Voices of the Ozarks - Wilma Reed

Want to subscribe to Voices of the Ozarks in your podcast app? Just copy this link: http://ozarkregional.org/blog/?feed=podcast, then paste it into your podcast app’s add a feed field. You can also click the podcast icon on the sidebar to subscribe in Apple Podcasts.

Wilma Reed.

I was born March the 3rd, 1932.

I was born at Juliet, Missouri.

Who were your parents?

Clarence and Caroline Fireball.

What about grandparents?

My grandparents on my dad’s side was Emerson and Tampa.

T-E-M-P-A. Fireball.

And then my mother’s side was Noah and Talitha.

I don’t know how to spell that.

Young.

And what do you remember about growing up in Juliet?

Well, it was very, very country, you know.

And my first remembrance was, you know, of course, everybody lived out in the country, you know, and all that.

But we lived in a place and I didn’t ever know it that then.

And I don’t know if people called that then, but in the later years, they called it Fireball Haller, you know.

And, of course, we walked to school all the time.

And it was a little house that wasn’t very big.

And there was a barn and then a wonderful spring that we got our water from.

And it was just so good.

And back then, a lot of people, and we did, other people did too, but they had what they called a spring house because we didn’t have refrigerators and all of that.

So my dad built that.

And this spring was really, it was really a strong spring, you know, a lot of water.

And there was a little creek or a little area of water that runs in the spring.

And dad built that spring house over that water and put a door on it.

And so that’s where we, when we take our milk, we had the old stone jars, you know, like that, you know what that’s like.

And we’d put the milk in that and set that down in that water and it would come running about like it run all the time.

And it was very cold.

And that’s where we kept our milk and butter.

And sometimes if my mom would do a chicken to have for Sunday while she’d dress it out and put it there and put it in a container, cover it and take it over there and put it in that cold water, you know.

And then that creek run all the way down and it would, it went into, which was quite a long ways, but it went way down to where it run in the San Francis River.

Of course, it got much bigger than that because, you know, it started up there.

There was a creek there.

And then this, this water from the spring run into the bigger creek, you know, cause it was a creek that was ready.

And then the spring run into that and stuff.

So when you say you had a spring, did it just bubble up out of the ground?

Well, the way this one was, uh, yes, yes.

Like there was a, up behind it was a little, not a mountain or anything, but little hill, you know, it’s kind of like that.

And it kind of went across and this was kind of a little build up behind that spring.

And the spring just was there, you know, and it started its way down, you know, into the other spring, the one that had come way down from the hills and went all the way down to the big river and all of that.

But anyway, yes, it was, I don’t know how long it had been there.

It was there when we was there and stuff and all, but anyway, it was very, very good.

Now I’ll tell this little, little story.

Of course, you know, we, we never did, maybe our ice cream was mostly in the winter when it snowed and we’d go get, you know, make it as nice, but this, this is another part from the spring.

Like I said, we took their, the milk over there and you know, cream rises on milk, you know, just like that.

Well, we never did.

Of course, mom, she made us cookies and sardum cakes and stuff, but anyway, and I was the one that had done this.

And me and my brother that’s next to me, whenever we have blackberries, we always pick blackberries, you know, mom made a lot of jelly and canned blackberries and stuff.

So we’d pick us some blackberries and I would go over there and get some of that cream off of that milk, bring it back and I would get some sugar out of the house and we had us a little ice cream with berries and cream.

But anyway, and so that’s kind of the story on the spring, you know, and stuff.

How many were in your family?

Well, at that time, not in the whole, I’ll just tell you this and then, and then right at the time we were talking about, but the whole family, there was, there was 12 and I’m the oldest of the family, but the last little boy, you know, didn’t survive when he was born and stuff, but there was 11 living and there’s, they’re all, we’re all still here except one brother that passed away.

But at that time when we lived up there, there was, when we lived up there two different times, we lived there when I was really small and there was about probably four of us at that time and then we had moved in another place and then we moved back there and back when we moved back there, there was quite a few more, you know, and stuff and all, let’s see, there was probably, at one time there was six when we were living there and stuff.

But anyway, that’s kind of about that time, like I said, and we bought, we walked back and forth to school, which was quite a ways.

We went all over that hill and down to over, what it would like, the sea highway that goes through there now over that way, you know, and stuff, but it was, it was a highway, it was a school, a duet school and we walked that, you know, and whenever I first started the school and then the next year, my brother, he was, he was two years younger than I am, you know, brother next to me and so they didn’t want me to go by myself, so I don’t think he was really age-wise to go yet, but they let him go with me to walk with me until it started getting cooler weather and he didn’t do that anymore, but I still don’t know how we survived it because it was a long ways over there, you know, and stuff and, and all.

So you were five?

No, like, no, you had these six to start, but my brother was five, but they let him go just a little bit when school started in September.

See, it used to start much later than it does now, you know, and all.

For just to walk with me, you know, for company, go over there and stuff, but he didn’t go over, it started getting a little cooler weather-wise, you know, and back then it wouldn’t have been long because, you know, it’s different what time-wise, like it is now and stuff, but, but anyway, we managed.

You know, it’s awfully young to be walking the school.

It was, you know, I have one son and I, I couldn’t, I couldn’t have done that, I couldn’t have sent him out, but that’s just the way people lived, you know, all the whole family’s, you know, and some of them had, at that, at that time, had maybe a couple of brothers or sisters that went with them, you know, stuff, maybe, whatever.

But you were the oldest.

I was the oldest, so that’s where it was.

You had no cousins or any other neighbors?

We did, I did have cousins, but, but they, they weren’t a long ways away, but they were a good little way as far as what we’re talking about, you know, and all.

There was a family that, their name was Club, and they lived good long ways down, but they went to the same school, you know.

So when it got a little bit older, why we walked down to where we connected with them at this other roadway, you know, and, and they were much older than we were, you know, and, and I remember this, one of the boys, I’m not sure his name, I know one of them was named Charles, but the other one was older.

Anyway, he was tall, thin person, and he put my brother up on his shoulders, right on his shoulders.

Anyway, that’s kind of, kind of school.

Yeah, it was a different time.

Yeah.

And the old school houses were so cold, I tell you, they were, because they had a big old, well, it was, I don’t know if you got, it was a big stove, it’s a big thing, and it had a metal thing around it, you know, and it was in the back of the school.

Well, the teacher had to go there early in the morning and build that fire, you know, and I remember when, when I got there, I was just nearly frozen.

I didn’t get warm until about noontime, you know, and stuff, but, but we were all in the same position as for us, because everybody had to walk, you know, all the kids had to walk, so we was all cold when we got there.

What kind of outside clothing did you have, like boots or wool coats?

No, no.

Cotton?

No, we just had, well, what I had, and I can, I can remember, I can feel it like today, and I didn’t like them things because they looked terrible, but, but these socks we had, and they come up, you pull up above your knees, and I don’t know if you’ve ever heard, ever heard this, I know you’ve heard the, you know, the word and what I mean, but we’d have garters, they’d make us garters out of a piece of elastic, you know, that’s two stitched together, and you put that on and that held your sock up, because they weren’t, they weren’t like they are now, that they would kind of stay up on their own, you know, they’d just fall down if you didn’t have a garter, you know.

Were they wool or cotton?

They were just cotton, just cotton.

And what kind of shoes?

Just plain little old lace-up shoes, you know, I never did have a pair of boots whenever I was a kid, my brothers probably did in later life, they probably did, but I never did have, a