World-Changers

The summer has flown by.

I’ve made trips to Athens, Gulf Shores, Meridian and Jackson.

I’ve seen the Mississippi Petrified Forest in Flora, and I’ve cruised the back bays on the coast.

As my daughters and I traveled around a little, I thought of relatives I could look up or potential family members I might find, if I spent a few extra days in those places. Alas: I did not.

I’ve about exhausted all my actual historical documents and photos—that is, those more than 50 years old. —I mean, obviously, I haven’t posted ALL the things I have; that would take a very, very long time and would mean other people would have to sort through it, like dumpster-diving, to find out what you wanted. I’ve tried to hit the main points, get the big picture out, so others can go from there. My aim is for the tricky things, the real puzzles, to be explored on this blog. It’s kind of up to everyone else to bring those lines forward to yourselves.

A distant Alewine relative and I have experienced the same frustration about our common ancestor: even the Internet and our really amazing search engines can’t do anything for us if the documents weren’t there in the first place.

I wonder how many of our forebears just wanted to get to the United States more or less anonymously and were relieved, perhaps, that records wouldn’t necessarily follow them here. Or maybe they were so busy settling in  the untamed new land that they didn’t have time to care if a census missed them one time.

Or two.

I’ve covered the Mercers, Alewines, Tolberts, Culbertsons, Wellses, Claughtons, and Skinners. I have yet to get to the Lukes, because they’re a large clan, and interesting enough in themselves for a couple of stories. I’ve told about the legends I heard from my father (verified by Alton Alawine and his mother as at least mostly true).

So now, before I get to the Luke branch of Mother’s family, are there things any of my readers would like to examine further?

I have a story today that applies to all of us.

One evening long ago my father told me about the first and second trips he ever made to Meridian. When I lived in Collinsville, both in my youth and, later, as an adult, we went to town so many times that I would hardly have made a special memory of it, as he did. It was just a 24-mile trip for him, from up in Kemper County—less than that for us—and at the time he was telling this, took less than 30 minutes.

Here’s his story, paraphrased but more or less as he said it:
  
His father and he left early one morning. He was about six at the time, the sixth-youngest of 16 children of Maggie and Sam. It was, therefore, a special treat for him to get to go with Sam.

They had a bale or two of cotton in the wagon—yes, it was a wagon, as this would’ve been about 1918 or so—and a list of a few things that the family needed: probably coffee (they couldn’t grow that, of course), maybe shoes or something.

It took them all day to get there, going down what we now call Highway 19. They stopped occasionally to rest the horses, to eat, even to rest themselves. I’ve never done it, but I bet riding in a wagon all day would wear on you pretty soon. Roads then weren’t what we expect them to be, now.

They “camped” in an area just to the north of Meridian, in what he called the “wagon yard.” This was apparently where anybody who made that trip heading southward stopped to eat supper, rest, clean up a little, before going on to do business in the town. I don’t remember hearing Daddy say the camping part was all that memorable—people in the country were used to being outside after dark—but he did say it was kind of exciting being around all those other people with their wagons, carts and goods.
  
Early the next morning they got up and went to wherever people went to sell cotton in Meridian at that time. From the wagon yard they took the trolley car downtown. (For a delightful story—as well as some historical background about the trolley—read this article. https://misspreservation.com/2011/11/03/travelling-by-trolley-in-mississippi-meridian/ ) I suspect that the upper end of the line, outside of Highland Park, may have been where they’d camped, but who knows, now? The article above says that by 1925 the trolley was gone.

People had voted for buses instead.
  
They engaged in the business they’d come to do—sold the cotton, bought the items, and Sam treated Daddy to some store-bought food while they were there. Remember, Daddy’d NEVER BEFORE gone to Meridian.
  
They went back to the wagon yard that evening and made good time the next day, returning to the edge of Kemper County. Daddy explained this: The wagon wasn’t loaded anymore; the horses were frisky and ready to get home. 

He was about twelve years old—around 1924—before he went again. Maybe Sam took some of the other kids along when he had to return to do business in those intervening years; I don’t know the rest of that story. But by the time Daddy was twelve, Sam had already bought a Model T. They made the journey there and back, business included, in less than a day.

If you were to pick any one invention that changed the world more than anything else, what would you choose? Teenagers today—I assure you of this!—would quickly say it was the smart phone, before they gave it any real thought. At one time I would’ve maybe said television, or the original phone. Those devices allow either instant communication between people (the phone), when previously you had only letters or telegrams; or instant visuals on things going on in the world, far away from you, bringing an immediacy to events.

But when I asked Daddy that question—expecting him to say, maybe, “the light bulb and electrical service,” or, “the airplane” (because, in his lifetime, he witnessed the inception of many, many modern inventions we simply don’t think about as unusual anymore)—he answered immediately: “The car. It made people realize that their time was actually valuable.” A commodity, in other words, to be used up, wasted, sold to people wanting it themselves.



The end of this post is devoted to my brother Jack. My cousins will have remembered him, those who grew up around the same time as he did, anyway, and those old enough to have regarded him as the baby of the family. He and I truly WERE the “babies”—the youngest grandchildren of Sam and Maggie Alawine. Now I am left as the youngest. It is a strange feeling: Sam and Maggie were born about 140 years ago, and I am most surely not “young.”

Today, July 14, would’ve been his birthday. He and I were the closest in age of any of my siblings, and we were very close in other ways as well. The older brothers and my sister were gone from home before I got into my teenage years. I had the feeling sometimes that my parents, Bob and Cecil, were just relieved it was only the two of us kids left for them to wrangle by that time. Jack and I had each other’s backs, though. There were some really bad years; I won’t go into them here. But, as I’ve said in another post, when he got a bicycle, so did I. Same for plaid shirts.

We had BB guns given to us the same year (don’t remember using them for anything except target practice, which he, I’m sure, probably beat me at, nearsighted as I am). One of my favorite pictures shows both of us on our own tricycles, both of us holding our dolls.
 
He’d played coy with my parents for weeks leading up to his marriage, after he graduated from college. He’d tell them he wasn’t sure just yet about the wedding date, but he’d let them know when they needed to know. After a while, they quit asking. Then, one Friday night when I happened to be visiting at their house, he came in from his job, looked around and said, “OK, you need to get ready.” He and Kathy were getting married THAT NIGHT, in about a couple of hours.

Jack always did love a good joke.

After they fussed a little (not enough time to fuss a lot!), they hurried off to get ready. Mother happened to have an appropriate dress to wear; Daddy put on a suit, and so did Jack. I snapped one shot before the three of them left for the church: a picture of Jack solemnly holding the wedding ring he’d bought for Kathy. I thought I was very clever for having posed that picture.

Their wedding was quiet—just the two of them, the parents, the preacher and his wife. That was OK. In a month, Jack had died.

He would’ve made a good father but didn’t live long enough for that. But today I say “Happy birthday” to him.

Ælfwine