Memories

Late Summer and Early Fall

At the King Home

I remember.

.....Late summer and early fall at home was a time for harvesting, preparing, processing and preserving. It was time for a ritual that had continued in American rural homes for hundreds of years. Although our place was not what might qualify as a rural home since we only had five acres, had close neighbors, and had no livestock after we had quit raising hogs, we had apples, blackberries, damson plums, gooseberries, and other fruits that grew on our land. From our relatives, who still lived on their farms, we had garden produce such as tomatoes for canning and corn that mom would pickle. As I mentioned, when I was a smaller child, we did keep a hog which we would butcher. But, that was a late fall or early winter happening.

.....Our house was nestled just below and on the lea side of a narrow ridge which overlooked what we called Roxalana Hollow. Although the houses are nearly wall to wall now, there were lots of open spaces in the early years including the fields of Caldwell's Dairy. Across the hollow rises the high hill we called Gobbler's Knob. For much of my childhood, that tall hill stood unblimished. Now it is encrusted with what is known as Westmorland Addition. Roxalana Road, Alternate Route 25, ran through the valley and was the main road from Dunbar to Charleston. Prior to the opening of I-64, almost all traffic passed this way. When my parents came to Roxalana, the road was dirt and mom lost the set out of her engagement ring while filling holes with rock. Looking to the North, the ridge that stretches above Midway Drive formed the horizon. In the summer, the valley and the ridges made a vista of green. The narrow road, that was our only access to the outside world and which ran by our place, ascended the hill to the place where it split at what we called "the curve." To reach our place you made a sharp left. In the Spring, when you came around the last curve, you were greeted by a sea of color from our blooming fruit trees and from the rainbow that was created bu mom and dad's many flowers. Although the house wasn't much by today's standards, we had the nicest grounds on the hill. But, it took a lot of work to keep it that way.

.....Although our apples were out biggest crop by far, harvesting the blackberries was the first big activity of the summer. We did have early apples, but those were mostly for cooking. Although we did have some wild blackberries, our main crop was from domesticated canes. They were not as sweet as some of the wild berries, but their savagely thorned briars yielded abundantly, I have never been a very good berry picker because I am slow, but mom and dad could fill their buckets as fast as anyone that I have known. These buckets were emptied into dishpans which were then brought brimming back through the flower gardens to the house. I can still see my parents bending among the briars picking away in the patch behind our house while paying little attention to the stickers or to the bees and wasps. I suppose that I can say at this point that my mother and father didn't work so that they could have money for recreation.. Work was their recreation.

.....The one thing that made all of processing of the various food items possible was water. This is where I came in. I was a water boy before I ever knew what a water boy was. In those days, you could not turn on a faucet and get water at the King place until about 1954. Until that time, every drop of water had to be pumped by hand and that hand, after I was big enough, was my hand. All the water for washing, all the water for cooking, all the water for dishwashing, all the water for the Saturday night bath, and all the water for canning, came one bucket at a time...pump, pump, pump. By the way, this was before the soap companies brainwashed the American Public by making them think that, if they didn't sniff their underarms at least every fifteen minutes and then go take a bath, they were horrible people. Saturday night was often enough for anybody,,,especially if they had to pump the water by hand or carry it from a spring. In the winter, the pump handle would be raised to its highest position and the water would be allowed to run back into the well. Then, the next morning the pump would have to be "primed" before you could pump any water.

.....All of those berries had to be washed and put into big kettles to cook on the gas range. Some of these berries would be canned whole. Some were made into jam, while others went into mom's blackberry jelly. We would have fresh blackberry pie or cobbler. The canned berries would be opened later to make pies long after summer had fled. Mom was an artist at making pie crust. Not only was the crust delicious, she would take a fork and deftly make flower designs on the top crust and, with the fork handle make indentons all the way around rim. She would usually make a few strips of crust just for me. From this baking there came an aroma that was worth going to war and fighting for. Mom would also make jelly from the fruits of our gooseberry bushes. Lest I forget, she also make rhubarb pies.

.....By far the biggest operation came at apple time. I remember a few years in which the apples failed, but that didn't happen often. Some years were bumper years when the tree limbs would have to be propped up to keep them from breaking. In those years, the apples would hang in clusters. There seemed to be apples everywhere you looked. Just about every spot on the home place was home to an apple tree. We had good West Virginia red delicious and yellow delicious which were much better than those from Washington State that they spend so much advertising money on today. We had moms favorites: the grimes golden and the Rome beauties. We had wine saps, late jonathans, early transparents, and some other early apples that I do not remember the names for. And, we had a crabapple tree that never failed. Mom would can these whole with a clove in each. We also had a large bartlett pear tree, but it did not produce until the later years. The yellow delicious was my favorite, and there is nothing like reaching up and pulling one of these rough West Virginia apples off the tree and taking that first bite. Amd. all of these trees were flowering marvels.

