Remembering Frances Garrett

The following story was written by a fellow classmate, Frances Garrett, who passed away Sunday morning, July 22, 2012 at the age of 67. Frances and I were both members of the 1963 graduating class of Livingston Academy. Although the Garrett family lived in Detroit, MI when Frances was born on June 22, 1945, they returned to the Taylor’s Crossroads community in 1949. Frances, her two brothers, Elmo and Joe, and two sisters, Linda and Patty, grew up on a 60 acre farm located not far from Coleman’s Store in the Taylor’s Crossroads community. Frances’ parents were the late Garland Garrett and wife Emmagene (Martin) Garrett. After graduation from Livingston Academy, Frances lived and worked in Texas for several years, and then later in Colorado. Over the years, Frances maintained a type of diary with the intent of sharing some of her childhood memories with her two sons, Andy and Jonathan Stover, and other family members. Here is one story she titled “Childhood Christmas Memories” written in December of 2005.

“I remember well the winters of the 1950’s in rural Tennessee. They were long, cold and dreary. Those were the years of my early childhood. Daddy and Mama had moved our family from Detroit back to Tennessee in 1949, and in 1950, Daddy built a house on the sixth acres of land that he bought with the money he saved while working in the city during the war years. The house and land took all this money, and for our family, the 50s were what country folks would have called ‘lean years.’ In other words, we were quite poor.

“In the winter, the challenges of being poor were even greater. Daddy was constantly struggling to keep an old vehicle running in bad weather. Carrying water from the spring or the well, and gathering wood to keep the fires going was always harder when it was cold. Mama would cook gravy and biscuits every morning on an old wood stove. With five kids, it took a lot of biscuits and gravy. Sometimes we had eggs and bacon or sausage to go along with it.

“One thing was for sure though, whether it was summer or winter, Mama and Daddy made sure we had food to eat. I remember quite vividly how poor we were, but I never ever remember being hungry because there was no food. They provided well to have had so little. And they did it on their own. They never once asked for assistance from any government agency, if there was such a thing back then.

“And every winter when Christmas came, they struggled to find ways to get some gifts for all us kids. The only money they had coming in during the winter was from a tobacco crop that was always ready for market in late November. The government specified the amount of acreage on which farmers could grow tobacco, and Daddy did not have much of an acreage allotment. But that crop was what he and Mama counted on to get us through the winter.

“When the tobacco was dried after being hung in a barn for several weeks and was processed for market, it was always an uncertain time for all the tobacco farmers. I remember Mama and Daddy listening closely to the radio everyday when the farm market news was reported to find out the price for which tobacco was selling. Daddy would go to the old country store every day and come home telling what the men were all saying about tobacco prices. The prices fluctuated a few cents per pound each day and everyone wanted to go to market when the prices were at their highest. But no one knew from day to day what the prices would be.

“So Daddy had to gamble somewhat on which day he would load the pickup truck with the tobacco and head off to Sparta to market where the tobacco would be auctioned to the buyers. Sparta was the closest tobacco barn to us. It was about twenty miles south of Cookeville, which was considered a big town to us back then. It was an all-day trip when Daddy went to the tobacco market.

“There was always a lot of anxiousness as we waited for Daddy to get home from the tobacco sale each year. Mama was always concerned because they really needed to get a good price for the tobacco, and all she could do was wait until he got home to tell her how it went. Sometimes the news was good and sometimes it was not. But I remember how he would tell Mama the details of the day. He would describe how the farmer’s trucks would be lined up at the barn and how his luck could have been different if he had been at a different location in the line. There were judges who would grade the tobacco and then the buyers would bid according to the quality of the product. So whatever grade the judges gave would determine how well the bidding would go.

“It must have been a hard day for farmers like my Daddy who depended on that one crop to get them through the winter. However, most of them probably had larger crops than Daddy’s. But at the end of the sale day, he and Mama knew what they had to deal with through the winter months ahead. And Christmas was just a few weeks away and the tobacco money was the only way for them to buy gifts for us kids.

“About a week before Christmas, we kids got really excited. Every year Daddy would come in from the country store with boxes of oranges, bananas, and big red apples. That was the only time of the year we had store-bought fruit. In the summer in Tennessee, we grew apples, pears, cherries, peaches, and all kinds of berries, but we never had oranges and bananas. I can remember the smell of those wonderful fruits when Daddy brought them home on those cold winter days. He would only give us one or two fruits a day before Christmas so they would last longer. He always put the boxes of fruit on a ledge at the top of the stairs and we kids knew not to get into them. It was an exciting time just knowing that the Christmas fruit was there, even if we did have to wait until it was doled out each day. And there were always boxes of peppermint stick candy during the holiday that we were allowed to have more often because it was not as expensive as the bananas and oranges.

“We didn’t have gift wrapping paper so there were no colorful presents under the Christmas tree. But the night before Christmas, each of us would get a large grocery bag and write our names on it. We put those bags under the Christmas tree for Santa to put our gifts in. Then we would run off to bed in the cold bedroom and Mama would tuck us in and cover us with a pile of quilts so high we could hardly turn over. There was always two or three of us in the same bed, and soon we would be very warm and cozy.

“Our excitement was great, but even in our excitement, eventually we would fall asleep. Then soon it was daylight. It was always very quiet out there in the country on those cold Christmas mornings. One of us would wake the others and we would all start whispering about what Santa brought us. But we knew we were to be quiet and should not get up until we heard Mama and Daddy talking in the living room. Sometimes we would sneak out into the hallway and peep at the Christmas tree to see if we could see anything in the Santa bags before Daddy would hear us and half-heartedly tell us to get back in the bed. Then we would all go running and jump in bed. Our feet would be very cold from tiptoeing barefoot on the linoleum floors, but we would hardly notice in all the excitement.

“Then finally, after what seemed like hours, and was probably no more than thirty minutes, we would hear Daddy say, “Well, do you suppose Santa Claus came?” At that moment, ten little feet hit to cold floor at the same time, and we went scampering like little mice as fast as we could to the Christmas tree. We each grabbed our big grocery bag to see what Santa had brought us. There was always a coloring book, a box of crayons, candy, fruit, and maybe a toy or two. The younger kids always got a toy, but I remember usually getting pretty hair barrettes or a little purse. It was a wonderful time of excitement. We all played with our new things while Daddy built a fire to warm the living room, and Mama would go to the cold kitchen to cook breakfast for five hungry kids. But most of all, on those cold Christmas mornings, our family was very close and it didn’t seem to matter much that we were poor when we were all there together.

“I still have some of those long ago Christmas gifts tucked away in boxes along with the memories that are tucked away safely in my heart. And even though many of those winters were bleak, the memories become brighter as time goes by, and one thing I know for sure is that what I really got for Christmas was not under the tree.”

In addition to her sons, Andy and Jonathan Stover, Frances is survived by two brothers, Elmo Garrett and Joe Garrett; and two sisters, Linda Hicks and Patty Spohnholtz. Frances planned on returning to their childhood home to live following her recent retirement, but that dream was not to be realized due to an on-going battle with cancer that eventually took her life. She is still remembered today by many of her grade school classmates as being a shy but extremely polite and kindhearted little girl with beautiful natural blonde hair her mother carefully braided before school each day. She is greatly missed by all those who knew and loved her.