And One More Makes Five

By Barbara Long

This is a true story of a small girl born in a home where she experiences one disaster after another. Growing up in a family of five children and three adults, she suffers third degree burns on her upper body, boil infections, a dog bite to the jugular vein, and a severed toe before she was five years old. However, she perseveres and develops an "I can do anything" attitude which results in over achieving every task she undertakes. This is due to the love and support from a foster mother who takes Betty and Barbara into her home. The story is filled with tragedy, comedy, and warmth and gives an insight into how kids survive in poverty and how schools can many times work against them.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 25, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483619026

Barbara Long

n/a

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Jacob Thomas Cash, Jr. lived in Granville County, N. C., just a dirt path where running liquor on the back roads was a lucrative business. He was married to Elmedia Davis, and between them, they raised three children, Ira, Sarah, and Alford. Jacob farmed and did outside labor, and of course, Elmedia (Meda) labored in the house with the cooking, cleaning, washing, and taking care of the children. When Elmedia died, Jacob was lost without a partner with whom to share his life and to take care of him, as most women did in those days. After all, Jacob was 50 years old, his wife had been dead seven years, and his children were 27, 28, and 30 years old. When spouses became sick, men immediately started looking for a housekeeper even before their spouse died. Plus, Jacob, like so many Cash boys, was as horny as they come. So Jacob left Granville County for good and went to the big city of Durham to find a woman who could take Elmedia’s place. His family had no idea that he had gone away to start a new life. It was there that he met Ella Walker, a young woman the same age as his daughter. Ella was looking for a husband as well. The thing was, in those days, if you were 25 and not married, you were doomed to be an old maid; and neither was Ella a pretty woman, so her picking was few. Not only did Jacob need a young woman, but also Ella definitely wanted a husband. So, they met and married in January of 1904, and in December of 1904, Roy Thomas Cash was born to the couple. Later on, Ella and Jacob had two other children, Ethel and Alvis. They were married only 12 years when Jacob died—Roy was only twelve years old. Jacob was taken back to Granville County and buried next to his first wife. There was still no record of where Jacob had been, but there must have been some dissention among his first family of three, because his grave in the family plot is not exactly next to Almedia’s, just slightly apart.

Ella Walker Cash, was left to raise three children on her own. It wasn’t long, however, before she married again. Jean Ferrell was her second husband; but he died six years later, before Ella’s first grandchild was born.

When Roy was 20, he had a job in the hosiery mill where he met Ila Dickerson. She was a pretty thing—very petite with red wavy hair, fair complexion, and sea-blue eyes. Roy was in awe of Ila. It wasn’t long before she accepted his proposal and they married. They moved in with Roy’s mother, Ella, and his brother Alvis. All of them worked in the hosiery mill. Ila, Roy, and Alvis had different jobs. Alvis was a cruler, Roy—a doffer, and Ila—a looper. Ila was great at the looping machine. She was fast and very accurate. Everything seemed to work very smoothly until Roy and Ila had a little baby girl named Ruby Lee. Ella stayed home to take care of her. Little did all of them know that two years later, Alvis would be murdered.

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Ila Dickerson Cash

wife of Roy Thomas Cash

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Roy and Ila

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Ella Cash holding Ruby Lee, first child of Roy Cash

CHAPTER 2

Roy, twenty-six, and his younger brother Alvis, who was 20, were in old man Davis’s house in Granville County drinking and playing around with a no-account fellow from the neighborhood. They started an argument, and tempers got hot. The guy from the neighborhood got in a drunken rage, reached in his pocket and pulled out a knife. Before anybody could do anything, he had Alvis by the neck and had pulled the knife across his throat. Alvis bled to death within minutes right before his brother Roy’s eyes. Roy watched in amazement as the red life-giving blood of his young brother flowed over the faded wooden planks. This was a traumatic event in Roy’s life, and was a time when he learned a hard lesson—to keep moving on no matter what happens. Life is hard, accept what’s dealt you, and don’t look back. This became Roy’s philosophy for living.

CHAPTER 3

The same year that Alvis was murdered, Roy had a son. Two years before, Ila and Roy had given birth to a stillborn child, so Roy Thomas, Jr. was a blessing to them. They were living at 604 Liberty Street in Durham. It was then that Ella decided to move in with her grandmother, Merlie Dixon. And even though she was a fairly young woman, her health was declining, and in 1938, when she was only 59, Ella Walker Cash Ferrell died.

CHAPTER 4

I was born the year my grandmother died in the same house where my two sisters and brother were born, at 604 Liberty Street. The small four room house was crowded with four children, but many people used all the rooms in their houses as bedrooms except for the kitchen, and we ate at a table in the center of the kitchen.

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Roy and his half-brother, Ira, son of Almedia and Jacob Cash, Jr.

My father was a good-looking man. In fact we all thought he was from Native American decent. His dark eyes, black hair and his smooth olive complexion with a large nose that gave prominence to his square chin reminded us of the Indians we saw in the movies.

One evening as the family sat around the table waiting for supper to be served by Mama, I was crawling and half walking around in the kitchen. I was 10 months old and just learning to walk. Daddy was sitting at the head of the table, where he always sat, and the rest of the family, Ruby and R.T., were sitting around the table with Betty Jean in a high chair. Daddy was waiting for his second cup of coffee in his overlarge cup. He liked his coffee strong and hot. I don’t remember much of my siblings in my early years because I was in a world of play, and I had no idea what world they were in, except for R.T. He was in a world of his own. As Mamma said, he was different. Mama had cooked the regular meal of poor folks,—pinto beans and biscuits, and daddy had meticulously crumbled biscuits on his plate and had carefully poured beans over the top so that bean juice flowed around the sides of the plate. He would then cut up onions and hot peppers on top making a perfect meal to his way of thinking. No one was paying attention to me as I was stumbling around the room—falling, getting up, and falling again. I had on a baby dress that was thin and cool, as the weather was hot. Mama walked by the wood stove, towel in hand, gingerly lifted the boiling coffee off the stove and started pouring Daddy his cup of coffee. As she walked back to the stove, I clumsily staggered to the table. Seeing my destination in sight, I reached up to gain balance, my small hand catching the edge of the saucer and bringing the full cup of steaming coffee down over my head and arm. My