This article is the third in a series of places the Cain family lived — Blaine AR. We were unable to locate Blaine’s location using the atlas or Internet tools, and were puzzled about the actual location. However, we made contact with a Mr. Geary Lowrey who provided this explanation: “New Blaine is only a half mile from the Blaine town-site. It was moved in 1919 when the Fort Smith, Subiaco and Rock Island Railroad went through the town. Blaine was moved a half-mile northwest and renamed New Blaine at that time. All buildings of the New Blaine community were erected of native stone. Among them were the A.R. Lowery Store, Farmers State Bank, J.R. Marshall and J.O.Sellars stores and a barber shop. Fay Cravens was the first barber there. Some of the folks living there were, Joe Denton, W.G. McGuffey, L.D.Burnham, Zack Harrison, Steve Robinson, O.M. Rainwater, J.T. Birkheads, John L. Cravens, and Basille Lay just to mention a few. I hope this helps and might ring a bell for your Mom. There was also a school there named Elizabeth Hall.”

As previously mentioned, Alan and the family moved quite a bit in this area, perhaps to do with sharecropping or to have better accommodations. Jessie was approximately 5 years old when they moved to Blaine. She remembers that the house was large with large rooms. There were still 5 children at home, May, Ruth, Jessie, Ada and Bessie, as well as a daughter-in-law, Dave Cain (Willie’s spouse) and her daughter, Mary).

It was here that the family became actively religious. There was a brush arbor revival that Alan attended where he received the Holy Ghost. He then took the family to the revival by wagon. Jessie remembers Mary Lou Belle taking quilts along to cover up with to keep from getting chilled on the return trip home.

The family was more prosperous during this time and Alan bought his first car. It was most likely a Chevrolet -- Jessie knows that it was what they called a “touring car”. It had a bench seat in the front and back with curtains that were put up when it rained or during cold weather. The curtains had a small window made of celluloid material (sort of like plastic). Although Alan had never driven before, the auto dealer showed him the basics and he headed for home. But as luck would have it, there been a big rain that flooded the streams. Not many bridges had been built in those days and many streams had to be forded; Alan drowned-out the new car on his way home in one such stream. However, the new car had an electrical starter so that he didn’t have to get out and manually crank it from the front as on many vehicles of that era.

Mary Lou Belle was not as fortunate with her driving as Alan was, for on her first trip in she ran into a stump and gave up driving for good. At this point, Ruth became the primary driver of the car.

Blaine was the first and only place that Jessie remembers them having a phone. It was a party-line where each home was assigned a certain number of rings to know when the call was for them. The disadvantage to this type of phone was the possibility of everyone on the line listening to your conversations if they desired! However, there was not much time for talking or listening with all of the chores to do around the farm.

Speaking of chores, while very young, Jessie and Ada were assigned to wash dishes on many occasions, which they did while standing on a bench so they could reach the table. On one particular day, Jessie was keeping some loose teeth a secret so that the teeth wouldn’t be pulled. But this secret was just too good to keep to herself, and she made Ada promise to not tell Alan if she was told. Although Ada promised to keep her secret, she immediately went and told Alan, who then proceeded to pull her loose teeth in front of the fireplace! So much for sharing secrets with siblings!

Another dishwashing woe was when Jessie dropped and broke a platter. She was so upset, just knowing that she would get a whipping that she cried and cried and hollered for Dave to come help her, but Dave was in the field working and could not hear her. All of the crying and worry was for naught as she was spared the whipping when Papa Alan came in.

The love bug bit twice at the Cain household when they lived at Blaine. Dave met and married Fate Ellis (Willie, her first husband had died at Ragan Hill), and Rosie May Rebecca met Elmer Fielden Ward. Mary Lou Belle knew that Elmer was sweet on May, but she was shocked one night when May was missing from the family members that had gone to church. She asked Ruth where May was -- Ruth told her that May had gone to the Whitecotton’s home with Elmer. Mary Lou Belle said, “What has May lost her mind?” But May and Elmer had gone to the preachers house and gotten married and then on to the Whitecotton home.

Jessie attended first grade at Blaine. On the way to school there was a stream that they had to cross. Over the stream was a swinging bridge that would move with you when you walked on it. Jessie was scared to death of the bridge already, but really was scared one particular day when it had rained so much that the stream was swollen. They had to lead her across the swinging bridge. However, what a relief on the return trip home, that by the time school was out, the stream had gone down, so all was well.

A Double Surprise: Mary Lou Belle had a surprise coming - one day as usual, she had sent Ruth, Ada and Jessie to school. But Ruth decided to play hookey (she was the oldest of the girls left at home, since May had gotten married. Bessie was not yet old enough to go to school). Ruth did not have to worry about lunch because they took their lunches to school with them. Evidently, they were getting bored with too much time on their hands and Ruth decided that they would go to Mrs. Longstreath’s (Dallas’s mother) house to visit. While they were at the Longstreath house, Dallas pulled out his collection of bird cards (cards that you got when you bought certain grocery items). This fascinated Jessie because they had such pretty birds on them. Back to the story – The other surprise was for Ruth when Mrs. Longstreath called Mary Lou Belle and told her who had skipped school and arrived at her house! SO MUCH FOR PLAYING HOOKEY!

Alan raised wheat at Blaine and the neighbor farmers jointly harvested the crops in the Fall. They also had log rollings where they helped each other get wood for the fireplace. (Jessie remembers seeing a picture of this. Does someone have that picture in their collection and could send it in to share?)

Sorghum syrup was a favorite of some folks. Alan not only grew the cane to make the syrup, but he had a sorghum mill and would make the syrup. The mill was a one horse or mule operation where the animal turned a mill to squeeze the juice out of the cane. The juice was caught in buckets and then cooked down to make the syrup. Alan not only cooked his own, but took in the neighbors’ juice and cooked it down for them.

Jessie also remembers the milk house at Blaine. This was the nearest thing to a refrigerator or an “ice box” that they had. It was an outdoors “cooler” of sorts -- it was built around the well and was made of lattice woodwork where it would have the benefit of cool breezes and not hold in the sun’s heat. There was also a wooden trough where their milk was kept -- freshly drawn cool well water was poured in this trough to keep the milk as cool as possible.