The Kelly Family of Broadway, NC
"The Very Best Family Ever!"

My Personal Memories

 THE KELLY FARM & OTHER STUFF

(A Few of My Memories)

 

Just a few things I remember, still just like yesterday, at Granddaddy & Grandmother Kelly’s farm:

 

·         Granddaddy Kelly walking to the pig pen to feed the pigs with 2 large buckets, one in each hand, with me walking behind him and warning me not to get too close to that huge boar pig. Boy!  That was one huge scary hog!

·         Grandmother Kelly always having some leftover biscuits in the pantry cabinet. What was it going to be? Should I crumble it up and put it in a glass of buttermilk and eat it with a spoon like ice cream? Or, should I stick my finger in it and wallow out the middle and fill it with molasses. Wow! That was some good stuff!

·         When I was real small, Grandmother Kelly would take me to the porch and point out Granddaddy plowing in the tobacco field across the street, where Aunt Nell’s home is now. She would give me a jar of cool water and tell me to carry it to him. On one of those days, I will never forget, I got lost carry him the water. The tobacco was way above my head. I was scared to death! I was a little hesitant to do that again for quite a while.

·         I remember pulling up fresh cool well water for all of us to drink. That was one of my assigned chores when I visited. Good stuff too!

·         I also remember the time I went with Granddaddy Kelly where he was clearing new ground. He did a lot of that! But, this time I was in for a surprise. He walked over to this huge stump and told me to stay back. He dug a hole under that stump and I could see him put something in the hole. He very quickly came back to me and told me to lie down on the ground and cover my head. BOOM! It was dynamite. That was better than any fireworks show I ever saw. We both had stuff blown all over and around us, but you know what? That old stump came out of there! What a great new experience for me. Needless to say, I was impressed!

·         And who could ever possibly forget those darn guineas? They seemed to be everywhere. When they went to roost at night in the chinaberry trees they were undoubtedly the loudest critters I ever heard!  What a racket they made! Do you know why they were there? Well…If you had guineas, you never saw a snake. They devoured them like I do deviled eggs!

·         One of my most favorite times is when I could go with Granddaddy Kelly to his work shed. I had never seen so many interesting things in my life. And he knew exactly where everything was. That man could fix anything that broke! I’m convinced of that. I remember pulling a tractor up beside that building and hooking a belt to a big saw. Granddaddy cut slabs and I stacked them. They would keep the old house pretty cozy during the winters, but if you went to bed, you needed every blanket you could get your hands on to stay warm.

·         I remember when Granddaddy Kelly bought that “Big M” tractor. Paid cash for it too. People from all around came to see that thing! It wasn’t nearly as big as those you see today, but in that day it was the biggest thing anybody had ever seen. He was so proud. It was a great tractor.

·         Remember when Granddaddy dug those irrigation ponds? I didn’t know it at the time, but Conrad and I had a lot of fun a few years later pulling out those bream and large mouth bass. Same thing at Uncle Sion’s pond. That is…if that big bull of Uncle Sion’s wasn’t close by. He was one mean huge ornery critter!

·         One of my favorite experiences on the farm was when I got to talk with Vance Cotton in his own personal home, Grandmother’s wash house. His bed was right beside the wash pots. Vance was a black man who lived on the farm. I guess he was a hard worker in his younger days, but when I knew him, he just piddled around doing little odd and end jobs. It was pretty obvious to me that somewhere along the line Granddaddy and Grandmother Kelly took a real good liken’ to him. Old Vance had more stories to tell than Mark Twain ever thought of. Some were funny, some were sad, but some put the fear of God in me and caused me to have bad dreams.  LOL He was quite a character. Once Miss Annie fed everyone present, she would call old Vance to come in and feed him until he almost busted open.  That guy really knew how to dig into a meal. He always left telling her, “She was the best cook he ever knew!” Grandmother liked that a lot. I could see it in her face!

·         Two things were essential in their household. When they went to the store, they always brought back RC Colas and Snuff. Grandmother saw to that! Those are the only two things I ever knew them to splurge on….if you could call that splurging.

