Mah Fambly

A Lazy Poligimist

2006-05-30T20:20:00.000-05:00

Now there ain't much talk in the fambly about some of the kin from your third great uncle McKimbrey's side, but I guess you should know about some of them. Tonight, I want to talk about your far removed cousin, Brigham Smith McKimbrey. He was a poligimist. That is, he was a Mormon and practiced poligimy.

But young Brig weren't none too industrious. In fact, he was somewhat on the lazy side.

So, after he joined up with the Mormon church out in Salt Lake, he didn't feel like takin' the usual courtin' route to get hisself a harem of wives. So, he went to San Francisco and bought hisself four wives off of a chinaman. This pitcher was stuck in the back of a book that come from your great, great, great uncle. It was took in Petaluma California on their way back

lazy poligimist

Sometime after 1870, he decided that Mormonism wasn't all it was cut out to be and sold them women to a fellow named John D. Lee, who had a penchant for dressing up like a indian. He was one of them Mormons too, but I heard the goverment shot him some time after that.

Uncle Caleb and the Phantom Cane

2006-03-30T18:15:00.000-06:00

Your fourth great uncle, Caleb Combes, dabbled in the occult. This was a shame to the fambly, but needs to be recorded nevertheless.

While he was mostly laughed at and considered a queer bird in the community, it did turn out that he was able to enchant a cane and make it invisible. He carried that cane around with him and folks thought he was plumb crazy. Because they couldn't see it.

Caleb Combes

But one day when Pemberton, the town drunk, started teasing him unmercifully in front of the ice cream parlor, he beat Pemberton across the head, chest and arms with that thing and everyone was a believer after that.

Udder Madness

2006-03-16T18:52:00.000-06:00

Now this here story is not for folks that is "sensitive." So if you blush easy, I suggest you head on over to waiter rant or some place and read some stuff that won't offend your sensibilities or nothing.

So, all the uppity women gone? Good.

Your uncle Bob Thorssen was, for lack of a better term, a titty man. He liked teats and the bigger the better. You couldn't come up with none that was too big for him. And he let it become a obsession with him.

Day in and day out, he thunk about them big teats and what could he do to get him some. It nearly ruined his and aint Leddie's marriage. She accused him of spending the fambly money on getting him some bigger teats than the last ones he had.

But one day, back in 1937, he found the ultimate teats, payed good money so that he could show them off to anybody he wanted and never gave them teats another thought.

Can You Read Me Now?

2006-03-11T15:26:00.000-06:00

Lorenzo Combes

Granny's great uncle had an unusual job. Lorenzo Combes was hired by the Western Union Telegraph folks to walk all over the country and later the world, and write out telegrams and send them from different places. Usually they would say, "Can you read me now?"

Then they advertised in newspapers all over the place about having the biggest network of telegraph offices in the world.

As weird and pointless as his job seemed to most folks, it weren't no more weird than that poor feller that had to come into the telegraph office ever morning and receive those messages from Lorenzo. Story has it, he clicked out the morse code for "dammit! Yes!" just before he committed suicide in 1874.

Explosive Personality

2006-03-04T08:38:00.000-06:00

Your Uncle Billy learned one thing when he was in the army if he didn't learn nothing else. He learned that he liked to watch things blow up. And them idiots showed him how to do it, too. Little did they know.

Him and his buddies used to bust into the bunkers where they stored the explosives and have themselves some little fireworks displays on the side. And they probably could have got away with it if it didn't shake the whole base so bad.

After a particularly violent demonstration that tumped the colonel out of his bed one Saturday morning, your Uncle Billy left the army to go home for good.

He departed this world in a mine explosion in West Frankfort Illinois back in December of 1951.

Fashion Man

2006-02-22T20:20:00.000-06:00

You had an ancestor or at least a relation that was a fashion designer. Christian Dior McKimbrey. Everbody said he was a flashy dresser.

Which was a compliment in them days.

C.D., as they called him, come up with the idea of embroidering his name on the butt side of britches, but it never really caught on. He also introduced a product called "butch wax", but folks seemed to prefer something called Macassar oil for their hair.

Finally, in desperation, he invented a little crocheted doily to put on your chair to protect it from the hair oil. He wanted to call it "the McKimbrey Doily", but folks taken to calling it the "anti-macassar." Funny how things turns out, ain't it?

Silky McKimbrey

2006-02-18T17:28:00.000-06:00

I've always heard tell that Mr. Edison invented the pornograph. But I don't see how that can be. Maybe he improved it or something. The reason I say, is because your third great grandmother had a brother, Silky McKimbrey, who was a pornographer. Least that's what Granny told me.

I don't see how you could make a living if you make something to play on a player that ain't been invented yet. Anyway, here's a picture of Silky with a microphone for recording them pornograph records.

