Words from Cousin Butch

From my recollections, granny passed when I was 6 (late 1948) (my only recollections of her was that she had white hair and was bedridden and at that age I couldn’t figure how she used that bedpan), later (about age 10 - 12 Poppa lived on Cedar Street in Charlotte (the rooming house was across the street from where the Panthers practice field is now), then starting about age 13 or 14, we (daddy, Uncle Marvin & I) visited Poppa & Zora 3 or 4 times a year and it was overnight or weekend visits. (Were you aware that Zora was married when Poppa met her, they ran away to Florida where she got a divorce and they married and later moved back to her farm in Old Fort?)

I remember helping till his garden and picking the tobacco horn worms from the head high plants (Poppa never used and was opposed to tobacco, but Zora had a ¼ acre allotment to raise it so that was part of their income). I always looked forward to the visits, knowing that we would get some fresh honey from his bee hives. A few times one of my buddies went with us and we rambled over the surrounding mountains on foot and imagined civil war or revolutionary battles from behind the stone walls we found (now I suppose those were old house or barn foundations). My last visit was in 1965, my new bride and I accompanied Dad & my mom there for a weekend visit. We lost contact until mid ‘70s when Poppa moved (alone – I don’t know what happened with Zora or her daughter Bewayne [I think she married a much older man and may have moved to Ohio] to Rock Hill.