Remembering... “The Good Old Days”

High Country Seniors Reflect On Winters Of The Past

By Sherrie Norris

Tom Jones pictured pouring water into his 30’s model pick-up truck, on King St in the 40’s, after earlier draining it to keep from freezing while the motor was idle. Photo submitted by Bobby Jones, Sr. and his wife, Georgia.

Despite the phrase we’ve all heard most of our lives, “the good old days” were not as good as we might want to believe, agrees some of our senior citizens who lived through them.“Times were hard,” reflects Watauga native Truitt Coffey who grew up during the Depression. “We were poor to begin with, but we always had plenty to eat. We had to work hard for everything we had but it made you appreciate what you did have.” Coffey was raised in the Dutch Creek community, the youngest of four. “It took the whole family to make a living, and when we were big enough, we learned to pick up a hoe and use it,” helping in the fields from planting to harvesting. “We’d kill a beef and a hog every year, kept cows for milk and butter and chickens for eggs. If we wanted a chicken for Sunday dinner, we’d just go out and kill us one. We grew our own corn and had it ground up for meal and Mama always had plenty to eat on the table. Every morning we’d have ham or sausage, eggs, gravy and biscuits. We’d start out pretty heavy but by supper time, we’d usually just have cornbread and milk.”

He remembers “back then” when snows were three-four feet deep in winter. “Dad didn’t have a vehicle but like most everybody else, traveled on horseback, wagons or sleds. When it was real bad, the men in the community would gather up lists of things people needed, and hitch up two horses to a sled and head to Mast Store to get everyone’s groceries. Sometimes it took more than one team to haul everything back up those slick roads. If the snow had melted some, they would take the wagons.”

Coffey’s family heated with a woodstove. “We didn’t have any electricity or phones back then.”

Christmas was a special time, but little was expected. “We usually got a few oranges and two or three sticks of candy. We did have two aunts that taught school and they’d figure out a way to get in the house when we were gone and leave us a little something, usually a little pop gun and a pair of gloves for me. We’d decorate a tree with popcorn and colored paper strips made into chains.”

His wife, Joyce, born in the Timbered Ridge area, living there until her family moved to Valle Crucis when she was 11, remembers “real cold, snowy winters,” as a child, when her family would load up in wagons covered with straw and bundled in quilts to stay warm, would head off to church. The fifth of eight children, her memories of “hard times” were much like those of her husband, when hard work was expected by all members of the family and there wasn’t much time left for fun.

Pressure- Canner Fruit Cakes and Christmas Morning Surprises

Retired school teacher, Margaret Sigmon, recalls “During harvest, my dad dug holes and lined them with straw. Potatoes would be put in one, cabbage in another and limber twig apples in another. On cold winter nights he would peel and slice the apples for me and my brother. The cabbages turned sweeter while buried. They were made into boiled cabbage seasoned with pork fat. Hash browns and mashed potatoes were made from the potatoes. My mother wanted to make sure that my legs did not get cold so I had to leave home every morning with long brown stockings. My friends were by then wearing knee highs. I’m sure my teachers must have wondered about a mom who sent her child out in the cold winter with bare legs . . . Neither mom nor teachers knew that they were pulled off before reaching school and put back on before I returned home. My mother was a great cook and seamstress. I fondly remember the fresh coconut cakes, the fruit cakes cooked in the pressure canner, and the casseroles she made after watching Betty Freezer on the black and white T.V. My dad much preferred the simple old-fashion way of cooking instead of having so many different things mixed together.” Sigmon recalls the year she and her brother discovered their bicycle before Christmas morning, depriving their parents the pleasure of seeing their initial excitement. “We had had several good rides and had carefully washed the tires after each ride.” When the next Christmas rolled around all of the good hiding places were searched, to no avail. “On Christmas morning my parents were able to see our faces of delight when we saw our watches for the first time. Dad had gone to Miss Vertie’s house after we were in bed the night before and retrieved them from a trunk where they had been securely out of eye sight for six months.” Sigmon fondly remembers with love her parents working hard to feed, shelter and clothe the family. “I also remember community rook games with good pies and cakes for refreshments.”

