- Otis and Mattie (Crews) Canaday
- Annie Mae (Mobley) Thrift
- Emily Davis Harvey
- Ella Dowling Taylor
- Bufort and Joyce (Fish) Thrift
- Nellie Gaskins
- Funston and Hazel Richards
- Abigale Camilla Stephens "Abbie" Cook
- B.R. "Bob" and Myrtle (Mattox) Burnsed
- Jimmy and Marie (Rowe) Burnsed
- McKinley & Daniel Crews
- Clyde and Mamie Sands
- Mary Finley
Otis and Mattie (Crews) Canaday 1993
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"God's been watching over me all my life and I didn't even know it until 40 years ago. I just always thought it was luck."
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Those are the sincere words spoken by Otis Canady, born March 21, 1917 South of Moniac, in the Georgia Bend area. He was the only child born to the five year union of Aaron Canady and Rosa Mae (Rhoden), but prior marriages of both parents had produced many offspring and gave Otis a rich family heritage he treasures.
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Otis's father Aaron was a prosperous farmer and cattleman. He worked hard to make a living that supported his large family. He'd kill hogs on Fridays and peddle the meat to turpentine camp, said Otis. "Recon, that's where I got my peddling."
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Almost any day of the week, except Sunday, you can find the retired 'Jack of all trades' sitting by the roadside 'Peddling' the lush wares that comes from the rich flourishing soil within the 40 acre plot of land he and his beloved wife Mattie have toiled for most of their half century married life. 'Just Right' turnip greens (his favorite), Florida Broad Leaf mustard greens and Georgia Collards are his specialty. Then there are Georgia Red sweet potatoes, vine ripe tomatoes, Black-eyed peas, Purple Hulls, Zipper Creams, Cow Horn okra (grows up to 12 inches long) and corn...perfectly grown Silver Queen! He's got it all, including the best reputation possible for the best Baker County farmer around!
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And wife Mattie knows how to cook it up and serve it 'just right! when he sits down at her table laden with food she's learned how to season with personal meticulousness over the years of experienced cooking.
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The tall lanky youthful looking man, with piercing blue eyes, began his life in a frail existence. No one expected him to live longer than a day.
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"I don't really know what was wrong with me," he said, but the ole Grannie woman that delivered me told my mama I wouldn't make it."
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Rosa Mae, his mother, weighed almost 300 pounds, and Otis has a feeling that may have had something to do with his feeble condition.
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"I've since watched animals that are overweight give birth to smaller, puny offspring.... and I just think that's what happened." he said, explaining his observations.
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He was his mothers baby until the end of her life. Even though he was a grown man with a family, he nursed her, and cared for her in his home, when she became ill and helpless.
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"We were close. We were always together."
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It was one of those times when they were together that he first saw Mattie. "I couldn't have been more than six or seven, but me and Mama were walking along the road going to a cane grinding, and I saw all these children playing in the yard. I began to beg Mama to stop and let me play with 'em, but she was in a hurry, so we went on."
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The home they passed was that of Tom Crews and his wife Mary Thrift. Their daughter Mattie was three years younger than Otis.
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When school started he didn't pay much attention to the 'younger' Mattie, but cast his attention on 'the older girls'.
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Otis was five when his parents separated and his mother moved near her brothers farm near Kyler so that is where he began school. Scores of Rhoden cousins were his classmates.
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Before long though, Otis and his mother, two brothers and a sister, moved to a home provided for them by T.J. Knabb in the Macedonia area and sharecropped his land.
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"I don't see how Mr. Knabb made any money off the deal," he said. "He provided all the equipment we needed to farm, the mules, plows, seeds, fertilizer, and even our home. When we made the crop he'd take what we'd produced to town and sell what he could and give us half the money, which wasn't ever much, but enough to buy us some shoes and clothes." he said.
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Otis attended the Garret School, where Mattie was a student until he finished the eighth grade.
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"My mama could outwork any man around and she worked from sun-up to sundown. Times were hard. She picked cotton, plowed the fields, whatever needed doing. Most people made .75 cents a day, a $ 1.00 a day was tops, and considered that real good money. Mama saved every penny and had over $400 in the Macclenny bank when it went busted. A man by the name of Goodbread ran the bank and one day he just closed the door and left. I remember my mama being so upset. She never had anymore money to save.
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"Most people didn't have a car in those days. We walked everywhere we went unless we could catch a ride. Mama and I walked through the woods to Oak Grove Church and hoped we could catch a ride home."
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Otis was yet a teen-ager when he cast his eyes on acres of land that belonged to Mr. Rubewn Crawford adjoining the land where he worked as a sharecropper for Mr. Knabb.
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"I could see it was good land, very fertile and rich. Everything he grew was pretty and glowed with color. He had the prettiest patch of strawberries you ever saw right there at the corner of 23-A and 23-D where my son Marvin now lives. He grew the finest sweet corn and greens in the county. I wanted that land so bad, but I knew it was impossible, because I was lucky just to have shoes and clothes to wear," he said.
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Otis next move was with his mother on 10 acres of land in the Macedonia area that his brother Willie had purchased. He was out of school by now and farming, finding work when he could with others.
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"The first job I had besides plowing an ole mule was cutting green oak wood for 75 cents a cord. I had to walk two miles totin' an ax, my lunch bucket and a water jug. You had to work hard and fast to get a cord of wood and earn the 75 cents," he said.
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Then his employers truck tore up and ended the wood-cutting job.
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Otis had an opportunity to buy his brother's ten acre farm for $200.
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'But I didn't have $200. That was lots and lots of money back then. The bank turned me down, Then I went to see some people who were known to loan money. They turned me down, too. Finally my uncle Hardie Rhoden loaned the money to me. I had to pay him 10 percent interest .. yep, way back then and as hard as times were..10 percent interest," he noted.
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"The first year me and mama was left by ourselves I planted a patch of okra and carried it on the back of my mule in a hog sack (called so because corn for the hogs came packed in it) into Macclenny and peddled it to merchants like Ira Walker, Leo Dykes and Mr. Thompson.
