Several years ago, I bought a micro cassette tape recorder to help me take audio notes and record interviews to assist me in writing. It sat in my dad’s (now mine) old briefcase for many years. I had good intentions to use it, and I did. Twice. Eight, or nine, years ago I interviewed my mother, Mary Belle Stone, with the intention of writing a family history. Two years ago I taped an interview with the late Mr. Truman Masters, a professional addiction counselor. I had the honor of writing an article for Alternative Choices Counseling Center’s Newsletter about him. The word intention denotes useful synonyms such as “purpose, goal, and end”. I achieved none of those. I discovered that it was easier to buy a tape recorder than to write. Good intentions notwithstanding, if you don’t sit down and write the damned thing, it doesn’t matter how many apps, programs and gadgets you have, nothing will get written. So let’s change that today.
I recorded about an hour of Nanny (Mary Belle’s secret identity) talking about her life and family, then promptly let the dust settle on it while it sat in that briefcase. Then it happened. This year I wrote stuff. I actually put my actions where my intentions were and put a bunch of sentences together. I wrote an essay for a nursing home trade organization that won third place. One hundred and fifty bucks later I realized that maybe, just maybe, I should take my own advice (I harped on this to my kids their entire life) and follow my dreams. I started a blog. I’m writing. Not as much, or as regularly, as I should, but I AM writing.
I started a blog on a free writer’s site (this one, in fact) and have several blog entries. I even have a rather long short story that I serialized. (I’m still working on my editing skills). Seeing my own words in print have encouraged me to no end. I’ll continue. Hopefully, I will improve. Definitely, I will keep trying.
I dug out the tape recorder a couple of weeks ago. It’s obsolete but still in great condition. Heck, it should be since it’s only been used twice. The audio has a lot of background “hum” to it. That’s normal for the old tech. It was entirely usable, though. My Mom’s voice came through clearly, for the most part, and I had the opportunity to re-live that afternoon in her living room, listening to her stories and asking questions. It was awesome. I decided to start transcribing the audio, to use as the basis for a blog entry, or several entries. I found that transcription ain’t as easy as you’d think. There was a lot of “stop and go” listening. A lot of cues and rewinds. It was tedious, but I knew it would be worth it. I downloaded the audio to my computer, and to a memory device. Then I sat down to write the article. After a few false starts, I realized that Mary Belle told her own story pretty well. Although I may be coping out a bit, I decided to merely tweek the transcription a bit and publish it, as is. I will reach out to my tech support guys (that’s Micheal Stone and Cody Bishop-Hi guys!) in the future and figure out the best way to post the actual interview on here. There will be more than one post for Nanny”s Story. She has had quite a life. I think hearing about a person’s life in the first person is one of the greatest ways to know their story. Since it’s their story, who best to tell it? Enjoy.
Born Mary Bell Ferguson
Born: April 22, 1941
Place of Birth: On a farm, in a two bedroom house, five miles outside of Fisk, MO on a a sandy dirt road out in the country.
Last child of Jake(55) and Florence Ferguson(35)
“They had children and grandchildren that were older than me.”
“Dad and Mom had been married before. Dad’s first wife died. She left him with five kids.(I didn’t know [Dad’s first wife] her name. I’d seen a picture of her, but I didn’t know her name.) The had one boy named Claude, and then they had Florence, Irene, Opal, and Pearl. And Mom had one daughter named Reva. And they married in 1916 (I think) and they had eleven children. They had five that died from two years (old) and under. Clyde, Jake and Louise. And then Vera Jean and myself. There was a set of twins two years older than me. Then there was Carl, Elmerotis, I’d never heard of (the name Elmerotis) before, or since. There were two boys and three girls. The set of twins named Helen and Ellen and a little girl named Lilly. The twins were two years older than me. Anyway, it ended up (being) seventeen of us.
Mom’s maiden name was Clark. The only grandparent I knew growing up was Mom’s dad. When I was in second grade, he died. He was eighty. His name was Henry Clark. When his (Henry Clark) wife died after their last child’s birth (it was just a few months old) my mom (Florence) being just a young girl herself, had to take care of her brothers and sisters. She had two brothers and three sisters. So she’s had kids all of her life. She was only sixteen when she and her first husband separated. She was seventeen when her and dad married. She had Reva when she was sixteen. When they first got married, they lived around Sikeston (MO). He was from Kentucky. Hopkinsville. Mom was from Elizabethtown, Kentucky. I don’t really know how they ended up in Sikeston.
Dad was a farmer. He had a big farm over there. Mom said she had a colored lady to help her in the house, because of all the kids. They raised vegetables and killed hogs. This would’ve been in the twenties and thirties, cause they moved to Fisk, Missouri in, like thirty-eight or thirty-nine. I was born in forty-one. So they stayed around Fisk and Poplar Bluff. I never really did hear how they met. I don’t know much about that.