Apparently the microphones was pretty big in them days. Looks kind of like the microphone on the old box telephone that Granny had.

Ugly Babies

2006-02-15T21:47:00.000-06:00

Your Aint Myra always said there ain't no such thing as a ugly baby. And normally that's true. But every once in a blue moon, maybe one in a billion or so, they's a baby born that's just butt ugly. And I know you know what that means.

We had a distant cousin back in the eighteen and hundreds that had a daughter that when she come out, even the doctor gasped in horror. With all the messes he'd seen over the years, he'd never seen nothing like that girl. She was so plug ugly that when they had her pitcher made they would face her away from the camera so's she wouldn't break it or nothing.

And I can attest that lots of homely childrens grows up to be right good looking adults. Why, I remember a homely girl named Roxy when I was in Jr. High that was plumb crazy about me and I wouldn't give her the time of day. I run into her again about eleventh grade and that girl was a knockout. I mean I couldn't take my eyes off of her. But she wouldn't give me the time of day.

I wish I could say that happened with cousin Gert, but sad to say, it didn't. She growed up ever bit as ugly as she was as a child. Unfortunate.

McKimbrey's Last Stand

2006-02-13T22:03:00.000-06:00

Lots of you has heard of the drummer boy of Shiloh and I'm certain that was one brave little feller. This story ain't about him nor nothing like him. It's about the Bugler Boy of Crockett's Bluff.

You been asking me to elaborate on the service of our fambly during the War Between the States, that late unpleasantness, and theys lots of us was in it.

Little Tyler McKimbrey run off and joined the Confederate service just as soon as he heard they was recruiting. Him being only eight years old, they would only let him be a musician or a shoe shine boy. Ain't no McKimbrey ever been a shoe shine boy and I hope they never will be.

Well, they was plumb full up of drummers so they asked him if he could blow a bugle. Well, you know as good as me that there ain't no shortage of air in the McKimbrey side of the fambly. He tooted just fine.

So they made him the company bugler, and give him a pint sized sword.

Tyler McKimbrey

That was all fine and good until the regiment reached Crockett's Bluff. Now, don't get me wrong, there weren't no battle there, just a muster. And that boy wanted to show off just how good he could be on that horn. See, he had been practicing on the sly. So he starts trumpeting out a little "Assembly" and then a little "charge" and then a little "retreat" and then a little "taps" and he had them boys so darned confused they was marching into each other and the officers was all cussing.

The colonel was so mad he run out and grabbed young Tyler by the collar and switched him good across his backside.

When he let him go, that boy run red-faced all the way through the regiment camp and kept going and never looked back until he got home. And he stayed away from the army after that. But folks would snicker and mutter, "bugle boy of Crockett's Bluff" ever time they seen him and he didn't like that none.

Oh Yeast of Little Faith

2006-02-12T15:39:00.000-06:00

A.D. Busch

They was a fellow about a hundred years or so ago name of Gustavus Combes. I ain't sure what the relation is, but theys a story in the fambly bible about him.

Seems he had the bright idea to start a brewery. He figured they wasn't any breweries up in the Ozarks and it was pretty hard to haul beer up there in the mountains, so he aimed to "tap" a captive market. Decided to call it Mountain Brewery. Word is that Gus was more than capable as a brewmaster and made a dang good beer.

He hired a young boy named Adolphus Busch to help him and they set to making beer. Well, A.D. as they called the Busch boy was a quick study and he seemed intent in learning a trade. A.D. quickly became competent in the brew skills which left Gus free to ride a route selling their wares.

Well, I guess they didn't have none of them focus groups back then or else they would have told him that them mountains was "dry" on purpose. Them folks up there don't want nobody selling alcohol. And they consistently vote to keep it that way even to this day.

Broken hearted, Gus returned to Little Rock and was bartender at the Anthony House hotel for many years. A.D. went to St. Louis and got a job with a brewer named Anheuser and wound up marrying the boss's daughter, Lily, and taking over the business.

The Marriage Counselor

2006-02-11T11:59:00.000-06:00

Thomas J. Combes, counselor

Your fourth great grandmother had a brother that went off to New York City and become pretty well known as a marriage counselor. He made good money and to hear him tell it, he saved lots of marriages.

Then, he heard that there was big opportunities in the Nation's Capitol counselling congressmen and such because they was all running around acting a fool. So he moved down there.

It was then that he started counselling the young Sickles couple. From his notes that we found in your grandma's trunk, it seems that Teresa was complaining about all the time he was spending running around with Jo Hooker and a guy named Butterfield. According to her, them guys was no good womanizers. And Dan came home drunk quite often.

