Editor's note: Mrs. Omer Connell Chitwood passed away March 21, just a few weeks shy of her 100th birthday. We would like to thank her family for sharing her firsthand memories with us, and with all our readers. We'll print the conclusion of this two-part essay in the April 2 issue of The Post.

We have come a long way, baby! One of the 10 children born to my father and mother, Thomas and Lanonia Connell, on April 12, 1912. I can remember the first car I ever rode in; was about 5 years old. A friend of ours took us on a 10-mile trip and we felt like we were almost flying. The speed must have been around 20 mph.

I heard my first record player when I was 6 years old. A man brought it to our school to show us how it worked. It was a cup record machine but made beautiful music. In those days all the movies were silent. I didn't get to see many because we lived 10 miles from the nearest town with a theater.

Early home years

I can't say my father was a farmer by trade. He done so many things to feed his large family. He had a saw mill, a shingle mill, also a syrup mill. He ran them in the late fall and winter. He truck farmed in the spring and summer; he had a large covered wagon to haul produce to different towns—Cedartown, Rockmart, and Rome. Us children took turns going with him. One night on our way back home, my father slept under the wagon and us children slept on the inside. That was a happy time in my life.

I could do most any kind of work my brothers could: Pack shingles and fire boilers at the mills; grind cane and help cook the cane juice into syrup; drive a team of horses; even drive a yoke of oxen. Father kept them to do heavy work, like pulling a large harrow in the flatland and snaking logs off the mountain.

Our house had four bedrooms, a hall, a dining room, and a kitchen. We had two big fireplaces and a wood stove for heat in winter. There was 10 beds in those four bedrooms. Do you wonder how we slept at night? My grandmother, great grandmother, one aunt and three uncles lived with us for several years, too! But after working in the fields for around 12 hours sleep was no problem. As soon as supper was over we raced for the washtubs to wash our feet, then hit the hay! Do you wonder why people say “hit the hay”? Our beds were wheat straw mattresses and a feather mattress on top.

Wonder Woman

It's time now to tell you about my mother. She was a real-life Wonder Woman. Her mother died when she was 11 years old, leaving grandfather and three other children for mother to cook and wash for. Later, grandfather married again. His second wife died leaving three children. Mother raised two of them, plus eight out of her own 10. She cooked for us, helped with our wash, by hand. In the evenings she worked in the garden and the fields, helping can, dry and preserve fruit and vegetables for the winter. She helped milk two cows, churn, gather eggs, etc. She always told the family when the signs was right to plant the seed, and when to gather the fruit and vegetables for winter.

We had a big shed to hill potatoes and yams. We buried pumpkins in cotton seed, hung onions in bunches in the barn, and hilled collards and cabbage in the garden by covering them with pine tops.

Mother was also an herb doctor for our family and the friends who came to her for advice. She delivered babies when people couldn't get to a doctor or couldn't afford one. People would come by for her at all hours of the night to deliver a baby, or treat a sick person or an injured one. Sometimes she walked for miles or rode in a two-horse wagon in rain, sleet or snow. She never charged anyone for her help and only received $2 in gifts in all her years. She made clothes for her family and helped the neighbors get their children ready for school. Don't you agree that my mother was a Wonder Woman?

School Days

I must tell you about my school, it was a wonderful place—one room, with a big pot-bellied stove in the center. One teacher taught from primer through 8th grade. We had to walk three miles in the heat and cold. We had eight weeks of summer school, then school turned out in the middle of September for the harvest season. I loved school and we had Sunday School on Sunday evenings in the same building.

Once we were water-bound about one-and-a-half miles from home. Papa came for us on horseback. He took two of us at a time and made the horse swim the flooded creek. There was a dozen neighbor children he helped across, also.
One morning it was so cold as we went to school that I snuggled my mouth and nose down inside my collar. When I got to school there was a bunch of icicles on my collar. My breath froze. Oh, yes! I'm still living and everything is OK.

Part Two will appear in the April 2, 2012 issue of The Post.