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"Me and mama got by. As tough as times were I never remember sitting down to the table when there wasn't enough to eat. And it was good, cooked or raw."
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"I planted watermelons but could only get 5 or 10 cents a piece for them. I peddled them in a mule and wagon in town selling to the merchants and around in the settlements. I wasn't making no money, just barely enough for necessities."
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Then things changed financially for Otis.
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"Just before my daddy Aaron died, he divided his herd of Piney Woods cows with his children. I was about 17 or 18 years old. My share was 47 head. I could butcher a cow, peddle it to town and sell the meat for $10-$12 dollars, and the cowhide would bring me $4.00. I could buy the best pair of Sears Roebuck leather brogan shoes for $1.98 back then."
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He bought his first car. It was a 1928 Model A. Ford and on sale for $80. Otis talked the owner, Mr. Charlton Mobley, into a fair trade.
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"I gave him 40 gallons of good cane syrup and four of my Piney Woods cows for it," he said.
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In four days he had returned it to Mr. Mobley.
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The old car was just wore out and it started knocking and making a terrible racket. I told Mr. Mobley he could just have the 40 gallons of cane syrup for the four days I drove it and, I'd keep my cows which I hadn't delivered yet But Mr. Mobley said a deal was a deal so I just kept the old car. it still knocked real bad, but it would run."
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His mind turned to marriage and the cute little girl he had seen playing in her parent's yard many years ago.
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"I really liked the looks of her. I wanted to get married but she didn't want too. We dated for awhile, but finally I just told her if she didn't want to get married we'd just break up.
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"I kinda went hog wild after that," said the forthright Otis. "I'd hate to tell you all I did. I'd stay out all night come home just in time to dress and go to work."
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Mattie's mother became ill when a rabid house cat bit her. After she recovered from the bite the doctor warned her not to get in the sun or 'the fit will come back on you', he told her. But a few weeks later the hard working Mary Thrift Crews placed her small baby in a wagon, pulled the child to a shaded tree area, and began hoeing in the hot field.
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"By night fall they had to tie her to the bed," said Otis. "She went mad and died just like the doctor told her she would."
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Thomas Crews was left widowed with six children: Roy, Donald, Edward, Lillie, Mattie and the little baby Lennie Mary. Before long Mattie's father Tom married Otis's older sister Rosie Mae. She brought a daughter Juanita (Burnsed) into the marriage with her. The couple then had four children together, Auzie, Lewis, and Beulah. A little daughter, Ruby Jeanette, died young. in all, Mattie belonged to a large family of 12 people including her parents. Even though the family was large and the home overcrowded, she still did not have marriage on her mind. She worked in the adjoining fields of her neighbors for six cents an hour, mostly hoeing peanuts and corn in the heat of summer. Otis was determined to marry her.
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"We went to a family gathering and Mattie was there with my nephew. I decided then and there I was going to have her so I talked to her and we started dating again.
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"I had sold some of my Piney Woods cows and traded my old 1928 Model A in on a great looking 1931 beauty with vinyl upholstery. It ran 50 miles per hour. And that's when Mattie decided to marry me," he winked.
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"Well, not exactly," spoke up Mattie.
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With out a formal wedding ring, a new dress, or her parent's permission, Mattie went with Otis to see judge Frank Dowling one night and he married them in the privacy of his home.
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We just ran away, I didn't ask her daddy, I think they must have had an idea."
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The two drove to Jacksonville in Otis's 1931 Model A Ford. Neither remember the name of the hotel where they spent their four day honeymoon. She was 17. He was 20. The year was 1937.
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"We drove back to Baker County to my little mansion on the ten acres. It might not have been much, but we could lay in bed at night and look up through the wood shingled roof and see the moon and stars." he said dreamily.
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"Yea and that's not all we could look up at," reminded Mattie.
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"Right, there was a big rat snake on the rafters just above us," he said laughing.
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And Mattie laughed too.
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"He told me the snake wouldn't hurt us and that it would eat the rats," said Mattie. "He promised that as soon as the rats left the snake would too. I had to believe him."
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Mattie says she doesn't look back on the past as 'the good ole days'.
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"I don't really like to talk about it or think about it" she said. "we didn't really live any different than most people back then, everyone had a hard time, there just wasn't money to buy the things we do today. My daddy usually traded the vegetables and meat we had from the farm for our necessities. I had one pair of shoes each year when school started and used the older pair for the field work. We made our own clothes from flour sacks, sugar sacks or chicken feed sacks," she said." The material was colorful and pretty for our dresses. We'd bleach the white sacks for our slips and underware. Everything was home made.
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"If we girls got any jewelry it came from a Cracker-Jack box," she noted.
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And wash day wasn't the ' good ole days ' either.
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"We made our own soap by frying the hog's skin (crackling) and adding lye. After taking all day to do the family wash by boiling the clothes and scrubbing them on a scrub board, rinsing the clothes in boiling water, we'd hang them on the line and fence to dry. We starched the clothes by making our own starch from plain flour and water, then ironed them on a hand made ironing board, with ole heavy hand irons that we heated on the wood cook stove. No, that wasn't the good ole days to me, I'd just as soon not remember," she said.
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And bath time in the good ole days wasn't exciting either.
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"We'd let our number two tub of water sit in the sun to warm all day, then tote it back of the barn, or somewhere private, and bathe. We started with the youngest child up to the oldest using the same water unless it got too dirty. Sometimes we had more than one tub. When we got bigger two of us could tote the tub filled with water into the bedroom for more privacy."
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After the clothes were rinsed on wash day, the family used the rinse water to bathe because it was usually warm from the fire built beneath the big iron wash kettles.
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At least this was a weekly chore. During the week the family usually just washed their feet.
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"We had a foot tub we used at night, and we set it before the fireplace so it was warm. We all used the same rag.
