Amy Doris James

Jennifer James August 26, 2017 3 Comments

At the James Family Summit meeting in 1998, Richard passed out Aunt Doris’ description given below of early life at the James Family Homestead in Manor, GA. It was written by Aunt Doris and was accompanied by the following note in explanation.

Dear Richard and Family,

A few years ago, lying in bed one night, the thought came to me to write down my life on the farm, so I begun jotting things down on paper.

I finished it last year (1997) not long before my birthday in November 1997. I wrote it in a notebook and sent it to Gary at Christmas. They gave me a beautiful notebook, the cover was gorgeous. She had typed it. It is so pretty. I thought you and the others of your family would like to read it. They sent a few extra copies, so, you can keep this one if you want it.

Sorry I wasn’t home when you called about having lunch. Never heard any more. I went to Orange Park.

Take care, Love
Auntie Doris

We are so grateful to Aunt Doris for her thoughtfulness in sharing this with us and giving us the opportunity to “spread the word” to the entire family through the medium of our Family Newsletter.

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On November 18, 1916, a little curly, red-haired, baby girl was born into the house of Amy Celestine and William Duncan James. They named her Amy Doris. When Amy Doris was borned she had seven brothers and five sisters. Their names were: Walton, Lottie, Dicie, Floyd, Wally, Bert, Warren, Fannie, Aline, Tyler, Flora, and Little William “Bille.” The reason they named him Little William was because he weighed three pounds when he was borned.

Walton, Lottie, Dicie and Floyd were married when Amy Doris was born. There were fourteen, seven boys and seven girls. One of the little girls died at birth – she was between Warren and Fannie. This was the most wonderful home any could have been born into, I know because I am Amy Doris.

All fourteen of us was born in the house Dad built when he and Mom got married. Grandfather William Thomas James gave Dad several acres of land to build a house and have a farm. He built this house two miles west of Manor, Georgia in Ware County. Grandfather also gave Dad’s brothers, Uncle Robert (Bob) James and Uncle Richard (Dick) James enough land to build them a house and have a farm. When Walton, Bert and Floyd got married, Dad gave each of them several acres of land to build them a house and have a farm.

Warren never did like farm work. When he was about twenty years old, he left the farm for big city life in Jacksonville, Florida. He got a job with the Florida East Coast Railroad. Pretty soon he met a nice young lady. Her name was Marie Ann DeChaine. They got married and built a house at 1544 Sheridan Street on the Southside of the St. Johns River. The house was just off Hendricks Avenue. They lived there until he died of lung cancer at the age of fifty eight. The only job he ever had was with Florida East Coast Railroad.

When Wally was a little boy he had infantile paralysis. His leg and foot was drawn. He walked on the toes of that foot as long as he lived. He died at the age of seventy nine. He lacked about two months of being eighty years old. Because he could not work on the farm like the other boys, Mom and Dad did more for his education so he could be a school teacher. He taught school in the community for several years. We missed him when it wasn’t convenient for him to come home on weekends.

The first school I attended was a one room building. One teacher taught all grades from beginners though the eighth grade. Finally they built a new school house. It was much larger and had two rooms, a cloak room and two porches – one on the front and the other on the side. Wally came back home to be principal of this school. A young lady from Rome, Georgia came to teach the beginners to the fourth grade. I was in Wally’s room now.

A school bus would leave Manor with high school students and come by the Camp Branch School where I attended and pick up more high school students and then by Inman School and pick up more and then carry them all to Waresboro, Georgia to the high school there. When this bus would come by Camp Branch School, four of us girls, Lottie Boyd, Alzada Booth, Delia Mae O’Neal and I, would be near the road. There was some boys on the bus that we had a crush on. The boys would throw notes down to us and we would throw notes up to them. Finally Wally found out. He called us into the cloak room, gave us a lecture then three licks with a switch. It didn’t hurt. He didn’t ask us to take our coats off. I was scared. Afraid Wally would tell Mom and Dad and I would be in big trouble. Evidently he never told them. They never mentioned it.