Snows So Deep They Covered The Cars

Bobby Jones, Sr. of Boone recalls when, as a young boy, he and his brother shared a paper delivery route through town, “I had to get out of the car where Gateway Cafe used to be near where Dancey’s Shoe Store is on King Street – and walk across Orchard St all the way around the hill delivering papers and back by Andrews Chevrolet Place – where the library is. It would sometimes take me an hour and a half, or longer. The snow was so deep people had to dig out the top of their cars so no one would walk on them.” He often found himself chest-deep in a hole and then had to pull himself back up again. He has many memories and several photographs of “tremendous snows,” during the notorious‘60’s storm. “At the old high school football field, down the street from Chappell Wislon Hall, the snow would pile up so high you couldn’t see through chain link fence.” Reminiscing about Christmas, Jones shares, “During the war things were so tough - around ’45 to ’46 – for Christmas I remember getting an orange that Santa had cut a hole in top and put a stick of peppermint candy down in the middle. That was about it.”

With a favorite photo to confirm his memories, Jones talksabout his dad Tom Jones, pictured standing in front of an old 30-something model pick-up truck, on King St in the 40’s, near today’s Boone Bagelry. “Dad was pouring water in the radiator. At night and on cold days when the car was not running, he had to open it up and drain the water out of the radiator and the block so it wouldn’t freeze. That was either before antifreeze or when times were so hard he couldn’t afford it. Every time he had to start it, he had to pour water in it, then if he stopped for any amount of time, he had to drain it out to keep it from freezing up and busting. Talk about hard times, now that was it.”

Jones’ wife, Georgia grew up in Beaver Dam. She, too, remembers at a young age not to expect much more than an orange “and a little bag of stick candy in your stocking,” or maybe an apple and a little home made doll. “You just didn’t get a lot back then.” She remembers popping corn to decorate the tree. By the late 50’s and into early 60’s, Georgia’s family moved to town. “My daddy was the deputy and jailer for eight years. He had a ‘49 Chevrolet and would set a kerosene heater in it to keep it warm while he went around picking up Dr. Len (Hagaman) and some of the nurses to take them in to work at the hospital. “We always killed pigs on Thanksgiving day. My daddy would set up a big metal drum, get the water hot and lower the pigs down in it. All the neighbors brought their pigs and killed them, too. Mother always had some kind of meat on the table for Christmas. We raised white sweet potatoes and sometimes we had them baked, other times, candied. We ate pinto beans in the winter that we had raised in the summer. I loved Mother’s fried apple pies, knee-deep cake made with thin layers of dried apple and molasses. She made the best homemade butterscotch and chocolate pies, too.”

Orange Slices And Monkey Sock Dolls

Bamboo’s Grace Vannoy, was raised with five siblings in the Meadow Creek area of Deep Gap, attending school regardless of weather. “They never called off school, but I remember having to get off the bus when it was really bad and walking over a mile over Clyde Ray Hill to get home. It would get bad and it was the hill was too steep for the bus. We attended Cranberry Springs Church and walked three miles to get there. It was rarely called off, but we had started out one really bad Sunday morning - and a neighbor who had a car, came to meet us to tell us that church had been cancelled. By the time we got back home, I was so cold and can remember sitting by the fire to thaw out. I believe that was the coldest I’ve ever been.” Vannoy remembers when snow drifted five-six feet high and climbing over the drifts that never broke through. Going to the barn to feed and milk the cow “was terrible,” but she also remembers playing and having fun, too. “Inside, we played checkers and we always had marbles.”

Despite the weather, neighbors visited each other. “We popped corn, cut up apples, and sat by the fire and used molasses to make popcorn balls.” At Christmas, she sometimes received a little porcelain doll and “sometimes a pair of winter shoes,” recalling one pair that looked like “boy shoes,” that she didn’t like but had to wear, anyway. Oranges, stick candy and sometimes orange slices were typical gifts. I can remember Daddy went to the Moretz Candy Company to get our Christmas, most of the time peppermint sticks. “Mother would always make some type of a fruit cake, but most of the time knee-high cakes with dried fruit. We thought that was wonderful. She also made sugar cookies and for other gifts, gray monkey sock dolls and little aprons for the girls. My daddy always read Bible stories around the fire at night – We knew everyone there was. Those winters were long but we were entertained.”