Hard Time in Ga.

Author: Don Hall

This is my life as far back as I can remember. My parents were Thomas Lee Hardin and Magdalene McGuire. My grandfather on my dad's side was Charles Lee Hardin he was a minister. Dad's mother was Ida Mae Maxwell. My dad was fifteen years old when he married my mother who was thirteen. She married barefoot because she didn't have shoes. My mother's father was Cratin Ward McGuire. His wife was Mollie Gravitt. My dad's grandmother was Margaret Roberts and she married Thomas M. Maxwell. We all loved our great-grandmother because she loved children and was good to them. My large trunk came from her grandfather.

I came along on the 8th of January 1907; while we were living in a two-room house six miles from Dallas, Georgia, in Paulding County. I was the oldest grandchild on both sides. I was very small for my age so I got the nickname "tincy," which later became "tince." I loved my great grandmother very much. She lived to be 102 years old and died standing up on her feet. She had to walk eight miles to church and eight miles back in cold weather. My Granddad Hardin was a farmer who preached at four churches, but we attended Shady Grove regularly. The first I remember of my life was when we lived at the Dallas Cotton mill. My sister Odell was two years old and my brother Ira Lee was born there. We moved from there to live with Grannie Maxwell, dad was going to farm with them. I had the mumps, big measles and roseola. We had a big yard there and we loved it. Dad would kill rabbits, get honey from the trees and kill hogs. We also had a cow. My dad had a good crop and we all got new shoes. We had a hunting dog and a little bull calf. My father killed the little bull and my sister and I cried. Dad had a time trying to make my sister understand why we had to kill our bull.

I don't remember how long we lived near Grannie Maxwell's but there is one thing I will never forget. We had moved to a house down in the woods and it was a beautiful shady place. We all went to church with granddad and after church we ate dinner there. My grandmother had a small box of salve; it was empty so I asked my grandmother if I could have it. She said no, but I wanted it so bad I took it anyway. After I got home my mother saw that I had the box and told my dad. He took a white sheet and hid in the woodpile, and my mother told me and my sister to go get some wood because that was our job. We went to the woodpile and I got my arms full.

My sister, Odell, was picking up her's when dad came out with that white sheet over him. We were scared to death. He made us think he was the devil and said he came after a little girl that stole a box from her grandmother. We were both screaming and trying to run. Later, my mother talked to us and told me how bad it was to take things that weren't yours. Then, my dad came in with a long hickory. He told me I was going back to grandmother's to give the box back to her. He made me walk in front of him and whipped my legs all the way. He made me tell her I was sorry and wouldn't ever do it again. That was one lesson I never forgot.

As I said before, my dad farmed my grandparent's land, but dad had itchy feet, so we moved to Chattahoochee, Georgia. There he worked at Whittier Mills. My mother worked some there too; she spooled and my father ran drawings.

My mother was a good mother and housekeeper. She taught us to speak the truth; to be clean and to be nice to people. We had to say "thank you", "yes sir" and "yes ma'am." We were not allowed to talk at the table, rather; we only asked for our food. We were not allowed to chew with our mouths open, and in general, we were to be seen and not heard. If our parents told us to do something, they only told us once or we got spanked. When we played outside we took a paper to sit on. My mother and dad got me a china doll for Christmas. The kind with a china doll head and the body filled with sawdust. Every year dad took some apples boxes and made me a cradle for my dolls. My mother made doll clothes for me and I sewed them. I don't know how long we lived in that house but my mother had another girl in 1915. The little baby came on the 12th of January 1915. My little sister, Mary Ida, died from eating half cooked pink beans. The colored girl who took care of us while my mother worked had fed them to her. She died that night with spasms; my mother and father really took it badly. A little later on, Gurlton, my mother's last baby was born.

In 1915, my mother took sick with galloping tuberculosis. I had started school for the first time in the primary grade. The primary grade is the same thing as the first grade. I had a nice Christmas before my baby sister came. A man named Jack Watkins ran the telephone office and he bought six dolls. He picked out six girls to give them to, and I was the first to pick out my doll. I picked out a blond with a beautiful green dress with a tiny ribbon running thru the front. Uncle Jack gave me a white high chair also. This doll was a real doll that went to sleep. She was the first beautiful doll I have ever received so I didn't take her out of the box. I was afraid she would get torn up.

