My Mama

Della Stout was the sweetest mama that ever lived. She lived for 88 years. My mama would get up at five o’clock in the morning and start a fire in the fireplace. Our family didn’t have a well, electric lights or a bathroom. We used an outside toilet. Mama cooked on the hearth, where she would remove coals from the fireplace, and bake bread in a skillet. She had a small wood stove where she cooked pies and cakes. Mama cooked over the fireplace in a big black pot. We ate potatoes, beans or peas, with fatback meat cooked in it.

Her seven children took lunches to school. She would cook biscuits and placed ham, sausage or a potato patty in each. For dessert, Mama would send molasses cake, cookies or a sweet potato.

Mama's drawing of the homeplace

We would wash clothes on a washboard, at the branch, scrubbing and rinsing them, then take the clothes in a wheelbarrow up two small hills to hang them on a clothesline.

Mama and her four daughters would can all the food we had in glass jars to eat in winter months. Our family had two gardens. We would buy sugar, coffee, vinegar and kerosene at the local store.

When my sisters, brothers and I would turn 14 years of age, we would help milk cows for milk for cooking and drinking. We had chickens for eggs and hogs for meat and bees for honey.

Mama loved us and sent us to Sunday School on Sundays. She would go with us when possible. Mama was a Christian and prayed for her children, husband and family. She was a sweet mama, one of the best.

Geneva Stout Brown, Asheboro, a member of Randolph EMC