From the time I can remember all the family gathered at Mom and Dad’s on Sundays and holidays and many weekdays squeezed in. Sundays, the menu was always the same with a few changes from summer to winter – just the best fried chicken ever, mashed potatoes and gravy, green Kentucky wonders (beans), corn on cob, fried okra and a combination relish platter of sliced tomatoes, green onions, cucumber and beet pickles, biscuits and iced tea (no instant tea or tea bags – tea leaves steeped and strained in a big pitcher poured into large glasses filled with ice chipped from one big block). Desserts on Sundays could be peach or berry cobbler, apricot cake or banana pudding but scarce on weekdays unless you want to count big fluffy biscuits with mayhaw jelly, blackberry jam, pear and peach preserves, and freshly churned butter. (I’ve tried for years to copy those biscuits but I’ve never been successful.) Since the biscuits and jellies were a given at both breakfast and dinner (we called lunch, dinner), we didn’t realize that it made a wonderful dessert. Holidays and company was something else. Then there was a big selection – coconut cake, lemon pie, and coconut pie being the favorites with raisin, mince and pumpkin next. The winter menu differed some – chicken and dumplings was on the winter table with more dried beans, canned corn, cabbage, and turnip greens substituting for the short time the garden rested.

So far, I’ve only talked about meal times, which is probably an insight into the Cain sister’s talents. From reading the newsletter, I gather cooking was where they really shined. We still talk about Mom’s biscuits, teacakes, bread pudding, sugar biscuits and fried chicken. She set a high standard. We always had two big tables but not at once. The adults ate at the first table and the children ate at the second table. (The adults, probably Mom, saw to it that there were enough legs and wings left to go around). When company came my Daddy would catch another chicken, scald, pick and dress it ready for the frying pan.

Mom was a real homemaker, the true center of the household. On any morning we woke up to the smell of coffee, bacon and biscuits. She would have already been to the barn to help Dad with the milking and returned to finish breakfast. On a workday Dad would be changed into starched khakis and join all the family for a sit down breakfast. Some mornings in addition to eggs, etc., Mom would cook oatmeal and serve Dad’s in a large bowl over a biscuit along with butter, cream and sugar – (years later on rare occasions of eating at restaurants he would order oatmeal, complain about the price and follow the complaint with “and I bet it doesn’t have a thing under it”).

Mom and Dad worked hard, he in the oilfield, and she full time at home. Together, they had a big garden, milk cows and a big family. Dad’s paycheck came every two weeks and on that Friday he paid the family grocery bill at McClellan's Mercantile and Grocery Store at Laird Hill. In appreciation the store gave him a complimentary sack of candies or fruit (whatever was in season). I liked bananas best. Peggie and I could make ours last at least 30 minutes.

Discipline problems were mainly handled immediately. When adults were talking, we were not supposed to interrupt. (Children should be seen, not heard). So we were not excluded unless we got noisy or fussed with each other. Then they just sent us “up the row of trees” about the distance of a block from the house. We weren’t allowed to say bad or “dirty” words. The punishment was to “get your mouth washed out with soap”. That could have been just a threat because I can’t remember any of us getting the “mouth wash.”

Our talks of the “birds and the bees” was very limited in those days. We all knew that baby calves came from “rotted stumps.” So on Easter egg hunts down in the field, I never got the prize for the most eggs because I spent my time looking for baby calves.

Holidays were BIG DEALS. July 4^th was Dad’s favorite. He’d see that we had a tub of iced down watermelon (the watermelons on other days were cooled under the bed). Later the ice was used to freeze homemade ice cream and to ice down a tub full of sodas. We had a day full of games, treats and fireworks. The nearest my grandparents ever came to “fussing” (as far as I know) was the question of fireworks. Dad thought “the bigger, the louder, and the more, the better” - Mom only OK’d sparklers. We sided with Dad then! After having grandchildren of my own, I side with Mom now. Usually on a hot day, making ice cream was another highlight. We all took turns sitting on the freezer to hold it down while the men took turns turning the handle and then the ice cream itself – so rich and creamy – and sooo- cold. Why is homemade ice cream colder than bought? We’d all be shivering on the porch and Mom would let us rob the “side-room” of old quilts to warm up – by this time it was dark enough to spot the fireflies and parents were talking about time to load up for home – we’d squeeze in a little more time out chasing fireflies, hating to end the wonderful day.

