| Such is the case with a
lively, little petite lady who was born on May 21, 1932, in the Heard
Ridge Community of Pickett County, not too far from Taylor's Crossroads.
I visited in her home recently, seeking information on
John Daughtery (last name pronounced "Darty"), someone I was trying to
piece together a story on, and when I realized I was not going to be able
to get enough information for a story about Mr. Daughtery, I quickly took
advantage of the opportunity to look back on the life of Alene Gabbard
Savage.
Alene was one of five girls born to Henry Boman
Gabbard and Leemit Gabbard. Alene and all four of her sisters were born in
the home they grew up in on Heard Ridge. Their home had a large fireplace
where their mother cooked beans in a black pot that hung in the fireplace.
Sweet potatoes were baked in the ashes of the fire. A school was near
their home, but Alene tells me that she and her sisters were not allowed
to attend because of their color.
The school building on Heard Ridge was also a place
where a lady named Miss Lilly Dale came once a month with clothes for
sale. It was probably a very early version of what we call thrift stores
today. Getting "new" clothes from the selection Miss Lilly Dale brought
each month was an event the whole community always looked forward to.
Chopping out corn for Mr. Tom Harvey was something the whole Gabbard
family did. Alene said the rows of corn were quite long, and they worked
from sunrise to sunset chopping out the many long rows of corn.
Their dinner was always put in a bucket and hung in
a tree until time to eat. Alene said she can remember one time when they
didnąt get to eat dinner because the flies got to the dinner bucket first.
That day, their mother fixed cooked cabbage, cornbread, and boiled corn,
but the flies "blowed" the corn before they stopped to eat that day, so
they went home very hungry late that evening.
Tying up large corn shalks in corn fields was
another thing they did by using honeysuckle to tie them with.
Alene has many memories of how it was to grow up in a very rural area, and
related to me how many times that food was scarce in spite of the fact
that the family raised a large garden. She can remember how on snowy
winter nights when the moon was bright and full, rabbits would come around
the house they lived in, and her father used his shotgun to kill them so
they would have something to eat for breakfast the next morning. She can
remember how good they tasted on those occasions.
Other times, the only thing they had to eat was milk
and cornbread. Alene said that sometimes the cow they had ate wild onions,
which would "flavor" the milk, but her mother had a remedy for getting rid
of the taste. She gave them a slice of onion to eat with the milk and that
disguised the onion taste of the milk.
When Dale Hollow Dam was constructed, the lake
wasn't too far from the Gabbard home. Alene told me the family would "walk
over the hill" to the lake to fish, and this was another way food was
provided for their table. She said they really loved having the lake that
close to their home. Churning milk to make butter was another job Alene
remembers how to do right down to the last detail. She told me the
temperature of the milk is one of the most important things a person needs
to know about making butter. If it was too warm, ice would need to be
added, and if it was too cold, it needed to be placed somewhere so the
milk could warm to just the right stage. She included the other necessary
steps to complete the tasks of making butter, a chore she said she did
many, many times.
Alene's mother had an old peddle-type Singer sewing
machine, and dresses for herself and her daughters were made on this
sewing machine. Flour sacks were always saved for making their dresses.
Alene said she worked the button holes out by hand.
Another thing the ladies in the neighborhood did was
make quilts. Some of the neighbor ladies who came to the Gabbard home to
quilt included Stella Taylor, Lula Taylor, Mag Taylor, and Lou Verna
Conner.
Alene told me how when the ladies finished a quilt and it was ready to be
taken out of the quilting frames, a young, unmarried person was picked to
stand at each corner of the quilt. A cat was then brought and placed on
the quilt, and whichever corner the cat ran to in order to jump off the
quilt, that was the next person who would get married.
Cutting firewood is another chore Alene told me
about. She said that in the winter months when snow was on the ground,
before going out to the woods, she and her sisters would take grass sacks
and tie them around their legs to keep the cold away as much as possible.
If there was a big snow on, the girls would go in at dinnertime and take
the sacks off, which would be weighed down with snow, shake out the snow,
and put them in front of the fireplace to dry. When the sacks had time to
dry, they would tie them on again, and go back to the woods to finish
cutting wood for the rest of the day. Keeping the saws sharp was one job
Alene said she did, and described how the saws were tested to see if they
were "set" after being sharpened. She said if they made a certain sound,
she knew they were just right. What I would consider a very unusual remedy
for getting something out of someone's eye was another thing Alene passed
on to me. She said that if somebody got something in an eye and it
couldn't be gotten out, the seed from wheat (flax seed) was put in that
eye and left for a day or two. She said whatever was in the eye would be
worked out by the flax seed, and it was a much-used remedy.
On one occasion, Alene and her mother were going to
Esco Harvey's to get corn, and on the way, they stopped at Mag Taylor's
house so Alene's mother could get a dip of snuff. While they were there,
Alene sat down on the porch with her legs hanging off the edge of the
porch. Mag Taylor had a dog tied up under the porch, and even though the
dog was tied, it was able to get to where Alene was sitting and it bit
her. She still has scars on her leg from the bite.
