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1.4.5.4.7.A Julian Spurgeon Cales and Delphia Mae (Bragg) Cales grew a fine crop of twelve children , producing some 40 grandchildren.

Pete & Mary, as they affectionately referred to one another, lived a hard life on the little rocky hollow farm. Working side by side in the mountain fields, raising corn, hay, beans, sugar cane (for making mollasses in the Fall).

There were fields on the hill above the house as well as the large fields on top of the mountain in an area called 'Gwinn Ridge'. There are pictures on this site of the Cales family working the fields and enjoying meal breaks out in the fields. What a time! And what a memory! We had NO IDEA that there were people in the world who thought we were poor!

The 'kitchen garden', the place where the food came from, was EVERYONE'S favorite place! Around 1960-63 Papa Julian was able to purchase the neighboring farm which is known to us as 'The Lucy Place' after Lucy Fox whose family had lived there earlier in the century. The area to the North of the Lucy House was the garden. I have never been in a more pleasant place! Every Sunday when various members of the family visited there would be several trips around the Lucy Road to tha garden. I remember a big silver salt shaker sitting on top of a fence post covered by an old coffee can. We would eat fresh whole tomatos and cantaloups right there in the garden! I think those of us who actually worked with Grandma and Papa in the fields and garden are the wealthiest for the memories that can never be erased.

We raised sugar cane, and ,though I never worked in the cane fields, making mollasses in the Fall was a magical time! Everyone came! Party! We ate skimmin's off the top of the mollasses with wooden spoons that Papa and my uncles carved! Had to be careful, if you put skimmin's on your tongue before they cooled you could have a very sore tongue for a week!

I never worked the oat fields and was never around at 'thrashing' times but I loved to hear my Mom, Arbanna, and my aunts and uncles reminiscing about those days. I do remember Grandma, Papa and a couple of my aunts and uncles winnowing beans. I think we raised pintos and yellow eye beans. I still buy yellow eye beans. Some folks call them 'The Cadillac of beans'.

I do remember, very well, working the corn fields. That is where I learned to pray! Of course the only thing I prayed for was rain! While hoeing corn I would pay attention to every breeze that blew. I'd watch for the 'silvering of the leaves'. When the breeze caused the bottoms of the leaves to show as silver it was supposed to be a sign of rain!

Shucking corn late in the Fall was always a hard, cold job, but it was a chance to be alone with my Papa (pronounced 'Poppie'). We went to the field on a short sled pulled by two big, dark brown horses. I remember two teams, Doc and Topsy, then, Reck and Page. We sat on folded burlap sacks and shucked corn till the sled was full. Yellow corn was for feed and white corn was for feed as well as for cornmeal and hominy.

On Saturday mornings during Fall and part of the Winter, Papa and his brother Uncle Elbert ran the grist mill. I helped in the mill as some of my aunts and uncles had done, holding the sacks for horse feed or dipping cornmeal into sacks as it was ground fresh. We use a wooden shingle that had a hole cut into it for your fingers to dip the meal. That shingle hangs on my livingroom wall as I write.

Once the big engine was started on Saturday morning it only stopped for the changeover from meal to feed or for lunch. The other farmers brought their corn and their kids! There was no 'playing' though, Saturday was definitely a work day!

One Saturday that has always stood out in my memory was Christmas Day of 1965! I was thirteen. Papa and I hauled an entire haystack in the holler from School House Ridge using the long sled. That was work. I don't remember for sure but it probably took at least three trips. We put the hay up in the 'loft' of the barn. Papa pitched the hay up to me and I pitched it back into the loft and positioned it around as we went so we would be able to get it all in. Actually, I think we hauled in two haystacks that day.

Mom and my brothers and sisters as well as other aunts, uncles and cousins came to visit that Christmas Day! Mom brought me a gold colored 'Kit Carson' cap buster pistol! Grandma got me a bag of hard candy and a short can of 'Right Guard' (deodorant). When Papa and I were finished with the hay I still had my chores to do. I wanted my two little brothers to help me get my work done so I could play a little before they had to go home but they would not. I was a bit upset because My Mom wouldn't tell them to help me!

Over the years since Papa passed in November 1974, the memory of that day spent with him has been the greatest treasure of my life! If ever I find one of those magic lamps where the Genie grants wishes, my very first wish, even if I only get one, will be to relive that day - exactly as it was!