Mom’s holiday was Christmas. Presents were gathered and wrapped prior to Christmas Eve. We were allowed to shake and guess the contents. Lots of cooking and decorating went on but the tree was the big thing – and Santa Claus – all of us did our best to get a peep at him – and once we just knew we had him cornered. We heard the bells outside (which we figured were sleigh bells) and we had enough children to divide into 2 groups and trap him – but not a trace of old jolly Santa. We decided that it was only a cowbell – and it probably was. We hung our socks at night (old stockings of Mother’s – boy it would really hold the goodies- always a real coconut, a big apple, a large navel orange, nuts and candy – they’d look real lumpy). We’d open the presents Christmas Eve and give thanks Christmas morning for the birth of Baby Jesus.

Grade school days are happy memories for me. The school was about a mile uphill from Mother and Daddy’s house. From our house to Mom’s house was about a mile downhill. Lots of days Billie and I would leave school, barely pause at home, and run on to Mom’s and Dad’s. I’ve always felt a compulsion to make A’s in school, and I’ve told my children I don’t know why because Mother and Daddy didn’t push me. But a light dawned when I started this article. Mom did quiz each child and made comparisons at report card time – and would reward us one dollar if we had straight A’s. We called it straight A’s because they were listed in a straight line on one card. I don’t know that the money meant so much but I sure hated to come up short in her eyes.

Rainy days were other favorites - if it rained with no thunder, we were allowed to choose old clothes from the “side-room” and play in the rain. One particular day as the cloud was approaching we asked permission to play but Mom said “No, it looked stormy.” Sometimes children can be inventive when their wishes are thwarted. Juanita and I said we just had to go to the “outhouse” (the restroom “way out” from the house). Well, we got caught in a really bad storm with high winds, loud clapping thunder, and torrents of blinding rain – the walls started shaking and the door flew open – we were forced to make a run for it. Juanita held my hand and got us back safely. Mom said I looked like a drowned rat with eyes as big as saucers. It scared me so that for years when a cloud came up I would go to the side-room and crawl under the aforementioned quilts and old clothes. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way.

Washday was on Saturday. Mom had a loud popping washing machine with a wringer on it to run the clothes through. My Daddy heated the water in a big black pot over a fire pit. He kept the washing machine running and all the heavy lifting of water from tub to tub – the children hung the clothes to dry, took them in the house when dry and folded and put them up. Clothes from the dryer never smell so sweet and fresh as those sheets that dried in the sun, flapping in the breeze. The older children did most of the ironing. On washdays lunch was usually stew and cornbread – or vegetable lunch and cornbread.

Mom was also the doctor – don’t know where she got her training. Doctoring came in seasons – in the spring we all had a round of chill tonic (a gray, grainy, bad tasting liquid) to ward off malaria. (Guess that kept them from worrying about mosquitoes.) Then we had castor oil for bad colds and flu. (Now I think the orange juice that helped us get it down was the coldest ever.) It was bad tasting stuff. I am afraid all it cured was my liking for orange juice. We had some big round yellow pills (about the size of a nickel - they were called sulphur pills) and sucked on them until they melted. I’m thinking they were supposed to be taken internally for the itch (now called impetigo) because they mixed sulphur and made a paste and put it on external sores for the itch, usually on hands. In addition, kerosene could be used on sores, cuts, or infections to “draw the poison out.” Kerosene was a fuel they used in lamps for light, so was always handy. Well, anyway, that’s the way I remember it.

Mom always called me by both my names, Bobbie Muriel. My family moved from Laird Hill when I was twelve. Visits were of short duration except for a couple of summers when we’d stay a week in addition to Daddy’s vacation and Christmas. After I married and Allen graduated from dental school, and after we started our family, we made special trips so that our children could know their great-grandmother. In her later years, my grandmother was in the nursing home and was having difficulty recognizing family members. On my last visit with her, when she saw me she said, “That’s my Bobbie Muriel” and opened her arms to me.

Memories of “Olden Times” at My Grandmother’s House, by: Bobbie Muriel Richard Lasiter

I remember when I was very young Dad had a bird dog named Lemon. Mom had a white Collie once that I think was given to her or bought from Bessie. She just called him "Pooch." When we were there, in the evenings he would go alone and bring the cows to the barn.