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And the water was brought up from the well, set on the water shelf on the porch, and before each meal everyone washed their face and hands.
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With no electricity, there was, of course, no indoor plumbing either.
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"We girls had a chamber pot we used at night, but in the day we'd have to empty it at the outdoor one seat toilet (or privy). We'd then have to wash it out good and let it set in the sun all day so it wouldn't smell so bad."
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The boys had a different ritual, she said.
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"Well, they'd go out to the barn, or chicken yard, or the woods," she explained.
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You may have a good point I told her, about the past being the 'good ole days'.
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From that humble beginning the two have lead a happy and prosperous life in Baker County.
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Mattie cooked on a wood-burning stove in her humble abode. No one, including them, had running water or electricity in the area. They farmed and peddled vegetables for a living. His Uncle Shep Rhoden would come by their house and load up vegetables from the garden and take them to Jacksonville to sell at the market along with his. Otis's Piney Woods cattle began to multiply.
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Otis's little mansion on his ten acre farm suited Mattie fine, but it had its problems and Mattie set out to solve them. She took b1eached flour sacks and with the help of her neighbors, Liza Nipper and her daughter Ruby (Rolfe), she fashioned some pretty curtains and room petitions. When she needed baby clothes, her neighbors taught her how to sew them, using pretty sugar sack material. She bought some soft flannel to make the baby's diapers.
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"The shell of a house was kind of dilapidated because no one had really lived there in awhile," she said. "The house was close to a branch so the wood varmints had to learn it wasn't theirs to occupy anymore," she said. "We could hear the rats out at night roaming around, but they finally disappeared when they found out we were there to stay." Otis promised her they would all go away including the big fat rat snake that obscured their view of the stars and moon as they laid in bed at night staring up through the wood shingles.
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But that's not exactly how it happened. Otis had said they needed the rat snake to eat the rats around the house, and as the rats began to leave it eventually disappeared too.
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Or so Mattie hoped. She hadn't seen it for awhile.
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"My dad built me a small linen closet in the house and, one day when I was reaching for some linens it fell right on my head. I just screamed and ran, Otis had said we couldn't kill it."
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Thankfully, after a while, the snake took up resident in the barn.
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"I got use to it, Otis said it wouldn't hurt me, but I also got use to killing some that I wasn't so sure of," she said.
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When Otis's daddy died, Otis's share of the estate came to $1,050 and things began to change for the couple. They paid off a few bills, bought some badly needed items and began to think about another kind of investment.
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"I told my wife, I was going to see Mr. Crawford and try and get that land I'd always wanted," said Otis. " I knew Mr. Crawford had a $1,000 mortgage on the entire 80 acres he owned and had only been paying interest and a little principal for 17 years. Maybe he'd sell me the 40 acres I wanted."
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Otis went to see him and Mr. Crawford said, "Son, I been thinking about selling if I can get enough to pay the mortgage off." "Well how much is it Mr. Crawford?" Otis wanted to know.
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"Seven hundred and fifty dollars," came the quick reply.
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"I only got $700. Mr. Crawford," Otis told him. (Otis had spent some of his inheritance on other things).
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After thinking about it Mr. Crawford agreed and Mr. Branch Cone made up the deed. He explained to the two men though that if Mr. Crawford was to default on the $50. or payment on the other adjoining 40 acres he still owed, Otis would lose his 40 acres to the Federal Land Grant Company.
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That didn't sound so good, so Otis agreed to go borrow $50. and pay Mr. Crawford if Mr. Crawford would throw in his nice fertilizer distributor with two disks. (Oh it made the prettiest rows you've ever seen, said Otis.)
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It was a deal! Otis and his wife now started talking about building a home. They sold the old farm back to his brother and Otis headed to Sanderson with a friend, Jimmy Lyons, to look for lumber at a previous sawmill site.
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"The salesman told us he'd give me the best deal around. It was good cypress lumber, not a knot in it, 3/4 by 8 inches wide and 14-16 feet long. The good deal was $20. for a 1,000 pieces."
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Their four room wood shingled house was built with pride, friend Jimmie helping when he could, and cost the couple between $200-$250 to build. When his employer saw signs of success, Otis lost his Depression job with the WPA because they thought he didn't need the money from it as much as others.
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With World War II raging, Otis went to work in Camp Blanding applying for a .35 cents an hour assistant carpenter's job thinking himself not qualified as a $1.00 an hour carpenter. By the end of the day he had changed his mind.
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"Why them other men couldn't drive a nail straight!" he wailed.
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Next morning he stood in line to apply for a job as carpenter. With a lot of running here and there he made the change and he was on his way to preparing for a new and exciting career.
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Mattie was staying home having us some children and working on the farm during this time," he said smiling at Mattie.
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Their children born close together are Wayne, Marvin and Sandra. A son, Bruce came along when daughter, Sandra, was 13 years old.
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"We grew greens but they didn't bring but five cents a bunch or .25 cents for a dozen bunches. They went so cheap because the market was flooded with 'em." said Otis.
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There was little money in farming, so when Otis left employment at Camp Blanding he went to work in the Jacksonville Ship Yard until the war was over.
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Otis then used his carpentry skills to build homes and business in Baker County. Among the many he built was TJ. and Lyma (Fish) Raulerson's first home in Macclenny, Claude and June (Yarborough) Walkers home on Hwy 90, Mr. Claude Rhoden in Glen and two for Jack and Jean (Rhoden) Tony. His pride and joy is the Glen Baptist church ... the old one and the new. That's where he worships with Mattie and with friends.
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"I'd called everything good that happened to me luck," he said. 'oh I knew about the Lord. My mama was a Christian and she would read her Bible to me sitting in front of the fireplace by the glow of a kerosene lamp. Lots of times what she read and told me about such as the Lord's goodness and love and about how God would come to His people, came back to me. I'd remember her words. My mind had them stored, but I'd tell the Lord, 'Lord, I'm not a hypocrite, I'm not really bad,' and I didn't think I was."