But later in the notes, it appears that Dan is getting more and more suspicious of a guy named Phil who was Frank Key's son. And Dan hadn't heard the old saying about what's good for the goose. Uncle T.J. tried his best to smooth things over between them two, but things escalated to the point that Dan shot Phil and killed him, right down the street from the White House. And president Buchanan wasn't having none of that and had him arrested on the spot.

They had a trial, but Dan said it couldn't be helped on account of he was crazy about Teresa and the judge, reduced to tears, let him off. Them two got back together but ever since then, Uncle T.J. felt he was a failure as a counselor.

He come back to Arkansas and sold used buggies until he died of pleurisy and pneumonia in 1867.

Cord Wood

2006-02-10T20:06:00.000-06:00

Your great-great-great grandfather, Deke Combes, thought he was a pretty bright fellow. He knew his young nephews was coming to stay with him for a few weeks in the summer and he come up with a plan to get himself set for firewood for the season.

He figured he could sit up at the house and have him a julep or three and them boys would cut and split him a couple of cords of wood. And them was some industrious boys, that's a fact.

It was a cinch that he should have read the twinkle in their eyes when he told them he wanted them chopping and splitting wood. Because them boys was averse to the idea of going all the way out to the wood lot to cut trees and having to drag them all the way back up to the house.

As Deke relaxed in the shade of his gallery porch, them boys chopped down every tree, bush and blooming flower in the man's yard. Split it all in pieces and stacked it in the woodshed.

Deke was apoplectic to say the least.

Ya'll watch this!

2006-02-09T20:38:00.000-06:00

My old boyhood friend, Mark Eddard, told me that I need to slow down on putting stuff on this geneology web site thing. He said I would get plumb tired of it and probably quit. So, taking that to heart, I'm going to just tell you a little story about a distant cousin of yours, Merriwether McKimbrey.

Once, he was hunting with your great-great grandfather, they was boys at the time, and they come up on a slough that had a big old gator in it. They stopped to take a break and get a drink when that cousin of yours come up with a brilliant idea. Merriwether pulled one of the dead quail out of his bag and told your gggp, "hold my beer and watch this!"

He took hold of a branch with his left hand and leaned waaay out over that slough holding that quail gingerly between his thumb and forefinger in his right. That gator jumped up and took that quail right out of his hand just like that and his thumb and finger went with it.

And, he didn't seem to have no interest in going back in after them, neither.

Aint Ella's Sod House

2006-02-08T18:16:00.000-06:00

Your great-great-great Aunt Ella Chance McGrew and her husband decided to give Nebraska a try in 1890. Land was cheap and they thought they could make a go of it. We have this little piece of a pitcher left from the experience and Aint Ella wrote what she thought about it on the back. They was back within the next year, I'll tell you. Theys a reason that yankees live there. Nuff said.

Some of you can't read the old writing too good. Some can't even write it. So here's what it says, just in case:
"...walls 5 ft thick. both over head...This sod house is a few miles from Anselm Nebraska. While seated in the middle of this house during a storm a ball of hail came through ceilings large as a hen egg and fell beside me with Rayond on my lap on the floor. Some stock out doors was killed by the hail as the hail came with such force. No fences, no stores, no trees, plenty wolves, jack rabbits, prairie chickens and Indians and cares for safety in storms."

Uncle Buzz McKimbrey

2006-02-07T10:59:00.000-06:00

You was asking me how long ago our folks came to Arkansas. And to tell you the honest truth, we're not sure. We know that the McKimbreys was here long before statehood. In them days, this was known as part of the Missouri Territory.

Well, your great-great-i-don't-know-how-manys grandparents had a son everbody called "Buzz." It was on account of he had the shakes something fierce. I mean powerful shakes. Even as a lad.

Well, when they moved here in December of 1811, some very strange occurances started to, well, occur. The Mississippi River flowed backwards for a while. You can look it up, it's in all the history books. By 1816, Buzz was old enough to leave home and things began to settle down in those parts.

Somewhat by default, he became a explorer and world traveler, finally meeting his maker and passing to his final reward on the island of Krakatoa in 1883.

No Tolerance for Temperance

2006-02-04T15:58:00.000-06:00

Our fambly ain't got much use for you if you look down on the medicinal use of alcohol. Or if you think one shouldn't dose themselves regularly. Truth be known, the Combeses and the McKimbreys have been known to drink. A lot.

Your great Uncle Thom McKimbrey asked your grandpa to pour a fifth of fine Irish whiskey over his grave after he departed. Your grandpa agreed to do it only if he could pass it through his bladder first. No sense in wasting good whiskey.

So you can imagine how the fambly received great-great Uncle Lester Combes' new wife when they found out that she was not only a tee-totaler, but a temperance woman to boot. They grabbed that woman by the hair, pulled her head back, and dosed her liberally with a nice cabernet. So there.

