I was born, Janet Loyd, in Paris Arkansas, at the Smith hospital, on groundhogs day in1941.   I was 6 months old when my 3-year-old brother, James Wesley died.   Bob was born two years after I was born and Jim 3 years later.

Neither of my families accomplished anything of "great" historical interest but they were examples of typical pioneers. Of interest to me is that these families left different states eventually to settle on homesteads in Arkansas.

Arkansas is a beautiful land of forests, craggy bluffs and lots of water.  

Life was peaceful in Paris.   I spent many hours in a mulberry tree eating mulberries and listening to the bees buzz.   South Third Street, a dirt road, was covered with slate, from the worked out, coalmines.   Most everyone traveling waved and said hello.

Hot summer nights, were for swinging in the porch swing, with a cool breeze blowing the sweet fragrance of red roses that covered the South side of the porch.   The fireflies flickered in the soft black night.  

Spider webs glistened with dew in the early morning sun as I walked with my grandmother, in her bonnet, through our flower garden.   She named the flowers, pinks, zinnias, touch me knots, straw flowers and sweet scented stocks.   In the fall after the buds dried we gathered and saved them for the next years planting.

Grandmother was always canning, cleaning, quilting and one who always had something cooking.   She cared for us when we were ill.   She was kind to everyone.  

The table around which our family gathered for meals was in the kitchen.   A bench behind the long table was for children.   Shelves on one wall of the kitchen held the seasons canned foods from the garden.

Each morning grandmother turned the handle under the metal cabinet and sifted flour into a bowl, added sour dough starter from a big jar and baked fluffy biscuits.   A typical breakfast was served at 7AM sharp and included biscuits, ham, sausage, eggs and gravy.  

Eggs after gathering each day were placed in a big bowl on the old May.   I don’t know the origin of the name old May but it was a lovely piece of furniture that dominated the kitchen.   We used the dishes in the old May only when we had company.

In spring when the ground dried out enough to work grandfather rented a neighbors plow horse for $5.00.   We shook the grass from the clods then raked the soil to a fine consistency.

Seedlings growing from seeds that had been ordered from the seed catalogue long before the weather warmed were ready for planting.

Grandfather, made holes, in rows with the corner of a hoe.   Jim dropped a new seedling in each hole.   Bob added water with a dipper from a bucket.   I crawled to each hole and covered the roots of the plants.

By noon, when the whistle blew at the light plant in Paris, the sun was beating down.   We took off our straw hats and headed to the house for dinner.   The evening meal was supper.

Green stripped gourds grew on the fence by the side road where the berry vines grew.   As the vines began to wither we used a sharp knife to scrape the gourds until they were white.   We placed a gourd in each nest in the hen house.

Making sour kraut was a big event.   After grandfather cut the cabbage, Bob and Jim hauled it from the fields to the back of the house in the little red wagon.   They dumped the cabbage into big tubs of water.   Mother cut off the outside leaves and shredded them into a tub.   The back of the house was the shady side and the object was to finish before the shade was gone.  

Grandmother took batches of shredded cabbage into the smoke house and pounded salt into the cabbage with the round end of her wooden rolling pin, in a big crock.

She covered the full crock with cabbage leaves, a thin layer of gauze and a board about 1½ inch thick cut to fit the diameter of the crock.   Then she put a flat rock on top and covered the crock with cheesecloth and tied a string around it and left it to ferment.

Summer time was for canning.   Each harvested vegetable was canned on a separate day by cleaning, preparing and packing into glass jars.   The jars were put in the pressure cooker and boiled until the thermometer reached the right temperature.   Many evenings we sat on the front porch and shelled peas or snapped green beans for canning the next day.   Field peas were planted by each corn stalk to climb on the stalk after the corn was harvested.    

Evenings were often spent piecing quilt tops from material left from our dresses and shirts.   We sewed the material onto patterns cut from newspaper then trimmed the edges.   We joined the blocks with solid colored material to form a complete top.   Then it was time to tear off the newspaper.    
 
