Howard Martin Part I
The Farm
Publisher: StClairCountyAl.com
Written by Mark Martin
*As told to his son before his death in 2005.
I was born September 27, 1924 on the Pondexter & Waters farm in Springville, Alabama. The farm was located on what is today U.S. Highway 174 with most of the property situated on the south side of what is now Davis Lake. I was the ninth of thirteen children born to Zaner Rose and James Benjamin Martin Sr.
My parents were honest and hard working people. Every day they tried to teach their children these same values by word and deed. Dad not only worked the farm but also occasionally volunteered to help local law enforcement officers when he was needed. This would lead to a job as Chief of Police in Springville in 1934. He was a man of habit and strong convictions. I developed these same traits as I grew older.
I often would go to the field with dad in the mornings as a very young boy. He would let me ride the big bay mule to the fields. When he plowed, I often walked behind him trying to put my footprints inside his in the soft plowed dirt. Sometimes dad would let me stand between him and the plow and hold on to the plow crossbar. At an early age I learned to love the plow, a good mule and freshly turned earth.
We were sharecroppers and the children were expected to help make a living during those hard depression days. A family that sharecropped could do so either on the halves or the thirds and fourths. We usually sharecropped on the thirds and fourths. This meant that we supplied the tools, mules and the labor and in return received 3/4 of the cotton and 2/3 of the corn. The landowner received the rest. Fertilizer and seed cost were divided on the same ratio.
We lived on this farm until I was five years old. I truly loved it there. One of my fondest memories was the day the dam broke on the lake my dad and brothers had built. I stood on the porch with mamma watching friends and family gathering the fish from the empty lake. There was no doubt what everyone present would have for supper that night.
Dad was not an educated man; he only received three years of formal education but he loved to read. He read the newspaper from cover to cover and any magazine he could get his hands on. He was an observer of people and his work with law enforcement allowed him to gain a good knowledge of the world. I thought my dad was one of the wisest men I ever knew.
Dad was my idle but my mother was my heart. I had few problems as a boy but those I did have I carried to her. I loved getting up in the mornings with her as she began cooking the 100 plus biscuits she cooked most days. I did this until I married and moved away. Mamma's day was long and hard. She cooked, cleaned, washed clothes, churned butter, milked two cows, gathered eggs and raised us children. Mom was a gentle woman but she never spared the rod. Sometimes she would be busy and we kids hoped she would forget the whipping that we deserved. She never did and would place a hickory limb on the seat of our britches when she finally got a free moment.
My mother would do much of her cooking in the winter in the fireplace using cast iron pots, kettle, dutch oven and an iron skillet. Very few sites are as beautiful as cornbread cooked in a dutch oven. It was about four inches thick and brown all over. It easily fed our large family.
Dad was not an adventurous man or one to go into debt. The affects of the depression in 1929 forced us to move to the Bolin Farm located in Greasy Cove between Ashville and Springville. The farm was owned by Jim Bolin who was the high sheriff in St Clair County. This would be one of the hardest years our family and neighbors would endure. The house was so run down you could pull back curtains and see gaps between the wall and window sills. The winter was cold and the old house provided little warmth.
During those depression years nothing could be allowed to go to waste. Mom would use old clothes to patch better clothing or to make a quilt. No food went to waste. Dad planted a large turnip green patch that year. The Lord really blessed it and the patch provided the main meal for our family and neighbors for almost two months. Today I can see our neighbors carrying turnip greens with large turnips home for supper.
We had great neighbors in Greasy Cove but thankfully the Lord got us off that farm after only one year. In 1930 we moved to the Seals Farm south of Springville on U.S. Highway 11. Once again, I felt like I was back among civilization. The owner of the farm also owned Seals Piano Company in Birmingham. This farm was my favorite place to live as a boy.