There was a young man that attended the Inman School. His name was Archie Crews. His parents and mine was members of the Camp Branch Church of God Prophecy. Archie and I would see each other at church. Sometimes he would go home with us for Sunday Dinner. Sometimes he would come over at night. We would have to sit in the living room where there was light. We wasn’t allowed to sit in the swing on the front porch. During the week we would write letters and send them through the mail. Finally we got married on December 23, 1931.

We had five children, three boys and two girls. The first baby came early and died at birth on November 1, 1932. We didn’t name it. The rest in order were: William Coleman born October 19, 1934, Audrey Faye born February 8, 1937, Doris Joanne born August 4, 1940, Gary Leon born September 10, 1942.

William Coleman lived sixty-one years an six days. He died of heart failure. He had a severe heart attack and after that five by-passes. He was never well after the heart attack. Coleman died October 25, 1995.

Audrey Faye lived one year, four months and seventeen days. She died June 25, 1938. She died of measles and colitis.

Doris Joanne lived about two weeks. She died August 25, 1940. She died of kidney failure.

Gary Leon is living in Atlanta, Georgia and working for ServiceMaster. He began working for ServiceMaster after being honorably discharged from the army.

Archie and I was married sixty-two years, one month and twenty-two days. He died February 14, 1994. He died of a stroke. He lived five months after the stroke.

I live alone in the house on 755 James Street, Jacksonville, Florida where we moved to in 1944 from Valdosta, Georgia.

The house Dad built was larger and more spacious. When I was born there was four bedrooms, living room and kitchen and dining room.

The boys room was large with three double beds. The girl’s bedroom had two double beds and a small bed. The small bed was mine. Mom’s and Dad’s bedroom was built on the end of the house next to the living room which had a fireplace. The back of the chimney was in the bedroom. When I went to bed at night, my bed was right up against the chimney. I would put my feet against the chimney. It was so warm and cozy.

Across the front of the house was a long porch. At the end of the porch, near Mom’s and Dad’s bedroom was a door that opened out to the porch. At the end of the porch was Dad’s “cooling board”. This was a wide board attached to the wall and the other end attached to the banister. The banister was all across the front porch. When dad and the boys would come to the house for lunch after working in the fields all morning, they rested a while before lunch (dinner). Dad on his cooling board for a nap.

I suppose the reason it was called a “cooling board” was because there was a huge wisteria vine at the end of the porch that made a good shade. It was beautiful when in bloom. Occasionally Dad would trim it back. One day he was cutting it back and said, “I believe this thing would run to Manor if it wasn’t cut back”.

One day he was working on some of his farm things, plows or something, anyway he told Bill to look where he kept his tools and bring him a cold chisel. Bill was gone and gone. Finally he came back and told Dad that he had felt everything and couldn’t find anything cold. Dad didn’t get angry or upset, he was a good sport.

From the front porch, go through the living room to another long porch. It was called the water shelf porch. About everything had a name. This porch had a water shelf at one end with a water bucket with water drawn from the well. There was door steps near the end of the porch and a wash pan on the water shelf. On the wall was a mirror and a razor strap to sharpen Dad’s straight razor, plus towels and wash cloths.

Dad had a mustache. He would wash up, comb his hair which had a little grey in it, and then would shave, take the scissors and trim his mustache. He always kept it neat.

At the other end of the water-shelf porch was a small bedroom. It had one double bed. Mom made all the quilts for the beds.

Another porch joined the water-shelf porch. It was called the kitchen porch because doors opened to the dining rom and kitchen. At the end of this porch was a small room we called the pantry. We kept flour in a flour barrel, eggs and other things.

The dining room was large. One wall was shelves where Mom put her canned tomatoes, green beans, cucumbers, pickles, etc. Those tomatoes was so red and pretty in glass jars. The kitchen was large. It even had a walk in fire place, a mantle shelf above it and a big wood burning stove. It had a place on top where you could open doors to put food in to keep it warm with the doors closed. On the right side was a big reservoir that always had hot water for dishes and baths. Baths in a galvanized tub.

There was no indoor plumbing. Our out house was out back in the field. No toilet tissue, we spent a lot of time looking at sears catalogues.