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One day that changed.
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Daughter Sandra invited her parents to a revival in the Glen Baptist Church.
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"We went one night and when they had the invitation to join I just sat there holding Bruce who was a baby, and I'd stare at the wall. Then the next night we went it happened again. I was holding Bruce, staring at the wall during the invitation to come up, when I felt movement. I looked up to see Mattie going down that isle. I just laid that baby down on the seat and caught up with her. It was what I wanted to do, and just wouldn't do it myself.
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"I didn't call the good things that happened to me luck after that. I knew the Lord had been looking out after me all these years. That was 40 years ago," he said.
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Mattie eventually returned to the class room and received her GED certificate of graduation at the age of 48. She was employed for 6 1/2 years in the Macclenny Elementary School Cafeteria.
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Today Otis peddles his reputable vegetables for fun of the labor and harvest. He and Mattie sit beneath the tall majestic pecan trees he planted in 1939. They shade their house from the sun and give stately grace to the now modern home that has changed but very little since they built it They talk about the good old days. The hog killings. "We used up everything the hog had to offer except his squeal and his hair," said the jovial Otis.
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They tell about how they stored hog bones without refrigeration to be used all year for flavoring. The bones were fried in a huge kettle, then usually stored in five gallon lard cans packed in the hog grease.
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"We'd flavor vegetables with 'em, or cook them in rice, or with dumplings," said Mattie.
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Mattie is known as one of the best country cooks around. When she flavors her greens she uses fresh bones, preferably fresh back bone, for the turnips. For mustard greens she fries or steams smoked bacon in a small amount of water, then adds her greens. For collards she uses smoked meat like bacon. On New Years Day she adds smoked hog jowls to her black-eyed peas.
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There's a secret to growing good greens too, said Otis. It's important to plant them in well prepared soil. it's important to break the soil up with a good disk, buy good seed and good fertilizer and never, ever, let grass grow up around what you've got planted. Keep the weeds down. When the greens are about 8-10 inches high give them a good side dressing with nitrate of potash. If you do all this your greens won't likely be bitter.
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Mattie cooks her okra in the oven. She cuts it up, salts it adds bacon grease or oil then puts it in a baker covered with tin foil for about an hour. She takes the foil off for a few minutes so the okra can dry out a bit. She likes the long tender cow horn okra for frying or baking because it doesn't have as much slime in it
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Farming's not easy, just rewarding they say.
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"We depend on the Lord to send rain for irrigation. I figure if we'll get out there and work the land he'll bless me with a good crop."
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Otis said his real harvest is in the church.
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"That where I've seen the miracles," he said, his steel blue eyes misting with emotion.
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"I remember once when a new minister at our church ask all the men attending prayer meeting to name the five meanest men in Baker County to add to our prayer list They named one man, and I thought 'I know it's no use to put his name on the list' then they named another and I said, 'no use to put his name there either. I felt the same by all five of the men whose names were put on the list for prayer, but I have lived to see three of those men, their wives and some of their children saved."
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"If I had to live my life over again I'd just as quick as I could, give my life to the Lord. After all, we're living in His world, we're using His things, His medicine, His gasoline. It amazes me how He provides for man as man needs it, reveals it all within the earth He created."
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Most of their past lies buried in Macedonia Cemetery down the road. But the memories are alive and a treasured part of the heritage they value.
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And to repeat one of the favorite Baptist hymns to describe this couple there could not be one more appropriate than "Oh when those Saints, go marching in, Oh when those Saints go marching in, Oh Lord I want to be in that number, when those Saints go marching in.
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FOOTNOTE:
Rosa Mae Rhoden married 1st Sun Rhoden: Their six children were Nealie (Jim Lyons), Lottie (Dewey Fish), Mae ( 1st Fred Burnsed)( 2nd Thomas Crews), and sons Lacy, Farley and Willie. -
Aaron married 1st Alice Crawford. Their five sons were: Canadier, Fletcher, Main, Milledge, and Lonnie. Their three daughters were Sarah (Fish), Emma (Harris-Stringer), and Sippie (Harris-Hardnstine).
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The union between Aaron Canaday and Rosa Mae Rhoden produced only one child, Otis, born March 21, 1917.
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Aaron Canaday (1867-1935) is buried at North Prong Cemetery next to his first wife Alice Crawford Canaday (1872-1912).
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The name Canaday is spelled both Canady and Canaday between the various family members.
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Thomas Burton Crews (Jan. 25, 1887-November 9, 1951) and his second wife Rosa Mae Canady-Crews, (August 20, 1907-Dec.23, 1991) are buried in Macedonia Cemetery.
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Mary Thrift Crews (1885-1925) Thomas Crews first wife is buried in Macedonia Cemetery. The dates engraved on her grave marker may not be correct as Mattie said the family could not be sure since they have no official knowledge of her actual birth date.
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Rosa Mae Rhoden (1881-1940) was first married to Isaac Rhoden who died Feb. 14, 1909 at the age of 34. They are buried in North Prong Cemetery next to a son, Leon (March 25, 1897-March 1909)
Back Home
Annie Mae (Mobley) Thrift
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During her lifetime Annie May (Mobley) Thrift has been a life-line between herself and others. She has nurtured, and cared for scores of people, sustaining them through simple problems in their life to showing compassion by tending to their needs to the end of their journey. Her genuine love and compassion has not gone unnoticed or unappreciated. As the winter of her life approaches, she is loved and cared for in return by her family. And although she has forgotten the insignificant formalities of some dates and places, she has not forgotten the most important things of all. The love and heritage of her family.
Annie May was born to Andrew Jackson Mobley and his wife Lucy Lucinda (Crews) on February 15, 1910 in Macclenny. She was delivered by 'Aunt' Fannie Todd.
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When she was young her parents moved to a farm north of Macclenny and Annie May walked the mile and a half to Garrett school come rain or sunshine, carrying her lunch pail of grits, fried egg, baked sweet potato and bacon, ham or sausage. Tagging along were her brothers Lacy, Claude, Jesse and Donald.
