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Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Ross,
Route 5,
Hendersonville, N. C.
Luline L. Mabry, writer.
THE ROSSES
No names changed.
Luling L. Mabry, Rt.5 Ur.and Mrs. ,-..H.Ross, Rt. 5
Hendersonville, N. C. Hendersonville, N. C.
THE HOWES.
*Val the trouble and hardships I've had have come from
whisky".
Even as Mrs. Ross uttered this tragic statement, she
showed the cheerful smile which people have grown accustomed
to associate with her. Her brown eyes sparkle with health
and with the intelligence that has enabled her to keep her
bark afloat on a rough sea over a long period of her life.
She is quick of step, even though she is portly of figure,
and her face has its worry lines which underlie the ever
cheerful smile. Her small but careworn hands seem to always
be busy, even as she site and talks. She is the mother of
.it living children, and she is justly proud of all of them,
most of whom ax's now contributing to the upkeep of their rent-
ed six -room house. As she settled herself in a comfortable
chair, she turned off the radio, brushed inaginery crumbs from
her blue print house dress, and vent ons
"When a husband and father has been a drunkard for 25
years, you may be certain that his family has suffered end
been deprived of a great deal they should be entitled to.
Aside from constant humiliations, I've always had to work at
everything under the sun to keep my children even half fed
and clothed. I've done about everything while they were grow-
ing up. When we lived at Tuxedo, I rushed from one thing to
another from early until late trying to make ends meet. Early
nos.
every morning as long as the mill hands worked, a young
mother brought me her two small children to oars for during
the day. She came for them and fed them at noon, then brought
them back. During their nap in the afternoon I started my own
dinner, which was served at 4 o'clock when my children came
from school. Soon after that the mother came for her little
tots and then I flew in and washed my dishes and began my sew-
ing. ]most every night I sewed until 10 o'clock, and very
often I made six dresses in a week. I didnt get very much for
vsy sewing but it helped. In winter we fared a little better
because I always had several hog heads and livers to prepare
on shares for Iv neighbors who preferred to give as e part for
rs.7.4Ava$,..
my work Is bothering with it themselves. In summer the chil-
dren picked lots of berries, and I nearly always canned enough
to make pies for their school lunches.
"At other times, when I didnt have the care of the little
children, I went here and there to the homes of neighbors to
cook a dinner or to help with the sick. I was always busy
helping somebody that needed my services. I didnt get much
money for the work but was usually paid in food-- milk, a lit-
tle butter, cornmeal, vegetables, just anything I could take
home to keep my children from being hungry.
"Years Ago my husband was doing very well in construction
business in South Carolina. He averaged from $200 to $400 a
month, and once he made $8CC in a month working on road building.
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properly take care of. But I didnt know this in time.
°My first daughter, Francis, is 29. She is married and
has three lovely children, but I tell her she has enough. That
is all they will be able to take car* of. Then came alma,
now 28. Hes in South America working for the Gulf Refining
Company. He's always &toe of a good Job because he's a good
construction engineer. Then along came Henry, now 26. He's
marrieds and this winter he and his wife are in Fort Lauder-
dale. Fla., where he has a Job at carpentering on a long-time
building program with a man he's worked for a long time. Next
summer they'll be hack in North Carolina again. Gwinn was
next. He's 24 and works in Pennsylvania. Then there was Alice,
22. She took a course in beauty culture and has been earning
money for two years or more. She pays the rent for this house
and I don't know what we'd do without her help. Marion was
next. He's 19 now. His older brothers kept him in clothes
until he graduated from Flat Rook High School, and he worked
some in summers at whatever he could find to do. Ever since
he graduated he has been working for one of the leading grocery
stores in Hendersonville. They like my boy and we think he
has a good future there. When he got his vacation this summer
he drove some friends of his back to their home in Arkansas.
They had spent the summer in Hendersonville and he knew them
through their trading with him at the store. From their place
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he took a bus and paid a short visit to his uncla-- my brother
in Louisiana, and got back here in a little over a week. He
had a gram& time and the trip did him a lot of good. We ware
so glad to have bingo and see a different part of the country,
even if he did have to do it in a hurry.