Then, they gave her a bucket to pee in since they had heard that the newlywed couple didn't have one.

Daisy the Nudist

2006-02-04T15:49:00.000-06:00

Back in the eighteen hundreds, your great-great grandma had a daughter named Daisy. And Daisy was wild as a colt. That girl was a born nudist. I don't mean like she went to nudist colonies or nothing. I don't think they even had those back then.

No, they just couldn't keep no clothes on that girl. Soon as you'd turn your back for a second, she'd shuck her clothes and off she'd be, naked as a jay bird. Maybe even nakeder. Jay birds has feathers at least.

They tried several times to get pitchers of Daisy with her clothes on, but the closest they ever got, the artist adjusted the lens on his camera and when he turned back around she was gone.

There was an old woman that lived in a shoe...

2006-02-04T15:43:00.000-06:00

When your Aunt Margy would come to town, folks said it looked like one of them clown cars. The kids would be getting out for a steady fifteen minutes or so. And then they would parade off to the drug store or the barber shop or the feed store. Right behind their mama.

And Margy had them kids standing at attention and saying yes ma'am and no ma'am from the time they could stand up and talk.

They ain't got kids like that no more. That's for sure.

Superman

2006-02-03T19:50:00.000-06:00

Most of the folks we’ve been discussing so far have been pretty normal. But ever so often you run across a relation that some might deem strange. And your great-great grandfather had an uncle like that. Clark Fenton Kendall started off life like any boy in the mid 1860’s, but by the time he was in grade school, he had developed a fascination with the notion of a human having superhuman powers.

He started dressing up in outfits and wearing a mask and telling folks that he was going to fight crime when he grew up. They all assumed he wanted to be a policeman like every other little boy does. Or a cowboy.

He would draw pitchers of strong men in tight costumes catching bad guys. He showed them to anybody who would look at them. Unfortunately most folks didn’t have the time or the patients to look at such stuff. They just thought he was weird.

He would draw these cartoons, and all his life he tried to interest someone in publishing them in a book. Aunt Jim has a couple of the original drawings of this character lifting wagons and buggies over his head and racing with steam trains. I’ve seen them and they’re not half bad. But the newspapers would tell him he needed to make cartoons like Nast, or Outcault who did the Yellow Kid. But he wouldn’t budge.

Near the end of his life in about 1930 or so, he showed his drawings to a couple of fellows named Siegel and Schuster. They promised Clark they would try to find someone to publish his cartoons. I don’t know if they ever actually showed any of them around or not. But after Uncle Clark died in 1933, they came out with some cartoons about a fellow just like the ones in Uncle Clark’s pitchers and called it Superman. I hear they hit big with them cartoons in ’38 and you can still see them in the grocery store to this day.

Granny

2006-02-02T18:54:00.000-06:00

Some of you may be old enough to remember a tv show called the Beverly Hillbillies. That was the funniest, bestest show on television in those days. It went to hell in a handbasket when they changed over to color, but up until then it was the best going.

The thing I really liked about that show was the fact that it really had an authentic ring to it. I mean under the silliness these were real southern folks. And every family had a "granny". Remember granny?

Well, in our family, Granny was your great-great-great grandmother on your pa's side, Gertrudis Baucom McKimbrey. She made her own cure-alls and was famous across the county for her cooking.

Here's a pitcher of your "granny" dosing a couple of puny women for their own good. You could always depend on her for that.

Life in a Yankee Prison

2006-02-02T18:16:00.000-06:00

Britnee, thank you for that nice email last night about the report your doing for school. I hope that seventh grade turns out good for you. You asked if any of our fambly had been captured in the War Between the States, which you mistakenly referred to as a civil war. Weren't nothing civil about it. But the answer to your question is yes.

Now your daddy might remember his grandma talking about her great grandfather's brother, Johnny Love who had the misfortune of joining up with Col. Gee's 15th Infantry Regiment. He got captured right off the bat at Ft. Donelson and then again at Port Hudson. You'd think he'd of got tired of that after the first time. But he always said that them yankee prisons weren't near as bad as folks let on.

When he was at Rock Island the second time he got caught, one of the guards made friends with him and took particular good care of him. That fellow used to get him out of the regular prison part and dress him up in a yankee uniform and take him places like restaurants, steam baths and musical plays of all things. Johnny always got the best food and he didn't have to sleep with the regular prisoners at night. They let him sleep in a clean warm barracks with the yankee guards.

Well I figure from the pitcher he sent back that the friend who was guarding him took his job pretty serious like because he seems to be watching him pretty close in the pitcher. My granddaughter, Leslie, was over here last night and she saw the pitcher on my desk and said, "hmph! Brokeback Mountain!"

