Clay and Sand

By Rita Spicer Waite

A shy, sickly girl born to factory workers in the Piedmont area of Virginia, the author fought through epilepsy, and a harsh home life to begin the long road to physical, emotional and spiritual healing.

The author made plenty of mistakes along the road of life, but most of us can relate to that. Life is all about choices and for the poor decisions we make, we usually pay dearly. It usually takes a time or two to learn, but learn we must.

CLAY AND SAND is a book to make you smile, shed a few tears and even laugh out loud. Meet some interesting characters and join the author on this trip from a small town in Virginia to Key West, Florida and points in between.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Aug 2, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312095496

Book preview

Preface

It has been said that if you could see into your own future, you just might end it all then and there. Maybe so, but life has more twists than a Hitchcock movie, so you never know what’s around the next blind curve. It could be more misery that a human should have to endure, or it might be the accidental meeting of the love of your life. You have to stay in the game or you’ll miss them both. Is it worth enduring the garbage that life throws at you in case the good stuff makes an appearance? Oh, yeah.

A Somewhat Iffy Beginning

Father’s Day would never be the same for Daddy, since his only child came into the world on that Sunday afternoon. He celebrated the happy event by drinking too much; so much that when he was allowed to see his wife and child, he took one look through the hospital’s nursery window, declared that he had produced a very ugly baby and fell asleep on the empty bed in my mother’s room. Not exactly the start in life of which every mother dreams for her child, but then, there we are.

The aforementioned warm family moment occurred in Martinsville General Hospital, in said city, the seat of Henry County, in the Commonwealth of Virginia. I joke now that my place of birth was turned into a museum, and it was – the hospital was razed to make way for the Virginia Museum of Natural History, so I suppose you could say I really am a dinosaur. As this story unfolds, the pieces may seem disjointed, but like a museum, the unrelated parts or memories do make up a whole.

The first portion of this museum that I call my life, starts in the small city previously mentioned. In the 1950s, Martinsville was a thriving town of industry with many furniture and sewing factories, as well as knitting mills, as they were called then. It was the place to work if you were talented in sewing, as was my mother, or finishing furniture, as was my father. After World War II, it boomed with the influx of war veterans ready to build homes and raise families. The factories, with their promise of a regular income, lured my parents away from a paradise called Key West. That was their first mistake, in my opinion.

My hometown had two distinct areas, as do most cities: the good side and the bad side.

The good side of town boasted lovely homes with mostly English architectural influences. These large brick or stone houses were graced with slate roofs, copper accents and sometimes exposed timbers; the streets lined with trees and the carefully maintained lawns dotted with flowering shrubs. Spring was a delight with azaleas in many hues, masses of daffodils, as well as red buds, dogwoods and other flowering trees and shrubs to provide a floral rainbow. Autumn was a sight to behold due to the maples, oaks and other deciduous trees showing off their brilliant foliage. The lovely homes in this area were owned by doctors, lawyers, factory owners, and the various blue bloods.

I called the bad side of town my home and the dwellings were mostly small Cape Cod houses with two or three bedrooms and one bath; these were the nicer homes. On Cotton Mill Hill, the houses were built on the side of that hill with stilts to level the places, allowing the cold winter wind to blow under the unprotected floors, rendering the homes impossible to heat. I did not live on that hill, but another hill only a rifle shot away. Just south of my street was the area known as Jones Creek, which featured a railroad trestle above a dirty, rocky creek. The Creek neighborhood contained shabby businesses at the main intersection and small frame houses nearby. The dominant landmark was a box factory with a very tall, substantial smokestack. The smokestack is so substantial in fact, that 70+ years later, it is still casting its filthy shadow over the abandoned train trestle and kudzu choked creek. Just above the box factory was a lumber yard, no longer in operation, with a crane perpetually anchored there. As a pre-schooler, there was little to occupy my curious mind, but one favorite pastime was watching that red crane snatch logs from the pile left by trucks and pivot to deposit them onto the conveyor belt, which slowly sent them to their demise inside the sawmill. This northside portion of the city was primarily inhabited by mill, factory and other blue-collar workers, as well as those without a regular income.

