One cold morning, we awoke with a large snow on the
ground, around six to eight inches. But
it wasn’t long until we saw Uncle Carrol Sanders coming across the field with
his scoop shovel over his shoulder. He
started at the mailbox and shoveled out a path to the front door. From there, he shoveled a path down to the
woodpile. After the path to the wood
pile was cleared, were my brothers could start carrying wood to the front porch
where they could stack it or rank it, Uncle Carrol continued shoveling to the
cistern and finally worked his way to the toilet. Bless his heart. Everyone loved Uncle Carrol. He worked so hard, and to this day I can
still remember seeing the sweat drip off the end of his sharp nose.
Uncle Carrol loved to dance and he loved to
soft-shoe. The top of his head never
seemed to move as he dance for us kids.
However, Aunt Mable didn’t like for him to dance. Maybe she couldn’t, and so she didn’t want
him to either. But we always loved to
watch him, and so he would always put us on a little show, and did we love
it. Still to this day, I can see him
doing the old soft-shoe in my memories; still smooth and graceful.
Uncle Carrol farmed forty acres of land and raised hogs
and chickens along with a milk cow or two.
In his spare time, he would walk to Marmaduke, about four miles one way,
to work for Joe Cupples at the sawmill.
He carried his lunch and a lantern.
He left every morning before sunup, worked all day, and then come home
every night after dark. His daughter,
Genevieve, plowed and planted as good as any man. Aunt Mable kept a neat home and set a
beautiful table. I still remember those
goblets with frosted grapes on them standing on a stem filled with fresh
buttermilk.
They always had butter and syrup, which we rarely, if
ever had. But our cousins, Geraldine and
Genevieve always loved to come to our house and eat, even if it was water
biscuits and water gravy. Mother always
had a calm about her that everyone could feel, and with this aura about her,
somehow she always made everything OK. I
miss that comforting calm feeling that radiated from her. Maybe, it was because we loved her, but if
that was the reason, why did everyone who knew her feel the same way when she
was around?
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| Carroll & Mable Sanders |