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"We had to eat a full breakfast before we left home, but when time came for us to eat our lunch, Well, it was so good." she said.
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one of her teachers was Lucinda Rhoden and a few of her schoolmates were Lillie and Lois Garrett, Russ Elmer Thrift (she had her eye on him ), Donald Crews, Edna Thrift, Daisy Thomas, Vera Cox and Charlton Mobley.
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We had fun at school. We played ball, drop the handkerchief and games like that. The boys mostly wore over-alls and the girls knee length dresses made from pretty material salvaged from flour and sugar sacks.
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She was particularly fond of one classmate, Russ E. Thrift (whom she fondly called Russie). He was a little older and in a higher grade than her.
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We called ourselves 'dating' one another. We would walk home from school together and when we got to my lane we'd say good-bye and he'd walk on down to his house. "
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Each morning at breakfast her father Andrew would give all the children instructions as to what to do when they came home from school.
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"And we did it too, no problem, we knew not to, there was little discipline problems because we did what was expected of us."
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After she finished the eighth grade at Garrett School she went to work full time in the fields. Russie had moved to Macclenny to live with a sister so he could advance to a higher grade in school. When he came home on week-ends the two would see each other and talk about marriage.
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One night we were sitting on a bench on my front porch and Russie thought it was time to ask my daddy if we could get married. My parents had already gone to bed but we went in and Russie asked my daddy. My daddy said: Do you think you are old enough to take care of my daughter and make a living for he?" Russie told him 'yes' and my daddy gave us his blessings."
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The couple returned to the porch where Russie kissed her good-night and walked the mile and a half home in the dark to his house.
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Russie's father was not so happy and a few months later when Annie Mae stood before Judge Milton at the old Macclenny Court House in her pretty new blue dress, Moses Thrift was not there.
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He was home fuming," remembered Annie Mae.
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Moses wife Laura (Hunter) Thrift was there and Annie Mae's parents Andrew and Lucy Mobley.
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The couple had expected opposition to their plan to marry. In preparation Russie had previously taken Annie Mae to Jacksonville in his Model T Ford, along with his sister Effie (Thrift) Barnes, and bought Annie Mae's trousseau. A pretty blue dress, a pair of hose, a slip, bra, and underwear. Annie Mae had hid her ensemble at Effie's house for security.
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"If we had problems we planned to just run away," she said.
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For the honeymoon the couple drove to Dinsmore and spent a few days with her brother Lacy who ran a rooming and boarding house.
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"Didn't cost us a penny," she smiled.
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Russie was working for his brother-in-law, Lynn Barnes, as a mechanic on Hwy 90 (on south side of Macclenny Ave between 121 and 228). The couple lived with Russie's sister Effie and her husband Lynn. They cooked together, ate together and got alone great.
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In a year Mose Thrift was in a better mood about the marriage and the young couple moved to his farm and lived in the cotton house next to Mose. Their furniture consisted of just a bed with a homemade cotton mattress. During the day, Annie Mae did her share of chores whether it was cooking cleaning and washing clothes or hoeing in the field. The family all ate together. Russie still kept his mechanic job in town.
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Russie bought some 'little ole shanties' outside of town, tore them down, and Annie Mae's brother Lacy built them a house from the rough lumber. It was close by her sister-in law Effie. The humble abode had no partitions, no insulation, and no ceiling. They borrowed a bed, wood stove, and table. They set
on nail kegs to eat. Her father, Andrew, built her some cabinets for linens, but the groceries sat on a table with the dish pan and rinse water pan. There was no electricity and they used a one seat outdoor privy for bathroom privileges. Annie Mae wasn't employed outside the home so she worked at home making curtains and rugs for her little house. She scrubbed her floors with a corn shuck mop, sometimes using river sand that she said left her floors pretty and white. They bathed in a tin wash tub hauling in water from an outdoor pump, then heating it on the wood stove.
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More than anything Annie Mae wanted children, but five times she miscarried. One son they named Edgar lived only a few hours. One of her infants died on 24 July 1928 and another on December 3, 1929.
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Wanting to move closer to her mother, although it was only two blocks away, she and Russie sold their crude wood home and moved two blocks further north near Andrew and Lucy Mobley.
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Then tragedy struck the family when Annie Mae's brother, Claude Mobley, had an accident in Jacksonville where he lived. He was emptying a drip pan full of flaming gasoline from the cook stove, holding it with pliers, when he accidentally brushed against his twenty-five year old wife, Maude, who was holding the door opened for him. He was burned badly on his arm, but Maude Chesser Mobley died 18 days later from her injuries. Before she died she requested that Annie Mae take care of her two children six year old Dorothy and eight year old Wendell. ( Note: Maude was the daughter of Wiley Thomas "Snide" Chesser and Mary Marguerite (Maggie) Johnson, a Baker County native. Maggie's parent were Jackson "Jack" H. Johnson and Josephine "Josie" Davis.
Snides parents were: William M and Zilphia (Hicks) Chesser, she was part Indian). They are buried at Brandy Branch.) -
For the next three years, until Claude married again, Annie Mae lovingly cared for her niece and nephew.
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"And anyone else who would lend me their children," she said. "I loved children so much and couldn't have any of my own. So I'd go get other people's children and when it came time to take them home it would just tear me up.
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When an opportunity came along for the couple to go into business they sold their home and moved to Whitehouse. While Russie worked at Camp Blanding she ran a small gas station and restaurant single handedly cooking the meals she served to others: fresh vegetables, beef stew, chicken purlieu, beef and gravy, creamed potatoes, cornbread and biscuits. There was her home-made pies and cakes for dessert. She had snacks too. Soft drinks, many people called soda water, sold for five cents a bottle, packages of peanuts and crackers cost a nickel.
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"I was reared on a farm and knew about cooking for large groups," she said. She tended to the restaurant business herself, but had help with the service station.