Outside of town, Beaver Creek Plantation, an eighteenth-century estate, was once owned by George Hairston (pronounced Harston by some locals) and built in 1776 on a 30,000+ acre royal land grant to Colonel Abram Penn. Hairston purchased the land from Penn and built his plantation. Situated atop a hill, the mansion has a commanding view of what were then the pastures and tobacco fields of that wealthy man. Sadly, at one point, the Hairston family became the largest slaveholders in the South, which made them one of the wealthiest families in America. The plantation was certainly the jewel of Henry County, but the original house burned in 1837. It was rebuilt in the present classic revival style from virgin oak by Marshall Hairston, George’s son, and that house still peers down from the brow of a hill.

I will now descend into hearsay, but local lore has it that Marshall was not a kind slave owner. There is a legend that says he forced his field hands to work during a thunderstorm while he watched from an upper floor window. The story continues to say that lightning struck and killed him during that vigil and etched his image into the glass. Many still report that Marshall Hairston never left the house, but is forever doomed to roam the interior. A man who did some painting in the house many years ago, told me that he saw the glass with the image, but I cannot attest to that. The land has since been divided and sold by the Hairston heirs and the house has been turned into offices for Bank Services of Virginia. Quite an ignominious end for such a grand estate, but if you take VA 108 north from Martinsville into the countryside, you can still see the house and some of the out-buildings, looking down. For years, I tried to visualize the fine furnishings and elegance of the mansion’s interior. Growing up as I did, I longed to tiptoe inside to see how those fortunate few lived, and I always tried to catch a glimpse of Mr. Hairston in that upper window as we drove by. Now, I cringe at the cruelty and greed the place represents, and wonder if God had a direct hand in the demise of that slaveholder.

What a Guy

Guy Spicer, U. S. Army, WWII

Before you condemn Daddy, I will come to his defense by telling you that he was not always the alcoholic he came to be. As a youth, he was idolized in his hometown as the greatest athlete, musician and all-around good guy to ever live in the mountains of North Carolina.

He was born on Valentine’s Day, 1911 in Traphill, North Carolina. Yes, Traphill, a mountainous settlement located in Wilkes County, infamous at that time as the moonshine capital of the world. To my knowledge, he never participated in making or hauling moonshine, but he certainly did his share of consuming it – straight from a Mason jar.

The second of five children born to Gertrude and E. L. Spicer, he was christened Guy Columbus Spicer, but would fight anyone who called him by his middle name. The Spicer motto is Fortissimus Qui Se or The Strongest There Is (loose translation), and my father inherited his family’s genes for amazing strength, which came into play one cold, spring day. He was protective of his baby sister, Doris, and when she fell into the swimming hole that day in early April, he pulled her out and ran with her in his arms to the house, jumping a barbed wire fence – uphill – in the process. I know that seemingly wild tale to be true, as more than one of his siblings witnessed the event. His younger brother once told me that he saw his big brother touch his feet to the ceiling from a standing jump. I wasn’t there, so maybe my uncle was mistaken, but Daddy’s baby brother also thought my father was larger than life. I have, since my father’s death, met friends of his who have elevated him to legendary status and remain in awe of his talent. Evidently, the ladies in the settlement thought pretty highly of him, as well.

Although the son of a farmer, he yearned to play guitar. In 1929, when most guitars sold for five or ten dollars, he persuaded his father to spend $175.00 for a very fine Gibson, known then as The Gibson. It was a thing of beauty with a mahogany body, ivory pegs, silver frets, inlaid pearl dots and an ebony fingerboard. Having no knowledge of how to tune the instrument, he asked the music store salesman to demonstrate, whereupon the man flicked over the six strings from the bottom E to the top E. That was all my dad needed. To people who do not play, that may not seem impressive, but it still amazes me that my father never had a problem tuning. I witnessed even the great Andrés Segovia become frustrated on stage when he could not tune his guitar during a concert. Daddy was 18 when he acquired this fine instrument, and would live to pass on the guitar, as well as his love for it, to his only child.

Guy became an excellent guitarist, but he paid his dues. Lessons were a weekly forty-mile round trip drive, and not only did he pay for the lessons and the gas which was dear during the Depression, but he paid someone to work in his place on his lesson days. He chuckled to himself when a local bumpkin commented that he would give $5.00 to be able to play like Guy could. What a bargain that would have been. His discipline paid off and he became a local celebrity, but for reasons unknown to me, he declined the offer of his own local radio show.

Instead of pursuing a career in entertainment, he married a woman he adored and with his own farm in the same community as his parents and siblings, he was happy and thought he was set for life, but then came 1941. Like most of his generation, he believed in duty to country, and although he was exempt from service, he enlisted in the Army in order to fulfill that heartfelt obligation. At thirty years of age, he was a bit long in the tooth when he went into service, especially for what lay ahead. He had no way of knowing that he would be shipped to England to begin training for the invasion of Normandy.

