Hardin Family

Author: Don Hall

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 - the kind with a china doll head and the body filled with sawdust. Every year dad took some apple 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 girl came the 12th of January in 1915. My little sister, Mary Ida, who we called Joanne, died just before the new baby came. Joanne 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 spasm! s; my mother and father really took it badly. A little later, Gurlton, my mother's last baby was born.

In 1915 my mother took sick with galloping tuberculosis. I had started to school for the first time in the primary grade. The primary grade is the same as 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 girl to pick out my doll. I picked out a blonde with a beautiful green dress with a tiny ribbon running through 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 had ever received, so I did not 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 she treated us like we were her very own children. She stayed at night when my mother was worse and I had to quit school of March 1915, they thought my mother was dying so I did not get to go back to school. My only teacher was Holly 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 the 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 did not feel at home at granddads because my grandmother let us know that 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 all starve together 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 did not stop granny. She wrote one of her cousins 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 the 22 of December in 1915. My granddad buried her by our 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, she was really mad about what our grandmother was doing to us. She brought us can goods to eat and came everyday to make sure that we were all right. One year Isiam Sheffield brought us our Christmas presents; he brought us a lot of stuff, but we only got one apple, one orange, one banana and one bunch of raisins, one stick of horehound candy. After breakfast, my grandmother came in and took our apple, orange, banana and raisins a! nd said she was going to make ambrosia for dinner. So us kids only wound up with one piece of horehound candy for that Christmas. Of course we had pecans because there was a pecan tree in the back yard.

She further wrote -My great grandfather is (Rev.) Charles Lewis Hardin listed on your page and his wife is Ida Matilda Maxwell Hardin. Their son Thomas Lee Hardin was my grandfather. He did not die in Ga, but married many times after his wife, Mary Magadalina McGuire Hardin passed away. My grandfather is buried in Indiana, Mary and her two children Mary Ida Hardin and Gurlton Hardin are buried in the same plot as Charles Lewis Hardin and Ida Matilda Hardin.

My mother wrote as much as she could remember about her life for us and we are so glad she did. It helps us to realize how tragic her life was and how she overcame it.