Monday, September 7, 2015

Flowing Water Farm


Cherry Hollow Farm, Stacy Nash
Kit released at Nashville Needlework Market 2015
36 count Weeks Dye Works Beige
Weeks Fibers
In 1949 Grandmother Bessie and her family moved to a 250 acre farm which Grandfather Isaac named Flowing Water.  Having water on a farm is vital to livestock and crops thriving.  Depending on the season, the creek on the farm ranged anywhere from being wide enough to jump or overflowing its banks and flooding.  Parts of the creek were deep enough for a swimming hole.
When the family moved to the farm, there was an antebellum farmhouse.  Because I was a young child my memories of this house are limited.  Upstairs in Grandmother's farmhouse were iron beds with springs.  Not box springs but real springs.  Jumping on these beds was pure delight.  Jumping on a bed with springs is something like jumping on a trampoline.  My cousins and I had great times jumping on these beds until we caused such a commotion an adult family member would come upstairs to admonish us.


My other memory of the farmhouse is when it burned.  It burned during the night and the next morning, I remember seeing the smoking remains and the stone chimneys which were still standing.  My father had been taken to the hospital for smoke inhalation.  He had run into the burning house to save Great Grandmother Sarah Miranda's trunk which she had used when the family moved from Spring Creek, North Carolina to Emert's Cove, Tennessee.  The trunk contained family photos, papers and memorabilia. 
While a new house was being build for Grandmother Bessie, she lived with us.  It was wonderful!  She was there each morning helping Mother prepare breakfast and she was there each evening to help Mother and her rowdy bunch with homework, laundry, and the thousand other things which a young growing family needed. 

When Grandmother's new house was finished, the neighbors gave her a house warming party:  new dishes, linens, towels, silverware, etc. were generously gifted to my Grandparents.  While seeing Grandmother open these gifts,  I was sad because it meant Grandmother would no longer be living with us and would be moving. 

Grandmother loved her new home.  She was a fastidious housekeeper and her home was always impeccably clean (unlike my own).  The family always gathered at Grandmothers for holiday celebrations.  Sleepovers were common and Grandmother and I would bake, read and work on sewing projects during sleepovers. 
So. . .the next piece of needlework which will be added to the Grandmother Bessie Wall will be Flowing Water Farm 1949.

9 comments:

  1. Betty, I thought your Stacy Nash piece would be my favorite part of your post. Turns out, it was your wonderful family history. My mother has a trunk very similar to yours. We enjoyed several treasures from it a couple of months ago including a broken butter mold and a hand pieced quilt top.

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  2. What a wonderful story, sit aside the house burning down. You stirred memories for me... jumping on the springs of beds in my aunts upstairs farm house when I was young and all the other memories that go along with it.

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  3. That is a wonderful plan for the sampler you are stitching. I really enjoyed your story so full of great family memories!

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  4. Beautiful stitching and such a wonderful story. My mamaw and papaw were from Johnson City, TN and they also had those old iron beds, upstairs with feather mattresses that you'd sink into so deeply you could barely get out. We used to jump on the beds too, of course, until one day I slipped or something and hit my chin on the rail of the footboard. Split my chin wide open and still have the scar. Still.... good times!

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  5. Enjoyed your family history today. It will fit perfectly with your latest needlework.

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  6. your sampler looks great ! Love the stories - just love them! Our own ancestral farmhouse in central Ga burned down in the night and a farmer hauling melons to market saved my great aunt and uncle from dying by waking them and they only escaped with their bed clothes. It was a tragic loss for family memorabilia from my paternal grandfathers family. take care and enjoy the stitching and hopefully some cooler weather - Mel

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  7. I love reading your family stories. What great memories -- although the house burning down isn't a happy memory. Love the stitching too!

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  8. What a beautiful story, I love hearing about Family and how they lived, sad your Father had to suffer, but what a saving grace he did by going in for the trunk.
    Love the Sampler, so pretty.

    Blessings
    Catherine

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  9. I love to hear your family stories!
    These beautiful samplers are amazing memory keepers.
    How wonderful to have such fond memories of your Grandmother!

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