Aunt Bid
My Momma was born in rural Rockingham County in 1934. My Grandpa was a tobacco farmer, and Aunt Bid’s children helped him in the fields. My cousin found the picture last year in her deceased mother’s things, and Momma was pleased to get it. Momma sent a copy of the picture to Aunt Bid’s family, and they were glad to get it, too.
My mom’s mother, Burla L. “Ma-Ma” Williams, told her that Aunt Bid was born a slave. Aunt Bid’s grandson told me she died in 1956, and everybody said she was over 100 years old.
My parents and brothers can remember Aunt Bid, but she died before I was born. Momma said when she was a child Aunt Bid came by to see them several times a week. She would help my grandmother with the clothes washing. They would build a fire outside, get the water in a big pot boiling, put the clothes in and stir them with a long stick. Then they would transfer them to a washtub and scrub them on washboards. They would put “bluing” in the water with the whites, and Momma said they would smell so good!
My grandmother, Ma-Ma, always kept black and white, small-checked gingham cloth to make Aunt Bid’s dresses. I can remember seeing the scraps of cloth in my youth. That’s what Aunt Bid wanted, and she wore the dresses long, all the way to the ground. Momma says, “I loved her, we all loved her, and she and her family loved us, too.”
Momma says she’ll never forget watching Aunt Bid walking down the dirt road past her grandfather’s house balancing a basket on her head.
Helping your neighbors just came naturally in the 1930s; everybody did it. Momma says, “We all helped each other regardless of class or color.”
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