Men our mitt child was Lillian. 18„ and then along cams
Virginia now 16. These two girls are finishing high school
next year. For two summers they have both worked either in
boarding houses or in private families and hallooed earn their
clothes. Of course, with their father always spending so much
of his money on drink and so often having no work at all for
the same reason. I've had to work very hard and have made many
sacrifices for my children, but I've raised then the best I
could and not one of them has been a disappointment to me. At
times I've had to feed us all on as little as 62.50 a weak for
weeks at a stretch, and 'van now I can't always provide well
balanced meals for us. Like today when Marion came home on
his bicycle for lunch, all I had was sweet potatoes. Irish po-
tatoes and some gravy left from yesterday's meat. If I could
have had a dish of green boons or a green salad I know it would
have been a better balanced meal, but I hope to have a better
supper for us tonight. It takes at least 645 a month for our
actual needs; $8 for house rents 65 for lights and water, and
the rest vies into our food. at we have spent almost nothing
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for aoctors for years. When one of my boys had to have am
operation for appendicitis two years ago, he had saved enough
money to pay for it himself.
*I've tried always to keep very close to my boys and girls
and they have always been confidential, with me about their af-
fairs and their little experiences. Up to the time Allen left
home to work he always came to as and told as about the places
he went and what he did. If I asked him a question and he told
me he hadn't done this or that, a little later he'd come to me
and says 'Mama, told you a little lie a while ago-- it was
so and so.' HA didnt like to lie to as and he just had to cor-
rect it before he could feel right.
*ALmost every night this little house is about filled with
young folks, friends of my children. They're satisfied to spend
the evenings here unless Mr. Ross is at home and drunk. That
makes it unpleasant for all of us, and in that event the girls
and their boy friends walk into town two miles and maybe go to a
show, or in the aummer they just go to town and sit on the street
benches and watch the people go by. I never worry about what
my children are doing. I hear so much about how wild and bed the
younger generation is, but I dent believe it. They are more
frank. more candid witas each other and with their parents in
most cases--- I know mine are--- but I have lots of confidence
and faith in the young folks of today. I do think they do too
much riding about in cars if their parents fail to make their
friends welcome in their homes. I'd rather give up my chair to
Ross
some boy or girl visiting us than to have my children going
away from home for their amusements.
*It's quite a problem to know just how to handle some
of the young people now. I remember some years 4o that a
very good women with plenty of money at her command built a
lovely little community house down at Tuxedo, hoping and ex-
pecting that it would attract and entertain all the young
girls and boys living in the mountains near by. sell, the
girls liked to come and enjoy the games and music and sewing
classes and the nice refreshments always to be found in the
ice box, and they really seamed to profit by it, but those
mountain boys just wouldn't join in the parties and preferred
to go back in the woods behind the little community house, and
drink their horrible old moonshine liquor. It i always plen-
tiful around there, too.
Wwe Lived in Hendersonville now for over seven years
and I've kept right an doing what sewing I could get to do,
going to the neighbors to help with housework, even washing
for people, and we managed to get along until my children are
all earning money except the two girls still in school. It
has been more than two years since my husband has given me a
penny. So much that he earns has to go for liquor, and he
has to pay so many fines in court, that he never seems to have
any left for his family. About all he can get to do right now
is to haul a los0 of sand or gravel to someone now and then,
but his real business is simply gone.
"In all these years we've never owned our home. I think
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owning boom should come first with a man who expects to
have a family. We dont have a car either. Just an old
truck used to do any sort of work he can pick up now and
then. We both vote, but I do my own thinking when it comes
to that. Lately I've split my ticket as I see fit and vote
for the man I think best suited to the office. I expect my
husband and my boys to do just as they see fit about this
question.
"I'm thankful to believe that my hardest days are over,
now that my boys and girls are grown and seem safe on the road
to success and clean decent living. Now and then my dear fa-
ther from South Carolina comes up to spend a tot days with us,
and once in a while some of the boys who are not too far a-
way get back to see us for a little visit, so we can have hap-
piness, and I can hold up my head, and smile, and know that
things might have been much worse for us. ".e have just lots
of things to be thankful for all the time. For one thing,
I've just got some new teeth, thanks to my children, 4nd they
are my greatest blessing just now.