[Granville-Hough] 17 Nov 2009 - Mize, at Threescore and Ten, Part 3

[Trustees for Granville W. Hough]

Date: Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:57:18 -0800
From: Granville W Hough <gwhough at oakapple.net>
Subject: Mize, at Threescore and Ten, Part 3, 17 Nov 2009

The Exodus.
(continued)
    The simplest explanation for population decline in a town such as 
Mize is that people have some reason for moving away. Such movement from 
Mize was precipitated by a general change in the economy of the country 
as a whole from agricultural to urban. In short, it became tougher to 
make a living in Mize for even the best talents or the strongest back. 
Therefore, many people at Mize simply followed the economy elsewhere.  
Most have been successful in their endeavors, whether in the trades, in 
industry, the professions, or the arts. In short, Mize was as good a 
cradle as any for their talents and strengths.
    Surprisingly, many are unwilling to put memories of Mize behind them
forever. Every year, there is a reunion at the Mize high school and 
people come
back to attend it and see their friends of long ago.  There are family 
reunions, to which people come from the far corners of our country. They 
visit the churchyards where their ancestors and other kin lie buried. 
They eat some of the foods they had long forgotten, and find them even 
better than before. Some even want to be returned for burial in those 
well-kept graveyards near remembered relatives who once shared their lives.
    If you discount the changes in automobiles from Model T  to Japanese 
makes, air conditioning, the TV dish antennas and other electronic 
incursions, the decline in numbers of places of business, dilution of 
the local population with persons who came from elsewhere, absence of 
truckloads and wagonloads of cotton and other farm products and the 
neatly plowed and hoed fields where they were once produced, the 
dominance of polyester and plastics over cotton and wool and metal, the 
change of yards and lawns from clean-swept to grassy, the phenomenon of 
seeing ladies in the local pool hall and, perhaps most saddening, 
failure to recognize  a once familiar face because of what the years 
have done to it, Mize hasn't changed much in five decades or so.  If you 
look long and searchingly a few signs of the old days begin to emerge. 
You have to look past the facade, use your imagination a bit, but 
haven't you been doing that all along?  If you feel you need to lay eyes 
once more on a genuine mule, you can go to the state fairgrounds in 
Jackson, where mule lovers festivals are held featuring these animals, 
living collectors' items, all dolled up to look the way you expected.
    Last of all, I want to talk a bit about my relations, my kin. I've 
been making my way in the world for a good many years, and I've grown 
accustomed to encountering and coping with many kinds of people, and 
learning what I can from them and giving them whatever I have to offer 
in return.  But they have one great shortcoming: they're not kinfolks.
    Growing up in Mize spoiled me from birth.  Did one crave 
companionship in Mize, there were dozens of cousins, older, younger, the 
same age.  After a day of visiting and playing with your kin at your 
aunt's and uncle's, if you didn't want to bother coming home to supper, 
you stayed overnight, and your aunt found a place for you to sleep.  
Your uncle was like having another father.  Your cousins were like 
brothers and sisters without the usual sibling rivalry.  Sometimes your 
aunt had new things to eat that you hadn't tried.  There were plenty of 
second cousins if you found yourself spending too much time with your 
firsts.  Among cousins there were no family secrets to  keep.  Everybody 
knew everything about you, good or bad. In a place like Mize, 
practically everybody who lived there was related to you in some degree 
if you went back far enough. Relatives set great store by each other, no 
matter how slim the connection. Living at Mize when  I was small was 
like living in a whole community of baby sitters. Everybody was 
interested in your well-being, protected you from harm, and made excuses 
for you if you didn't quite measure up to scratch. Baby sitters in Mize 
were unknown.  Parents who needed to park their children somewhere for a 
few hours or a few days left them with close relatives, who treated them 
as their own.
    When I get together with relatives today, too infrequently, it's as 
if I never left home. There are an endless number of interests, what has 
happened to each other over the years, and it's difficult to break away, 
for you know you may not see some again.  You don't need to put on any 
airs , because your kinfolks know you as well as and sometimes better 
than you know yourself.
    My biggest problem at recent gatherings of my cousins is that some 
of those who are closest kin haven't received, or refuse to acknowledge 
or act on the warnings about what smoking does to  health.  I find that 
I can no longer stay in the same room with a cloud of cigarette smoke, 
no matter how close kin the smoker, and I wonder if the anti-social 
aspects of smoking shouldn't be given as much attention as the health 
problems.  Most of us, I think, may regret the mental and chemical 
addiction and the various griefs that have ensued from that long ago 
cigarette, or that rabbit tobacco sneaked out behind the barn.  #11.  It 
was nearly 20 years ago that I reluctantly gave up my favorite cigars to 
get rid of a rattle in my chest, then decided to stop altogether.  
Sometimes when I have trouble concentrating, I remember how easy it was 
to collect my thoughts in those days behind a wreath of blue cigar 
smoke.  Montezuma indeed has his revenge.
    Finally, I want to thank my cousins Walter B. Butler and his sister 
Sue Schiro for putting this book together.  I'm happy to accommodate his 
request for some of my thoughts and I'm grateful to him for getting the 
book into production.  I just got wind of this book project  yesterday 
(26 May 1991) and sat right down and started grinding out copy.  If my 
thoughts sound half-baked, I guess they are, but I feel confident  that 
those who read these lines will continue to have a spot for me in their 
affections as I continue to have one for them.  XXXX

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GWH notes:
    #11  Just what is rabbit tobacco?  It did not look like tobacco or 
smell like it.  It had no redeeming feature, except it was not as 
dangerous to small boys as real tobacco.  My dictionary says it is 
balsamweed, but the weed I smoked I would not have recognized by that name.

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    GWH:  Before leaving the town of Mize, I want to acknowledge that 
Martha Miller corrected some mistakes I made on the family of Ancie 
Johnson.  Her message follows:

Dear Granville and Harold,

Somehow I missed Granville's story that mentioned Ancie Johnson but I 
did receive this one.  I never knew Ancie but I knew of him so I will 
add some additional information.

Ancie was the son of Frank E. Johnson and Mary L. Austin Johnson, 
according to the Smith County Cemetery book and the 1920 census record 
of Smith County.  The census record listed the family in Beat 1, Twp 3 
and the children were sons Ancey A. Johnson, age 9, and A. D. Johnson, 
age 3.

As Harold said, Ancie and his wife, Vera Ruth Ainsworth, are buried in 
the Mize Cemetery.  Smith County Marriage records show that Ancie and 
Vera were married on 19 Sept 1935.  BUT, Ancie was first married on 30 
April 1927 to Ruby Lee Mayfield.  F. E. Johnson gave permission for the 
marriage.  Ruby was my 1st cousin, the daughter of George W. Mayfield 
and Sarah Ann Floyd Mayfield (my father's oldest sister).  Ruby and 
Ancie were divorced and I never remember meeting him but they did have a 
son and a daughter, both who died very young.  The children are buried 
at the Fairmount-Waco Cemetery next to their grandparents, Frank E. and 
Mary L. Johnson. I don't know the date of Ruby and Ancie's divorce.

I checked the cemetery records and found A. D. Johnson (1917-1992) is 
buried at Fellowship Cemetery with his wife, Lettie Pearl Hancock 
(1915-1989).

I hope both of you are doing well.

Martha Miller