Document text
January 12, 1932.
Morrison Barnard and family (white)
Turkey Creek,
Brevard, E. C.
Farmer and huntsman
A.*. 1,046. writer
Edwin BjorLan, reviser
UP HOLINY CTik4i4
audjausi
Morrison Baynard
Turksy Creek
Thelma Haynard
Mario Baynard
Harry Bitten
Evelyn Sitton
Chaaged 1.aes
Harrison Bender
Hominy Creek
Lula Bender
Sophie Bender
Larry Minor
betty Minor
UP HUINY CRML.
his name is Harrison Bender. Under the influence of a
Southern sun and of the soft mists resting upon the mountains,
it is easy to slur the letter r, and so the neighbors have
long called his Haeaon. There is also a tradition in the
family that the last name was something else originally, but
nobody today knows for certain. The Benders have been smell
landholders on these mountainsides for perhaps a hundred years.
The ancestral habitat of the family is Hominy Creek, which
rises in the National Forest and flows eastward into the French
Broad. It oroses a state highway smi,e few miles north of the
county seat. At this point a dirt road lead* west, up Hominy
Creek. About three miles up the creek is the small farm of
Harrison Bender. At the point where the dirt road leaves the
highway is his mail box and it is at this point that his chil-
dren, after a tramp of three miles down the mountain, meet the
school bus that takes them into town. Hominy Creek is a rather
well known locality, partly because of the Baptist church
named after it, and partly because hunters and fishermen
travel this route.
Creek .2.
hap en to son end ht n wally beeause two of
his daughters, la enClophie, high sehool girls, bevy worked
cooks dlring echool vacatien in the house oi ey aunt. Her-
riaon himeelf looks mor like a hunter then n fareer, with his
corduroy ean and jacket; of medium hei ht, lean, sinewy, bright-
eyed end hook -nosed* He is poisurAl in menner, but speaks snap
pily end crisply, without any drawl. His 4glish is better than
mleht be expected sprinkled with localisms; he is amiable
when uaruffled. e s grown slightly tophistioated by reason
of oesodeltien with visiting hunters end fiahereen, Iavitleg
yeu to his !loueethe is lieely to tell you to come and see haw
m real htllbiliy lives*"
Hie trm of rifty a res was given to him by his father when
he escame a young merried an. Its built the usual log house with
a half story above and ft shed in the rear. Very neer his house
runs one fork of :lomlay Creek His burn rd corn crib are of
logs. The sheds of the barn shelter his DI, Is eow„ end his
'mob. Now the wagon has been turned out into the rain and a
secoad-hend track run in t3 take its Aesce.
Inside th,.; dwelline beer skin ruse p:tre soattered over the
floor end the skins of bob -cats and eouns ere tacked on the liens,.
.e kitchen hes a stove eae of the girls saved enough money
leat summer to buy a swtnlechine, end the two eirls take a
pride in making their own dresses* They study the models they
see summer visitors wear and those they see in store windows.
They also study clothes and manners they see is the movies* They
are as well dressed and mannerly as most town girls. One would
never suspect they lived in a log house up the fork of the creek.
For years they have walked the three miles down the creek dirt
road end malted on the highway, in ell weathers, for the school
bus to come along.
Soth iluie and Sophie have boy friends, one an intelligent
yougg firmer end the other a worker in the loeal lumber sompany.
The courting is done in Ford ears end movie houses. Long dis.
tense oaorting is done in the nominy Creek Baptist Church* The
irls may study to be nurses or atonogrephars, or they may marrY
the young men they are thrown with. In either ease they will
probably have more of the contorts of life than their parents hod.
They would not can to work in mills or stores. They would pre.
fez to be Gooks or waitresses even at lower wamie.
I asked Aule about her ambitione in life. She laughed at
first and then looked reflective.
"Ilkm tired of going to school* l's not e scholar like Sophie.
She sight 4ake a teacher or a aurae or e stenographer, but I as
tired of tramping up the mountain and down again in all sorts of
weather. I somettiss get home at night soaking wet, then help
Up jy Greek
11111140*
about supper, acid later have to study lessons until eleven
ofelock. Sext morning we begin to stir at daylight. Day
after day. It kind Of wears you down. I'm nearly through
aigh school, but Itat 3oin, to quit. I know when I got enough.