My dad had lots of bills in those days because of my sister's death and my mother's sickness, with T.B. Also, he had to have a colored lady staying with us, looking after us kids. She was a nice colored lady and treated us like we were her very own children. She stayed at night when my mother was worse, and I had to quit school in March 1915. They thought my mother was dying so I didn't get to go back to school.

My only teacher was Hollis Gillian. I did learn my ABC's, however. Then on the 15th of July 1915, my mother died and was buried at Shady Grove where she belonged to church. Marie, the colored lady, went with us to my Granddad Hardin's. They sat up that night with my mother-she had hemorrhaged to death and her coffin ran over with blood.

Thus, my grandmother wouldn't let us go to the funeral. Dad took it hard. He left us at my granddads and went back to Chattahoochee to work. He tried to pay off all the bills, but I don't know how long it took. We didn't feel at home at my granddads because my grandmother let us know it wasn't our home. She didn't let us forget it either.

She didn't like us being there and seemed to begrudge what we ate. She wanted granddad to put us in an orphanage, but my granddad stood firm against it. He said that we would stave together rather than resort to that. He loved his grandkids. He told grandma Ida that the kids were no trouble because Lillie looked after the small ones, but that didn't stop Grannie.

She wrote one of her cousin's who was well off and he came to bring us clothes, shoes, coats and union suits. He owned the farm my grandfather lived on. He also brought our Christmas presents.

My baby sister, Gurlton, died on the 22 of December 1915. My granddad buried her by my mother, but grandmother again wouldn't let us go to the funeral. All of us kids slept on pallets on the floor, although my grandmother had an extra room with a bed in it and a dining room with a bed in it. But she wouldn't let us sleep in either of her beds. My great -grandmother came down for a visit and raised cain about it. My great-grandmother went home and returned with one of her own beds for us to sleep in.

But she was really mad. She brought us can goods to eat and came everyday to make sure that we were all right. One year, Isian Sheffield brought us our Christmas presents, he bought us a lot of stuff, but we only got one apple, one orange, one banana, one bunch of raisins, one stick of horehound candy after breakfast.

My grandmother came in and took our apple, orange, raisins, banana. She said she was going to make ambrosia for dinner, so us kids wound up with one stick of candy. Of course we had pecans because there was a pecan tree on the place.

Sometimes she gave us a half glass of sweet milk for supper, but her baby, Snowden would get a full glass. She said it wasn't good for us to overload our stomachs at night. Also, she wouldn't let us drink much water at anytime. I caught my brother drinking out of a soapy wash pan where my granddad had washed his dirty hands.

I would cry because I loved my brother and sister very much. I prayed for God to send my mother back to us because we were too young to do all the things that we had to do. We helped granddad pick cotton and feed the hogs and chickens. He taught us the Bible and was good to us.

My dad left Chattahoochee and went to Lindale, Georgia to work in the mill. After he had paid all his bills off, he married again. On January 4, 1916. He came and got us in March of that year. The people around them gave him beds, a stove, table and chairs and cooking utensils. He moved to a place about a quarter of a mile from my grandmother's on Mt. Mary Road, on Glen Brown's place in a two-room house.

No one had lived in that house for a long time, and it leaked. The porch was rotten, so he fixed it the best he could. He helped Glen Brown make one crop and then he moved down the road a short distance to another six-room house. Again, no one had lived in it for a long time-he didn't even rent it-just moved in.

He only made three dollars a week. While he worked for Glen Brown we got lard gravy and biscuits for breakfast and what we could find during the rest of the day. Sometimes we ate nothing the rest of the day. He would go over to my grandmother's and get a half-gallon of buttermilk and a cake of butter once in a while. We liked to have starved to death.

