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- The Old Homeplace The farm and old homeplace was located on Fishing Ford Road, Petersburg (Blakeville), Lincoln County, TN. Granddaughter Pauline "Polly" Moore, daughter of Paul and Sadie Massey Moore, remembers it from her visits as a child. She remembers they would catch a bus in Shelbyville and it dropped them off Howell, TN. From there and they would walk on the road and through fields, climbing fences and everything else for several miles to get and would come in the back way to the farm to visit with the grandparents. Paul, her father, would leave her there for two or three weeks in the summer. Polly remembers a peddler would come every Thursday and they walked a mile to meet him at the road. (Actually it was only about 1/3 mile from the house to the road). They traded eggs for meal, flour and sugar and would usually get a candy bar. All the vegetables came from the garden. During this time they had no electricity because the house was so far from the road and nightime came quick with kerosene lamps. They listened to the Grand Ole Opery on Saturday night with a battery radio. Her recollections of the farm were several years before their son Ross, my father, would return to live there with his family for a short time before his death. My father had electricity put in when we moved there and we had a party line telephone. Like our grandmother, our mother raised chickens for meat and eggs. Our grandmother raised turkeys but I do not remember mother having any. We milked cows and daddy would take it to the road for the Borden milk truck to pick up each day. In the summer he had to put the cans in the creek to keep the milk from ruining. The milk money was one of our prime sources of income for the farm. Mother would churn the milk to make our butter. As during Polly's time, the creek was one of our main sources of entertainment in the summer when we had water. I also remembering swinging across a gulley on grapevines. There was a big Beech tree on the hill in front of the garden with limbs coming down. We had a saddle on one of the limbs and the other one we tied twine on to make our stagecoach. I also remember daddy building my brother a box hockey game that was a lot of fun. He carved our hockey sticks out of wood. We didn't have much but we had a lot of fun and had a lot of love. Polly continues: "There were grapevines all across the front porch, five peach trees in the front yard, and several apple and pear trees in the back yard. We tried to help out as much as we could during the three week visit. Mama had a collie dog named Brownie. Polly could hit Harold and if he hit her back the dog would take up for Polly and jump on Harold. She said it was the only time she could get away with anything." . Our family left Old Hickory and moved to Petersburg where my father bought the place from his mother. He served in World War II and because of his age and the situation he was in overseas he developed heart problems. DuPont told him he could no longer remain an employee because the work was too strenuous for him. This was about 1950 and I remember some of the frut trees but not all of them and I do not remember the grape vines being there when we lived there. Pauline and Harold called our grandmother, Mary Barthenia Raney, Mama but my brother Tommy and I always called her Mama Moore. Others called her Miss Sennie or Aunt Sennie.. Mama Moore planted a white baby's breath Spirea on the upper left side of the front yard and I still have a piece of it with me. Every where I have moved I have taken a cutting with me. There were several large trees in the front yard and the one on the right front corner facing the house where we had a white wooden swing that we sat in. An the left side of the entrance gate was another large tree that we would climb and play in. I remember mama, daddy and I were sitting on the front porch one day with my new baby pet chick. Tommy and one of his friends were up in the tree and he called me to come help him with something. I looked up to see what he wanted me to do and stepped back. Unfortunately my baby chick followed me and I stepped on it. That was a very sad day for me. . The old house was log with weathered boards on the outside and a tin roof. The entrance or breezeway was a hallway that took you out the back door. The kitchen had a pot bellied stove and was on the right of the entrance. The living room with a fireplace was on the left. In the winter we mainly burned coal but some wood as well. One winter Tom was chopping wood and the ax slipped and cut through his shoe into his toes. It was so cold he didn't feel the pain until after he came into the house. Directly on the right when you came in the front door was a steep set of stairs that took you upstairs to a small room. There was a larger bedroom on the right that was never used for anything but storage as it was not in good shape. The main bedroom was on the left and this is where everyone slept when the weather was bearable. If it was too cold we would sleep in the living room with the fireplace. We did not have any closets but there was a cubby hole bult into the back wall of the beedroom for quilts. . Tom atteded Petersburg Elementary school for five years and I attended only one year. I remember the swing was moved to the front porch which ran across the complete front of the house and mother and daddy would be sitting there waiting for us to walk home from the bus in the afternoons. This would usually be a good time for daddy to rest from all his farm chores.. When Mama Moore moved "to town" she left her old dog Brownie and we had a younger dog named Skippy. One night we heard a noise on our back porch and the next morning I discovered it was Brownie trying to get up the steps. He was very old and he died that night. Skippy was my companion from that time on. Many times I would walk with Tommy to meet the school bus before I was was ole enough to go to school and Skippy always went with us. One day on my way back home, it was probably abouta third of a mile but seemed much longer to a young child, a snake crossed in front of us and Skippy killed it. There was a rock wall on