·         I never saw my Grandmother in her kitchen without her apron. I bet that thing, if it could talk, could tell some interesting stories. Actually, she was usually accompanied by some of her daughters there too. Did I ever tell you she was quite a cook?

·         I will never forget helping Granddaddy hook up this contraption with a belt driven by his tractor and watching it grind corn to make cornmeal that slid down the chute into a sack. That was fun and amazing to me at the same time. The Kelly Family never went hungry in those days.  The smokehouse always had a good supply of meat, shoulders, ham, sausage, fatback and the like. The Kelly girls cleaned the pig intestines and stuffed it full of sausage. There were fresh eggs, milk and vegetable. The pantry was filled in the summer with all those canned vegetables. I remember filling the lard stands. Talking about self-sufficient! I remember when electricity became available, one of the first things purchased was a "freezer locker". It was placed in the little room behind the kitchen, near the back door. It didn't take long and that sucker was slam full of good stuff. I remember well, the "johnny house" before there were bathrooms. In those days, if you had a shovel and could get your hands on some lime, you had yourself a nice toilet. All that was left was constructing a little building with a door and and the proper seating arrangement and you were in business. But, yikes, those boards were cold as you know what in the wintertime. Each new visit took a little adjusting to.

·         I remember on one hot summer day, Cousin Bryant and I went to Granddaddy's watermelon patch and we both at a whole watermelon a piece. Boy, were we ever full! That turned out to be one of many things I never attempted again.

·         Getting to see all the aunts and uncles and cousins after a wonderful Sunday meal at the farm. What a wonderful time! That whole clan of Kelly girls could sure cook up a mess of good country cooking. Did I tell you they all really knew how to cook? We always had the freshest fried chicken on earth. After their heads were rung off, they were put in boiling water, cut and crisply fried to perfection.  Makes me hungry to this day just thinking about it, even after on occasions I had to retrieve that flopping headless chicken. It’s a wonder! But my mouth still drools.

·         To show how stupid I was, one day right after granddaddy Kelly warned me and another cousin to stop throwing rocks at the bee hives, we were stubborn and kept doing it. After several of those dang bees got in my hair and stung me…well I guess you could say I learned my lesson there too.  I never did that again! But, it wasn’t because those stings hurt something terrible. It was because of the butt whipping I got from Daddy and the finger pointing by Mother. I can just see Granddaddy Kelly with that grin on his face, even to this day! LOL

·         I remember a knot hole under the dining room table. Me and several other cousins would try to shoot marbles into that hole and did a number of times. One time, on the following Sunday, I decided to retrieve some of those lost marbles. Heck, they were valuable. There must have been 20 of them under the house. So, I crawled under the house, got absolutely filthy, which I never heard the end of, but I never even found ONE! Not a ONE! I always wondered if Conrad or somebody had beat me too it. Maybe someday I will find out!

·         There was absolutely nothing on God’s good earth that beat lying down on a bale of hay in Granddaddy’s new barn when it rained. Absolutely nothing! But, it was sure hard getting those bales up into the loft of that barn!  I thought my arms would drop off!

·         And, remember the mules?..Maude & Claude.  I always thought that mules were supposed to be stupid. Well…not these mules! When I was shorter than a grasshopper, I was told to get on the back runners of the tobacco sled and drive those mules from the shed where the Kelly girls were looping tobacco to the barn. Even though I couldn’t see over the sack cloth meant to hold the tobacco on the sled, those dumb mules knew exactly where to go every single time. Amazing ain’t it? Well, that didn’t last. I was promoted to handing tobacco to those amazingly, fast as lightening, Kelly girl “bacca loopers”. It took 2 or 3 of us just so they could keep their rhythm. They were so fast you couldn’t even see their hands move.

·         One time close to Christmas, Uncle Sion, sometime after I was asleep, brought a mule up to the front porch steps, right after a light snow. The next morning he came running in the house hollering for me. He said “Randy, you gotta see this!” I ran out side with him and he swore to me that one of Santa’s reindeer had come by the house to check on me. He even showed me where it peed. Can you believe that! I told everybody I knew that would listen about that, until one day somebody told me his was just pulling my leg. I argued with them, but in the end I relented. I was so embarrassed! I must have been 4 or 5 at the time.

