An Ozark Mountain Waltz

By Fern Croley Jones

When the Croley family comes to the Ozark Mountains to find shelter from the realities of life during the Great Depression, they find a new home in an old wooden cabin borrowed from a friend. As time goes by, they find more than a new start. They find neighbors willing to help, discover the value of having a sense of humor, and regain hope. This story comes from actual written letters and verbal accounts from the family and their friends. These accounts tell of the music, the faith found in hymn

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781682132586

Book preview

7538.jpg

Fern Croley Jones

An Ozark 

Mountain Waltz

Copyright © 2015 Fern Croley Jones

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2015

ISBN 978-1-68213-257-9 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-68213-258-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

To my parents, who gave me a priceless heritage of love, laughter, music, and Ozark sunshine.

Acknowledgments

Iwant to thank the following who gave the encouragement and help to record this story: my children—Gary, Linda, Dave, Diane, Richard, and Raymond—and their families for always believing I would write this someday; my brothers, Leroy and also Ernie, who are cheering from above; the valiant folks of Sugar Mountain and the Brentwood Community who lived that dark time with courage, hope, and a willingness to share; and my families, the Croleys and Cades, who taught me unconditional love.

If you could fly above the area known as the Ozark Mountains,

you would see them stretching from Eastern Oklahoma, northeastward through Northwest and North Central Arkansas, into Southwest and Central Missouri. It is a land of trees, rivers, and rocky ledges; abundant with wild game, flowers, springs, and, some say,—opportunity.

If you could travel back in time to these same hills in the Depression years of the thirties to the Boston Mountain range of Washington County, Arkansas, on Sugar Mountain you would see a cabin shaded by a cedar tree. A family transplanted from Colorado has found shelter in this log house borrowed from a friend. They will find more than a new start. As Ozark folks born in these hills already know, they soon realize ticks, chiggers, twisters and drought can be minor inconveniences when compared to mountain music, a tall tale, the help of a neighbor and incredible scenery.

This waltz through the Ozarks of long ago is based on a true story. It was inspired by actual written and verbal accounts from my parents, grandparents, family and friends who lived it. My wish is to share this story with my family and you in hopes someone will always remember some of the special folks who once lived in these ever green misty mountains and called it home.

Part 1

Near the Colorado Rocky Mountains

1926

For now we see through a glass darkly;

but then face to face.

—1 Corinthians 13:12

November 25, 1926

Rattlesnake Buttes, Colorado

I love to live in our cozy dugout on the prairie with the Spanish Peaks to the south and Pike’s Peak to the north. Inside I can feel the warm adobe floor under my bare feet as I sit at our round oak table, writing by the light of our coal oil lantern. We actually live in a cave in a hillside with a door to the south and one small window for light. It is warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Outside the horizon is flat to the east with only one cottonwood tree in sight. Someday I want to travel east so I can see if that is the last tree on the prairie.

My name is Tina Margaret, pronounced Tyna (long I). I was named after my two aunts on my father’s side. Aunt Tina gave the three of us girls a French fashion doll apiece last Christmas, and my sisters, Emma and Alva, wore theirs out playing with them and combing the curls out of their real human hair. I put mine up, and it is as good as new. I had to protect it from my brothers, Joe, Harold, Willie, and my four-year-old baby brother Kenneth.

My father, James William Cade, and mother, Mary Clarissa, are asleep. I’m supposed to be turning out the light, but it is my birthday, and I can’t seem to get settled. I would like for this to be a diary, but it is really a Big Chief tablet I use at school.

I turned fifteen today, and although I look like a boy and help Dad farm this homestead, I intend to be a lady someday. Mama decided I was old enough to start a hope box. She embroidered a set of tea towels for it with sunbonnet babies on each one, doing whatever is expected of a proper lady on each day of the week: wash on Monday, iron on Tuesday, mend on Wednesday, shop on Thursday, bake on Friday, clean on Saturday, and church on Sunday.

I heard my parents talking earlier, and Mama is trying to convince Dad we should move to town, where there are churches. I know it’s because of me. As far back as I can remember, Mama has been concerned about me. Although my grandmother Wickham has tried to convince her otherwise, she is afraid I will be like her cross-eyed cousin who has a crystal ball and scares folks with her predictions.

The trouble started recently when a neighbor and his son were struck by lightning and killed while driving home from town in a team and wagon. Mama was especially upset that I knew something bad was going to happen before it did like I always do. I feel terrible, quit eating, and can’t help but cry.

Although my grandmother Wickham says I can see with my heart, all I really want to see is blue eyes and curly hair when I look in the mirror. Dad said if I did, everyone would think I was adopted like he and his sisters were since I wouldn’t match the rest. I guess my hazel eyes will have to do as well as this straight brown hair.