I think that might have been a fight they was in as she is studying the same thing you are, Britnee. But I don't remember if they fought in the mountains or not. Granny never said nothing about that.

Playing Possum at Cherabusco

2006-02-02T17:33:00.000-06:00

Vernon, your brother, Roger, wrote me a email yesterday. Thank you for telling him about our geneology internet. He wanted to know if any of the Combes or McKimbreys was in the Mexican War. He saw a display on it down at the Old State House Museum and it peeked his curiosity.

Well, the answer is of course yes. Our fambly has fought in every war or scrap that come up since they got here and the dad gummed black hawk indians started acting out. We had no less than fourteen Combes and eight McKimbreys in the Mexican War. I found a pitcher of your Great-Great-Great-Great Grandfather, Zebulon Pike McKimbrey down in the drawer of that dresser your grandma left me.

Zeb enlisted in Archibald Yell's regiment and marched off to Mexico with a proud and glad heart. At the battle of Cherabusco he was so scared he fainted. When he came to he was being administered to by the most beautiful Mexican girl he ever could have imagined. She thought he had gotten shot or blown up.

Zeb wound up marrying that girl and deserting the army, sneaking back into Arkansas sometime around 1850. He later became a attorney down at Camden, which his temperment suited him for very well. He once fainted for a jury during a controversial case in the late '60s, resulting in an acquittal for his client.

The Great Locomotive Chase

2006-02-01T18:26:00.000-06:00

I was talking to a friend the other day and the subject of the Great Locomotive Chase come up. Everbody knows that happened during the late unpleasantness known as the War Between the States. We all saw the movie and thought it was real exciting and all.

But it put me to mind about the great locomotive chase of Gurdon Arkansas. Gurdon, as you might remember, was where your Great Uncle Elzie Lampkin lived. And his boy, Lem, ran with a rough crowd. In them days that town was crawling with lumber men and timber cutters. It were a big business in them parts. And them types of fellows weren't always as civilized as you and me.

Well, him and some of them boys he run with stole a lumber train one day. You know, the kind they hauled them trees up out of the woods with. And them trains was designed to run up steep inclines and such without slipping. Which made it possible for them durn fools to take that thing off the track and run up the middle of town.

Now Vernon, you won't see this in no regular histories because the sheriff was pretty embarassed about it and made it all hush hush. But I used to hear tell of it at the fambly fish frys in the summer. And your Aunt Irene had a pitcher she used to show around to prove it.

Well, that sheriff did the only thing he could do under the circumstances and took another train off the tracks to chase them boys down. And when they caught them, they give all of them a severe whipping and sent them home to their folks pretty redfaced and apologetic.

I guess it was a lucky thing that the man next door to Elzie and Irene had a camera and took this pitcher or else nobody would ever believe this happened.
But, it did, and that's a fact. If you're ever in Gurdon, look up one of the old timers and ask them. You'll see that it's true.

Wee Willie Winkie

2006-02-01T17:39:00.000-06:00

Wee Willie Winkie
Runs through the town,
Upstairs and downstairs
In his nightgown.
Rapping at the windows,
Crying through the lock,
"Are the children all in bed?
For it's now eight o'clock.

Now Vernon, some things you ain't going to find in your everday geneologies and some things fambly don't like to talk about. I ain't never been too squeamish about such and will tell you flat out what's what. I know that's why you asked me to write these things down here.

Sometime round the turn of the century, your great grandma had a daughter like what I'm talking about. Some said she was teched, and others said she was full of the devil. Either way, she was kind of strange.

By the time she was four years old, she had a fixation on the nursery rhyme "Wee Willie Winkie" and would only wear pajamas and carried a candlestick around hollering "are all the children in bed?!"

They wouldn't even let her go to school like that.

When she turned eight, she got fixated on fairies and fashioned herself some fairy wings and went around trying to put spells on folks. This tended to make folks a bit uncomfortable. Mostly because they wasn't sure if them spells was actually working or not.

But, when she got into her cupid stage and started shooting the neighbors with arrows, that was the last straw.

Your great grandfather packed her off to the state mental asylum and I suppose she remained there the rest of her days. Least I never heard nothing more about her from that point on.

Ferdie and the Blackbirds

2006-01-31T17:32:00.000-06:00

Nowadays most folks go a large part of their life without experiencing a death of someone close to them. They're usually grown up before their grandparents even pass away. But back in them times, death was an everday thing. So, folks took to it different than they do now.

It weren't uncommon to take pitchers of dead folks and keep them like they was a good likeness. Kind of creeps me out, but we don't live in them times and don't know how it was.