·         Oh! And those absolutely delicious scuppernong grapes just past the wash house! I ate a belly full of those big boys on a number of occasions.  And, although warned in advance, I never got stung! For once, I was lucky. I always wondered if that was where Uncle Willis got the grapes to make that special Scuppernong Wine he often shared. Good stuff!

    I remember when Uncle Truman and Uncle Sion decided to get in the chicken business. They built these huge (not by today's standards) chicken houses, filled them with baby chicks and hoped for a good plump batch of chickens. Those two buildings were the stinkingest two buildings I have ever been in. The amonia smell in them would make a person gag. I don't think I could ever be a chicken farmer.

·         One Thanksgiving, I think the whole Kelly family was there, the adults got together and decided to put up a few bucks and shoot a 22 rifle at a circle target on a tin can, placed across the road in the field. Willis and Stan’s repair shop is there now. Winner take all! Some of my uncles nagged Daddy into letting me shoot, thinking the pot would just be bigger for them. After finally being embarrassed to no end, he gave in. Well, to make a long story short, I won. I was the closest. But, guess what? My daddy took all the winnings! The rest of the men teased him and never let him forget it.  Later, on the way back home, daddy did give me my entry fee that he had paid....And, rightly so! LOL I wonder if they ever knew that?

·         I loved and still love all my cousins, but there was something special to me about Judy Wicker. We were the closest in age, even though she was a few months older than me. She wouldn’t want me to say that.  Anyway, I thought she was the smartest and prettiest thing in the world. We had a lot of fun together and I always just loved it when we would visit Aunt Louise and Claybourne. We lost Bryant way too soon. I will never forget what my mother told me, when she wanted me to eat oatmeal, “Don’t you want to grow up big and strong like your cousin, Bryant!” I ate my oatmeal, but I never grew up to be big and strong like Bryant. I went all the way to Maxton one time, just to be able to say I had a tooth filled by my cousin, the most hospitable person you would ever meet. I miss him and I know Judy and Shirley do too.

·         When those Alabama cousins came to town, well….everybody had to be at Grandmother and Granddaddy Kelly’s. No excuses! It was like a min-reunion. We would get to see Ronnie and Jimmy again!  That was always an exciting time for us. I will never forget how Fratus would see to it that Mary Alice got back home every little bit. Talk about a Southern Gentleman…Sheriff Fratus Owen was the epitome of a Southern Gentleman. Mary Alice was sweet, gentle and very loving. I sure do miss her and Uncle Fratus.

·         I loved all of my Kelly aunts. They were all beautiful and loved me too. I will never forget the special attention they gave me while my daddy was in WWII and for many years after that. That has always been very special to me.

·         When we lived in Sanford on the corner of Hickory Avenue and 7^th Street, Truman and Jean lived a couple of houses away. I practically lived with them. I was in their home all the time. But, I never walked in that door when Aunt Jean didn’t have something sweet she had made for me to eat. Heck! I was like one of their children. Uncle Truman, probably the finest Christian man I ever met, talked me into chewing a little bit of rabbit tobacco. I almost got sick to my stomach! I never did that again. Lesson learned! By the way, he also taught me how to fold a newspaper into a square so that it could be easily tossed into someone’s yard. I never used that talent, but it sure was nice to know for an 8 year old. I guess one could say I was ahead of the curve. Not many other 8 year olds knew how to do that! That man amazed me. He could do anything he set his mind to. Brenda, George, Lavonne, Ann, and John are very lucky peole to have parents like that. Whoever said that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree was certainly right when it comes to the Fore family.

