A Haywood County Farm
I’ve been working a lot this weekend trying to get the Lovelace family line completed on my website so I would have two complete family lines live. My daughters were at my parents’ house, so it made me think about all the summers I would go to my own grandparents’ houses in Haywood County, TN. Every single time I cut open a watermelon and get a whiff of it, it takes me back to those summer days.
Both sets of grandparents had big gardens and lots of fresh vegetables. Both also had back porches where tomatoes would be lined up on newspapers waiting to ripen. At my Lovelace grandparents’ house, the tomatoes were watched over by rows of leftover Aunt Jemima syrup bottles that were always cleaned out, saved and placed in the windowsill that ran the length of the back porch.
Cantaloupe was another thing they grew. Then they would eat slices of it for breakfast, lunch or dinner. My grandfather, who we called “Papaw” sprinkled his with pepper. One summer, probably around 1985, I took my video camera with me on a visit his and Grandmama’s house.
When we arrived, Papaw was in the middle of watering some of the watermelon and cantaloupe, so I took the opportunity to video him at work. It turned out to be one of my favorite videos. Some of his cows make an appearance and, if you look closely, you see the barn that was nearly 50 years old at the time. It would burn to the ground a few years later.
So it’s been an interesting weekend. Spending all this time researching the Lovelace family and then watching the video. I have topped it off by eating watermelon, cantaloupe and tomatoes this weekend. Although, I did have to buy them at the store.
For more of my genealogy research, visit rscottwilliams.info.
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