Isaac Welch Jessee was the last of thirteen children born to my grandparents, James Abel Jessee and Margaret Bailey. Thus, it will come as no surprise that I tell you that I had many cousins born in the mountains of Virginia. Most of them were a lot older than I, for my dad was 30 years my senior.

Having grown up on the family farm, Dad joined the National Guard during World War I but never saw combat. He later worked for a hardware store in Knoxville, Tennessee while going to business school. I don’t know what he learned there, but he did well in penmanship. His writing was just about perfect. Still later he went to Appalachia, Va. where his brother, Bill, lived. He got a job as a clerk with the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, sustaining him for the rest of his life.

Dad met and courted a young schoolteacher, Ivo Wells. They were married and moved into a little house in town where, after an appropriate time, a beautiful child was born. Believe it or not that was Yours Truly. A year or two later we moved to “Bum Holler”, about a six mile move to a house near my maternal grandparents Francis Marian Wells and Octavia Cousins. We lived there until 1930 when we moved to Kentucky.

In my early life we took occasional trips to Scott County to visit Dad’s folks. I believe that all of Dad’s brothers except Uncle Bill were farmers. I shall try to relate some of my recollections of these people. Note that some of my stories may be composites of different occasions.

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Mom got my little sister, Margaret, and me loaded into the car for a trip to Scott County. The car was a Model-T Ford touring car with a folding roof. The day was warm and clear with no need for the mica windows that could be buttoned on in case of rain. Our destination was about 25 miles away, perhaps an hour’s drive. We had toured along for half an hour when we came to road construction along a hillside. A dirt road had been improvised up the hill and around the construction site, serving as a detour. We left the pike and started up the hill. We got half way up the hill where the Model-T stalled. We eased back down for a fresh start. All passengers had to unload and walk up the hill. Dad tried again. This time he made it two thirds of the way up. Fortunately a few of the work crew were available to assist with a push to where the dirt road curved to a moderate slope. At the top we reloaded and went on our way. 

Our trip from then on was pleasant and trouble-free. Soon we came to a farm where Dad’s sister, Becky lived with her daughter, Lettie and family. Lettie was only slightly younger than Dad and had a son and a daughter whose names I can’t remember. While the adults talked of adult things we children amused ourselves outdoors with child’s play.

About mid-afternoon Lettie’s boy bade me to come with him. We hiked up a hill by cornfields until we came to a place where large-leafed vines covered the ground. It was a watermelon patch, the first I had ever seen. Watermelons in all different stages of development, from blossoms to ripe fruit, were scattered among the leaves. After a thorough perusal of the situation my first cousin once removed picked a medium sized melon. I thought he meant to take it back to the house. But no, he dropped it to the ground.  The beautiful fruit broke open and I thought, “What a shame.”  I soon learned that there was no reason to fret. A beautiful red interior dotted with black jewels was exposed. My mouth watered and in no time we were taking out chunks of delicious fruit and soon our faces were buried in pieces of melon still in the shell. I had eaten watermelon before, but never like this. People take plugs from a melon to test the ripeness, buy one, take it home and chill it, slice it, and eat it from a plate after sprinkling it with salt to enhance its sweetness. Warmed in the sun to a perfect degree our melon, fresh from the vine, was sweet without enhancement and delicious beyond belief. Never have I tasted watermelon to compare with this. Leaving watermelon rind, stripped of its treasure, two young boys, completely satisfied, returned to their families.

My family’s trip home was easier than that away. Access to the detour was via a much gentler slope, which the car took in stride. Certainly the highlight of the trip was not the excitement of the detour, though memorable, but my encounter with the watermelon patch. 

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Most of our trips to Scott County included a stop at Uncle Emory’s house. His farm was in a valley at the mouth of a large hollow. The house stood behind a big front yard abutting the highway. An access road to the hollow cut through the farm at one side of the house. The farm was located near Natural Tunnel which was used by the Southern Railway. The railroad track ran behind Uncle Emory’s house along a high ridge. A trestle spanned the hollow near the house.

The house was a large two story log structure which had been covered with lap siding and painted white, a very attractive place. A few trees graced the front yard. A full-length porch with a swing and some chairs made a homey place to sit and visit.

Uncle Emory was a tall man like most of his brothers, and well proportioned. His most distinguishing characteristic was, perhaps, his eyes, always bright and pure blue. The blue stood out like a light at night. He was pleasant and seemed glad to see us. His wife, Maggie, was a kind lady with a pleasant smile and quite a bit on the fat side. The daughter, Cousin Willie, was almost a carbon copy of her mother. Roy, the son, was rarely around when we came to call. 

Aunt Maggie would always insist we stay for a meal, or at least a snack. Then she and Willie would head for the kitchen. Any meal was preceded by a trip to the springhouse, located about twenty yards from the kitchen door. I’m no expert on springhouses but this one rated tops in my estimation. It was a wooden structure, built on a concrete base. A channel for water flow was formed into the base and widened into a shallow pool where utinsils sat in the cool water piped in from a mountain spring. Butter and milk from the springhouse completed the meal and we ate with relish.

