My dad's name was Osborn Calloway, but he went by the name of "Good" all the time. There wasn't nobody knowed but what Good Foster was his right name. My granddaddy nicknamed him Good because he was the best young'un he had, he said. He minded him the best. That's why he named him Good. He had about six or eight boys. When he wasn't called Good, he went by his initials, O. C. I was nearly grown 'fore I knowed what my father's real name was. Everybody called him Good, and I thought that was it. I never asked no questions. I finally learned the difference. I've got eight brothers and sisters; there was eight in the family, six boys and two girls.

My father was a cattle ranger. He went to the mountains and drove his cattle and farmed on the farm. That was back in my boyhood days-in my father's day. We ranged our cattle back in the mountains like that, and made our livin' that way. He was a blacksmith, too. He had a big blacksmith shop out here. And a carpenter. He could do anything he wanted to do. Build cabinets, wagons. Anything he wanted to do, why he could do it. He had a good blacksmith shop. He used to make cradles to cut wheat and rye with. My father made thousands of 'em.

Carpentry was gifted to him - the incentive to do things like that. He'd hew out little pieces of wood to make them cradles. One had five fingers - they called 'em fingers. It was five foot long. That was the cradle blade that cut the wheat and rye. Them fingers was as long as the blade was. He'd put that all together, then he'd just sling it around and cut that wheat or rye. And it'd fall right back on them fingers when he cut it down, and he'd bring it on around, take his hand, take the wheat and lay it down there and somebody would come along behind him and tie it up. There wasnt nobody hardly that could make one to run right. My father'd make one and you could hold it up with one finger if you was stout enough to hold the cradle. It'd balance. He knowed how to balance one. And you'd get ahold of one that somebody else tried to make, it'd dip into the ground. It wasnt balanced. It was just a hard proposition to make one of 'em right. The spring of the year, he'd set into makin' cradles. Have us boys out here on the farm makin' corn. Yep. He got five dollars apiece for them cradles.

My father was never very stout. He had pneumonia fever when his family was about half grown, when he was about forty-five. And he died when he was sixty-three, my father did. But he never was stout. He couldn't stand wintertime weather. He'd take cold just as sure as he got out in it. He was making a wagon when he got sick and died. He was rebuilding one for his mother-in-law. Right there at the shop. My mother was pretty strong. She lived to be seventy-seven, but she was pretty strong. Had one spell a while-what they called rheumatism. And she got nearly helpless for two or three months. [We] had to turn her in the bed. They called it rheumatism, but they call it something else now-arthritis, I think. Oh, she got over it. She was a big woman. I believe she one time weighed right up there towards two-forty. Maybe fifty.

I grew up right here, except in a different house about fifteen or twenty yards from here. Right up in a flat place-that's where the old house was. I was born and raised there. Been here seventy-seven years. It was my family's house. My father bought it and they moved here on Christmas Day, then I was born the fifth of May. The old house was an old two-story log house, weatherboarded with polar weatherboarding on the outside. It was a pretty decent looking old house to me-I like it, and wished I hadn't ever tore it down. It had a porch out on the front end next to the road, then we built a porch around two sides. We lived in it fifteen or eighteen years.

One of my great uncles built it, then he died, and my father bought it off his heirs. That's how come we got it. There's a hundred and twenty-five or thirty acres of it, and he bought it for three hundred and fifty dollars. The whole place. Land was cheap then. He'd sold his old place for one hundred and two dollars, so he went in and bought part of this on credit. He didn't have all the money. There was an old gentleman that lived on the river over yonder, and he knowed my father, and knowed my father was honest. He said, "You just come over and get the rest of the money to pay for that land. Give me a note, and you can pay me when you get ready". He said, "I'll never ask you for it." So, my father went and got it, and sure enough, he never did ask my father to pay none on it. One day, my father got ahold of some money, and he sent me over there to pay the remainder of the bill. I'd got big enough (I wasn't born, you see, when bought it). On an old mule. I paid for the land.

There was eight of my brothers and sisters. It took right smart to keep that bunch goin'. I can remember when every one was here at home. "Course, they were pretty well grown, all but me and my sisters. Sue was four years younger than I was. But they're all gone now, all but me. They're dead.

[When we were living at home with our parents,] we had to get out here and hoe corn, cut wood, plow the mules, and build fences. I'd rabbit hunt when I had the time and Daddy didnt have something for us to do. If it was drizzling rain or something, us boys would get out and hunt or fish. We didnt get much time off, I'll tell you, on the count of we had to work every day to live back in that time. We had our farm and all like that, but that wasn't saying we had any money.

My father'd haul apples in the fall of the year to get some money to buy a pair of shoes for us kids. We didn't get but one pair then. [And] they made our clothes back then. I remember wearing an old linsey dress-yeah, I was about eight years old when I wore my last dress. The little dresses had big pleats down here on each side, and I thought that was the awfullest thing there was in the world. You wouldn't think about putting a dress on a boy that big now, would you! Boys then would wear a dress 'til they were six and eight years old. I dont know why-just a custom, you know, a rule back then.

Mother had an old timey loom up in the upstairs, and she'd weave the cloth on that loom. (I finally threw it away twenty-twenty-one years ago.) Then she sewed it into shirts and pants, stuff like that, with her fingers. She didnt have no sewing machine. And what about sitting down and knitting socks for eight and ten in a family? She knitted white socks out of wool. They was white as they could be, but I never did like them old white wool socks, and a pair of pants never was long enough. I dont know why they made them so short. Nogbody didnt make em any longer than-half leg breeches-didnt come up to the knees. Halfway-the ugliest things I ever did see, with an old pair of white wool socks come up to meet 'em. And I'll tell you what now! That was something I hated, and me a' gettin' big enough to want to court a little, you know. I'll never forget that. Now, of course, my father and the other men had long pants. These were just for boys.

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