As a soldier of Company B of the 121st Engineering Combat Battalion in the 29th Division, he survived Omaha Beach, the battle at St. Lô, France, and the liberation of Paris in the push to Germany. One of his roles was serving his company as a motorcycle messenger. The Nazis had a nasty practice of stringing barbed wire for the sole purpose of decapitating the messengers, so he and his comrades welded long pieces of iron to the middle of their handlebars to foil their plot. This was one of the few war stories he told me, but most of the horrific things, he kept to himself.

The world truly is small and that came to smack me in the face in 2004. I took a meal to a man at church who had just been discharged from the hospital and we began to discuss his service during WWII.  I told him that my dad had been in WWII, in the 29th Division and he responded that 25,000 men were in that division. We began to compare notes and found that the two of them had been at Omaha Beach and were both one of the Engineers in the 29th Division. I did not know Daddy’s battalion or company at that point, but promised to find out and let the man know. I found the records, wrote everything down, including my dad’s name and gave it to the man the next time I saw him. He looked stunned as he said, I was his CO. He went on to say that he was still in touch with a man from his Company and would ask him if he remembered my dad. He and I spoke the following Sunday, and he said that his friend did remember my dad and thought that he went to Key West after the war. A tingling at the back of my neck began to work its way up my scalp and I asked him the name of the man. When he replied Boris, I thought I would faint.  I had heard about Boris my whole life. He was my father’s best friend through the war, but they lost touch when my father was wounded and sent to England to recover. I communicated with Boris and sent photos with a Christmas card and another letter that December. A couple of weeks after, I received a call from Boris’ daughter who called to tell me that when Boris received the packets, his face lit up and he wanted to respond to me, but he was too frail to do so himself. He asked his daughter to do it for him, but would have to dictate to her the next morning, as he was just too tired that evening. Boris passed away that night, so I was never able to receive what he wanted to tell me. I sobbed for days, as it was as if I had lost Daddy, again. 

I learned a few war stories many years after my father’s death from family, friends and his Commanding Officer. One incident happened during the march to Germany. He was sent out as part of a recon group, and since all was quiet, he noticed that one of his bootlaces was untied, set his rifle down, and leaned over to tie the bootlace. At that moment, the Germans opened fire. He flattened out on the ground, but could not reach his rifle and it saved his life. The Germans killed all of his recon party and left him for dead.

His company had barely made it into Germany on Christmas Day, 1944 when he was seriously wounded by shrapnel to the chest, arms and legs and sent to England to recover, which took almost four months. While fighting for his life in England, word came from home that his wife had sold his farm and had gone away with another man. From that moment, hate began to take hold and the bitterness never left him.

Upon his release from the hospital, he was sent back to Germany to locate and diffuse landmines. The war was over a couple of months later, but he stayed to mop up in Denmark. While in Copenhagen, he was standing on a street corner waiting to cross, when a Hansom cab stopped in front of him. According to my father, a beautiful and wealthy woman, motioned for him to get in. He spoke no Danish and she no English, but off they went. Hmmm.

With his discharge on the horizon and faced with the knowledge that he was now without a home, wife or means of supporting himself in the States, he decided to contact his baby sister in Key West to help him relocate there. He also gave her the specifications for an Indian Chief motorcycle which she would procure and have waiting for him upon his arrival in 1945. The Rock, as the locals lovingly call it, is a good place to begin the emotional healing process, which applied not only to both of my parents, but to me, as well.

At a muscular 6 feet, with broad shoulders, a barrel chest and 32" waist, the Cuban women in Key West were, I understand, attracted to this blue-eyed handsome mountain boy with the strong jaw and sparkling personality who rode the Indian like a wild man. He worked as a bartender at night and frequented the beaches during the day, becoming brown from the tropical sun. To satisfy his hunger for seafood, of which he was deprived during the war, he would wade into the ocean, cut raw conch (pronounced conk) from their shells, and slurp them down on the spot. Conch was plentiful then, and even now those lucky enough to be born on that tiny island are called Conchs. He went about the business of living and forgetting his pain when a quiet Southern woman began to wait tables in the restaurant where he worked. She would later give birth to his only child on Father’s Day.

Sharecropper’s Daughter

Ellen Campbell Lott Spicer

Sketched by Rita Spicer Waite from 1940s photo

Her name was Ellen Campbell, one of 11 children born to sharecroppers in South Georgia. She had thick chestnut hair, gray eyes and, as my father once told me, the prettiest figure he had ever seen.