Up the hollow a quarter mile or so lived Uncle Pat and family. Of course we would visit them too. Starting up the side road crossing Emory’s farm and into the hollow, the big white house to the left, barns and cattle to the right, high ridges and the railroad trestle as a backdrop made a picturesque entrance to the hollow and Pat’s farm. Up the hollow a way we came to Uncle Pat’s house. No imposing abode, it was nevertheless, a substantial house, fit for raising a family. Pat and Mandy raised six children, Fred, Emmit, Clyde, Phoebe, Pearl and Lovely.

Upon entering the house we were in a large parlor with a big log-burning fireplace. A low burning fire kept the room comfortable while the older folk chatted to fill in each other on the latest happenings. After a while Aunt Mandy got up and headed out.

“Time to fix a little supper,” she said, and went off to the kitchen. She come back after a while with an iron pot that she hung on a rod over the fire. Then she sat an iron pot containing corn bread batter into the live coals of the fireplace. Last of all she filled what looked like a big skillet with coals that she scooped up with a small shovel and put the skillet-like pan on top of the container of batter.

“Well, we can eat after while,” Aunt Mandy said.

“Come on and I’ll show you around,” Pearl said to me, and off we went to explore the farm. Lovely came too, and showed me how she milked a cow. 

“Did you ever see the star in the cow’s teat?” she asked.

“No,” I said.

“Bend down here and I’ll show it to you,” she said, and I bent down to have a look.

“Closer” said Lovely, “you can’t see it from there.” I obligingly came closer until the teat was only inches from my face. 

“Do you see it?” she said. I got only a glimpse of the “star” when she squeezed and I got an eye full of fresh warm milk. I thought both my cousins would split their sides with laughter over that “gotcha”.

“Come on, let’s go back to the house. We don’t want to be late for supper,” one of the girls said. I don’t remember what we had for supper but the hot, buttered cornbread was certainly delicious. I don’t know if it was the taste of the bread or my newfound knowledge of how it was baked that made it taste so good.

On a summer day after the tobacco had been harvested and stored in the drying barn we visited Uncle Pat again. After a short visit Clyde spoke to me. 

“Want to help us grade tobacco?” he said.

“I don’t know how,” I said.

“That’s OK, we’ll show you how, Clyde said. I nodded. Then we headed for the drying barn, along with Emmit. The barn seemed to be a loosely constructed building, with considerable space between its vertical boards forming the walls. I learned that the spaces were there to let the air circulate freely through the barn to dry the tobacco.

Inside the barn stalks of tobacco hung upside down in neat rows, at various levels. A boardwalk along side the tobacco gave easy access to the stalks. We mounted the walk several feet above the floor. 

“Well, here we are, let’s go to work,“ said Emmit, “Watch and you’ll see how it’s done.” He took a stalk and stripped the dried leaves starting with those at the bottom of the stalk. As he progressed toward the top he laid leaves from different sections of the stalk into bins provided for grading the tobacco. Once a bin was full he gathered a number of leaves, as if making a bouquet of violets, then secured the bouquet with a leaf that he wrapped around the stems, making it ready for market.

“I think I’ve got it,” I said, and went on to demonstrate my skill. With a little more instruction about where the next section should begin I went to work in earnest. As we stripped the leaves and chatted, the thought came to me that I’d seen men chew this stuff. With all this here in my hands, why not try a chew, myself? Maybe I can see why they like it. So, when my cousins weren’t watching I slipped a little piece of a leaf into my mouth. It didn’t taste sweet, as I’d expected. Maybe I’d have to get used to the flavor. As I thought about such things, saliva started to pour into my mouth making my chew soggy, and the flavor stronger. Soon my mouth seemed to be full of liquid soup from a cuspidor and I just had to spit. The spit was followed by the urge to swallow, and I discharged my chew. The room began to sway slightly, ever so slowly. I was glad to have something to hold onto. I tried to not let on to my cousins that anything was wrong and kept on stripping leaves. No one said anything, but I knew that they knew. After a while the nauseous feeling left me and we finally quit the job and went back to the house, my lessons for the day complete.

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Dad had stopped at Aunt Becky’s house to invite her to go with our family to visit Grandpa. The road to the homestead was meant for wagon traffic and followed the side of a ridge up a hollow to Grandpa’s house. Dad parked the car and we walked about a quarter mile to the house. It was a large two-story log structure with porches, upstairs and down, on both front and back sides. The porches ran the length of the sides. Each room had access to a porch.  All were bedrooms and one doubled as a parlor. Prolific parents need a lot of bedroom space. 

A separate building located about fifteen yards behind the main house served as the kitchen and dining room. It was separated to prevent a kitchen fire spreading to the main house. Eating in that dining room was a unique experience for me. A long table sat in the middle of the room. Wooden benches at each side provided seating for a dozen hungry diners. There were no screens to foil the flies. Instead, a table-length contraption hung from the ceiling over the table. The device consisted of a bar attached at each end to a slat hinged to the ceiling. Strips of newspaper hung from the bar. The thing was rigged to be swayed over the table as a fan. The person at a corner pulled a cord to operate the fly shoo-er. A fly buzzes in to share the meal. Someone pulls the cord a time or two.  The fly’s intimidation overwhelms his hunger and he leaves to plot his next attack.