Well, Ferdie Faulkner wasn't no kin to you, but he was a well respected neighbor and could always be counted on to help a fellow out in a pinch. Ferdie lived a long and good life and when he departed this world, nobody was too surprised. Least of all his wife of 70 years, Maddie.

Well Ferdie left Maddie pretty well fixed and she could afford to have the embalmer in town fix Ferdie up for the funeral. Everbody exclaimed how lifelike he looked. And Maddie couldn't agree more. And the longer she looked at him the harder it became to bury his remains. So she had them deliver him back out to the house from the church, drove a couple of stobs in the ground near the garden, run them up his pants leg and propped him on a spading fork.

Ferdie Faulkner scaring the blackbirds.

She had this pitcher made and passed them out to all the friends and relatives so they could remember him. She left him out there to scare the blackbirds away and he almost lasted the whole summer. They say it was a bumper crop that year and the birds didn't peck the tomatoes at all. But all things have to end and he started looking kind of ratty towards late summer, some of the kids were scared to walk down the road in front of the house, and they wound up having to put him in his reserved hole down to Mount Holly Cemetery. I think he got one of them Woodmen of the World tombstones that looks like a hacked up tree. Mama took me to see it once when I was a boy and that's what I remember.

Trip to L.A.

2006-01-31T17:24:00.000-06:00

Your Great Grandfather was a travelling salesman. They called them drummers back then and that's what he called himself. He ranged all over Arkansas and parts of Texas and Louisiana. He never went to Mississippi because he said they didn't pay him enough to endure that.

On one of his many trips he discovered an odd little town in L.A. (Lower Arkansas) which at that time was only inhabited by women. Now normally that wouldn't have been a problem for your GG because he certainly loved women, but these women didn't act right. They tried to pass as men.

Now at first he wasn't sure if he was getting it right or if he was imagining things, but by late afternoon he had determined that he needed to get out of town fast and never look back. Knowing that nobody would ever believe his wild tale, he pilfered this pitcher off of one of them's desks while he was making a sales call.

Now, I've been to Monticello here in modern times and it seems like a normal little city, but back in those days it weren't.

Great-Great-Great Aunt, Hydrangea Combes

2006-01-31T13:25:00.000-06:00

Okay, now this was your great-great-great grandmother's sister. They don't talk about her much. She was fond of opium and kept a bottle of patent medicine in her purse all the time. She was found dead in a boarding house when she was 22 years old in a rough part of Little Rock called Huntersville at the time. It was right across the river where North Little Rock is now.

Hydrangea didn't look so swell when this pitcher was made. I think somebody was trying to straighen her out because this newspaper clipping was with the pitcher when I got it, closed up in the little leather jewel case:

Some people can't be helped. It's a lesson you should take to heart.

Your Cousin on Your Ma's Side

2006-01-31T13:16:00.000-06:00

Now Vernon, I know you ain't going to like this much. I know your motto has always been, "beat the rush, hate Texas early!"

But you should know that you had relations in Texas. Your ma's uncle moved to Texas before the turn of the century and that's where his son, Vernon, graduated from high school. Yes, you were named after him. Your mama was ashamed of the Texas connection so she never actually told you about it.

I run across this pitcher in the fambly album and remembered that granny told me it was Vernon's senior portrait. Or what they used anyhow. Seems Vernon was kind of preoccupied when the artist brought his camera to the school and couldn't tear himself away from his studies to come sit. So the principal had Mr. Blair take his camera down to the janitor's closet and they got this wonderful shot of the janitor, Mr. Harvey, tutoring your cousin Vernon in mathematical equations.

Your cousin Vernon was the first of the Combeses to put himself through college. And he did it by applying the lessons he learned at Gatesville H.S.

The Distaff Side of War

2006-01-31T09:27:00.000-06:00

Folks always seems to be interested in the War Between the States around here and they ask me all the time about whether our fambly was in it or not. And I have to tell you theys lots of our relations was in the war. But I've seen more than a few of you scratch your heads and look at me real funny when I talk about great-great aunt Arsenica Hall.

They just don't want to believe that women was in the war. But they was.

Arsenica slipped off and joined up with the Confederate army sometime after the battle of Shiloh in '62, according to the fambly bible. She met with some resistance which is to be understood, but held firm and not taking no for an answer. She even made her own uniform.

She had her pitcher took and sent it home in the early winter of '63.

Now, we don't know what all kind of fighting she got into, everbody said she wouldn't talk about the war none when she got back home, but we do know that she was hurt somehow in that late unpleasantness. It must have been during the Vicksburg seige, because she came home shortly after July 4th of that year.

I have not been able to determine the extent or type of wounds that she sustained, but the pitcher she had took when she got back home shows her on crutches.

I was told that she walked bow legged for quite some time after that.