Dad had a little finger that was permanently curved or drawn up. I understand it was because he crawled under the barn one day to get a chicken and a copperhead snake bit him. I was told he dipped his hand in kerosene to draw out the poison and it left his finger drawn. He also had his ring finger on the same hand cut off. I do not know what happened to it.

I talked to Maggie and she said she could not add much about her parents. She did say that Dad fell and broke his hip and moved into the house with Juanita (Nita) one of his daughters, but unfortunately she had to placed him in a nursing home. He eventually quit eating and drinking, and his kidneys failed causing his death. Mom was also in a nursing home when she died. Maggie says she remembers her Mother as always being very nice. She spent her life just raising family. As she did not drive, Dad did all the grocery shopping. Dad worked for Houston Oil. He started in Louisiana and was transferred to Smackover, AR, and from there to Kilgore, TX, where he worked until he retired. Maggie said he never missed a day of work.

By: Judy Beth Cunningham Easley, granddaughter

By: Sandy Sanderfer.

As time went on the visits continued after the family moved to Smackover, AR. A big yard with lots of trees and a fence around it made a wonderful place to play. By this time the older children, Louella and Russell, were grown. Louella was married and living elsewhere. Russell was working and still at home. He would come in from work, dress and be gone – on a date, I suppose. He always looked so nice.

And the next stop was Laird Hill near Kilgore, TX when Henry was transferred to the oil field in east Texas. Peggy and Karl Firman came along about this time. They were so cute - Peggy with all her pretty dark curls and Karl Firman with his blond hair. We were all getting a little older by this time. The last Cain family reunion that I remember was held at their home while they lived at Laird Hill. (I believe all the Cain brother and sisters with husbands and wife may have gotten together at Black Lake near Campti, LA, later, but all of the children were not there, I was not). I was probably fourteen at the time of the Laird Hill reunion, which would have been 1935; I could have been a little older but not much.

It seems our visits were fewer after this. I expect as we grew older and Etta’s family grew up, there probably wasn’t enough room. Instead of staying a week with them, we would go by for a short visit. During the summers, Maggie and Marie would come down and stay awhile with us. We were living in Cotton Valley, LA, at this time.

In 1941 I came to stay with Bessie and Dallas in Beaumont, TX periodically. When I would go home, Babe or Phil (Junior) would come. Dallas was an electrician working at the shipyard and Bessie was lonely away from the family. Eventually, on 1 Mar 1942, I started work for the telephone company in Beaumont from which I retired 1 Aug 1982, forty and almost one-half years later. My visits with my aunts and uncles and all the extended family became much more infrequent. I only remember visiting with Etta once in her home after this. She came to visit my mother in Beaumont a time or two after Mom and Pop moved here. This allowed me to see her again and visit with her. She always made me feel that she really loved me and was glad to see me. Of course, the feeling was mutual.

Before ending my story, I must mention the food on Etta’s table. For breakfast there was always bacon and large hot biscuits, butter and jelly. She also had puffed rice, a prepared cereal we poured cold milk over. I loved it. At home we were accustomed to hot cereal such as oatmeal, cream of wheat, etc. And at noon the table would be filled with good food – large butter beans, fried chicken, hot bread and so much more. She cooked macaroni with tomato sauce some way and cut Vienna sausage up in it. And there were always crackers in her pantry. My mother always cooked small lima beans. As a child I enjoyed the things she served which I didn’t have at home.

I loved and respected all my aunts, uncles and extended family members very much.

By: Melba (Ward) Dupree – niece.

When they moved to Laird’s Hill, I liked it much better. I’ll always remember what a good cook Etta was. She always had fried chicken and all the trimmings. The only thing was it took so long and we would really get hungry. Fay or Nita would slip in the kitchen and get us a box of Premium crackers to tide us over and they were SO GOOD.

At night Nita, Fay and I always found someone to visit or sometimes went to church. Henry always gave us a curfew and when we missed it, we were in trouble. He was always waiting for us when we got back. I don’t remember the punishment – (probably a threatening, as Olon Manning used to say). We didn’t get to go to see them every summer, but I remember lots of good times in their home.

By: Margaret Ward—niece