She and her siblings worked in the fields, growing and harvesting cash crops such as tobacco and cotton, as well as the food the family ate. Her education was sporadic due to the transient life her family led and she was only in the sixth grade when she had to abandon her hope of finishing school. Although she was only in elementary school, she was a pretty teenager, and caught the eye of her teacher who thought she would make a good wife. Her family did not approve, which, as you will see, was unfortunate.

At 16, she fell in love with Joe, a dark, good-looking man, and although her family tried to stop that marriage, as well, she was a determined young woman at that point, and eloped with the love of her life.

The marriage was a disaster, but produced 5 children, two of which were stillborn. She struggled to feed and clothe my half-siblings, but with no way to work and no transportation, she and the children suffered. They spent many long nights alone in a shack in the woods without food while her brown-eyed handsome man was elsewhere.

The conditions in which her children had to live broke her heart. They went to bed hungry most nights and her oldest child started school shoeless and in patched overalls.

The Great Depression was hard for many, but in the rural South Georgia woods, it could be deadly. One day, a stranger came near their house and when my mother asked what he wanted, he would not answer, but rather continued on toward the gate. When he made the mistake of coming through that gate toward her and her child of 5 years, in fear for herself and her first-born, she shot him. For the rest of her life, she was plagued by nightmares so intense that she would cry out and, at times, fall from the bed. She never told me about the incident, but after her death, I learned of it from my half-brother, Joe, Jr., who helped her hold the heavy shotgun. According to Joe, the gun was loaded with only squirrel shot, or the intruder would not have walked away.

She suffered from severe asthma but there was little to be done at that time; morphine was administered to relax the bronchial passages. After many near fatal attacks, she was given a choice by her doctor: she could stay in damp South Georgia and die, or go to South Florida where the salt air would improve her health. He explained that her heart had been weakened by the morphine and another injection could be deadly.

I have often wondered what torment she endured wrestling with that decision, but in 1944, in order to save her own life, she left her three children in the care of relatives. The children ranged in age from 5 to 14, and were not even able to stay together. Joe, Jr. went to Tennessee to live with a paternal aunt, while Ilene and Atwood stayed in Georgia with their paternal grandmother. I believe Mama planned to establish herself in Miami, and then send for them, but her luck was never good, it seems.

She somehow managed to scrape enough money together to take a southbound Greyhound bus the 450 miles to Miami where she rented a room in the downtown area. When she stepped off the bus, she felt as though she had entered a true paradise. Miami was beautifully nestled on sparkling Biscayne Bay. It was clean, yet there was a seductiveness to it.

After several days of searching for work, she decided one Sunday to walk the few blocks to Biscayne Bay for some fresh air and to see the water. As my mother left her hotel, dressed in one of her better dresses, she thought how perfect the weather was – a blue, cloudless sky, a soft breeze from the bay, sunshine and palm trees. Before she could return to the hotel, however, the heavens opened and drenched her good crepe dress. Mortified, she felt it begin to shrink as she tried desperately to reach the hotel before being arrested for indecent exposure. Those of us who have lived in Miami know that sudden downpours are not unusual, but my mother thought this must be a sign that Miami was not for her. Since she had had no luck finding work, she took the bus south on the Overseas Highway, completed only a few years prior, to the end of the line; the island some now call the Conch Republic.

In the 1940s, Key West was a fishing village with a small downtown area. There were many Cuban and Sicilian immigrants and it was filled with colorful characters then, as it is still, but at that time, it was a small town where everyone knew everyone.

My mother worked as a waitress in several restaurants, one of which was the dining room of the hotel still known as La Concha on Duval Street. At seven stories, it was and always will be, the tallest building on the island. At that time, it was also, by far, the swankiest hotel. The cavernous dining room was frequented by Key West businessmen and she was admired by many of the male patrons. She was aware of the looks, but ignored them. Eventually she went to work in a restaurant owned by Joseph Sirugo, a Sicilian immigrant, who had married Daddy’s little sister, Doris, the same baby sister he had rescued from the swimming hole.

As soon as my mother began work at Joe’s, my father, who worked as the bartender, was smitten. It wasn’t long before he thought of marriage again and in 1948 persuaded my mother to marry him and leave Key West for Virginia, where most of his family had relocated from North Carolina. They settled in Martinsville and for two years lived with my father’s parents.