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After a few years Annie Mae and Russie sold the business, bought a small trailer, and moved to Middleburg where she cooked for her brothers Lacy and Donald and a friend John Sigers who were working in construction. Russie was still working at Camp Blanding.
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Then the couple moved their trailer back to Macclenny, and parked it in her dad's backyard. She told Russie she was tired of being childless and getting heartbroken when she had to return the children she 'borrowed' from friends and family.
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"Let's adopt!" she said.
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They bought his father Moses's farm and adopted Danny who was born on June 30, 1945. They farmed and worked out on other people's farms. The couple learned many ways to preserve their food for leaner times. One such expertise was a way to mound the sweet potatoes for protection and make them an annual food commodity. They sold the vegetables they grew at the Farmer's Market in Jacksonville. They killed their own beef, pork and chickens for meat.
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And killing chickens to eat wasn't a pleasant job but they were so good to eat when fresh, said Annie Mae.
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It was a lot of work. First you caught the chicken (a fryer or a boiler, depending on how you planned to serve it) and penned it up for a few days. It was then corn fed to get it fat because when a chicken runs around all day it burns all its fat. When the time is right the chicken's neck is 'rung' until it is broken and the chicken dies. The chicken is then dropped down into a pot of boiling water to scald, holding it by the feet to soften the feathers for easier removal. Then the feathers are 'plucked' off and the skin is scraped good and clean. You then singe the chicken holding it over a flame made with either paper or corn husks. That procedure removes the last traces of hair or other unwanted trash on the chicken's skin.
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When the hen was cut up for cooking it usually had a lot of small eggs inside her, and they were considered a delicacy when cooked with a big pot of dumplings.
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Fryers were usually skinned and didn't require all the fuss a hen did. And many times the feet of the chicken were skinned and boiled and eaten.
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Annie Mae made her dumplings by using self rising flour and water to make her dough, then rolling the dough out and cutting it in desired strips to form the dumpling. She let them set a few minutes until the dough 'toughens' then dropped them into the boiling chicken broth.
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Annie Mae is known for her home remedies and her concoctions have helped countless people avoid pneumonia, bad colds, and flu.
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"I use to make my mixture up and people would come from far and wide wanting some. It got so expensive that I just bottled it and sold it for cost." she said.
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Intermediate School principal, Ron Vonk, has used Annie Mae's Goody Rub for almost two decades.
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"When I start coming down with a sore throat I just put a little on my finger and it relieves it immediately," he told me when I asked him about his use of her product. "I never have to worry about a sore throat with Goody Rub around."
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Ron said he started using Goody Rub when his now adult children were young. He obtained the recipe from Annie Mae's niece Dorothy Mobley Barnes who gave it the name Goody Rub because it was good for so many things.
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"When the children start to cough at night we just rubbed their chest and back with it and they'd go right back to sleep. By the next morning it has penetrated so deeply that there is no tale tale signs of it on their skin."
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Ron said he consulted a pharmacist about Goody Rub's ingredients.
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"He told me that every ingredient was penetrating and he could easily see why it worked so good."
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Annie Mae said the Goody Rub is not for use by mouth, only on unbroken skin.
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"It's wonderful for pneumonia," she said. "And I've put it on many a small baby who is all stuffy with a cold. I just rubbed the chest and back, turned the baby on its side, and keep the child warm so the fumes could be inhaled. That helps in the healing process too," she said.
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Goody Rub is good for sore breast (nursing mothers), for stiff bones and arthritis.
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And Annie Mae has a sure cure for the ear ache. You take 2 oz. of alcohol, 2 oz. of peroxide, dip a knife in boric add crystals and add to the alcohol and peroxide mixture. Mix together, and it's the best thing in the world for an ear ache," she said, adding that the peroxide boiled the infection out and the alcohol prevented infection. The crystals help cleanse, she said, and remarked that a crystal mixture was used in times past to cleanse a new born baby's eyes.
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Then there is "Hiney Cream" primarily for the rash on babies from soiled diapers, but good for abrasions and other skin maladies. For Hiney Cream you take a jar of carbonated vaseline, a jar of vicks salve, shave some camphor gum into mixture, blend in some mineral oil (just enough to melt the camphor gum). Warm mixture on stove, return to jar, and use as needed.
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And if you had athlete's foot disease, Annie Mae could cure that too. just go to your friendly druggist and have him mix up grXL of Salicylic Acid, grXXX of Benzoic Acid, grX Thymol and QSOzii of rubbing alcohol. It works she said, although it burns alot.
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Eventually Annie Mae and Russie sold their farm and bought an old wooden store and moved it to Twin Bridges and ran a general store for many years. They lived in an apartment in the back of the store. Russie even built him a landing strip for his airplane he bought with friend Elzie Sigers. Their hobby brought many happy times and laughs especially once when a cow wouldn't move from the runway and Elzie landed on the cows back.
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"Never did walk right again," said Annie Mae of the cow. "But she had the nicest little calf."
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Of their hobby, Annie Mae said, "they bought it just to fly around and make my hair white!"
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Russie and Annie Mae bought about 40 acres of land directly across the road from their store, and within seeing distance they built their present home. They have since sold all but 12 acres of the land. The two bought a general and (mostly) furniture store in Baldwin and ran that until retirement. Russie died December 27, 1987.
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The couple adopted a daughter Sybile Ann who was born on April 19, 1954. They have four grandchildren: Norman, Adam and Tiffney, and son Doug, Danny's adopted son from his wife Mary's first marriage.
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Annie Mae is not too enthusiastic about talking about her past life.
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"It's not that important," she quipped.
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But that's not so," declared her niece Dorothy Mobley Barnes, now a great grandmother, but who Annie Mae nurtured when her mother died.
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"She's the most wonderful person I know," said Dorothy who was present as her aunt reluctantly talked about her life in Baker County.
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"She's taken care of lots of different people, many when no one else would take care of them," she said.