I think MI lice to live as my ole.er sister Betty does. rho
tramped down the mountain to school until she caught penumonia
and nearly (lied. After abe et well, she went into town and
lived iu s preacherla amily. for several years, do nc the 003k..
in ad tx through high school at the sate time, After she
p!raduated she -Tarried Larry iaor, a nice, dood-looking boy who
has a fine job with the lumber eompany. They own their own house
and lot six rooms with 'easter and eleetricity and they have
an auto and a zerden full of vegetables and flowers, and Larry
eeps bees in the bec!c yard and sells hQney. They have two cute
babies and wear nice clothes whoa they o out in the car. Betty
puts up plenty ot' fruit end vegetables for the winter and from
ti e to time taey et Jotter furniture ror the tryase. All of
thgt looks _;ood to me.
The thin for you then, I said, o find another
Larry inor." Whe:eat she blushed.
"To -es and it I don't find hh.m4 I can cook and :11nd chil-
dren. I don't like mills. I don't like the ?eo le there, and
I d„vatt like the cy.mfinement. .hen Ivo7k in a nice family, 1
Up :flominy :areek
have pleasanter coloany aad more ti off. Work In a store
is also 00afisinge Iwk,s raised in the hil
70U keloaWr"
Harrison Bender had lskod me to acme up to see his private
bsnout. I persuaded my old Yord to crawl up "ominy Crek
end over the shoulder of the mountain t found him at his
huntin3 o1'e, large log house of one room with open fire.
pitIce and bunks arranod around he walls. Plenty of bear
skins for covering. Is built this lod-e about a mile from
his h)uze and in the ere of the woods He rents it to hunters
and a herman in season. His
m is about two miles frm the
boundary line of the Nationel Forent and r,etme frequently spills
over into his land and his father's adjoining fermi. A* depends
upon it largely for As at suT4y, supplemented Sy his ho,Ir pen.
This Fens thet wanders down from the forest someti-tes proves a
nuisance. 3ears strip his apple trees, sometimes breakim2, the
limbs. .nee ht found a bear walielain,• in his rprin. Deer
would eat his carden truck ha he not folioed it in with wire.
Unicken coops muat be protected 6gainst weasels and foxes and
possums. Thesp, seen animals he catches in traps, mainly for
their skins.
"Were you born herW I asked.
"RI ht here, on the next farm, my daddy's. married early
an,7! buil tha house we ere now jjyjc. In I hsd to enlarge it
Tip3.-iczalny rk
a little us U. went on. It's been a scramble to cet long
bat wo have manaadtt somehow. Py wife wee ncver very strong
and she hte worked herself nearly to death You etw heib in
the house there today, the looks mighty peeksd and a can't
do much mo're now than lock after her ohtoen atc et in the
vegetables, I took in a young women and her two chillun
weakftiminded al whose husband his4 left her end she doss all
the heavy work ut the hIuse. e still ,IsEt clothes down
by the breach; th t sys toting- wats,r from the ;,rihc.,
two ele hoap when theyc(r.le ho :me "'ram ch4.0i t uiz;ht
ty also hal? hoe corn 1- the )14117 season, but they
like it much. They'd ruther work th suaner as cooks and wait-
resses so to -take money to buy their clothes tndchol
books nnl -,;o to the movies And I don't ble7k3 tem.
Y0ve t/Jvan your children a good educAtion," I =1-leutod.
"I've done to .eat I could by fem. I've had mijat little
schoolial myself; a itt Is in the winter An 3 log school house.
boys thught !look learnt:1' was sort o' sissy. 513 rutter
,y marbles or hunt possums. I vistt :le studied more. T
can't spell ovon ticr' hardly at all arV
01'4
,merin, comAe ha d to
did ou T:anage to brin4 up a fa -illy n thin small farm?
I er,c you don't raise much besides car and cabl-:A;res.
Ink .7.
*It was purty hard scratchial. We had a sow and oblekene
and hogs and a good garden, and that*e was gene in the woods.
In the winter i did logging with ay ox and I sold firewood, but
it was always a sortable to pay taxes, end doctors" bills, Mien
lY oldest daughter Betty, who marriod Larry Uinorit was down with
pneumonia, the doctor from town @barged ma five dollars a visit.
But I don't blame him. The weather wee bad end he had to plough
through the mud owing over the shoulder of the mountain. When
I gO down the mountain in my truek is bad weather, h ve to
?sawn a log to the rear Wile with a chair to kesp the darned
old true fros slidin" dom to kingdom come. But it comes Lard
for a poor man to pay five dollars a visit to a dootor, Ispeolally
when he comes often."
