The Grandparents
Grandfather Margerum, William Alexander Margerum, lived with us six months, each year. Grandfather, Charles Purcell Brown, moved in with us after Grandmother passed, but we, the children, drove him nuts so he moved over to Uncle Joel’s home.
Uncle Joel, Joel Cottrell Brown, lived with us for several years, before he married. He was a heavy smoker, even at nite, he would sit on the side of the bed with a lighted cigarette, one nite the bed caught on fire. Another time he set Mother’s damask linen table cloth on fire, from that time on we had to place a dish of something over the mended hole.
Our two grandfathers enjoyed each other but there was too much excitement, at all time. Grandfather Margerum had a great time with us playing hie-in-go-seek, etc. Grandfather Brown was stern and down to business, I cannot really remember his voice. When it came to gardening, tho, he knew exactly what to do and how to grow vegetables. He was sitting under the green apple tree tearing small strips of old white sheets and told me to go in the garden and tie the lima beans to the poles. Since he scared me to death, I took the torn pieces of material and tied the bean stalks half way up the poles, removing them from the earth. It was only a matter of time when I knew there was no return to happiness, in my life.
To tell you the truth, we had two grandfathers and two fathers, Harry and Uncle Joel, it was wonderful but difficult. If my hair wasn’t combed my neck was dirty. No winning process. To top this, Uncle Joel could not take a breath without swearing. On his way to work each morning, Uncle Joel, would never miss a day to make sure that all of us children were okay. He presented sincere admiration for us. Dad was the stern determined father that laid down all the rules but underneath his unyielding exterior there was one proud father. He was devoted to Mother, she knew and abided with his every wish and was ‘Queen of our Home’. The kitchen at 322 was of good size with an iron cooking stove stoked with coal, we had a furnace, in the cellar – fueled with coal bit it did not keep the house that warm, in the cold weather. Later on, there was a city gas stove installed that had a chimney attached to the wall to remove gas fumes. In the thirties we had our first refrigerator, before this, we kept the milk cold in the cellar using a pale of water to put the bottle in, kept foods in the pantry that was not heated or over at the grocery store in our large wall ice box.
Apple green paint was the color of the chairs, table and wainscotting that was on the lower half of the walls. The kitchen table was placed near the iron stove and the sink with running city water was on the same wall, at the opening to the dining room. Above the sink was a mantle piece that held the comb, brush, and other items such as charcoal squares for upset stomach, etc.
We would rush down stairs, dress for school, throw some water in our faces, comb out the hair and sit down to the table for breakfast, usually hot cocoa, eggs, bacon, and oatmeal. The milk man would bring a couple of quarts of milk each morning, if the weather was super cold the cream on the milk would rise and freeze.
Harry chewed GREEN TURTLE tobacco and we chewed TEABERRY or BLACKJACK gum. If we got caught chewing at the table, we would quickly paste the gum to the bottom of the chair or table, there was little or no space left to stick another hunk. Dad would chew and spit down the kitchen sink but Maggie always knew, no matter where she was and would let him know that she did not like this.
Each child was given one pair of shoes, each year, Grandfather Marferum would by them, walking shoes, the best in town, from Luke Johnson’s store. If the sole of the shoe became too thin, we would take them to the shoe maker on East Fourth Street, to be resoled. It became time to shop for overshoes, I was sent with a written list to Efros’. Mr. Efros would sell me the items but nine times out of ten the sizes were wrong. Mother became mad and told me to return with the overshoes, by this time I was enraged. Upon entering the store, I threw the shoes at Mr. Efros and ran home. He took it upon himself to come to our home and measure each child and return with the correct size.
Mother, Maggie, and my two Grandfathers, would pour the coffee into their rather large white cup, stir it a bit with a silver tea spoon and then prop the spoon handle in a position near the cup handle and proceed to drink. I used to watch this maneuver and knew that some day one of my relatives would be without an eye. Somethings they would pour the coffee in the saucer and slurp. I would almost crawl out of my skin. Dad, Harry, on the other hand, had the manners of charming Prince Charlie. He drank his coffee properly with his little finger raised high. He found it really hard to eat with the children and had to have his meal served special and alone, during the week days.
On Sunday, it was different, Dad took the children to Sunday School and Church, dropped up off at the door. Mother remined at home and cooked our Sunday meal, many times a complete roasted lamb dinner, with the trimmings. On our return home after Church, Dad would pick up a couple of Sunday newspapers, one for serious reading and the other lighter reading with the comics, for us. After Sunday dinner presented with the best of all manners and conversation, the girls cleaned up with dishes and kitchen while the boys and our parents read the newspaper in the parlor.
Dad would lite up a cigar and Mother would point out an article of interest, some times she read aloud, to us all. Then again, she would say, “Look at this”, and we would wait for her to read to us but, for some unknown reason, she would read it to herself and we would be sitting on the edge with anticipation, with no results.
Then, Dad would announce that we will all go riding in his Sunday automobile – he had a truck to deliver groceries, another auto for driving in the woods and one for Sunday. Dad would drive anywhere we would like to go, many times we drover to visit our relations in the country or in Princeton, NJ, we always wore our Sunday clothes. In our travels, we would stop in to see a distant relation or other that Dad knew and perhaps needed help, either food or money. We would, perhaps, bring a burlap bag with us to pick up apples and pears, along the road from an abandoned orchard.