For some reason, it was feared that the dog could
have rabies, so the sheriff of Pickett County, Otis Taylor, came and got
the dog. It was disposed of and sent to be tested for rabies. Sure enough,
the dog had the dreaded disease. Alene had to have a series of 14 shots,
one a day for 14 days, and was taken into town to Dr. A.B. Qualls' office
every day by their neighbor, Esco Harvey, who owned the car.
Crip Smith owned a store at what was called
Roadside, and Alene's family walked the three miles or so from their house
to trade at this store. Her family had an ice box and bought ice at
Taylor's Crossroads. Her father borrowed a horse and wagon and, in a
cardboard box, brought a large chunk of ice home that would last about
three days.
Alene's family moved to Livingston when she was 11
years-old. She had never been to school until the family moved to town,
but she only went for a couple of years because she was ridiculed and made
fun of by other children because she had not had the opportunity to attend
school before that age. Because of this mistreatment, she became
discouraged and quit school.
At the age of 13, she began staying with Mrs. Elma
Lee Bussell as her housekeeper. She lived in her home and worked for the
Bussells until she married at the age of 17. During this period of time,
she also helped her mother, who worked for several families such as the
Mofields, Dr. and Mrs. A.B. Qualls, and also for Harlan and Ethel Lewis.
She and her mother walked everywhere they went.
Alene told me some of the chores they did included washing clothes on a
rub board, ironing, and preparing meals. At the home of Dr. and Mrs.
Qualls, they did the washing and ironing on the screened in back porch,
which was quite cold work in the winter months. After preparing a meal at
the Quallsą home, they were allowed to eat, too, but did so only after the
family had eaten first.
Alene was the very first black person to be employed
in the strawberry plant that once operated on Oakland Park Drive in
Livingston. Alene married Walter Floyd Savage Jr. when she was 17
years-old. After they married, she and Walter moved to Free Hills in Clay
County, where they lived with his parents, Walter Savage Sr. and Sarah
Ruth Savage, who once ran the Black and White Café in Livingston for a
period of time before Alene and Junior were married. Sometime later,
Junior got a job working for the Harrisons at Sunset Dock on Dale Hollow
Lake near Byrdstown as their cook. He and Alene lived in one of the cabins
while he worked there, and she did ironing for the Harrisons. A
little later, they moved to Franklin, KY, and lived on a farm. Two of
their children had come along by this time, and a third one was born while
they lived in Kentucky. They returned to Livingston, and as the years went
by, their family grew to include a total of eight children, five boys, and
three girls.
As of this writing, Alene is the grandmother of 20
grandchildren and 4 great grandchildren. One story she told me about her
children was that on the occasion of the birth of her daughter, Ann, at
the old Lady Ann Hospital, Dr. Nevans and some of the nursing staff were
all with her, giving her encouragement, telling her to "push", etc. She
said she was really getting very tired of all their help, and finally told
them, "If you all will just get out of my way, I'll have this
baby!"...which she did. She said Dr. Nevans told her, "Wish we had more
like you!"
Alene and Junior, who passed away in 1992, both
worked for Odell Key a number of years at the box factory in Livingston,
and Alene has also been employed at Jerry's Shop Rite, where she did the
preparation of the barbecue that was sold there that included chicken,
pork chops, pork roasts, and barbecue sandwiches that could be bought 5
for $1.
Alene's most recent place of employment has been
Central Vending, where she has worked for the past 30 years. She told me
she has no plans for retiring. I asked what secret she has for the
slim, trim figure she maintains, and she told me she hasn't been to a
doctor for 21 years, that really she doesn't even have a doctor. She said
that her church is very important to her, that "church is what keeps her
here." One of the things she really enjoys is playing horseshoes. Also,
her home includes some beautiful antique furnishings, which she has
collected over the years.
On one occasion, she went into an antique shop in
Livingston where she found one very old lady's shoe that was in excellent
condition. She inquired of one of the owners about where the other shoe
was, and was told there wasn't another one. In the world of antiques, old
shoes are often used for display purposes only, and since there was just
one of this particular pair, that was about all that could be done with
them; however, as much as Alene wanted to buy the shoe, she had no
intention of buying it just to display; she intended to wear the shoes if
the mate could be located. She left the store unhappy with one of the
owners for not having the shoe, and to this day, when she happens to run
into that lady, she never fails to ask about the missing shoe.
With her upcoming birthday May 21, she will reach
the age of 70 years, but she has certainly aged well. No one would believe
she's nearly 70. She has lived in a time of hardship, growing up in a
rural area, always doing very hard work, then raising a very large family,
but she survived it all amazingly well. Those hard times arenąt reflected
in her smile and laughter that are always present.
She summed up her life when she said to me, "I came
up the hard way, not the high way."
Thank you, Alene, for the chance to pass along just a little about the
life you'd had not so very far away from the place where I spent part of
mine. |
