Little House on the Glade

Memories are such a powerful thing. They can give a person comfort, pleasure, or they can depress a person or upset them. All depends on what the memory is and how a person felt at the time the memory was made. A lot of my memories are just flashes of memory, just bits and pieces here and there. I always joke that I think Bob can remember every day of his life, but mine are not so complete.

Some of my first and favorite memories are of when our family lived on "the place". That is what we called the little glade rock farm my family lived on from before I was born until I was nine, when we moved to the big city of Bradleyville. This little piece of land that my dad and mom owned was just off of Hwy. 76, about half a mile down what is now known as Cedar Hollow Road. My whole family loved that place but Dad thought it would be better to live just a little bit closer to where he worked at a garage, and we had a neighbor who had wanted to buy the place for years, so Dad finally sold the place to Gordon and Mildred Cavner and we moved. Later owners were Justin and Nikki Combs.

I remember the little house so well. When we first lived there we had 4 rooms that I remember. It might have been more or less than that but that is what I remember. Our front door opened right into our living room and right behind that was a bedroom. When you walked in, to the left was a door and that opened into the kitchen. Behind that room was another bedroom. There was no indoor bathroom but we had an outhouse several yards behind the house.  I think I  remember a bed in the corner of the kitchen also. That sounds kinda different but I really think there was. Later on Dad built a new living room onto the end of the house, along the whole right hand side. Then he moved the kitchen into what used to be the living room.

Here's Dad working on the house. You can see our well house in the corner of the picture where we drew water up from the well. The well was pretty deep, maybe around 200 feet, and in true "Dad" fashion, he rigged up a little motor to the rope so we could flip a switch and the motor would haul the well bucket up. You had to watch with your finger on the switch so you could turn it off before it cleared the well or it might go right on up to the roof where the pulley hung. This wasn't a regular bucket like you might think of, but a long slender bucket made for this type of well.

Looked like this one.










I remember sitting in the living room one night listening to a hard rain falling. I can remember Dad coming in through the front door and seeing the wind-driven rain and hearing it hitting the roof and sides of the house. It made me have goosebumps and feel cold and shivery to hear it but it was an exciting feeling also. I still love watching it rain, and it still makes me have goosebumps, even in the summer.

I can remember one night and I think it was after Alice and Steve were married and he was gone in the Navy. Anyway, I think that Ginger and Alice took Sue, Venessa and me to the show (movie) at Forsyth. We came in late and I don't know why but there weren't enough places to sleep for all of us and we all piled into one bed. Ginger and Alice slept at the top and Sue, Venessa and I slept at the bottom with our feet towards the top. I know I never spent a more miserable night. Not enough room, not enough covers, ugh! 

I was a spoiled child, more or less raised as an only child. Ginger was 15 1/2 years older than me and Steve was 13 1/2 years older. Mom and Dad had another baby in between Ginger and Steve that was born a month early. He had something wrong with his heart and only lived one day. He is resting in Greenlawn Cemetery in Springfield. I say I was raised like an only child although Ginger, Sue and Venessa, and Alice, Steven Gale and Stephanie lived with us off and on at different times and it seemed like some of them were always at our house, which I dearly loved, for playmates.

What a childhood I had! Precious, precious memories.



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