A Serendipity 2001

Indeed it was a serendipity meaning (according to my Funk & Wagnall),”the faculty of  happening up on fortunate discoveries when not in search of them.”  This certainly was the case recently when my phone rang and a lady asked if she and her sister could drop by.

This was the week that The One I Love Best had what our doctor diagnosed as a Viral Infection – you know when they don’t know anything else to call it that’s the term they use.  Anyway, John was really sick and tucked in bed, so I invited the ladies to come over.

What a delightful visit we had.  It turned out to be three of the nicest ladies you would ever want to meet and would you believe they were cousins of mine, whom I had never met.  I love genealogy and my girls have delved deep into their daddy’s family – looking for an opportunity to join DAR, which they found.  They looked into the Lang side of the family to some degree, but it seems Langs are somewhat evasive and their search was short lived, only going back to my great grandfather.

My visitors were full of questions and I even had a few pictures to show.  Their grandfather was my daddy’s brother and we got into a big discussion about what kind of cousins we were.  Second cousins?  Maybe.  Cousins once removed was my suggestion and after a big laugh we moved on.  I told all the little tidbits I could come up with about my grandmother (I never knew my grandfather), which would be their great grand.  She was very old in my young years and when she would come here to visit it was my job to walk her to the toilet – some several yards from the house.  She couldn’t see well and could hardly hear so somebody had to hold onto her to walk, but she needed the exercise, too.  I remember that she had stiff hairs on her chin and when we would visit her she would ask Sis and me to cut off her whiskers, which we detested.  We contend that’s the reason we have such today – because we hated to cut off Granny’s whiskers so much.

The sisters were from Orlando and Morristown, Tennessee and were visiting their first cousin in Albertville and we had the nicest visit.  Our conversation drifted to Langston, Alabama, which was the home of my great grandfather   The name was Vaught, but my great grandmother was Sarah Croft.  It seems Sarah (pronounced Sarie in those days) had married a Mr. Tidwell, who went away to the Civil War and never returned. The story is that he took the measles and was given permission to come home for a few weeks.  He took a bath in preparation of the trip home and the measles “went in on him” and as a result he died.  Anyway Sarah, who lived a couple of miles from where I now live, was left with a very young child — how in the world she met Julian Vaught from Langston – some 30 miles away is beyond anybody living today.  She and Julian, who was 44 years older than she, lived in this area.  Now he had grown children in Langston  (they wanted nothing to do with this second wife) and he and Sarah had a little girl (my grandmother) and  she was pregnant when Julian died.  Men in this community hauled the body back to Langston for burial via two-horse wagon.  Sarah was left destitute.  Two days after her husband died she had a baby boy.

Now she was left with three children and no way to make a living.  It’s said that she and her children would have starved to death if it had not been for her brothers.  The Croft family was quite large and, apparently, they all pitched in to help Sarah rear her family.

All these stories were told to my visitors, who are of a younger generation than I and they sat spell bound as I talked on and on.  I’m known for doing that anyway – it’s just natural.

My grandmother had four boys – their grandfather being one of them and my daddy being another.  I told them how Granny tended the babies.  She said she would set the bedpost on their dress tail (baby boys wore dresses back then) and put sorghum on the fingers then give them a feather to play with.

I heard another story about a grandmother, who had a big family and lots of work to do.Her husband made rockers for her churn to fit on and then he made a box she could put the tiniest baby in (tying her apron around it to keep the baby in the box), the box fit on top of the churn and she would rock the baby and churn while she arned (ironed).  Ha!! She didn’t believe in wasting time.

This delightful visit could have lasted for hours, but all too soon it was time for them to leave (and it was time for me to check on my patient), so we said our goodbyes,

promising that we would get together again soon for more yarn spinning and laughing.  It’s nice that we live in the age of technology and can keep in touch via e-mails and telephone.

Visits such as this have to be classified as some of the best parts of living at the home place with its style of country living.