The housekeeper, Nellie, was a large influence in my life. She made me feel special and loved, something often missing in our impersonal lives today. As the next-to-youngest girl in a passle of boys, and the only one walking, talking, and getting into mischief, I received concentrated attention from the household’s adults. I remember Nellie's talking with me while she prepared meals for the family. She would cut up the cabbage and give me the heart. When she cut turnips for our dinner, she always gave me pieces of the raw vegetable with salt and pepper. When preparing ground meat, she always rolled a little ball in salt and pepper for me.

Saturday mornings were a great time in that big old house. Beds were stripped, mattresses turned, all sorts of grownup chores were performed with a great flurry of activity watched by my sister and me. While my aunties were doing that, my hair received the weekly washing. I had long, strawberry blonde hair and I remember standing at the kitchen sink while Nellie washed my hair and rinsed it in vinegar to bring out the shine. (If you were blonde, lemon juice was used; if you were brunette, I remember something about walnut hulls.)

There was structure and ritual in our lives. Young ladies only had their hair washed once a week, unless something drastic occurred. Every morning, I sat on a stool while my hair was braided. Before that was done, I got to pick out the ribbons for my hair so they would match my dress. (No pants for us. When I grew out of rompers, no more pants!) On special occasions, the braids were piled on my head in a crown, with ribbons braided into the hair itself. Of course, that meant I had to sit very, very still on the stool so the crown would be even. Sometimes Nellie folded the braids back under themselves and the ribbon at the end of the braid went around the thickest part of the braid. In the evenings, my braids were undone and my hair was brushed 100 times. There was much touching, stroking, hugging, kissing, and sometimes paddlings, throughout every day.

Our family was H-U-G-E with lots of cousins. We had an unusual situation in my family because three of the Berry boys married three of the Barr girls over a span of twenty years in the mid-1800s. No matter where you were standing in the family, you were somebody’s cousin; depending on the relative you were speaking with, that controlled your degree of kinship -- at that time. Very confusing to a young child but always an adventure in social structure.

Always, always, we were expected to behave as young Southern ladies. I remember vividly when my Canadian cousins came to visit. I remember Uncle Victor, so tall and handsome in his Canadian Army uniform. I was in love at the grand age of five, and I remember asking him to wait for me to grow up so he could marry me. (It didn’t matter that he was already spoken for!) Heaven only knows what someone would make of that now. I guess I would have to be counseled and he would be locked up for agreeing to marry a child, and a cousin to boot!

One rainy evening my Cousin Chukker stripped down to his shorts and danced in the rain on the front lawn. I thought that was a marvelous idea, so I did the same. Boy, was there a difference in how we were treated for that same behavior.

There were all sorts of sayings governing our behavior: Speak when you are spoken to; Children should be seen and not heard; Little Pitchers have Big Ears. When grownups didn’t want us to know what they were saying, they spelled the ‘offending’ words. I cannot tell you how many words I practiced spelling after hearing them spelled. I was going to remember them and look them up when I got big! Those conversations mostly took place in the evenings so I spelled the words as I dropped off to sleep. The phrase I heard most often was “It takes pains to be beautiful!” That one assumed gigantic proportions in my life, what with the braiding and all.

Even everyday clothes were starched and ironed. We behaved differently then. Not that we didn’t play, but we were mindful of what was expected of us. I still say to others today, “Expectations, not recriminations,” referring to our children. When I worked in the schools later in life, I noticed that young people behaved quite differently in their “Sunday best” than they did in the slovenly attire that passes for fashion today. Maybe our elders had the right idea, after all . . .

Melanie Wooten writes to us:
"I am entitled to be buried in the Confederate Cemetery at Manassas, Virginia. My family has always been buried there and we had four sons in the CSA.

"As for the old house, I took my son there and it is quite a treat at the age of 65 to see where I grew up become part of Old Town -- and it cannot be changed. I think it is very important for our children to see where we grew up. Gives them roots.

"I remember those old signs with 25, 50, 75, 100, and we'd turn up the one to tell the ice man how much we wanted. (We had a drain to below the kitchen, mind you, so I didn't have to dump the tray.) Anyway, I turned the sign up to 100 pounds, just to see what would happen. We ended up with a single, 100# block of ice on the back porch and I got a tanning, I can tell you . . ."

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