From the kitchen ceiling hung a rectangle of four wooden slats with holes drilled in the center along the entire length of each slat.   In the afternoon the quilt rack was lowered.   Whipping a piece of muslin to the slats started the quilt.   We gently rolled out a big roll of cotton onto the backing.   The quilt top was tacked into place and it was ready to quilt.   As each row of quilting was completed the quilt was rolled on the slat towards the center so the next row could be reached.   The edges were finished with a strip of bias material.

I wanted a purple dress.   I ask my mother then my grandmother and then my grandfather.   He said I will get you a purple dress.   We went to the feed store to buy chicken mesh and he took me along to pick out the bag I wanted for my dress.

The smokehouse, that grandpa built, was used to store chicken feed and dried foods, such as popcorn, garlic and peanuts.   Potatoes were sprinkled with lime and stored under the house.

Before the days became crisp we planned a trip to pick wild blackberries.   I was told I could not go because I was to young to get up at 4AM.   Finally I convinced my grandfather and cousin Colleen to take me along.

Setting out at break of day, we were still half asleep and benumbed by the fresh air of the morning.   On both sides of the dirt road, stretched green pastures, fenced with barbwire.   Birds were singing high in the air.

The sun rose in front of us, bright red on the horizon, growing clearer from minute to minute, the country seemed to awake.

We happily filled our buckets under the canapé of berry vines while the birds cheeped in the bushes.

With full buckets we headed down the hot dusty road home.   Grandpa stopped to talk to an old farmer.   A big bumblebee stung my arm.

Winter evenings we gathered around the radio and listened to programs such as Lum and Abner and Sergeant Preston of theYukon.

Rarely when it snowed enough to cover the ground we scooped snow into a bowl added sugar, vanilla and canned cream.   Then sat by the fire and ate snow cream.

With a nickel from my grandfather, I went to Mr. Mullins store.   I stood in front of the candy counter taking time to choose 5 pieces of candy from chocolate, vanilla, peanut butter and strawberry kits, banana flavored b-b-bats, chicken legs, and bubble gum just to name a few.   Sometimes I would spend the whole nickel on a grapette or an ice cream bar.

Mrs. Nelson gave us a big box of marbles her son collected before he went away to college.   Bob, Jim and I, divided them.   We drew a big circle in the dirt and each put in a few of our prized marbles.   Our fist on the edge of the circle we flipped our shooting aggie to knock out a marble.  

On a dare the circle often held our favorite marbles.   First the shooter would attempt to retrieve the favorite marble.

We rode horse headed broomsticks and shot cap guns from the Sears catalogue.   As Indians we gathered for a powwow and plotted while the cowboys gathered and plotted.

Saturdays, I went to town with my grandfather.   We walked down the road to the highway, crossed the railroad tracks, past the barbershop, past the Union Hall and towards the town square.

Paris is one of two county seats of Logan County.   A small creek branch wonders through town.   A group of, tobacco chewing, farmers gathered on the corner of the main square in front of the courthouse.   The weather and crops were the main topics.

At Hixons store we picked up thread, chicken feed and a few other items.   Mr. Hixon delivered so we rode home in his old pickup truck.  

A big event in my young life was traveling, on Sunday, across the river from Paris to Lamar to visit Uncle Walter and his family.  

They lived on a high bluff over looking the Arkansas River.   We walked through his peach orchards to the edge of the bluff and I realized it was known as “Big Danger” for good reason.

The sweet smell of the mock orange tree, swirled through the air as the old folks rocked in their rockers on the front porch in the quiet afternoon.

Bob, Jim and I went fishing with our grandpa once a week.   We took our can of worms, our tackle box with our cane poles over our shoulders.   A cloud came up and started to rain we headed home with our stringer of fish. We took a short cut across a farmers cow pasture.   It rained so hard we ran and stood under a big oak tree until it slacked.   We were standing under a big oak tree when a big, snorting, bull thundered towards us. We ran and jumped the barbed wire fence.

Every evening grandmother wrote in her diary.

Recalling the scenes of early days when life was new and strange and the future seemed so far away, so full of promise, I find the memories of the old home are sweet indeed.