the other side of the creek that ran through the property and I would cross it rather than go the longer way through the gate. Skippy would get ahead of me and I would call his name and he would turn around and wait for me. When daddy died we had to give Skippy up because he would not have been happy in the city. They guy came to get him and Skippy knew something was up and would not let anyone near him. Mama told me to get him so I got him in the old smoke house so the guy could take him. Our grandfather was killed before I was born so I never knew him. On July 1, 1940, William Doak Moore was in a car wreck while riding home with another man. They had been in Fayetteville and had been drinking according to Veral and Wilson Moore who were cousins of my father and lived across the road from our grandparents. They hit a milk truck in a head-on collision and he spent 11 days in the hospital before he died. Mama Moore continued living there until about 1950 and my father helped her financially until he had to leave DuPont because of his health. Mama Moore then moved into an apartment in Petersburg diagonally across the street from Petersburg Elementary School.. When our spring ran dry daddy would load up an empty metal milk jug in the trunk of the car and we would go to Mama Moore's to pump water from her well. The water had to be carried up a hill and was not close to the house. It made wash day really hard. Mother used a wringer washing machine and heated the water to wash the clothes. There was a large metal tub for rinsing the clothes. They were run back through the wringer to get the rinse water out and then hung outside on the clothesline to dry. I remember mother telling me about going to the farm while daddy was in the Army and she would help our grandmother. I have pictures where they were boiling the clothes in a big black kettle over fire and lift them up with a big stick. I am so glad mother had a nice wringer washing machine and we didn't have to wash our clothes that way. We also had a cellar underneath the house that served as a storage place for all our canned goods from our garden, potatoes and whatever else need a cool place to keep them. It had a door on it so it kept things from freezing in the winter. The bathroom was on the outside but had blown down by the time we moved there. We used what was referred to as a "slop jar" in the house and had to be taken out every morning. During the day you just found a nice place to hide. If the weather was nice we would take a bath in the creek. Otherwise it was in a wash pan. On Sunday we crowded around the pot bellied stove in winter to wash before church. I have some of the best memories of my life while we lived there. I went everywhere on the farm with daddy until I started the first grade. He was never supposed to be alone because of his heart problems. About February 5, 1955 daddy was out working on a fence row and Oscar Edmiston helping him. I remember an ambulance coming and getting him and taking him to the hospital. He had a heart attack that day in the field. We stayed some with Mama Moore and attended school when mama was at the hospital. One of the worst days of my life was February 15, 1955 when my brother and I were called inside from playing and mama told us our daddy had died. That August our Uncle Johnny came down in a truck and moved us to Nashville. . Mama Moore had two main rooms and you had to walk out her living room bedroom combination to the hallway and enter another door on the right to get to her kitchen. She heated the rooms with coal in the fireplace and had a woodburning stove in the kitchen. The house had 12 foot ceilings and wallpaper with flowers. It seemed a lot larger when I was a child than it was as I grew up. She had a couch that made a bed that we would sleep on when we stayed with her as well as two rocking chairs in front of the fireplace. She didn't drive but she would walk to "town" which was not far from her house, Polly says it was about two blocks, to buy her groceries, attend church and shop. I also remember a cellar, what we would call a basement now, and it was the first time I had ever seen one that was concrete. I never saw any canned goods stored there but when it rained it looked like a swimming pool and my brother and I would play there. Also at the back of the yard was the requisite out house. I never remember any paper being there but there was always an old Sears and Roebuck catalog. Buddy, Polly's husband and Polly remember a cistern where they caught rain water but I do not remember it. The house downstairs was divided, by the hall down the middle, into two apartments. The entire upper floor was a separate apartment for the owner to stay in when she visited. Unfortuantely I can't remember the lady's name that lived across the hall or the name of the lady who owned the house. . About a block down from where she lived was the only brother that I remember, Johnny and his wife, Myrtle, Raney. She and her sister Mattie had a double wedding and Aunt Mattie lived in the Friendship Community. She married Sam Pigg.. After our mother died my brother insisted we sell the farm which broke my heart. He never liked it and wanted the money. After a few years Ben Massey sold it and Mike Brown bought it. Mike still owns the 75 acres and the old log house that was over 100 years old was torn down. The barn eventually fell down and Mike bales hay and keeps cattle there. When you enter the drive, which is part of the old road bed going to Howell, the farm is on the left side and Center Point Cemetery is on the right side. Polly said this is where they used to walk and meet the peddler. The cemetery is on the property where an old school was many years ago. When we moved from there Pappy Moore was the only person buried there. In 955 Uncle Henry was the second person buried there. In 1990 Mama Moore died in Huntsville Hospital. She was buried there beside Pappy and Mildred, the youngest child, is also buried there. It was originally only family there but now neighbors have started being buried there..
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1882 - 1970 (88 years)
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