In the pantry was a flour barrel. See, there wasn’t much money. Sometimes Dad would sell a barrel of syrup and he would take several dozen eggs to Manor to the General Store and exchange eggs for flour, sugar, rice, etc. Things we could not grow on the farm.

I suppose the reason they called it the General Store was because they sold everything from safety pins to horse collars. All kinds of hardware equipment.

The flour came in twenty four pound sacks. The sacks was a pretty flowered material. Mom would wash the sacks and when she got two or three she would make me a dress. She had no patterns so she would take a Sears, Roebuck Catalog and look at the little dresses. She would find one that she wanted to make mine like. She would have me stand in front of her, take a newspaper and scissors, measure my shoulders and waist line, cut the newspaper for her pattern and then cut the material. When the dress was finished it looked just like the one in the catalog. She sewed it on a Singer sewing machine. It wasn’t electric – she peddled it with her foot

I thought I looked pretty in my new dress, black shoes and black ribbed stockings. I didn’t look different from the other girls my age. Their mothers done the same thing. I have a picture of my brother Warren holding me in his arms on the front porch.

Dad had a gasoline engine. On the right side was a cane mill. On the left side a grits mill. The engine operated both. Didn’t take long, just a few minutes to grind enough sugar cane to fill two double boilers with juice and cook it into syrup. The boilers or kettles was built into a furnace. They would build a fire in the furnace and cook the juice into syrup.

Saturdays, the neighbors would come from miles around with their shelled corn for Dad to grind their corn into grits and meal. He didn’t charge them to grind their corn. He even furnished the gasoline.

Dad had a corn shiller. Bill and I would shuck the corn. We would put an ear into the machine, turn the handle and the corn would fall off the cob into a container. Then Dad would grind our corn into grits and meal when he finished with the neighbors.

We always had plenty of food to eat. A garden for fresh vegetables and we grew sweet potatoes. We had chickens, turkeys, guineas ducks and geese. Occasionally Dad and the boys would butcher a young cow for beef roast, steaks, stew meat, etc. There was so much, he divided with neighbors. (No charge). In the winter when the weather was real cold, Dad and the boys would kill three or four hogs at one time. They cleaned them real good, cut them into hams, pork chops, spare ribs, etc. They used some of the meat for sausage. They would hang the meat in the smoke house then build a smoldering fire of hickory wood under it. That ham and gravy was delicious.

Dad had several honey bee hives. The honey was real tasty with those hot biscuits.

We sort of looked forward for a rainy day. Mom would cook a hen for chicken and dumplings, chicken and rice and fryers for fried chicken. We had plenty of vegetables from the garden – peas, butter beans, okra, tomatoes, corn, Irish potatoes, etc. With all the fresh milk, eggs and butter, Aline would bake five or six egg custard pies. That wood burning stove would bake them to perfection.

Besides Mom’s and Dad’s thirteen children they took in a little girl about four or five years old, homeless and dirty. The only clothes was what she was wearing. Aline took a galvanized wash tub and filled it with warm water from the reservoir from the stove and gave her a good bath. Aline and Mom made some dresses, bought her some shoes and other things she needed. She lived in our house as one of the family until she got married. Her name was Myrtle Walker. We lost contact of her after she married. I don’t remember the boy’s name.

There was also a young man that had no family that lived with us to work in the fields and do other chores for room and board. His name was Mose Lee, no relation to John Lee, Lottie’s husband.

Walton married Maggie Cribb
Lottie married John Lee
Dicie married Bryant Hinson
Floyd married Nancy Ratcliff
Wally married Nellie Irene Peck
Bert married Rosa Steedly
Warren married Marie DeChaine
Fannie married Holton Rouse
Aline married Alvin Boyd
Tyler married Ada Curry and then later Mrs. Rolf
Flora married Joe Crews
Bill married Edna Boyd and then later Retha Masters
Doris married Archie Crews

About once a month a man came through the community with a truck, sort of a store on wheels. He came from Waycross, GA which was about 15 miles away. Bill and I would save up our pennies to buy an ice cream cone or candy. He even had mullet fish. Mom would buy some fish. The fish was good after eating pork meat, beef, sausage and chicken.