Finally, my dad walked to Cartersville, Georgia and got a job in a mine. The house had running water; it had a hydrant in the back yard-the first one I had ever seen. I loved it. Dad would go to Cartersville every Saturday night and buy three dollars (his weekly salary) worth of groceries. He even bought us eggs and canned sausage, but the kids didn't get any-only he and my stepmother got to eat the sausage,

They fussed every night; I washed mine, Odell and Ira Lee's feet before going to bed. I woke up during the night because they were fussing. My stepmother wanted to go visit her mother and my dad didn't want her to because of us kids.

She said that they didn't mind and that she hated them. She said that we had not even washed our feet before going to bed. She told him to go look if he didn't believe her. My dad cam in and jerked the sheets. He said that our feet were in fact washed. Well that set her on fire; she commenced cursing and accusing him of upholding us against her. This made him mad so he came back to the bed jerked me out and beat me until I fainted.

When I came to he was pouring water on my face and crying. He told her to go ahead and leave because he wasn't beating us to death just to please her. She left and was gone two weeks, so my dad tried to teach me to cook. What a mess I made too. Finally, she came back all smiles and even helped us kids pick cotton. But she would still beat us for nothing.

Later on, we moved again down the mountain to a place above the Etowah River and we picked cotton every day, all day long, seven days a week. Also, we kids had to get up in the morning and go to the mountains to get wood to keep out of her way, but that didn't keep her from fussing at us.

We had to carry water from a spring a long way down the hill and we only had two tin lard buckets to carry it in. In the winter we had lots of ice storms and I had to get up and start the fire at four in the morning. Sometimes my father and stepmother fought all night, cursing at each other and burned up all the wood we had brought in so I would have to go out in the cold and find some before I could start a fire. I would get a hard whipping every time if the fire wasn't good enough.

One night they fought all night and drank up all the water we had. I had to go down the hill to the spring and get two buckets of water. We had a bad ice storm that day and the icicles were handing on the trees. I was afraid to go get the water because it was so far to go into the dark, but I had to go. I slipped and fell twenty times or more, but finally got to the spring. I got my water but couldn't get it up the hill because it was so slippery.

I spilled water all over me every time I tried to climb the bank. I was wet all over and freezing cold. I had not taken time to put on my stockings and my shoes were full of water. I finally went to the lowest part of the bank and got up and had to walk carefully to keep from falling. I made it almost all the way back several times but then would slip, spill my water and have to go back to the spring.

It was almost daylight before I got back to the house with the water, and I really got a beating that time. I think I hated my father and my stepmother and would have run away but I couldn't leave my sister and brother. I was afraid for them and kept them outside so they wouldn't be in my stepmother's way. I talked to them and was good to them because Elmer, my stepmother was so mean to them. I felt I was responsible for them so I stayed for their sake. My stepmother was really hard to live with because both of her brothers were in Germany during World War I, one was shell shock and the other was wounded. Also her sister had died and she didn't get to go to her funeral.

Once again we moved down the road to a vacant house; there was no rent, my father just moved into it. It was a six-room house and things got better here. There was lots of land to farm so Uncle Jim came to live with us. He was Granddad's oldest brother. He worked at the mine and would hunt and bring in big buck rabbits for us to eat. Also, he brought in wild turkeys. He borrowed a mule, plowed up the land and raised a big garden. We had large fields of Irish potatoes and corn. We didn't mind working hard with Uncle Jim. He got us a cow, a pig and some chickens. We were doing fine except that Elmer decided she didn't want Uncle Jim there anymore. She couldn't curse and fight all night with him there because she didn't like to have anyone around when she raved at us.

Uncle Jim had not been gone long when she started treating us badly again. Ira lee was playing and accidentally knocked over the chicken water. It was in the spring of the year and she called me outside and made me climb up a large bush that had long thorns on it. I had to cut her a hickory to whip him with. She whipped him and cut his body all over and he was bloody. She dared us to tell anyone and said that she would kill us if we did. Ira lee couldn't sit down or lay down for a long time. I almost cried myself sick.