Your Aunt Arsenica went on to run a saloon in Heber Springs up until the turn of the century, and there is a spring named after her in the park there. I was told that Carrie Nation chopped up her saloon with a hatchet in about 1903, shortly after which Arsenica retired. On a side note, your Uncle Ted Givens was a temperance man and he bought a souvenir hatchet off of Carrie Nation the day she smashed Arsenica's saloon. And, if memory serves me, I think my sister, your Aunt Jim, has it to this day. I'll ask her on the telephone when I call her on Saturday.

Best Cook in The Whole Danged Army

2006-01-30T22:02:00.000-06:00

Henry Pankey probably taken in 1864

Henry (Hank) Pankey was my granny's grandmother's cousin by marriage. He tried to join the Confederate army, but the recruiting man told him there was standards and that he was plumb sorry but they had to uphold them. Hank weren't too happy about that, so he walked for three days and went to the general of the damned yankee army and tried to enlist. The general shook his head sadly and said that as sorry as he was about it, that even godless yankees have some level of decency, what little it is, and that they couldn't take him in the army and trust him. He did say that there was an opening as a cook.

Well, Hank took to that like a duck to a junebug, and as you can see in the pitcher he sent home, he butchered up some possums and made some grits for them generals that couldn't be beat. Someone told my granny that Sherman once ate some of Hank's possum grits and exclaimed that "an army travels on its stomach, but this army rides high on its gizzard!" But truth be known, Sherman went light on Georgia on account of Hank's cooking and the soft spot in his heart it made. Originally he wanted to burn Georgia down, but instead settled for a sixty mile wide swath from Atlanta to the sea which was inconsequential to anybody of importance except maybe some chickens and hogs that got ~~eat~~ in the way.

While the war was in full swing, Hank had an assistant named Harland that helped with the cooking. They became close and Hank shared his recipe for fried possum with Harland. But Harland was a sneak and a thief and he fixed up a batch of chicken the bummers brought in, using my cousin Hank's recipe, and them generals was so tickled they made him a Colonel right on the spot. Hank weren't happy about that none, and he quit and went home in a tizzy.

He swore he would never look at another chicken as long as he lived, and he didn't.

Deke Evans

2006-01-30T18:12:00.000-06:00

Deke Evans sometime around 1858 or thereabouts.

Born Andrew Jackson Evans, folks called him Deke for short. Although he grew up in Tennessee, he was well known in the fambly here in Rackensack. Well known enough that when he proposed by letter to my mama's great-great grandma, she wrote him back "yes!" You see, he had sent this pitcher to her and she thought he was the prettiest man she ever laid eyes on. It's all wrote down in the fambly Bible and you can see it if you come visit me.

But the fambly insisted that he had to come here and not the other way around. This turned out to be a terrible mistake.

Turns out the Tennessee Evanses made over how great Deke was just to get someone to take him off their hands. He was an awful drunk and womanizer. At least with every woman except great-great-great grandma. He only womanized with her long enough to get my great-great grandma, Willorine Evans. More than half of the females over the age of 12 had little Dekes running around in McNairy County Tennessee and that's why the men folk wanted him to leave, you see.

Deke was killed by a jealous husband sometime in 1864 or 5 near Pine Bluff.

The Meanest Child Ever

2006-01-30T13:08:00.000-06:00

Leora Markham was the meanest child ever. When she was in her mama's stomach, she didn't just kick, she bit and scratched too. Them folks used to take a beating just trying to change her diapers. And they was scared of her, too.

I guess it got so as it wasn't much fun to terrorize her own fambly no more, so she taken to going after the neighbors and such by the time she was three years old. Now, she ain't no kin to me or you, but Uncle Sonny took this picture the day she come over and treed your Aunt Lacy and cousin Derick.

Uncle Sonny was laughing pretty durn hard which made Lacy even madder. He got where he wasnt sure who he was scareder of, Leora or Lacy so he left them both at an impasse and went in the house for some ice tea. Lacy was fit to be tied and she didn't speak to Sonny for two weeks after that.

I think this was during the world war years when Uncle Sonny worked at the Arkansas Munitions Plant over in Jacksonville making bomb fuses or something.

War Times

2006-01-29T21:39:00.000-06:00

Annie Laurie and her nurse

This pitcher is of grandpaw Zeke's daughter, Annie Laurie and her nurse. Apparently before the war started, they could afford to have a nanny, or nurse as they was called back then. I'm told that the nurse quit sometime towards the end of the War Between the States. It was about that time that the fambly fortunes began to change.

My daddy used to joke that grandpaw Zeke and grandmaw Louise was in the iron and steel business. Louise took in ironing and Zeke stole. It's a funny joke. I'll wait right here til you quit laughing.