We went fishing some in the afternoon, a little way between the house and the mailbox. The ditches was wide. We would catch catfish, perch, etc. Times have changed. The road is still there, but the trees and shrubs have about covered the ditches up to the road. At Christmastime, Bill and I would hang our black ribbed stockings by the fireplace. We would get up early Christmas morning to see what Santa Claus had brought us. In Bill’s stocking was an apple, orange, candy and a toy – either a cap pistol or a little truck. My stocking had the same thing except mine had a little China doll. It was so cute and was breakable. I took good care of it. Sometimes I would play with my kitty cat. I would put a doll cap on her head, wrap her up and rock her in a rocking chair on the front porch. I would play cowboy with Bill. We would run and he would shoot caps at me with his pistol.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, some men began working putting up telephone poles. Telephones were a real luxury. Those kind of phones are souvenirs now. The phone was a pretty box attached to the wall. On the right side was a handle to turn to ring “central” or operator. The place you talked into was in front and the part you listened to was on the left side. One day I was over at Walton’s and Maggie’s house. I wanted to talk on the phone, so I called home. Our ring was three shorts and one long. I could not think of one thing to say so I said, “Has the mail come yet?”.

About two miles from our house was a railroad. The reason for the railroad, Grandfather William Thomas James owned all this land and had to go to Waycross once a month to get the mail. By horse and wagon it would take a day there and back. Finally some men came to see Grandfather about buying enough land to put a railroad from Waycross to Valdosta which would go right through Grandfather’s land. He told them, “I wont sell it to you but I will give it to you providing you put a train stop closer by so we won’t have to go to Waycross to get our mail”. They agreed. That is why Manor is called Manor. One of the man’s name was Manor.

The railroads completed, airplanes would fly from Waycross to Valdosta following the railroad. They was small planes. They usually flew over during the middle of the day. Many times we would be eating lunch (dinner) and hear an airplane. Every one of us would go outside to the backyard and watch the plane from the time it came into sight until it went out of sight. I remember one day as we stood looking up, mom said, “Some mother’s boy is up there”.

When Coleman was a teenager, the church had a fleet of airplanes called the “White Angel Fleet”. He wanted to be a pilot. We ordered him a White Angel Fleet uniform. Sunday afternoons he would go out to Herlong Field and practice flying. Finally he was good enough. He could take the plane up by himself. Sometime we would go with him and watch him practice landing. He got pretty good. He would take off, circle around and come back down and go up again. He got to where he didn’t bump the ground at all – came in real smooth. He only lacked a cross country flight, like from here to Valdosta, GA by himself to get a license. He met Betty Bryson and that wound up his flying. They got married.

In the afternoon when Bill and I was young, it was one of our chores to go to the woods and bring the cows back home and put them way down in the back of the field. When the cows got that part fertilized real good, Dad would move the fence up closer and we would put the cows there, and so on until the entire field was fertilized. Then in the spring of the year, Dad would plow the fields and get the ground ready for planting corn or peas.

When Bill and I got the cows situated and on our way back to the house, Bill would say, “Let’s play a game. I will get behind you, put my hands over your eyes”. So he did that. Then he said, “Take a long step and you will miss it”. I would take the long step and my foot would hit the target, barefoot. I felt like beating him up. He would never let me blindfold him. No wonder I loved him so much.

Another game we played was “Doctor and Patient”. We had a large house outside of the front yard called the cotton house. This cotton house had a loft where the dry peas was kept and the bottom floor was cotton after it was picked from the fields. You may know Bill was the doctor. I, the patient. I would lie on the cotton for my bed. The doctor’s office was up in the loft. I would call the doctor. “Doctor, I’m sick”. He would shell a few peas (pills), come down to my sick bed and ask,

“How are you today?”

“Doctor, I’m very sick.”

He would tell me to open my mouth. He would put a couple of peas in my mouth and then he would say, “Don’t swallow them”. I would pretend to get better soon.

