Read an Excerpt
Never FORGET ...
The Lattimore Story
By Willie H. Lattimore Abbott Press
Copyright © 2013 Willie H. Lattimore
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4582-1265-8
CHAPTER 1
The Roots of our Family Tree
Great-Grandparents:
Father's grandparents on his mother's side: Ben Card and MoAnna Card (my father's step-grandmother). We used to visit her house regularly on Sundays. I did not know who she was at that time, but I do now. I only remember getting lost in my imagination while playing around her house. I remember the visits so well because it was here that I got stung in the back of the head by a wasp. I was throwing clogs of dirt at the nest to knock it down.
Mother's grandparents on her mother's side: Cap Warren and Sallie Holloway Warren; our nickname for Cap Warren was Popall.
Grandparents:
Father's parents: Mary Lee Card Lattimore (Miss Sis), 1919-August 8, 1977 and Earnest Lattimore (Punchy), December 9, 1914-August 25, 1989; buried at Saint Luke African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church along with son, Marvin Fryer who they nicknamed Doodle Bug and daughter, Mary Alice Lattimore Lynn. Below is a picture of the grave site so descendants will know what and where to look if they ever decide to visit. Uncle Doodle Bug died before we were born. He died as a result of a car collapsing on him. He was underneath working on it when the jack failed. Grandfather Punchy was survived by his second wife, Juanita Fountain Lattimore who was nicknamed Lil Bit and her son, Tracy and daughter, Daisy.
Mother's parents: Odell Warren Lynn buried at Saint Peter Baptist Church in Texasville, Alabama and Leroy Lynn buried at New Hope Baptist Church, CR(County Road)-31, Abbeville, Alabama.
Mom and dad have already planned and purchased their plots at St. Peter Baptist Church in Texasville, Alabama, where her mother is buried.
Grandparents, aunts, and uncles were buried in so many different places because of their backgrounds and wish to be buried near their ancestors/parents; as noted above my mother and father's parents were buried in totally separate locations.
CHAPTER 2
Settling
Its interesting how the Lattimore family ended up settling in Louisville (pronounced Loo'es'vil), Alabama and spread out on the east coast from as far north as Newark, New Jersey and south to Tampa, Florida. The stories that I've been told are that the Lattimore family traveled to New York where they picked tomatoes when in season; Alabama to pick cotton, pecans, etc.; and Tampa, Florida to pick fruits such as oranges, tangerines, and grapefruit.
The great-grandparents on my mother's side took up residence in Clio, Alabama which is about six miles west of Louisville. These are the great-grandparents noted earlier.
The great-grandparents on my father's side also took up residence in Clio, Alabama. Again these are the great-grandparents noted earlier.
My Grandmother Sis's sister (Daisy) ended up residing in Newark, New Jersey.
My father's brother, mother, and father, Grandfather Punchy's sisters (Ettie Mae and Caldonia), and my mother's father settled in Louisville, Alabama.
Grandfather Punchy's brother Abe Lattimore (Uncle Pap) settled in Tallahassee, Florida
I barely remember the home that my mom's mother and father lived in. They lived for a short while on a hill just above Pea Creek Baptist Church which I will talk about later. There are several small churches spread out over Louisville. Because most African American people did not have ample modes of transportation they built and attended churches near their homes. The only memories that I have from this house are the cornbread pancakes that Grandma Odell would prepare for us and the horseback rides that my Uncles Elijah and Allen would take us on. My mother's mom, brothers, and sisters (Willie whose nickname is Preacher, Allen, Elijah, James, Eddie Will, Oler Lee, Bobbie Jean, Sallie, and Nellie) all later settled in Tampa, Florida; Elijah, James, Eddie Will, and Oler Lee are deceased; my father had one sister, Mary Alice Lattimore Lynn who also settled in Tampa, Florida. Mary Alice is also deceased.
My mother's youngest sister, Aunt Nellie, stayed with us until I was around five in our first home but soon moved to Florida with her other brothers and sisters. Soon after moving to Florida she became a model. Pictured below, a few of mother's brothers and sisters, during the family reunion, July 3-5, 1998 in Louisville, Alabama.
Uncle Preacher was the oldest of my mom's siblings and received his nickname because he was always left in charge of them and acted like a preacher. Whenever my mom's brother Elijah would visit, he would always joke about the door. He would always say "Yawl gone have to get this door fixed" and then follow with a big smile and chuckle. You see, he was so tall that he had to stoop to enter most houses. Here he can be seen stooping to get in the picture with his brother, Preacher.
