Reflections

I live on and own the farm where my father was born. His father and mother bought it in 1902. It is not the farm I was raised on but it has been in the family all those years. My father and his brother Clarence were born 4 years apart with my Uncle being the oldest. As they grew up they did what they had known all their lives and became farmers too. Just like their dad and many generations before them.

They bought the farm I was raised on and started farming in partnership when they were in their early 20s. Later the partners bought the home place from their parents and farmed both places. It was a partnership that lasted the rest of my Uncle's life. He died in 1969 and Bill and I bought the farm I live on from his estate. We have lived here since 1971 except for a few brief years we lived in Taylorsville before Bill died. I now live the only place I have ever wanted to live since the day we moved here.

My dad was a wonderful story teller and today I was reflecting on a story he has told me often. It was about our farm during the Civil War. I think I starting remembering it because I was mowing around the barn and there were some really big horse weeds. I started thinking about an incident that happened during the Civil War as told to my father when he was a youngster by a Mr Malin Hill.

Mr Hill was a neighbor of my grandparents and often came to visit in their home. He was a youngster himself when he heard this story from the Coopers who were neighbors of theirs. At the time he told this story he was an old man. He had been alive during the Civil War and had first hand knowledge of this incident.

The cavalry was on the move going to Perryville Ky. As you will remember from your history that Kentucky was a border state. And from your history you will remember that Perryville was a major battleground. As Mr Hill related it to my father, the Cooper men looked up and saw dust coming over the hill toward the Cooper house. Knowing it was probably one of the armies by the amount of the dust, the men and boys gathered the livestock as quickly as they could and took as many as they could to the river and hid them in tall horse weeds.

Soon the Union Army arrived at the home of the Coopers. The men and horses gathered at the spring for water and to wash up after their hot dusty ride. The officers of the Army ordered the women of the house to start cooking for the hungry soldiers. I do not know if there were slaves on the farm at that time but I do know that when my grandparents bought the farm there were still slave quarters on the farm.

So the women started cooking and they cooked until the meat house was empty. They cooked all the food stored in the root cellar. They cleaned out the garden. When the men were fed there was no food left anywhere. I don't know how many were fed that day but it was told to my father that as soon as one bunch of men left the table another bunch was ready to sit down to be fed.

I can somewhat verify that the story was true. Other than Mr Hill being a reliable source of farm history, I have a relic from the bridle of one of the horses that must have been here that day.

When my children were youngsters, Bill bought them a pony. They already had one pony that my sister and her husband had very generously given them.. Their children had outgrown the pony and my children were just the right age to ride. So as a 4-H project they became involved in showing their ponies at the county fair. They also had to keep records and do their grooming and practice their riding skills.

We had been to the county fair and had gotten the ponies off of the truck. We were leading them up the hill when my foot caught on something in the ground. I reached down and pulled a part of a bridle out of the dirt with a piece of metal on it. I cleaned it up when I got into the house and found it to be an emblem dating back to the civil war. I did research on the emblem and it was indeed a civil war relic. It was also verified by one of our local historians who saw the emblem and also said it dated back to the Civil War.

Every place has a history. I am one of the lucky people that has a true story about our farm and the small part it played in one of the worst periods of our nations history.

Later everyone. I will see many of you at the Summer Celebration this week end. From the weather forecast we could get wet but the temperature will be pleasant.

God bless and keep you in his loving care.

Regards,

Mary