·         And those Buchanan’s...Uncle Vernon and Uncle Elwin, they were at every family event.  Aunt Ella Lee and Aunt Annie Laurie were two of nicest people I have ever known. Both were gentle spirits and dedicated to family. Their husbands both were outstanding men, but they just loved teasing us young folks. I loved it because they got such a kick out of it and we got all the attention. LOL When we visited Aunt Ella Lee, we got to see Mary Clark and Lorraine. The older girls, Melba and Peggy were grown and obviously interested in "other things". LOL  It was always fun to play in the back yard of Aunt Annie Laurie’s with Elwin Jr. and Sandra. Sandra was one of our own very special angels here on this earth. God bless her. Elwin Jr. was 5 or 6 years older than me, so I always looked up to him and absorbed every word he said. I bet he never knew that. In those early days I remember that everyone called him "Bo Peep". I guess that was from the nursery rhyme. Anyway, when he got a little older he didn’t like that nickname one bit! I can certainly understand that! Wonder how he would react if I call him Bo Peep at the reunion and ask him if he had lost any sheep lately?  LOL He is doing an absolutely wonderful job planning our next reunion.

·         The most dedicated caretaker of the family was Aunt Nell. Absolutely no question about it in my mind. She was there no matter what. She looked after Granddaddy and Grandmother just like a mother looks after their first born. She and Willis helped my mother so much with Daddy after his stroke. She was “Grace” personified. I know I keep saying this about the Kelly girls, but Aunt Nell is sweet, gracious, loving and so very kind.  And Uncle Willis was always right there beside her, every single step of the way. What a devoted husband he was. I will always love him for that. I hope Grace, Donna and Stan never forget how very fortunate they are.

·         One day all of our lives changed! Ross was killed in a car wreck. Age 17…nobody could believe it. Uncle Hoyle was normally a very strong man, but not this time. His heart was broken. And, he and Beaulah would never get over this. Uncle Hoyle was the oldest of the uncles. He was the matriarch of the Kelly children. Aunt Beaulah was so gentle, so kind. How could something like this possibly happen to them and Cousin Buck, Ross’ older brother? To this day, none of us have gotten over that tragedy. I still tear up just thinking about it. At Buck’s recent funeral, all of those memories came back. I always looked up to Buck. He was quite a man in his young days. Built like a young Charles Atlas. Worked like a horse. The last time I saw him he was in Moore County hospital, right after surgery. We had a wonderful touching conversation. I got to talk with Ricky, who I had not seen in a long time at the funeral. June and all of us miss him something terrible. Please keep her and Ricky in your prayers.

·         I will never forget the day we all just had to go to Uncle Ralph’s. He lived in Garner and it just so happened that a small airplane had just crashed behind his home. It was even written up in the News and Observer. We visited them often. It was always fun because I got to see R.B. and Rex. Aunt Addie always had a big meal prepared for us. Wow! I never left there hungry, I can sure tell you that! Boy, I sure miss R.B. My mother thought Uncle Ralph was one of the most successful people she ever knew.  He was certainly appreciated by the Poultry Division at NC State.

·         Uncle Sion Kelly was a very special uncle to me. He went out of his way to give me a lot of attention. If I ever needed him, he was there. He took the place of my daddy when he was in the war. He was successful at everything he tried. I really did admire him. Aunt Nell and Sion were perfect for each other. I always thought Cousins Conrad and Kathy were very fortunate. Uncle Sion was the Kelly Family’s politician and Lee County’s Clerk of Court.  He was very successful. By the way, that Sion could sure plays some mean checkers! His golf game wasn’t too shabby either. He also had Granddaddy Kelly’s mischievous grin! I can still see it to this day.

      Well….I guess I strayed a little bit from “The Farm”, but what the heck, I got carried away! I will stop for now. I just wanted all of us cousins to recall those days and those who were unfortunate not to experience them like we did, to know just a little bit about what it was like and why it is so very special to us. I just love the Kelly family. I quote Judy Wicker here by saying, “they have been so good to me”. Thank God for such a wonderful family and may He continue to bless us all each and every day. We are so fortunate.

I     I guess I probably have another thousand other stories and memories of those wonderful days. Maybe, if I become motivated again, I will share some more. I feel sure some of my cousins will do the same.

      Thanks for you patience and understanding. Because this was probably more for me than anyone else. LOL

      Oh well….You take care now.  Good Lord willing…I’ll see you soon.

 

Randy Kelly Faulk

Grandson of “Crow” & “Miss Annie”

Son of Harriet and Dail

Brother of Tim & Diane

Cousin to just about everybody in the Southeastern United States