My dad was born in 1886. He was twenty-five before he ever married the first time. He was born around Hopkinsville, Ky. The old farm house. His one brother and his (the brother’s) daughter and sons, lived in it. When I was a kid, we used to go up there once a year.
I can remember before I started to school, we went a couple of miles from our house to a little old country church. And I remember one Sunday, I don’t remember if mom and them were sick, or what, but they took me to church. She was sick dropped me off there and went back home. I don’t know why I was there by myself. I don’t know if they were sick, or what, but I remember walking back home by myself, and just before I got back home there was a car stopped (to give me a ride), and mom out in the yard. She was looking down the road, to the corner there, to see that I made it home. I wouldn’t get in the car and ride. Mom had told me never to get in a car and ride, you know (with a stranger). I didn’t know them, but mom knew them. I can remember that, and I might’ve been five or six years old. Wasn’t very old.
[Do you remember your first day of school?] Not really. I can remember we went to a …..Mom and Vera went to this two room country school that had up to the eighth grade on it. And the year before I started, the way my birthday run, it was in April and I turned five, I couldn’t start that Fall. I was real upset about it, cause I wanted to go to school. The little school that we went to, the teacher let me come and sit in with the first graders, cause mom cooked at the school. That was the year before I started, but I can’t remember my first day, as far as starting to school.
I got in trouble a few times, before I got started. Just visiting that first year. Around Christmas time, I told the kids there wasn’t no Santa. Then, one time, I got caught chewing gum. Back then, they made you stick it on your nose and wear it, when you got caught chewing gum in school. [Did you stick it on your nose and wear it?] I sure did. That’s the reason it stuck with me, I think. [Why did you tell them there wasn’t a Santa Clause?] I don’t know. I just knew it. (that there wasn’t a Santa) I was always smart. (laughing/smiling at me)[duly noted]
I’d go to work with her (mom) and go in the classroom and sit in class. I went and saw one of my teachers last year when I was in Missouri. Thelma Glass. She and her husband had just got married and she had just got out of college, so she was a young girl. She was probably twenty. I don’t know. She was my favorite teacher, too, all through school. She decided I’d be good in a contest. All the schools around us, for like a hundred miles, had a speech contest. She thought I’d be good in it, and I was like, in the second grade. She gave me a little skit, play-like. I had to be more than one person (character). I stood up and acted it out. I went to the High School at Fisk, with all the other schools, and won first place there. The ones that placed got to go to Poplar Bluff. Then there was even more schools (in the contest) and I won first place there. I got a blue ribbon. I got to stay all night with my teacher that night. I went by and saw her last year. She still lives over there on Fifty-One highway. Her old house is still there. She lives at her in-laws house. After they died, she and her husband moved into their house. Their son moved into their old house. Both houses are still there. Her husband died a few years ago.
The old grade school is still there, too. It’s a Baptist Church now. Me and Vera went up there last summer. We wanted to go inside of it, but it was locked up. The old tree was still out there, that the merry go round had stood under. Of course, the merry go round’s not there. And the old outdoor toilet’s not there. (laughs)
There used to be a hill at the side of it, beside the playground. In the winter time, we’d go out and skate down that hill. In the summer time, we all went bare footed. There were sand-burrs on that hill. Of course, there were sand-burrs everywhere. Not cuckleburrs, but the little bitty ones, the sand-burrs. Little needles like porcupines. We called them sand-burrs. They’d get on your feet when you go bare footed. We walked everywhere. We lived about two miles from the school.” I only went there for 2 or 3 years. Pleasant Hill Elementary (through the 8th grade). Gene and Vera went there too. They were all older than me. Gene was 7 years older and Vera was 8 and a half years older. They were gone to Fisk High School.
When (I was) in the 3rd grade, Dad had a brain hemorrhage. He lay unconscious at home for a month or so. After that the doctor said he wouldn’t be able to farm any more. We rented the house and farm out and moved to Dexter. By then Vera was out of school. She graduated at sixteen. She went to Dexter and got a telephone operator job. So we moved over there and she rented a house. When I was in fifth grade, we moved back to Fisk. Dad sold the farm and bought a house on 51 Highway. That’s where we lived when I got married. I got married in August of 1959. I was born in forty one, I started to school when I was six, so we moved back to Fisk in 1952 or 53. The house burned down in October of 59. We didn’t know what insurance was back then. (laughs) You didn’t even have to have car insurance back then. We had electricity. No telephone. No telephone line. No fire hydrant out there. We just had to let it burn.
Brain hemorrhage. Wasn’t nothing they could do. They didn’t know what to do. He came out of it though. They didn’t know what caused it. It might’ve been an aneurysm. Back then, the doctor came to the house. I don’t remember too much about it. I went to Clydes, my older brother’s. I went down to his and his wifes ad stayed a lot.
(Stayed tuned Dear Reader. More to come. K.S.)
Rolling Stones 