That year dad quit the mine and went to work on the railroad. After he had worked there a few weeks, he moved to Cartersville across the road from the fairgrounds in a three-room house that belonged to a man called "prince" Louis. Here we picked cotton for other people. During this period they were calling married men into the service. Dad was called so he went up to the courthouse and took Elmer to lie for him so he wouldn't have to go. They told all kind of lies and came home and laughed about it.

When we picked cotton, we had to walk ten miles to get to the fields, so we got up at three in the morning to fix our dinner to eat in the fields. We made thirteen dollars every two weeks. This enabled us to get some union suits and shoes. Elmer's mother sent us some hand me down clothes also. We had to move again to keep dad from going into the service, but they told him he would have to farm. He went across Cartersville to Sugar Valley and got a farm on the halves. The man who owned the farm was Mr. Gilstrap and he furnished us food until the crops came in. He gave us cornbread and syrup for breakfast and peas and cornbread for dinner. We even got some California beer seed, made beer and put cornbread in it. The mixture substituted for milk and bread.

We had a good crop that year, but Elmer fussed and cursed the whole year. She got really bad one Sunday morning. She threw all the stove wood at dad and as he came through the room she threw a big butcher knife at him.

The knife missed him and stuck into the oak table leg, which was right beside me. She cursed constantly and no one would come to see her because she would order them off.

We were not allowed to go into the kitchen where they were eating until they left. Also, she called us bastards; of course, I didn't know what the word meant anyway. Dad sold six bales of his cotton in the fall, and we canned plenty to do us for the winter.

That fall Mr. Gilstrap told dad he would have to move because of Elmer's cursing. So, we moved to Hiram, Georgia on Granddad Robert's place. Since it was now in the fall of the year, this meant that dad would have to lay up all winter.

He went into the woods and "ran off" some whiskey. He sold it, and made pretty good money and bought us a cow, calf, two pigs, and some chickens. Every time he got short of money, he would go run off some whiskey and sell it.

Also, he had a nice crop, sold a lot of cotton and we canned plenty of vegetables. But Elmer wasn't satisfied; she wanted to visit her mother and she went for two weeks. I could cook pretty good and keep house too. I could even milk the cow. We really enjoyed her being away and hoped that she would never come back, but she did.

When she came in she even brought us candy and was good for a while, but then she would start fussing again. My dad kept running off whiskey until Mr. Roberts caught him, and we had to move again.

We moved to the copper mines to a three-room house across the road from a schoolhouse. We had to watch other children go to school, but our stepmother wouldn't let us go. It was so cruel, too, because I wanted to go so badly. Instead, we had to

Go out on the railroad to pick up coal. My dad made pretty good at the copper mine but we didn't get any clothes or shoes. Elmer got a good bit of furniture, by then got influenza. I had to wait on her hand and foot, and then I got it. I liked to have died; that was the only time I was sick.

My stepmother wouldn't let me go to bed. And I like to have chilled to death. The room would spin round and round, but I had to cook and clean even though I was so sick. I could hardly stand. At one minute I would be awfully hot and then the next minute I would freeze.

I was glad to see the doctor for the first time in my life; he made her let me go to bed. Eventually both of us got well, and she was her old self again. She got mad at Ira Lee and beat him badly. She took down a gun and told him that she was going to shoot him that night.

Ira Lee woke me up and told me that he was going to run away that night. I begged him not to go but he did. Unfortunately, there was a big ice storm going on and he could not get to his shoes without waking Elmer up, so he left barefooted. I cried all night. I didn't sleep at all because I prayed for God to take care of Ira Lee.

The next morning Elmer called Ira Lee and when he didn't come, she took her hickory and went into his room. When she saw that he was gone, she threatened to shoot me and Odell if we told anyone that she beat us.

She said that she would kill us all while we were asleep. She made us go with her to find Ira Lee, and we found him at a cousin of Grandma Hardin, Ira Lee had told her everything, and when he saw us, he took off running. Norman Prayther caught him and brought him back, but Carrie, his wife jumped on Elmer and beat the devil out of her.

Carrie took Ira Lee's clothes off and proved that Elmer was lying. Carrie was so mad she wouldn't let Elmer take Ira Lee back. Carrie said she was taking Ira Lee to the police and would have Elmer locked up. When we went home Elmer told us not to tell dad anything about it, and we didn't because we were afraid.

