in the woods. On Sunday morning we and all of our out of town guests and relatives attended chapel at Fort Rucker's historic Chapel of the Flags. This was followed by a brunch at the Officers Club.

Of course David, Lee, and Allen drove down from Kentucky. Nantelle and Marwin flew in from Tulsa, and Wiley and Karon were on hand, with Erika and Deanna. (Nathan and Isaac were still in the future.) Deanna, a lap-baby at the time, was so pretty that our friend Edna Brown declared she should be given as the "door prize." Smitty and Jewell considered each grandchild a prize, sent from heaven itself.

A big surprise at the reception was announced by our children: tickets for a Mississippi River Cruise on the grand "Mississippi Queen," which was making weekly excursions from New Orleans up the river to Baton Rouge and back. Also, there were provisions for a day or so to be spent in New Orleans. There, Smitty showed me all his old haunts, including the route on which he delivered "The Times Picayune" when he was a teenager. We saw much of Carrollton, the area where his parents once lived.

After our happy celebration in 1989, the days and years seemed to suddenly sprout double sets of wings and fly by at the speed of rockets. Smitty's health began to fail. So did Jewell's. When he was 83 years and three days old, Smitty died. The immediate cause of death was from injuries sustained in a bad fall at our home on February 26, 1997. The day of his passing was April 18, 1998.

It is for Ed Allen Smith, our oldest grandchild, that I have written these pages of our days and years from 1915 to 1998. Allen's mother, Lee, suggested the writing. It has been a pleasure to me to weave together facts and memories. May each grandchild and other family members find interest in this journal which is intended to be a description of how we lived and loved and faced life together for more than 58 years.

Let me suggest that each reader would do well to see Smitty's World War II letters (original copies) written to Jewell from London and Paris. Also, Allen, refer to the biographical sketches and pictures of Smitty's Smith and Allen forefathers. There are wonderful true stories of his Smith grandparents and their epic journey from Missouri down the Mississippi, on a flatboat, to New Orleans. There is also much Smith family lore preserved by Florence Young Taylor, Smitty's sister. In the same boxes of Smith family records are numerous letters Smitty and Jewell wrote to Florence and her husband, Roy M. Taylor.

Packed away in chests and boxes are Ellen family letters that Smitty and Jewell wrote to various relatives. There are numerous newspaper clippings. There is a handful of Crawford letters, written to Mamma Nannie by her Sand Mountain, Alabama Crawford kinsmen.

So let me end this long account of the Smitty and Jewell days and years. Should I ask God to make my last day in this world as beautiful as the first? No, I think not.

'Tis not God, but each of us who makes his own days and years what they are. I will ask God to help me with mine. He always has.

October 22, 1998

This is Jewell Smith’s last work, completed two months before her death.

Return to the Jewell Ellen Smith Home Page