Pioneers of My People : An Excellent Helpmate by BethShelby |
James Symonds was the first of the Simmons family from my maternal grandmother’s line to enter this country from Norfolk, England. The year was 1635, and 28 years had passed since the Mayflower had landed and formed the Jamestown Colony. James was twenty years old when he arrived on a ship named The Constance from London. James had left his young wife, Susannah and children in England who joined him a little later on another ship.The English settlers felt they had a right to the land by virtue of the fact they had discovered it. They pushed the Indian tribes back and made treaties, when necessary, in order for the recently formed Virginia Company to be able to grant land to the new citizens. Tobacco grew in the Americas and had been used and traded by the Indians for centuries. There were new markets demanding this product in England. For those who wanted to grow tobacco, the Virginia Company granted large tracts of land, because tobacco depleted the soil rapidly, and much land was required for rotating the crops. He was granted land in one of the new Virginia counties, and he started a tobacco plantation. Not long after arriving, James changed his last name Symonds to Simmons. My grandmother, Alma May Simmons, was a part of the tenth generation from the original Simmons settlers. Her branch of the family had migrated from Virginia down through the Carolinas into Georgia and eventually into Mississippi. The land her father had homesteaded was near the land owned by the Weir family. Like generations before them, they too were a farm family. My grandfather thought the tiny dark-haired neighbor girl was getting prettier every time he saw her. In fact, in his opinion she was the prettiest girl around. He got a chance to talk to her at community church singings. His family were all Presbyterian and her family were all Baptist, but people of all faiths came to socialize at the singings. When he got around to asking her to marry him, she was barely 17 and he was 27. Grandma was only five feet tall and he was six feet four. She had a dainty little nose, deep-set blue eyes and an olive completion. When I was born, she was 55. She wore her long hair in a bun at the back of her neck. She was quick moving and always busy. Grandpa couldn’t have found a better match for his pioneer spirit. She enjoyed the simple life and thrived on hard work. She cooked three meals daily on the wood burning stove using the vegetables she grew in her garden. She milked cows daily, churned and made butter and scrubbed her rough wood floors often. She washed clothes once a week, using a heated wash pot for boiling the clothes. Then she scrubbed them on a rub board in a galvanized tub on the back porch. For detergent, she used big bars of lye soap, which she made herself. She heated her flat iron on the cook stove or in the fireplace. Many times, I went with her to the back pasture as she mended fences or gathered dry brush and broom sage, with which she made the brooms she used. Sometimes, I looked on as she took lime, salt and water and mixed them to make whitewash. She painted it on the area around the chimney so it would look white and clean. Grandma raised chickens which hatched from fertilized eggs in an incubator inside her house. I loved seeing the babies peck their way out of their shells and turn into fluffy little yellow balls. Later as they grew feathers, they would walk freely around the yard and the hens would lay eggs. Those she didn't use would prove a small income for her. People, who went to grandpa with dried corn to be ground into meal, would come to grandma to buy eggs and milk. She kept a fruit jar full of change accumulated from her sales. When I was just beginning to understand money was needed for buying things, I gave her credit for teaching me how to make change. She would dump the money out on her bed, and we would play store. I was thrilled to learn how to make pretend purchases using the correct change. Grandma loved doing needle work, and she enjoyed crocheting, embroidering, quilting, tatting lace, and sewing. She made all of her own clothes including her underwear, as well as dresses for her sister, Eva, and many for me. She crocheted doll clothes for me. It was necessary to fit the craftwork around her usual daily chores. The one accomplishment she took pride in was an award she won on a quilt. She created a beautiful and colorful quilt using the double wedding ring pattern. She had it shipped to the Chicago World Fair in 1933 and won a cash award and a blue ribbon. Another thing which showed Grandma’s willingness to work hard was during the years Grandpa planted cotton on the 30 acres which comprised our two small farms. I was very young at the time, although it might have been done in years before I could remember, as well. The work was backbreaking labor and something once required of slaves on Southern plantations. When the plants were up, they had to be chopped around to remove the weeds. In addition to her other work, Grandma had to spend many hours in the hot sun with her hoe. When the cotton matured everyone had burlap sacks with straps that went across the shoulders. The sacks were long enough to drag the ground. The pickers had to tie rags around their fingers and hands leaving their finger tips free to separate the cotton from the bolls. Without protection, the sharp hard bolls would cause bleeding. I was excited about the cotton and liked to pull the white fluff from boll. I insisted I was going to pick cotton too. Grandma made me a little burlap bag with a strap and an old fashion bonnet to wear so I wouldn’t get sunburned. I was told to pick away and have fun. Grandpa went around and found eight or ten people looking for work and hired them to help with picking, but the rest of us went to the field to do our share. I was around five, and I don’t think anyone expected me to last over half an hour, but I surprised them and filled my little bag to the top three or four times before I’d had enough. As the sacks were filled, they were weighed and the picker’s name was put by the number of pounds picked, as they paid by the pound. At a penny a pound, I earned my first paycheck. It was almost a half dollar. The cotton was then dumped into the crib until it was all picked and could be taken to the gin. I loved diving into the cotton as the crib filled. I can still remember that windowless enclosure and the hot stale air that almost robbed me of my ability to breathe. I also recall the little black weevils and tiny bits of cotton bolls scattered among the white. My fascination with picking cotton only lasted that one year. The magic was gone by the time I was six. Grandma toiled on and never complained. Yet, I think that might have been the last year they grew cotton. I continued to show up at their old house almost every day after school, and grandma always had a cup of hot chocolate waiting. I was usually there at supper time, because her cornbread was the best I'd ever tasted, and I loved to get it while it was hot. Those are the precious memories that linger, and I wish I could share them with my own grandchildren.
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BethShelby
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