We also played in the backyard. We would take brick and build a furnace, use an old stove pipe for the chimney, take a coffee can and wash it real good. We would pick a few butter beans and peas, shell, wash, and put them in our cook pot (coffee can) with some water, salt and a small piece of pork meat, build a fire in the furnace and cook until done. Yes, we ate it.

Mom and Dad went to church in a buggy horse drawn. They sat on the seat. Bill and I sat on a little place behind the seat, our feet hanging out. Sometimes Bill would walk behind the buggy. He didn’t want Mom and Dad to know he was walking. He told me the reason he was walking was because he was sick. He told me the reason he was sick was the odor of the horse. We passed a cemetery going and coming from church. We would imagine we saw ghosts. The horses name was “Old Nell”. Solid white horse.

Wally, Aline, Flora, and Tyler would walk to church. One pretty moonlight night they was walking home. They saw a pretty little animal running along beside the road. They decided to catch it. They took their coats off and would throw their coats over the animal. It kept running out from under the coats. They would throw the coats again. It didn’t take long to find out that this pretty little animal was “A skunk”. You can imagine how their new coats smelled.

Seemed like the days was longer back then. Aline and Flora would wash the dishes after breakfast, make up beds, draw water from the well, carry the water to the backyard to the wash house, wash the clothes, rinse them three or four times and hang them on the clothes lines across the backyard. While the clothes dried in the sun they would cook dinner. After dinner the dishes washed, we had plenty of hot water in the reservoir on the stove. They rested. Dad on his “cooling board”. They took the clothes off the lines, folded towels, etc. Then ironed the clothes with irons heated on the stove. Finally we got a gasoline iron. It had a round container on top at one end. They filled this container about half full with white gasoline. It had a pump to pump air into it. Strike a match and it was ready to use. Was much cooler, the heat could be controlled.

Time to cook supper, there was always three meals a day. After supper, dishes washed, we would sit on the front porch. It was about sundown now. We would talk with each other. There was no television, only a battery operated radio. That was a mystery as to how we could listen to news being broadcasted from Atlanta, New York and the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night.

While sitting on the porch it began to get dark, the toad frogs would come hopping around looking for mosquitos, insects, etc. The boys would take buck shots and roll them on the ground toward the frog. The frog would follow it. Finally that poor frog was so heavy it could not hop. After the boys had their fun, they would take the frog by it’s hind legs, hold it up, shake the frog and buck shots would fall on the ground. They would put the frog back down on the ground and it would continue on it’s way looking for mosquitos and insects.

Aline would sweep the yard so pretty with a gall berry bush broom. When she finished it looked like waves. I didn’t want the chickens to walk on it and mess it up.

Times have changed so much since then. There was so much peace and quite, no bad news on the radio or newspapers. No murder, violence, etc. Now about everything we hear or read is bad. Children killing their parents, parents killing their own precious children. Even babies. Can you imagine a young girl giving birth to a newborn and putting it in a garbage bag? We are not safe anywhere, even in our own homes or driving our cars. People will shoot you. I miss going to church at night, afraid of carjackers.

When I was growing up on the farm we would go to bed at night with doors and windows open and no screens. Leave the smoke house door unlocked with all the meat in there. Nobody took anything that didn’t belong to them.

I have seen such a change in my lifetime, from wood telephones on the wall (except as souvenirs). Now most everybody has several telephones in their home, pretty colors. When you are away from home, even several days, leave the answering machine, it will receive your messages and you can listen to your messages when you return. Even in your car, talk while driving from city to city. Even talk overseas. Instead of iceboxes we have self defrosting refrigerators, even get ice and water out of the front door without even opening the door. Instead of airplanes following the railroad from town to town, now there’s the big 747’s that fly overseas. Have breakfast in New York, dinner (supper) in Paris.

Gary, you and Patty have seen many changes in your lifetimes too.

Fannie and Aline had typhoid fever. The nearest doctor was at Homerville, GA, about 15 miles away. There was no antibiotics. People prayed a lot. I remember Mom going from bed to bed ringing her hands, crying and praying and asking the Lord to let them live. People in the community was praying for them too. Finally the crisis was over. Prayer was answered, the high temperatures was gone. They began to get better and soon they was recovered.