Granddad heard about it anyway and came over and told dad about the whole situation. Granddad said that Norman and Carrie were going to have the kids taken away. So dad talked to Norman and Carrie and told them that it would never happen again. When he came home he raised cain with Elmer, too.

He even told her to leave and that he didn't want her there. She told him it was the first time she had ever beaten any of us like that, which was a lie. From then on, things went from bad to worse.

We continued to pick coal for our fire from the railroad. That was our way of staying away from Elmer. The railroad engineers would throw coal down to us when they passed us, and if we were not out on the railroad, they would blow their whistle and throw off coal for us. A little later, the copper mine shut down so dad went to Engley, Alabama, to a coal mine for work. He made eight dollars a day and sent sixteen dollars home at one time.

He wrote a few letters but he eventually quit writing and we didn't hear from him for a long time. Once again, we had to move to one of the empty houses at the copper mine. Elmer went to Dallas and got Mr. Head to let her have groceries on credit. She promised to pay him as soon as dad got work, even though we knew she wasn't even hearing from him.

I was the one who had to go get the groceries on the train. I had to leave on the train at quarter of seven in the evening, and after I got to Dallas, I had to walk a mile and a half from the depot to the town. Mr. Head would put the groceries in a "tow sack," so if I couldn't lift it, I would drag it to the depot.

It was a rough job in the cold, nasty weather. I went by Uncle Raymond's house and asked him to get me a taxi. On bad, rainy nights, Uncle Raymond or Mr. Head sometimes would get me a taxi, and Uncle Raymond would usually ride over to the depot with me.

So, on one of those rainy nights, Uncle Raymond took me over in a taxi, and when he got there, he shook hands and started talking to a man at the depot. I moved over close to them so I could hear what they were saying. Uncle Raymond was asking about my mother's father, C. W. McGuire.

I listened closely and heard him tell Uncle Raymond that Granddad McGuire lived in Cobb County and that his girls worked in the mill. When I got on the train, I sat by the man, his name was Whitfield, and since I knew that I would be getting off at the next stop, I started asking him questions about the McGuire girls that worked at the mill.

I told him I was the granddaughter of C. W. McGuire and asked the man if he would tell the girls to tell granddad to come and get us kids. Also, I told him that dad had been gone for a long time and that we were almost on starvation.

I explained that people had been giving us groceries, and I begged him to tell granddad not to tell Elmer that I had asked him to come for us. The man said he would. The next morning I went out to the mailbox, pretending to wait for the mailman and slipped over to Mrs. Reynolds house, which was right across from the mailbox.

I told her about my hearing of granddad and asked her if she would write a letter to granddad to tell him to come and get us. I also told her to warn him not to tell Elmer. Mrs. Reynolds said she would write the letter.

I only wished that I could have written the letter to granddad, but I could not write that good. I copied every piece of paper that had printing or writing on it, but I didn't know what it said.

I wanted to learn to write very badly, but I had no one to help me. About a week later, Elmer got up mad at all of us. She went out and got three big hickory's to whip us with. She stormed, cursed and screamed at us. So we started to the woods to bring up a load of wood.

We passed Mrs. Verfy Hester's house and she asked me to come in for a minute. I told her that I couldn't because Elmer would whip me. Then, I saw someone peeping out the door and I knew that it was my granddad. I went in and told him to be sure and not tell Elmer that I had asked Mrs. Reynolds to write the letter.

He said that he would tell her and for me not to worry about it because he was going to take us back no matter what Elmer said. Then, I begged him not to leave us alone with her, and I took him back to the house with us.

We kids stayed in the yard while he knocked at the door. She came to the door; cursing us and grabbed a big hickory when she opened the door she looked sick. Granddad told her who he was and said that he had come after the kids.

She just fell on the floor with one of her epileptic fits. Normally, when she had a fit we would have to help her; Odell would grab one arm and I would grab the other, and we would sit on her arms to keep her from drawing up and pulling her hair out and gritting her teeth while foaming at the mouth.