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Dorothy said Annie Mae's widowed aunt, Ida (Chalker) Mobley, was nursed through cancer until her death by her good samaritan aunt. "She changed her dressings and nursed her with great compassion. Younger family members were afraid of 'catching' something, but not Aunt Annie Mae," said Dorothy. "The older family members that would help were not able, so Aunt Annie Mae did it until Aunt Ida died."
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And when Annie Mae's mother became ill with a heart condition and was hospitalized, Annie Mae became concerned with the scalded condition from lack of proper cleaning her mother was given in the facility.
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"She just told the doctor she was taking her mother home so she could properly care for her." said Dorothy. "The doctor said, 'do you think you can do a better job than us?' and Annie Mae said she knew she could and would."
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With her mother home, Annie Mae used the Hiney Cream on her mother and in no time she was cleared up of the disorder.
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And Annie Mae tended to her parents needs and nursed them until they died eight months apart in 1963, said Dorothy.
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Annie Mae helped take care of three of her grandmothers until they died. At 12 years old she went to live with Tabitha Mobley and assisted her until her death.
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"In those days we considered it an honor, not an imposition, to take care of our elderly, or sick" said Annie Mae. " People used to set up all night. We didn't know what a hospital was, and our aged family members stayed in our homes until they either got well or died," she said.
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Today Annie Mae takes it easy around her modest, but comfortable, little home. She is recovering from a recent heart attack, but she has plenty of loving family and friends who are now caring for her, staying around the clock when necessary. They are grateful for the opportunity to pay back, in some small way, all she's done for them through the years.
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People like Annie Mae are now few and far between. Sincerity, kindness, and compassion is what she knows best and passing it on may not be easy. Most people are too busy to learn the rewards such charity brings to them. Her example is a heritage of eternal worth. She is truly a good samaritan who has earned the adage, "Well done, my good and faithful servant. As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me."
GOODY RUB
(NOT TO BE TAKEN BY MOUTH USE ON UNBROKEN SKIN ONLY
3 cakes of Camphor Gum
1 jar Vicks Vapor Rub
1 small bottle of mineral oil
A small amount of kerosene (about 1/2 teaspoon)
A small amount of turpentine (about 1/2 teaspoon)
Use great care when mixing. this can catch fire if over heated.
Cut up camphor gum, melt camphor gum and Vicks Vapor Rub together, adding a small amount of mineral oil. Then add kerosene and turpentine. After mixing together over a low heat, add the rest of the mineral oil. Cool enough to put in glass jar. Keep well closed.
TO USE: Heat small amount of mixture in dish and rub well into skin of chest and back. Go to bed and stay beneath the covers. Keep warm. When you get out of bed wash the skin off well with warm water and soap.
RUSSIE and ANNIE MAE's SWEET POTATO MOUND
For preserving sweet potatoes for annual use.
Dig dirt out in the form of a shallow bowl, about a (6) six foot circle.
Line with deep layer of pine straw
Dig sweet potatoes early in the morning
Get as much dirt as possible when you dig
At area where you dig, lay the potatoes out in the sun to dry good.
Move potatoes from the field
Pour or place them in a straw lined prepared area, in the center of the circle
As you bring each new batch from the field, place the potatoes on top of the last batch. they will spread themselves out
When as full as you want it:
Get fat lightered rails, build a frame with the rails in a teepee shape
Fasten tops together by wrapping with wire
Have rails close together so that a layer of pine straw will not fall through the rails.
Place a 6 or 8 inch layer of pine straw on the rails all around the potatoes.
Dig ditch approximately 12 inches away from the rails and straw
Use dirt to cover the straw mound with three inches of dirt all the way around
At bottom of mound the rails will be far enough apart that you can move away some dirt and straw to reach in and get a mess of potatoes to bake
After you remove the needed amount of potatoes cover them back again until more potatoes are needed
FOOTNOTE
Andrew Jackson "Ander or A.J." was born Oct. 7, 1876 on or near the Florida Georgia Bend area. He died April 2, 1963 in Macclenny and is buried in Macedonia Cemetery. He was the son of Jesse Daniel Mobley 1850-1925 buried Macedonia.
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Lucy Crews Mobley was born Mar. 9, 1883 in Charlton Co. Ga. She died Dec. 17, 1963. Buried Macedonia. Andrew and Lucy married Aug 14, 1899. Their children, all born in Baker County, were Wilbur Lacy, born June 6, 1901, died Dec 18, 1981, buried Macedonia. Rufus Claude born May 30, 1904, died April 17, 1959, buried Warren Smith Cemetery, Jacksonville Beach, Fl. Jesse Daniel born Sept 23, 1907 [died Aug 3, 1990 and buried Macedonia Cemetery], Annie Mae born Feb. 15, 1910, Donald Burton born Aug 16, 1913, died June 12, 1966 buried Macedonia, Linnie L. born Sept 17, 1917, died Apr. 18, 1918 died from Colitis (dysentery) buried Macedonia, Edgar Ferdinand born Nov. 14, 1919, died from Colitis, buried Macedonia.
Back Home
Emily Davis Harvey
1978-
"Old people, if they could come back now, they wouldn't want to stay," said 90-year-old Emily Davis Harvey. The native of Baker County
speaks with conviction.
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"Times have changed. People used to wear clothes. Now the young people don't," she declared.
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Married for 60 years to Grover Cleveland "Cleab" Harvey, she speaks fondly of her nine surviving children, the oldest 72 years old.
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"I've got five daughters," she says. "They all take care of me. Else I'd go to an old folks home."
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On this particular day Mrs. Harvey reminisced from her wheelchair at the home of her eighth child, Fairley Rhoden.
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Back then when a boy took a girl to a frolic (dance) he'd better just take her by the hands. If he didn't he'd get slapped loose," she said with a chuckle.
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"When Cleab came a courtin' he usually walked the five miles to see me. If he rode a horse, it would usually break loose and run back home anyway. Sometimes I'd see him at church. All men wore hats then, and he'd draw up cool water from the well and we'd drink from his hat."