At Christmas time, we would awake at the crack of dawn, dress in our best, Dad would roll the auto out of the garage and off we would go to Church, before we looked at the one present we had received from Santa. Many times, I didn’t go to bed before midnight since I had to help wrap the gifts and trim the tree, it was many yeast before we were able to have a full decorated tree, since there would have been a new baby born – it was necessary to trim the tree half way up so the little one’s would not be able to reach the glass balls.
After Christmas services, at Church, we were allowed to walk home and brin our friends to treat them to our fruits and candy that mother arranged on a large oval table, in the dining room. This was a big occasion, very few folks ever had fresh or candied fruit, nor a nut and real chocolate covered candy.
Dad use to remark that he never saw an orange when he was a young man, he would follow a person down the street, in town of Freehold, NJ, that was peeling an orange and pick up the peel to take home and roast on the back of the iron stove. Mother would put her show on the fire place hearth, Christmas Eve, and to her surprise, she had a gift of an orange, in the morning. Her family were so named, Plain People, they did not believe in glorification and did not have a Christmas tree.
Dad’s parents were of the Methodist faith, the did not have a Christmas tree but when Elston (Pete) was born and his middle name was Cottrell, Grandmother put up a special Christmas tree, just for him, all decorated with candy lolly pops, shaped like an animal. There was always a decorated Christmas tree at the DeBow Church. This tree did not have the usual decorations, it was adorned with gifts, such as a Bible or other religious statements, for each that attended.
Charles and Anna Brown attend the DeBow Methodist Church, Holmeson, NJ. On every Sunday morning, rain, shine, or snow, Anna put food in her woven basket that Grandfather weaved and the family walked to church, where they spent the day, singing as they walked, to and from Church. Passing other homes the people would walk and sing with them. Church was the gathering place for all in the neighborhood.
Grandmother Brown worked in the fields along with her family and hired berry pickers. She covered her entire body with clothing, even knitted gloved that her fingers extended out of to enable her to work with her fingers, she did not care to be tan. She wore false teeth, which were made to fit over the roots of the original teeth. She never had one white hair, when she passed at the age of sixty years. Never washed her hair, would massage some Vasoline in the scalp and roll the hair in wire hair pins, over nite.
Both Grandfather and Grandmother Brown had separate bank accounts. He saved his money and held many mortgages on different homes, in Lakewood, NJ, as well as lending money to people, collecting with interest. Grandmother had a life time wish, with her savings she wanted a beautiful large stone at her grave sit when buried at Perrinville Cemetery, NJ.
When I would visit my Grandparents, they would give me money to run to Charlie Hooper’s grocery store and buy myself a banana penny candy. The great thing that I remember, were those beautiful growing geranium ivy plants growing in her dining room windows. When the boys, Joel and Harry, left home to find their own was in the world, Grandmother placed a kerosene lite in the window, among the flowers, waiting for the boys to return home.
The combination of Harry and Joel was never deciphered. Harry owned and worked the grocery business for a little less than fifty years. Uncle Joel was always at the store until he became too ill to work. If Dad never paid him a cent of wage, Uncle Joel would still be there, caring. Dad would throw those five pound bags of sugar in paper sacks at Joel, from the far side of the store, and it would land in the flat position and never break. Quickly, I would walk over and bring the sugar back where it belonged, behind the cash register. If it was possible to laugh, one mite find this funny.
When Harry was at the store, Uncle Joel was busy as a beaver but as soon as he left, Joel would be asleep with his feet propped on the counter, near the cash register. When Uncle Joel was on his last, Dad gave me the word that I must sit by my Uncle’s bed side so Aunt Jen could get her sleep. I never questioned my father’s word, for he was law. The way it looked to me, he didn’t want anyone over hear Uncle Joel’s way of life, it sounded like a duzzie.
Most all the old time women that came to our grocery store, loved our Uncle Joel, Ole Lady Emmons who came shopping in her Sunday best, just to kid back and forth. Olive Story would come to visit and Joel and she had a great time saying, “I though you died”, to each other, they would kid and laugh, like mad. Another time, one of the little Clayton boys arrived with a broken arm all tied up in a sling. Joel with his ape type of look, peered at this kid and shouted, “don’t your Mother have enough trouble without your breaking your arm.” If a youngster came in the store and was looking at the candy, in the glass covered case, Joel would hand him a piece and tell him to “get.” The neighborhood kids were far from clean, I would walk out with my scrub pail of water and they all would disappear.
Uncle Joel could not say a complete sentence without having at least several cuss words. When he became ill, some of his words were hard to take, so Aunt Jen would get out her Methodist Upper Room book and the louder he swears the louder she read. As I sat by his bed side, one nite, he looked up to the corner of the bed room and told me that everything will be okay, it is so beautiful there.
Mother, Margaret Margerum Brown, became ill, she decided it was her time to leave this world, had Dad bring her bed down to the dining room. My brother, Harrison would come to visit every August but this year he didn’t arrive. Mother would sti on the side of her bed looking down the road. I wrote, “Harrison, it is time for you to come home,” he arrived. Mother passed, we had a home funeral with an open casket, burial at Perrineville, NJ. It was Dad’s request that, Brown children, ride with him in a limousine. As we rode, he told us that he would die next week for he could not live without Mother. Dad died one month later, buried with Mother at Perrineville, NJ, after an open casket service at Methodist Episcopal Church, Lakewood, NJ.