.....We sold picked apples for three dollars per bushel and "dropped" apples for a dollar a bushel. In bumper years, there were always a lot of apples that fell to the ground. Sometimes it was dangerous just to walk among these apples. This was because, with the apples, there came a horde of yellow jackets. Mom had to be especially careful because she was allergic to their sting. I remember that once she was stung between her toes. It was horrible as she writhed upon the bed.. That nearly scared me to death.

.....Once the job had started, there was no stopping from morning until dark. Into the friendly sunny kitchen, a bushel of apples would be brought, paring knives were taken from the cabinet drawers, scrubbed kettles were put on the gas range, and bucket after bucket of water was pumped and carried to clean, cook, and can the apples. The canning usually was done outside on the porch on a gas hot plate in large washtubs. Once, when I was just a tad, I threw our old black tomcat on that hot plate. I was a very sorry little boy.

.....This was before Television came with its soap operas to keep women sitting on the couch. We had a radio, but I don't remember it being played during work time. Radio then was real radio and not just a bunch of music. There would be plenty of talk. Sometimes neighbor women would come and the work would become a social event. Talk made the chores and the fingers fly.

.....When everything was ready and in place, every hand that was handy took up a paring knife and picked up an apple and started peeling. After a few years, we had a hand cranked apple peeler. You would stick the apple on one end and start cranking. Even while one person was cranking, others would still be peeling the old-fashioned way. After enough apples had been peeled, one or two people would stop and start coring and quartering the fruit. Then it would be mom who put the apples into the kettles, added the water, and light the burner. And so it went until the job was done. Oh, we would stop and eat. You always ate well at our home. Just as mom and dad believed in working, they believed in eating. And, dad was no slouch when it came to cooking either. For years, dad didn't go to church with us but would have Sunday dinner well on its way when the rest of us got home from church. We had no .....To get back to the apples, those washtubs were filled with jars filled with cooked apples and more water was pumped and poured around the jars. The burners were lit and the canning process would begin. Now, I am not a canning expert and I might not get all of the mechanics right. After all more than fifty-five years have passed since I started taking part in those chores.

.....Mom would also grind up apples in a foley's mill which is a machine that my wife still uses today. In this way, she would make apple sauce and from some of the apple sauce she would make apple butter. The neighbors did get together out in yard once in a while to make apple butter in a big kettle, but I think that the apple butter that mom made on the gas range was better.

.....One year, when the apples were abundant, we borrowed a cider mill. Some of the neighbors "pitched in" and we made quite a batch of juice which we enjoyed drinking, A few of us boys decided that we would try to make some hard cider. I don't how hard it was, but we had fun trying. One of the boys took a gallon to school with him and I heard that one of the neighbor girls tried to show off and drank a lot of it. It was said that she got a good case of the "backdoor trots." I remember the girl's name, but I best not mention it here. We were in junior high that year. I doubt it we would get by with carrying that jug to school today with everyone being so "uptight and all."

.....At the King home, we children didn't consider mom and dad's idea that we had a roof over our head, food on our plates, and clothes on out back and that we should be satisfied with that to be unfair. We didn't know what an allowance was. We would have been shocked by children who expected to be paid for what chores they did around the house. That idea was not part of our culture. We all profited by having hard working parents who provided for us and expected us to help. There was no child who ate better than I did. Our clothes were not fancy, but they were decent. Each of us children were brought up in church, taught manners, and were taught respect for others. All of the activities at home reinforced these things. No, it wasn't a perfect home. They were things that mom and dad didn't understand and that we were not taught. We didn't know beans about sex or about people who were not of the same skin color. And, although ignorance is not always bliss, we had a great home. And, apple time was part of it. And so was every dish that I washed. And, I hated washing dishes. After my sister Midge married, I was the only kid left to wash dishes. Today, I don't think my sister believed that I washed dishes, but I did.

.....During the middle of the last part of summer, I always had to go back to school. But, I alluded to that with the cider story. It meant new jeans and shirts. But, it didn't seem long after that until the nip got into the air. So, it may be a good place to stop and let the school year introduce the story of the late fall and winter at the King Home. Until then, have a happy memory.