*But you melt* somethingan your bunting lodge.*
*Yes, that's help. some of the same hunters oome every
year; even from 5ts far away ar Obit) and radians. They get to
be almost like the family. They are a Jolly bunch, when they
same, the ohillun think it's almost as good as the circus. I
sometimes take the familyup to the lodge after supper and we tell
jokes nod slag till the roof noarly comas off. I act all guilts
for them in the forest, and we sell them chicken's and eggs and
hoop), and vegetables. ahen they go, they often leave us a good
lot of canned goody end other odds and eade. They are mighty
good fellows.
'What do yo a do after the bunting season is over?"
haul lose in my old trust whenever it takes a notion
to run from the other end of the county to the lumber eompany.
IAA summer L was pretty hard put to it to pay my taxes* I was
only a few jumps ahead of the sheriff. so I went to work for the
now cigarette paper will when they started to put up their build.
ins. worked there until the hunting season opened The sheriff
never got me.*
You have only one I believe.
*Only one, about grown. He stayed at home during all the
hard tines. Most boys did. They aouldlt get work in towns* ea
they stayed on the farms where they could at least get shelter
and a bite to eat. My boy now has a steady job with the paper
mill and still lives at home. He will soon buy himself an old
ear. And I reckon he'll be marryint one of these days. Most of
tem o.*
There was very little readtng ma ter in the Bender home ez..
sept a few magazinos the hunters had left. No books to speak of.
Harrison subseribed to no newspapers, but his married daughter
Betty took an moh'sville daily newspaper and she sometimes gave
a bundle of papers to her father. The family were grateful far
any pioture magazines friends might give them. They had no radio,
Up $uyjreek
.9.
They attended the ek ptiet Church.
"Do yol go to caroh regularly'?" ek ainder.
"Yes, more or leas."
"What do you do there'?"
"I sometimes take e nap," he said with a rtn, "But here
comes my baby, o,hie, a junior in high school, who can tell
you more about the ohuroh than I can.
:)phie, just released from school for the summer vacation,
was flitting joyolely about the plLoe, peepinr in at the yoang
chickens, f7athering, e handful of flowers, or stol)trw to listen
to the babblin of the brook.
phis." I said, "your dad ha s just old me he "ets a
na7 in cruroh. Ts tht
2-0710
"You bet; he goes to sleep every wan isy. He wouldn't
woke ap it qabriel blowed his =pet." iler eyes twinkled.
"And do you go to o-aron to get a nap," T asked.
"No, sir; I go to sA4-: and to see oeople. Daddy does the
ale )ing for ti :allay, Mem does the praying, and r ant --;ula
do the sinring. ,hen we sAv XJ:ARD i1ITt .;,LT)rlis, I feel
like TarclAn41 al the aisle, out. the elle door, end around end
aroan- the char
It makes mo feel -over-isho And I like
th6t hpan about the ohorubim an seraphim eaetini! down their
golden arenas along the glassy soils I don't know what the sea
looks like, but I Gan just sloe then goldien arowns whirling through
the airs It -lakes me think of big snow flakes swirling dom."
'I suppose you never look at the boys when you go to *harsh
I ventured*
"Now you a getttng at it," ahuokled r Zs
Sophie drop pod her oyes for a seooad, "'Most of the boys are
not worth looking at, but there are one or -townie*, ones."
Ono or two; laughed her fathers This weak it's Johnny
and next seek it's Bills Nobody ean tell which way the eat will
NW*
"The oats not jumping just pat laughed Sophie.
"I suppose you are glad to got home for the sunnor vacation,"
I suggasteds
'Tsai, I an. Pin hewing a lot of fun with the littl* deer
that strayed tc here from the ?crest. We gave it milk one day,
and now it posse back every day for its bottle, It runs Graeae
the house like a dogs It's really a usobor of the
expect to se it oone to the table soma days Wet,* put a little
bell on it and named It Banta, It's out. as it can Dor'
Ian only afraid," said Bender with ominous gravity, "that
sons of them hellians across the creek will kill it sone 4*y.
If th
111011114*
*Well, X must be lotting oa back down the mountain," I
said, wThiak it over, Sophie. You know ay aubt wants you to
twee wad work for her this summer. Occurs's, the boy friead
osepiag on our doormotsp will be a nuisance but just the sew
we'll be looking for you."