Each night before we went to bed, Dad asked all of us to kneel in the living room and pray. I can almost hear Dad now as he would say, “Lord, watch over us. Keep us safe through the night. Protect us from all harm.” All of us prayed at the same time. Jesus hears each one. It’s good to know that as many millions of people as there is in the world, the Good Lord, our Heavenly Father hears each one of us. Also, He knows what we need even before we ask. Not even a little sparrow falls to the ground without His knowledge of it.

Dad usually sat in a chair he made (he made several of these chairs). The seats was made of cowhide, the hairy side underneath. One of these chairs was by the fireplace in the living room. I sat on his lap many times, just for a short time at night. I felt so secure there.

Dad was small in stature, about 5 foot 7 or 8 inches and about 150. Mom was of medium build and about 150 or 60 pounds. Her hair was white with long waves across the front. She wore it balled up on the top of her head. She was a very attractive lady. Very funny and lively. She would hold her dress on each side with her hands and do a little dance to make us laugh. She too, was a good sport.

One afternoon when Aline and Flora was cooking supper, Fannie was in the living room playing the organ. It wasn’t electric .She peddled it with her foot to keep it playing. It was a beautiful piece of furniture with a place om each side for lamps, (they was kerosene lamps). She was playing and singing gospel songs. Flora and Aline had supper about ready to put on the table. Dad noticed Fannie was playing the organ in the Spirit, such Heavenly music, she was also singing in the Holy Ghost, the words were no longer in English but the Heavenly language in tongues as the Spirit gave utterance according to the Book of Acts 2:4 in the Bible. Dad asked all of us to gather around quietly. Do not disturb her. Just listen quietly. This was such a wonderful experience that lasted several minutes. No one was hungry for food. When Fannie came to herself, Mom and Dad lead all of us in worship and praise of the Lord. We didn’t have much money, but what those Christian parents taught us, money could not buy.

We children, all 13, thank God for Mom and Dad. They did what the Bible says in Proverbs 22:6. “Train up a child in the way he should go, when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Notice the Scripture did not say, “train up a child in the way we want it to go, but train up a child in the way he or she should go.”

Even when we are trained in the way we should go, sometimes we may lose out with the Lord or backslide. While one is in this backslidden condition, one doesn’t forget what he or she has been taught. Most people do return to the Lord and ask His forgiveness. Jesus is always watching over us and waiting for us to return to him.

Luke 15:7, “I say unto you that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth more than ninety and nine just persons which need no repentance”

Verse 18; The prodigal son said, “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, ‘father, I have sinned against Heaven and before thee'”

Verse 20; And he arose and came to his father, but yet when he was a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion and kissed him.

Verse 24; “for this my son was dead and now alive, again he was lost and is found and they began to be merry”

Jesus is good and merciful to us.

Dad left us March 6, 1935. Mom went to join him December 28, 1940. Thirteen of fourteen children are gone to be with Mom and Dad. I don’t know when Jesus, our Heavenly Father, will call for me to join them. He has allowed me to live longer than Mom, Dad, seven brothers and six sisters. I am now 80 years old. Will be 81 November 18, 1997. I thank God for every year He has allowed me to live in this beautiful world.

Jesus tells in St. John 14: verses 2-3. “In my Father house are many mansions, if it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself that where I am, there ye may be also.”

Verse 4; “And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know.”

Verse 6; “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man cometh to the Father but by Me.”

The Bible is our road map from Earth to Heaven.

Revelations, Chapter 21, tell us how big this place is and what it is made of. All of those stones are so pretty. Makes us almost want to hurry and get there.

We don’t get there by our works. Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

We are saved when we do what Romans 10:9-10 says. “That if thou shall confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised Him from the dead, thou shall be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Verse 13; “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Simple?

Let’s keep His commandments,  and with His help, and Grace, the rest of the family can make it to join the others gone on.

Love and Prayers
Mom, Grandmother and Great Grandmother

 

Note: Amy Doris James Crews passed away on June 9, 1999 at the age of 82