Foreword

These are the words of my Mother. She wrote this bit of history down, typed in all
CAPS on lined notebook paper. seven pages, front and back, folded in half and stuck in her bible.

She'd forgotten about writing it.

She was still alive when we discovered it, and read it for the first time; of course we
(my siblings and I) already knew the major details, but not how Mama felt about things as they were happening in her life.

So I am sharing these words here; I have posted the whole story elsewhere in the past, but here, in this format, I have options not afforded me elsewhere. I have added photos to help bring the story to life.
I have also added ^{little footnote additions}, with explanations and things I knew growing up with these stories, that mama has left out of her story. I want to do this to make it so you’ll know for sure it is me, inserting information, and not a part of what Mama had said.
I will be RE-posting this as a Serialized Story so you’ll have to keep coming back
for more!
Jerry E Smith

)
^{Thomas and Margaret, May, 1918}

I was born in a small farming community. We had a small farm left to my mother by her father. I am the fourth child of ten children, six boys and four girls. The farm was not nearly large enough or productive enough to take care of our large family. As soon as my two oldest brothers were old enough to do the farming, Papa left this to the boys and did public work to help with the finances. Of course we girls did our share of the farm chores. We milked the cows and fed the pigs and chickens. We also helped Mama with the house cleaning and laundry.

When I was six years old I fell from the steps and broke my right arm. I had to spend several months in the hospital as it was broken in the elbow and had to have surgery and cast.
^{Mama has left out some very important facts here. Her arm was badly broken. There were no real Doctors in her area, the arm had grown infected, swollen and all purple. Sepsis had set in. A traveling salesman of some sort stopped by, (he drove a car! All the folks in this area got around in mule and wagon). Since they were talking about amputating Mama’s arm, he gathered her up and drove her to Statesboro (about 40 miles), to a real Dr, who x-rayed the arm, saw that both bones had been broken (we still had those x-rays). He SET her arm, wrapped the bones with GOLD WIRE, and sent her to the hospital}

I had to learn to use my left hand because my right arm was in the cast so long. I did not start school until I was nearly eight years old. Before I was ten I had caught up with the children who were my age. I made two grades the first two years, two each year. At first I was afraid to take an active part in sports because of my arm, but I soon overcame this and became a fair basketball player. I took an active part in school debates and enjoyed them very much.

^{Wylie, Lucille and their son Lester}
~
My older sister, Lucille, married quite young and moved to a small farming community about twenty five miles from home.
While visiting her the first summer she lived there I met Loren, whom I later married.
Lucille and Wyley, her husband, were very pleased that I was dating Loren because his family owned their own farm and were a well thought of family as far as they knew.

I spent two weeks with them the first time I visited them and Loren came to see me almost every night I was there. Then the rest of our courting was done by letters except a visit about once a month until we were married about a year and a half later.
I quit school when I was in the ninth grade to get married which I have regretted many times since then.
You may wonder why we did not date more often, and I will tell you why.

As you know or most of you will remember, nineteen thirty was in the middle of the worst depression the people of my age group have ever known. Money was something we had very little of and twenty five miles was quite a long distance.

^{Loren and Margaret}

Loren and I were married December the twenty sixth, nineteen thirty-two. We lived with Lorens’ mother, who was a widow; had been for several years. His older sister, Stella, was married but Gus, his older brother, and Irma, his younger sister, were still at home. I did not want to live with his family but Gus was an alcoholic and could not be depended on to take care of the farm so Loren felt he had to stay home to do this.