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Her next words sounded as if she'd borrowed lyrics from the movie, "The Sound of Music."
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"I was 16, going on 17, when I married. My sister Ollie had run away and married Cleab's brother. My ma had cried and cried." So 19 year old Cleab took another approach and asked her parents' permission and for them to be present.
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The next day her father asked her what she needed from the store to prepare for her wedding.
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"I said, 'One pair of stockings."
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So off he went for the purchase.
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"Back then they were all cotton," she added with a sly grin.
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After the wedding, which took place at her parents' home, the couple was driven by horse and buggy by her father-in-law, Bud Harvey, to his house.
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"That was the first time I'd ever sat in Cleab's lap," she says. "There wasn't room enough in the buggy, and it had to be. His ma had what she called 'our room' waiting for us. We changed our clothes and went to the cane patch and chewed cane. I told Cleab that was the sweetest honeymoon anyone ever had."
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A few months later the young couple moved into a home on a farm where Cleab had located work. Their first child arrived there. Because of complications a doctor was required to come by train from Jacksonville.
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With the help of their families, the couple soon built a home for themselves next to Cleab's parents. Ten more children were born, with the last two being twins. Two of the 11 children died at an early age of whooping cough.
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The family raised their own food, except for flour and some spices.
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"We bought 96 pounds of flour in barrels at one time," said daughter Fairley. "Can you imagine that!"
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Cows were a luxury, so goats and goat's milk were used. The family made cottage cheese by hanging clabbered milk in a sack and letting it drip.
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Salt was made by digging up the floor in the smokehouse and draining it.
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Sugar was made during cane season. The last two cookings of syrup were stirred down until the liquid became too thick to stir. Then it was poured into kegs with nails driven into them.
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The nails would then be removed for draining and sugar would be left in the bottom of the keg.
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Fairley's mouth watered as she told about her mothers gingerbread.
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"Once a week she'd make huge quantities of the best gingerbread in the world. Sometimes she'd roll it out and cut it into squares. Other times she'd put the dough into round shapes. After it would bake, you could still see her fingerprints. When we'd come in from school, we'd all run first to the flour barrel, where the gingerbread was stored. it stayed good and moist all week."
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The ginger was grated on a handmade grater consisting of a bucket through which nails had been driven leaving sharp edges for grating.
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Christmases of the past were fond remembrances for Mrs. Harvey. She would make a dish pan full of eggnog in preparation for a Christmas morning game called 'Shootin One Another.' The neighboring menfolks would ride up on their horses and fire a shot from a pistol (good and neighborly),. The folks inside the home would run outside with a cup of homemade eggnog. Indoors homemade decorations adored the red berry bush brought in from the woodlands. All the little girls had stockings hung and Santa was expected to know to bring little rag doll babies to fill them. The little boys got firecrackers.
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Two more of Mrs. Harvey's children dropped in during the interview and the subjects of plums came up.
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"I want you all to make me a plum pie now that plums are ripe," Mrs. Harvey said.
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"Plumb pie!" they exclaimed.
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"Mama, you tell us how and we'll do it" said daughter Leila Prevatt
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Son L.E. volunteered to get the plums.
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While on the subject of pie, Fairley suddenly remembered 'the best pie in the world...syrup pie', the kind her mother used to make when she was growing up on the farm.
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"It tasted like a custard," she said. "Mama could make the best ones."
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Until the early 1950s Mrs. Harvey cooked on a wood burning stove.
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Today she never ventures far off the 80 acres that she and Cleab shared until his death in 1965. Located went of Macclenny, the acreage is now divided among the children. Their modern brick homes are nestled among the pines. The virgin timber gives way to make room for garden plots.
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When I stood to go, Mrs. Harvey looked longingly through the sliding glass door toward the pine trees in the distance.
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"Sometimes I think I hear his footsteps or see his face," she said. "I miss him so!
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UPDATE: Mrs. Harvey was born January 5, 1888 and died November 23, 1978. She is buried Sanderson, Cedar Creek Cemetery.
Back Home
ELLA DOWLING TAYLOR
of Taylor Florida/Jacksonville August 1978
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"I was said to be a good cook," said 86-year-old Baker county native Ella Taylor when asked about the 35 years of her life she spent operating boarding houses in Jacksonville. "I wore out three houses. They've all been torn down."
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Reminiscing in her cozy sitting and sleeping room overlooking Trout River at the home of her daughter, Louise Paschal, she recalled her arrival in Jacksonville in 1935.
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"My children had moved to Jacksonville from our home in Taylor, to find work. The Depression was just about over. We moved into a big old house on Eighth Street. I cooked for them and made their clothes," pointing to a pedal sewing machine standing in a comer of the room. "I bought that in 1924."
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After the children married and moved to homes of their own, she took in boarders. People were beginning to move into the city from the country, world War II started and the shipyard employed many people.
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"I cooked country just like they were used to. I learned from my mother."
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Her daughter, Louise, recalled that she would get up at 5 a.m. everyday and walk the two blocks to her mother's to help prepare the huge breakfast for boarders.
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"We cooked on a wood stove and Mama would steam sausages in an old iron frying pan. After they were done, she'd add fresh pork brains and beaten eggs to the broth."
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Mrs. Taylor smiled. "Everyone loved that!" she said.
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"I remember making mountains of sandwiches for their lunches," said her daughter. "There were always three different kinds of sandwiches-a meat an egg and a sweet one, usually jelly. We made them at night, packed them in sacks and stored them in our ice box. Very few people had refrigeration then. The next morning they were ready for the men."
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Afternoons, when the 5 p.m. whistle blew and the hungry boarders left their work for home, they were greeted with the aroma of baked sweet potatoes, collard greens with rutabagas added to them, boiled cabbage with ham hocks, fresh peas with boiled okra, or sometimes cut-up okra added to make a thick juice....and always lots of hot biscuits and cornbread.