September 15, 1927

2218 East Fourth

Pueblo, Colorado

I just found this old tablet under my bed in a box with my embroidered dish towels and my china doll. Mama thinks we are living in luxury now since we moved to town. We have water right outside the kitchen door in a pipe with a faucet on top. We even have electric lightbulbs hanging on cords in all four rooms. Dad makes sure we only have one light on at a time, and when the radio is on, we turn them all off. We all sit around on Saturday night listening to my favorite program, the Grand Ole Opry. We even have an ice box and sometimes get to make lemonade.

Dad is working in contracting now and pours cement driveways and sidewalks. He decided it was less risky than farming and knew Mama would be happier around people. I remember helping him build a corn crib out of cedar posts, and I miss our farm sometimes. I don’t look as much like a boy anymore since I’m almost sixteen and not as skinny.

Before Grandmother Wickham died last summer, we had a talk about heaven and her idea of it. She always talked to me like a grown-up. She had taught us girls how to make sunbonnets out of feed sacks and cut cardboard slats to keep the brims stiff. I can see her working on them, leaning over the table with her hair pulled back and fashioned into a bun at the back of her head held tight with hairpins, a silver halo framing a plump face. All us older kids outgrew her, but she knew so many things she seemed taller than Mama, who was only about five feet tall herself. She also planted flowers all around our house, four-o’clocks, zinnias, and sweet Williams. They are as beautiful as the sunbonnets.

One day she told me how the Bible says there is a glass darkly that separates us from seeing the next world and that someday we’ll be able to see through it clearly. Her assurance that she would always be with me, just out of sight, was confusing to me, yet later, when her visit ended, she wouldn’t let me tell her good-bye. Later I knew why.

When the familiar dread came over me and we got word she had passed on, I knew she hadn’t really left me. I think that is why she told me what she knew would comfort me—that love doesn’t ever leave us.

Mama hid her grief behind one of the flowered sunbonnets we’d made and cried into the petunias and pansies as she pulled weeds. After a while she got serious about my tendency toward premonitions, and we started going to church. After she was satisfied I was heaven bound and we were baptized in the Arkansas River one Sunday, she seemed to be her old self and started singing again.

Mama should have learned to play a musical instrument. She has music in her heart. She teaches us all to sing and dance, waltzing over the linoleum to Sweet Alice Blue Gown and Believe Me If All Those Enduring Young Charms. She always wakes us to Good Morning Merry Sunshine. Although I have learned it’s Mama’s way to cope with her worries, I sometimes resent it when I want to stay in bed. She believes music is as good as any medicine.

December 15, 1928

I haven’t done very well writing in my tablet diary, but I keep busy going to school and helping around here. Mama took in washings and bought the grandest treadle Singer sewing machine. Dad is not happy she did such a thing, but when she makes up her mind, he knows not to say too much. She insisted Dad buy all the chicken feed with the printed sacks. She unravels them and soaks them in cold salt water to set the colors. I can hear her singing Christmas carols while she makes clothes out of them. It is supposed to be a secret since she thinks we’re all asleep. Dad promised us a blue spruce Christmas tree with electric lights on it instead of the candle clip ones we used to have. The lights are red, blue, green, and yellow with white for the star. I have sent the folks a Christmas card I bought with money I got taking care of a neighbor who has a new baby. I love that little baby and dream of the day I’ll have one of my own. Kenneth is getting so big. Mama said she definitely didn’t want any more babies, even though I wish she would.

We have a police dog named Jack. The boys kick the car tires and have taught him to bite their pant legs, so when anyone visits, he sometimes grabs them if they kick something. He loves us kids and waits for us to come home from school. He’d go too if we let him because he thinks he’s part of the family.

My best friend is Elizabeth, and she is beautiful with naturally curly hair. I tell her everything, like how handsome this boy I met is named Bert and about Grandmother Wickham’s idea of being just a step away behind the glass of heaven. Elizabeth thinks heaven is far away, but she doesn’t sense things like I do and doesn’t appreciate how it helps me to remember what Grandmother Wickham told me. I still feel comforted when I think I didn’t have to ever tell her good-bye.

June 20, 1930

My diary has been neglected since I’m working at Kress’s five-and-ten-cent store. It still hurts to think about it, but if I believe Grandmother Wickham, Elizabeth is close to me, and I don’t have to tell her good-bye either. I thought life was unfair because I didn’t have curly hair, and now I realize there are worse things since Elizabeth, my best friend, was killed in an automobile accident. I didn’t have the heart to go to school without her, so I quit and went to work. The folks wanted me to be the first to finish high school, but they’re trying to understand. The rest of the kids are in Belle Plain School.

I saw Bert again, the boy I told Elizabeth about last winter. His father is in the contracting business also, and he and Dad are friends. He helps his father. He has the bluest eyes and dark, almost-black hair. Dad took me to their house, and I listened while they discussed the Depression. The men hope folks will keep building even though times are getting bad.

Bert asked me if I thought Dad would let me go to one of the dances they have down on