Perhaps the most intriguing thing on the farm was, to me, the blacksmith shop. I loved to see the fire come to life with the puff of the bellows, watch the steel turn red and become malleable and reform between the blows of the hammer and the anvil. Odd-looking pieces of steel and tools I didn’t recognize hung on the shop walls.

They raised corn, wheat, other grains, fruit and vegetables on Grandpa’s farm. They had cattle, sheep, hogs, and just about every thing they needed. They sheared the sheep, carded, dyed and spun the wool into thread, then wove it into cloth. Much of their clothing was made from this homespun cloth. The farm was pretty much a self-sustaining operation. 

Grandma Jessee died when I was a baby. Uncle Abe, a bachelor, and Cousin Freeman with his family lived with Grandpa and ran the farm. I recall Grandpa sitting in his platform rocker. He had a full brown beard, neatly cropped, and a full head of hair to match, unusual for a man of eighty. Although someone surely showed me around the place, I can’t remember anything specific about the other people there.

The walk down to the car seemed a lot easier than the trip up. Even so, I lagged a bit behind the others. By and by I overtook Aunt Becky who stood quite still astraddle a shallow ditch, her long skirt almost touching the ground. I walked on past her and we all soon reached the car and were on our way. I had learned a lot about a farm and thought I had a good idea why ladies of that day wore such

Long, full skirts.

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Uncle Billy was a second father to my dad.  When Dad was looking for a job he went to Appalachia, Virginia and stayed with Uncle Billy’s family while job hunting, and I’d suspect for some time after, for during that time Dad and Mom courted and married and moved to a little house in town. Uncle Billy, Dad’s second oldest brother, was nearly twenty years his senior. Uncle Billy and Aunt Easter had a family of five, I think, Orlena, Clyde, Mable, Lillian and an older son who’s name I don’t remember.

Lillian, a teenager at the time, used to amuse herself and me playing with the baby, me. Alas, before I was old enough to remember any of this we moved to the country. 

Fast-forward to things I remember; 

I was no longer a sweet, cuddly, lovable baby, but just a little boy who liked to do little boy things and, Lillian no longer a teenager. My family would drive the six miles to town on a Sunday afternoon to visit Uncle Billy and Aunt Easter. With only adults around, and I, charged to be on my best behavior, I’d sit with them in the parlor and listen for a while.  The conversation would soon go beyond my interest or comprehension. I’d sit and notice the kick-knacks and womanly things around the room, and eventually the big pendulum clock on the wall would become my focus. Despite its steady tic-tock its hands seemed to be stationary. I’d look away for a while, but I still heard the tic-tock but ever more slowly. I’d look up to see if the clock had stopped, but the pendulum still swung, but much slower than when we had arrived. 

“Well, we better be gettin’ on back home,” my daddy finally would say, and I’d be first to the door.

“You all don’t need to hurry off now. Come back soon,” Aunt Easter would say.

After a few more “Oh, by the ways” we would head for home sweet home.

Uncle Billy was a carpenter and cabinet maker. After his brother-in-law died he moved to Big Stone Gap to run the Nichols hardware store. I stopped to visit occasionally when I went to see Grandma Wells. I found Uncle Billy and Aunt Easter to be friendly folk and not boring at all. Of course, I was older and could appreciate them as people. On one occasion Lillian, who lived just around the corner, and I were talking when someone called ”Deedee can you come here for a minute?” 

“Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” said Lillian, and so it happened.

“What’s this Deedee business?” I asked.

“Honey, you’re the one who named me Deedee,” said Deedee. “You were such a cute little boy, just learning to talk. Everybody thought it was a cute name and started calling me Deedee.”

“Well, I’ll be durned, Deedee,” I said. Whatever else that happened that day is insignificant.

When Uncle Billy was in his late nineties he slept in his bed on the second floor of his house. Each morning he came down the stairs for breakfast. Mable, who lived with him at the time tried to convince him to let her make him a bed downstairs, but he wouldn’t have it. He sat in his favorite chair in his living room where he smoked his pipe, usually a corncob, read or snoozed until the afternoon paper arrived. He was a distinguished looking man with few wrinkles and clean-shaven. His most prominent feature was perhaps his five-inch ears, “The better to hear you with, my dear.” His paper was never left on the front porch as were most. Uncle Billy’s paperboy came into the house and handed the paper to him.

One day , shortly before Uncle Billy’s hunderdth birthday, when the paperboy came in with the paper he was accompanied by his girlfriend. They both sat down, stayed a few minutes, and without saying a word got up and left. Mable noticed this and the next day she asked the paperboy about it. 

“My girlfriend just wanted to know what a hundred year old man looked like” he replied.

Uncle Billy was evidently the town’s Uncle Billy.