This time we just let her lay there. She layed there from ten o'clock in the morning until four that evening. I went into the kitchen and cooked our dinner with what I could find. We ate dinner; Odell washed the dishes, got up all of our clothes into a tow sack, and got ready to go with granddad.

Eventually Mrs. Reynolds came over with some medicine, which helped Elmer. Mrs. Reynolds helped her up and told her that granddad was going to take us. Also, Mrs. Reynolds told us that she would go to court to see that we didn't have to live with Elmer anymore.

Elmer said that we could go to stay for a week but then she would come to get us. We didn't care what she said; we were just happy that we were going to be able to leave; we had no shoes, so Mrs. Reynolds went to the store and got us some boy's shoes. Granddad took us and left to go to Hiram to catch the train.

We were so proud and happy, and it seemed like everyone knew it. One man that we met along the road gave us five dollars, another man that ran a store gave each of us a coat and cap, and a lot of people gave us a dollar. When we counted it at the depot, we had fifteen dollars. But then I looked up and saw Elmer coming toward us. We all ran to granddad, grabbed his legs and begged him not to let her get us.

He said he wouldn't. She came to get her a ticket to go to Rome to her mother's. Finally we got on the train. We were so glad to get to granddad's house, and a lot of neighbors were there staying with grannies to see us when we got in. we sat up talking and answering questions until we all fell off to sleep on the floor. I don't know who put us in bed.

The house was warm and we had a coal fire going. Living with granddad were Rhodie, who is an old maid, Thelma, who worked in the mill, lotus, who was my age or a little older and who went to school, Marvin, who was the black sheep of the family, dail lee, who was Odell's age, Nixon, who was Ira Lee's age, Christine, who was the baby girl, and Aunt Liz, who was there most of the time.

Aunt Liz had a son named George, so grannie had seven at home besides us. Granddad truck farmed and raised what he ate. He had two mules, a cow and hogs. He raised four big hogs a year. We had plenty of milk ad butter.

The next day we visited some old friends we knew before my mother died. Grandpa Barnett was one of them; he ran a small store and sold hotdogs on the weekend. They were very glad to see us so in two weeks Mr. Barnett hired me to help him in the store.

He paid me four dollars a week. It made me feel better that I could help Granddad McGuire some. That fall I went to Aubrey, a mill foreman, and asked for a job in the mill. He said he couldn't hire me until I was fourteen years old, so I went back to the store and worked there until I was thirteen and a half.

At that time, I went to work in the mill. I worked for two weeks at the mill without pay, as my first paycheck was eight dollars. They paid every two weeks. In practically no time, I was running six sides, but I could only work eight hours per day until I was sixteen.

I felt a lot better now because I knew that I was making enough to feed us children. We still had not heard from my dad, granddad started Odell and Ira Lee in school, but I wouldn't quit my job. Aunt Thelma taught me to write a little so that I could write a letter but I didn't spell too well.

On Saturday nights, all my aunts played the piano, and lot of neighbors would come and sing. Everybody joined in and it was nice to be there. On Sundays we all played ball in the park in front of the house with a lot of neighbors and went to Sunday school in the evening. My grandmother took us to Atlanta to buy cloth for our clothes and we had a big Christmas with all the fruit we wanted. Nobody came and took it back. Also we got dolls, shoes and clothes.

At the mill, I made $14.96 a week and began dating boys. I didn't like the boys too much because I was afraid of them. Granddad let us all go off together, all five girls and Rhodie was the boss.

She told us what we could and couldn't do. We had no dates alone. I went with a lot of boys bit I didn't forget my responsibility to my sister and my brother. Several boys asked my hand in marriage, but I told them I had to raise Odell and Ira Lee.

Once I was engaged for a while with a boy named Howard but I thought it over and wrote him a "dear john" letter, I just couldn't leave my sister and brother. So I played the field for a while; I didn't like boys who wanted to get married right away.

I stayed with Aunt Liz a lot. She had a husband who went with all the women, so she and Georgia were by themselves a lot. I finally met Ernest Hall and we went together for a year before we were married.

Continue to Chapter 2