Okay. But after the nurse quit, and seeing how grandpaw Zeke was away in the army, grandmaw Louise really did take in laundry to make ends meet. I'm not sure if she was proud of this pitcher, but it was in the fambly album:

The War Between The States

2006-01-29T21:13:00.000-06:00

This part may be a little long. That's because our fambly had lots of folks in the late unpleasantness known as The War Between The States. I got lot's more folks to get to in this department, but we'll start with Great-great-great Grandpaw Zeke and his son Jimmy.

Jimmy was headstrong and he run off and joined the army before he was of age. Somehow they took him and he sent this pitcher in a letter he wrote home after he was in the army for some months:

But grandpaw Zeke always said that he wouldn't join the army until the recruiting man got killed and he could take his place. And of course the recruiting man wasn't going to get hisself killed unless it was over dice and cards.

Some of the ladies in town tried to shame fellows like grandpaw Zeke and sent them girl's dresses in the mail. Grandpaw Zeke and one of his friends dressed up in theirs and had their pitcher took:

But after a while, grandpaw Zeke got drafted and had to go. They gave him a job giving haircuts and he sent this pitcher home to grandmaw Louise:

It was good work when he could get it and he had lots of free time. Sometimes he would go into town and have fun with his friends. Some of them went to the pitcher studio with him one time and had this one made:

Maybe I can write down some of the stories about his war time experiences when I have time.

Aunt Clara's New Job

2006-01-29T20:51:00.000-06:00

Aunt Clara and friend, Storyville, New Orleans, sometime around 1917.

Well, I promised you that if I found a picture of Clara after she grew up I would show it to you. This one wasn't in the fambly album, but I remembered seeing it in the bottom of a shoebox that Mama kept with some letters and stuff.

Aunt Clara got a job in New Orleans and worked there for several years until the war came along and then the government put a lot of folks out of work in that area for some reason. By 1918 she had come home. This picture was took in 1917 or 16 in a area of New Orleans called Storyville. I think it was pretty hot there and folks didn't wear a lot of clothes like they did here.

It might have been about this time that she became friends with Lindbergh.

Beech Nut is Good Chewing Gum

2006-01-29T20:39:00.000-06:00

Clara and the gum chewing punks

Aunt Clara grew up around Little Rock, and was something of a tear. Her and her girlfriends used to chew gum back when it wasn't considered very lady like. Clara is the one in the middle and I think she lost her gum by the looks of it.

When Clara grew up, she became good friends with Chas. Lindbergh. She knew him. In the biblical sense. Story has it that she got mad at him and told him to go nail crap to the barn wall and he took off and flew across the Atlantic Ocean to spite her. Of course that worked out good for him and he soon forgot all about Clara.

She never married and had no childrens. I think this may be the only pitcher we have of her. If I find another one, I'll put it on here.

The Eureka Springs Trolly

2006-01-29T18:13:00.000-06:00

The fambly riding on the trolly at Eureka Springs sometime around 1900.

Granny told me that in the olden days, the fambly would go to Eureka Springs for a summer getaway. They would get on the train and ride all the way up there, and then when they got there they would ride the trolly. She said the trolly only went about a block and a half and then it went back again.

But she thought it was danged fun. And then at the end of the day, they would get a meal at the New Orleans Hotel and catch the train back home.

Them Ain't Refugees

2006-01-29T17:58:00.000-06:00

A.N. Clemens and Fambly

Artie Clemens was my great-great-great granmaw's third cousin in-law. He had to go live in a tent. Granny told me that it was because he smelled funny and never could wash it off. Folks in town called him skunk boy and teased him no end. His wife, Elsie, had no sense of smell and couldn't figure out what folks were going on about. She loved that man and eventually bore him twelve childrens. Here, they're seen with Josie, the first. Elsie had a habit of painting these gawd-awful pitchers and hanging them on the tent walls. Everybody thought the pitchers were terrible.

But I seen one sell on eBay here a while back and it brought good money. Nearly $300 dollars if memory serves me right. She signed them "Elsie Jane Clemens" and that's how you know one if you see it.

The Greatest Hunchback Croquets Player of All Time

2006-01-29T17:42:00.000-06:00

Gertie and Sis Hoskins playin' croquets, sometime around 1890 or so.

Gertrude, or Gertie as she was called, was born a hunchback. That didn't slow her down none, and the fambly encouraged her to do anything she wanted to do. And do, she did.

Gertie became the world champion croquets player in the world. I think it was on account of she was particularly suited for it with her stooped posture and all. She insisted on playing them croquets on a wild looking rug, too. You can see it in the pitcher I've attached.

Gertie was Mama's oldest half-sister's great-great aunt, twicet removed. Or something like that.