Being born the fourth child of
mother’s six children, I will try and share some of our life. The hard with the good. The bitter with the sweet. But, no matter, life is good when you know
you are loved, and mother wove our lives into a beautiful and everlasting bond
with each other and our Heavenly Father.
When mother was 15, she met and
fell in love with Duke Yates. Through
this union was born one daughter, Pearl Marie Yates on July 13, 1926. The marriage ended early in divorce, while Marie
was a very young child. Marie has said
many times that “our daddy”, Dewey Cecil Hatcher, was the only daddy she ever
knew.
Being the oldest child, Marie
became my second mother. Even today I
can feel her loving and protective ways.
We would not want anyone to
think that we thought mother was a saint.
For we all know she fell short, but there are not many saints, and she
ran a close second place.
After the painful divorce,
Uncle Matt, mother’s brother, came in a wagon with a team of horses, and moved
mother and Marie back home, around Rector, Leonard, and the Lone Holly
area. There, while picking cotton by
hand with her family, she met Dewey Cecil Hatcher who was born September 1,
1902 in Tennessee. After a brief
courtship with great expectations, this young couple planned for a long and
happy life. Through this union four children
were born.
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| Dewey & Ines with Marie & Clifton (Tommy on the way) |
James Clifton “Cliff” Hatcher,
born May 18, 1929 and died November 25, 1984.
What can be said about this great brother? He was just seven years old when the duties
of being the head of the house fell upon his small stable shoulders. He was a proud and handsome young man who
worked much to hard all his life.
Cliff was the first of our
close knit family to go. We aren’t the
same. But we will survive. A void that can never be filled is always in
our presence, but we will look forward with confidence.
The Lord sent another son into
our family on August 5, 1931, Thomas Ervin Hatcher, called Tom for Grandpa
Thomas Leroy Wilson. Tommy was slow to
anger, but could be provoked, as the reader will see as this story continues.
My memories are more vivid of
Tom than Cliff when we were children, because we were near the same age, and as
I have already stated, Cliff had to work so hard. We all worked, but Cliff was the responsible
one. Tom and I had such great fun
playing in the dirt, chasing baby chickens, sliding down the roof of the house,
and catching tad poles in the old pond up in the woods lot.
When one of us got hurt, or in
trouble, we both cried, and when one of us was happy, we both rejoiced. We don’t get to see each other as often as we
would like to, now we are grown. Our
cotton-topped heads have turned to gray, but the memories remain.
Next came I, Sarah Rose
Hatcher, born December 26, 1933. I would
ask mother why I was born the day after Christmas, and she would pull me close;
her soft baby fresh fragrance still fills my mind. And she would say, “Honey, Santa brought you
on Christmas, but he put you in a pretty box and tied you in blue ribbons. Then, he put you under the bed. We didn’t find you until the next day.”
I thought this story to be true
for a long time, just like I thought we were rich, and we lived in the most
beautiful home in the world. However as
we grow, we learn that life is just what you make it, and we made it good. But, again, I would like to say again, that
these are “My Memories; My Places in My Heart.”
Life is as each person sees and lives.
Some of these stories won’t be exactly as others may remember them, but
these are my memories. To get your
memories, you must write them down. I
hope that my memories will stir you into remembering.
On September 4, 1936, while
cutting wood for the New Home School, the sharp ax glances from an overhead
branch, while Daddy swings the ax over his head with full force, chopping into
his foot, cutting of the three small toes.
One week later, our Daddy was dead.
Our family was in shock. Even Old John, our dog, cried. Although I was only two and one half years
old, I have memories of Daddy. We martyred
our Daddy, as we sometimes do people who die young. Three sons have been called by the name Dewey
Hatcher. First was Dewey, Jr., who
mother was carrying at the time of Daddy’s death. Second to carry the name was Tom and Shirley’s
son Dewey, the grandson of Dewey Cecil Hatcher. Dewey and his wife Gena named one of their
twins, the great grandson of Dewey Cecil, Benjamin Dewey Hatcher. And so the name as well as the memory of
Daddy goes on.
Mother was so sad and sick
after the death of Daddy. With four
children to care for and another on the way, she almost died herself. She said that one morning she awoke and a voice
inside her said, “Ines, get up, you have those babies to raise.” And we started to live once more. But in February, the baby mother was carrying
was born. Mother was very sick. Infection had set up in her body. The story goes that Dewey Jr. was one of
twins with the other baby dying early in the pregnancy. I could not understand how Mother’s body kept
from aborting this child, but I am sure that I don’t know the whole story.
Mother was very sick, and in
about two weeks after his birth, the baby boy, Dewey Jr., is lost to
pneumonia. We dressed him and laid him
out to rest. I tend to remember him lying
on the old treadle sewing machine. The
neighbors from near and far again came to give us a hand. Mrs. Alice Baker and her and Webb Baker’s
children; Dortha, Tom, James, Floran, Scarlett, and Leslie. Rudy and Mary Sanford and Mr. and Mrs.
Sanford. Mr. and Mrs. Jake Burrows with
Roy and Deloris. Arvin Bradsher, Uncle
John Stares, and the Stares boys. These
are only some of the people who lived near New Home who came to help. Without these people and our family, we would
have never made it.
Mother was unable to go to the
funeral of our baby brother. Marie and
Clifton, so young at this time, started to take on the responsibilities of
parents. Marie has said it was like a
part of her was buried that day. She
remembers it being cold with snow flurries.
However, as Marie and I have talked, we remember when Daddy was being
laid to rest. It was a cold gray day
then too, in September. I have come to
the conclusion that these days were just gloomy in our hearts.
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| Sarah Rose with her momma, Ines Marie |