CHAPTER 3
Huey Lee Lattimore (Father: Nicknamed-Pig)
My father is the strong silent type. All his friends and relatives called him Pig. His mother's first cousin, Buddy Card, gave him this name because he was a big red baby when born-just like a baby pig. Because of his strength, my father rarely whipped us for any wrong-doing. This task was usually left up to my mom. He would have probably hurt us too bad if he had. I remember Richard and me getting whipped by him maybe once. I don't remember him ever whipping the girls. During this timeframe parents believed in "spare the rod, spoil the child". I have never disciplined my boys (twin boys pictured with me below: Shawn Huey Lattimore and Shane Huey Lattimore) this way. Mom and dad would talk to us in an almost out of breath fashion as they whipped us, laugh out loud! It's my opinion that whippings were a learned reaction from slavery days and were passed down from generation to generation as the means of punishing wrong-doing. Look at us today, we have learned that reasoning, grounding, and taking away certain privileges work just as well.
Father was a logger-both he and my Grandfather Punchy. Both carried saws eight hours a day to cut down trees until the technology came along that would allow a vehicle with a cutting device attached to drive up and do the cutting. This technology did not come about until much later in their careers. I know from experience how difficult their work was. I had the opportunity to work with my father on the ramp trimming the limbs off trees before they were loaded onto a truck with a knuckle boom. Both have had trees fall upon them and lived to tell about it. After it happened to my Grandfather Punchy he retired to driving the log truck only. Currently, at seventy three years of age, my father is still strong and healthy enough to farm. He is doing well enough to sell produce to local grocery stores. Farming is what he and most other men and women did before my birth.
My father was well known from playing on a Negro League baseball team. These teams were put together by the honky-tonk owners of each little town. A honky-tonk was an African American club/bar. It was a building of wood much like what our first and second houses looked like from the outside, but it had no rooms-just a big open area with a bar, tables, juke box, and usually one pool table. My Grandfather Leroy's house was located at the end of the outfield for Club 99 which my father played for. Father's positions were right and center field. I could watch the games from my Grandfather Leroy's house and see my father up close. I knew my father was a great player because I would hear his friends talk about his play during visits.
Father and his best friend Lewis, Mrs. Bertha Baker's son, who were also our neighbors, used to go fishing in this perfect spot called the Blue Hole. When we were old enough to walk long distances we were allowed to go with them. The Blue Hole was located about one mile from the road through thick bushes and trees that were infested with snakes, mosquitoes, and red bugs. I will never forget the time that I was about to crawl underneath a bush headed towards the Blue Hole, and a snake was directly over my head about three feet away. It was a miracle that I didn't get bit. I crawled back quickly, and my father shot the snake with his pistol. It was worth fighting through the bush and snakes because the fish were so plentiful there. The fish were so plentiful there that you could just throw your hook in the water without bait, and the fish would bite it. We would usually depart at daybreak and return home around lunchtime on Saturdays with bushels of fish and have a fish fry in the evening. Some of the older guys who were loggers or farmers would tell you to "just put it right here in my hands", meaning the hot fish that just came out of the fryer placed on top of a piece of white bread. Some of you reading this know exactly what I'm talking about [smiley]. As unbelievable as it sounds, it is true. Today we are very soft physically compared to our ancestors. Otherwise newspaper or white bread was layered in a basket, plate, or bowl to assist in soaking up the grease once the fish was taken from the skillet or fryer. Money wasn't wasted on paper napkins or towels. And if you had to get some food out of your teeth after a meal you went to get the broom usually located in the corner of the room and pulled a straw out of it to pick your teeth. We didn't waste money on tooth picks or floss, laugh out loud [smiley]! The fish fry was like the barbecues of today. People came together for fish fries. There wasn't much grilling going on; no one could afford the grills.
Another time, my brother Richard, Cousins Jimmy and Bobby, and I were cornered by a moccasin at the Blue Hole. The snake was sitting on a log, and we had to cross the log to get back to where our uncles who had gone fishing with us were. Well, Jimmy decided to motivate the snake to move out the way by striking it with his fishing pole-bad idea. Have you ever seen the movie Snakes on a Plane? The moccasin took off in our direction with that type of speed, we held on to each other for dear life. Lucky for us it was just trying to get away and slithered into the water. Usually these snakes are very aggressive and will come right up to you and even chase you.
When we were not fishing at the Blue Hole we would fish at this place called Solomon's Mill. An actual mill for grinding grain used to be located at this site. This fishing hole is closer to the road-a cleaner site and much easier to get to. Mom and dad still fish there to this day.
Our transportation to the Blue Hole and other places was a black 51 Chevrolet truck. My father could purchase gas for his truck at this black-owned store called Edom's Grocery. Most of the time this was a credit transaction; this store was located near our home and on the route to my Grandmother Sis's house. The station is still standing there today, but abandoned. Mr. Edom's home is also standing next to the store but abandoned. Gracious people like Mr. Edom and Mr. Carey who I talk about later, really made a difference in the quality of life for us. They both extended credit to their customers and kept track of your debt in a ledger; there were no credit cards. I was too young to understand their graciousness then but I do now and I know it could only come from the grace of God looking over us as an oppressed people.