The house we lived in was large and seemed like a mansion compared to the shack we lived in at Greasy Cove. The farm had plenty of woods and a creek for us boys to explore and play. There was a railroad track on the eastern side of the farm. A Greyhound bus passed our house three to four times a day. Train cars were full of hobos and the highway had many hitchhikers. I was fascinated by the number of people traveling and often wondered where they were going.
Many of these travelers were looking for jobs or something to eat. Dad often let weary travelers sleep in the barn. His only requirement was that they hand over their matches to avoid burning down the barn. If a man was alone dad often let him make a pallet in the hallway of our house. Mamma would make them breakfast in the morning and once again they would be on their way. At one point, so many were stopping by our house looking for food that my mother began answering the door with an apron full of sweet potatoes. A sweet potato was a real treat for a hungry traveling man.
School started on the first Monday in September. We kids rode a school bus the four miles to the Springville rock school. Mrs. Irene Woodall was my first grade teacher and she was one of the most beloved people in Springville. Her husband ran the local hardware store. Mrs. Woodall often sent one of us larger boys down to the store with a list of crayons, pencils, paper and paste. We poor students could not afford these things but Mrs. Woodall always made sure we had them.
I enjoyed school and made many friends there that remain close friends today such as Tom Terry and W.J. Williams. I missed so much school plowing in the spring and picking cotton in the early fall that I gave up school and stayed on the farm. My formal education lasted only until the eighth grade..
On the Seals farm, we planted forty acres of cotton and close to thirty acres of corn. My dad knew that I loved to plow so at the age of eight he took the big bay mule, harnessed her up and turned me loose to plow the middle of the rows. Dad had set me on my course to be a man at an early age. I appreciated that because it made me feel good that he showed such confidence in me.
We started plowing as soon as possible in April. We tried to have the cotton planted by April 15th and the corn by May 1st. The days were long. We started work early each morning and stayed at it until midday. We all then piled into the wagon and headed to the house for lunch, which normally took an hour. After lunch dad would fall asleep on the porch and we kids often hoped he would oversleep. He never did and it was back to the fields where we would stay until sundown.
Plowing and hoeing went full blast until July 4th. Sometimes there was still some work to do in the fields but usually the crop was laid by and there was little to do to the crops until September. Most of our work in July and August was cutting and gathering hay so the stock would have feed in the winter. Like most work on the farm, cutting and baling hay was hot and tiring work that had to be done. The first of September once again carried all of us back to the fields. It was now cotton-picking time.
I hated picking cotton. The only good thing about it was that the field would be full of family and there would be a lot of talking going on. Every year dad would hire my mother's sister, Minnie Hudgins and her three sons to help us. Her husband broke his back in the mines and they struggled to survive. Dad would give her corn so that she and her family would have meal in the winter.
Picking cotton was hard backbreaking work for everyone involved. Our family normally picked sixteen bales every year. One of the most beautiful sites in the world was standing in a big field of cotton and watching the sun disappear from sight. Another day in the fields was finally over.
We had very little free time at the end of the day in the spring, summer and early fall. By the time we ate supper and washed our feet it was time for bed.
Winter brought the easiest work of the year. The main job of the boys and men was to keep a fire going in two or three fireplaces. We cut logs on Saturday and hauled them by wagon to the house. Each afternoon after school, we boys sawed the logs into firewood.
Though the work was hard, we enjoyed life more then most people do today. We enjoyed the small things in life. In our home popping popcorn or making syrup candy was special treats that brought a great deal of joy. My mother would wrap string she had unraveled from a sock around a piece of rubber and make a baseball for us to play with. In the winter hunting was both a necessity and entertaining for the boys and men in the family. Though we were poor people we lived without fear of our parents divorcing or crime entering our home. What a great blessing that was and I wish more children could experience that today.
My early life on the farm consisted mainly of work because of the poverty the depression brought to us and so many other families. From the fields to the kitchen there was always work to be done. Such is a partial look at our life on the farm except for one special day each week…Sunday.