The 51 Chevrolet was the first vehicle that I'm aware that my father owned. Richard and I would have to sit in the bed of the truck, and the girls would sit up front in the cab. Bertha almost fell out of this truck once from messing with the door handle, which was not funny at all at the time. I could tell that my father was very nervous from the incident. I wonder if he ever told mom.
CHAPTER 4
Lessie Mae Lynn Lattimore (Mother)
I know that most kids think that their mother's cooking cannot be matched by anyone. But let me tell you, my mother is one of the best cooks that you will ever meet. She's an undiscovered talent by the world, but she is well known in our parts. People that have moved away and plan to come home for the holidays will call their orders in ahead of time for her famous five-layer cakes. It takes a lot of talent and experience to layer cake breads without breaking them. The moistness and the taste of these cakes are unbelievable, just ask anyone that has purchased one or that has been fortunate enough to sit down to dine with us.
Mom under-prices her cakes; she used to charge only fifteen dollars, but now she charges twenty five. If you were to purchase a similar cake at a bakery you would find that twenty five dollars is still underpriced. Not to mention, the bakery cake is nowhere near as good. It's more important for her to make people happy than pricing.
One time a lady that my mom had sold cakes to was standing in line with her to vote, and asked my mom if she would bake another red-velvet cake for her. My mom said yes. Just as she said yes, another lady that was standing in line too commented-saying: "I thought you (meaning the lady that was requesting a cake to be baked) baked the cakes?" Apparently the lady who made the request was buying the cakes from my mom and reselling them at a higher price.
None of us can cook like mom, and I fear that her secrets/art will be lost forever when she moves on to the next life. I tried to learn how to cook her biscuits with no success. My biscuits were hard as a rock. I could have knocked someone out with the biscuits that I prepared. The mixture of baking powder to flour and oil is such an art and it's not always the same. She gauges it differently every time, and the biscuits come out perfect every time. I pray that some well known cook will read this book and want to contact her to learn her secrets.
Mom jarred, preserved, and froze most of the fruits and vegetables that we consumed during the years in our first and second houses; she still does today but not on the scale that she did when they had to feed seven to eight mouths. Within most houses in the South you will find large square freezers where foods are frozen and stored. They currently have a couple of freezers in their sheds outside where beef, pork, fish, and vegetables are kept. She preserved and jarred peaches, figs, blackberries, apples, peas, butter beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, etc. All of the vegetables were grown in a garden on a yearly basis. The fruit trees (figs, peaches, pears, and apples) were located near the house before we moved in. The blackberries grew in the wild. I remember Saturday evenings where we did nothing but sit on the porch and shell peas to be jarred. This was tedious and hard on the fingernails but a fun task because we told stories and made it a competition as to who could shell the most. This was a competition that my mother never lost, so my father, siblings, and I had to settle for second to last place.
Sweet potatoes, a root vegetable, were harvested and stored in a very unique way. After the potatoes were harvested they were stored in an above ground mound of dirt and pine straw. First, a small area was dug out, and then pine straw was laid in the floor of that area. The potatoes were piled on top of the straw, and then more straw was placed on top of the potatoes. The straw was then covered with a mound of dirt. This process preserved and kept the potatoes cool. You would dig a few potatoes out as you needed them then cover the entrance back with more straw and dirt.
Sweet potatoes and peanuts were often cooked in the hearth of the fireplace. Peanuts rarely had to be purchased from the store in these farm towns. After farmers harvested their peanuts they would usually allow us to walk the fields to pick up the peanuts that fell off the roots as they were harvested. Peanuts that were picked up immediately after the harvest could be boiled. If you've never tasted a boiled peanut, you should; they are delicious. The water that they are boiled in is salted. When eaten, you can suck the salt out of the peanut hull much like people do when they eat sunflower seeds.
A dessert which is a delicacy of the South that my mom cooked and a lot of people have not had the fortune to enjoy is a blackberry pie. Blackberry pie is not very popular in restaurants today because the blackberry is not a popular farmed crop. The blackberry grows wild in the woods (we called the forest the woods; when you see this Southern term later in the book remember I am talking about the forest). Blackberries have a unique taste and are delicious.
Vienna sausages and SPAM were popular meats served in many families because they were inexpensive. The Vienna sausages came in this large gallon can. I remember the sauce that they were packed in would gel like lard and this would have to be wiped away from the sausage before eating.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Never FORGET ... by Willie H. Lattimore. Copyright © 2013 Willie H. Lattimore. Excerpted by permission of Abbott Press.
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