PEOPLE & PLACES I REMEMBER ON LILLIAN ST. PART 2 On the opposite corner of the gas station was the house where Laura & Welton Johnson lived. Laura was a sister to David “Berry” Dennis and her Mother was Maggie Dennis on W. Church St. Welton always drove a truck and was “on the road” a lot. When he was home he always parked the truck in front of the garage behind the filling station. I don’t think his hearing was very good because his voice was so loud it sounded like he was hollering when he was talking. Laura always drove an Oldsmobile and was so short she could hardly see over the steering wheel. Three children, Annalee, Virginia & Welton Jr. The next house is where Pop Ern Culver lived. I believe he was Esther Christopher’s father. He used to sing all the time when he was outside….”It ain’t gonna rain no more, no more, it ain’t gonna rain no more.” As a child I couldn’t understand why in the world he would sing that song when it was raining! The next house is where Claude & Ruth Harris lived. They were the parents of Jimmy & Sue Harris. Claude was also a truck driver and he died when Jimmy & Sue were young. Years later, Miss Ruth married “Scrapple” Givens and moved out behind Spring Hill Church. Phil & Esther Christopher lived in the next house and their children were Norman, Ronnie & Diana. Phil worked for Sears for years and Esther died when she was young. Dinah wasn’t very old at the time. Ronnie could play a piano and make it talk! I used to love watching him, Judy and Joyce Beach play. Ronnie played the Boogie Woogie and his fingers would fly on the keyboard. The next house was Roland & Lena (I think that was her name) Collins and they raised their grandson, Ray Dean Collins. Ray & Jimmy Harris were close friends and played together as kids. Next house was Lester & Gloria Collins, with their three children, Little Les, Sissy & Tommy Tucker. Sissy was like her Mother, she wasn’t very big at all. I can remember when she started school, I was several years older than her and she looked like a little baby doll when she went down the lunch line. She couldn’t see what they had she was so short. The house after them was where my Great Grandparents lived; Lettie & Grafton Mills along with their daughter and son-in-law, Katherine & Frank Hanson. That house was huge! The pump was on the porch, I remember the pantry and the wooden handled knives and forks. She had the old type view master with the pictures you looked at and I could entertain myself forever with that. She also had a wooden box with a lid filled with bobby pins. I used to comb & pin up Aunt Katherine’s hair all the time when I was a little girl. The last house in that block on the left was Levador & Tina Hall’s home. He worked for the Railroad and they used coal for heat. I remember the coal bin outside behind the house next to the smokehouse. Mom Tina ALWAYS had a bird and she would talk to that bird all the time, his name was Pete. “Pete’s a pretty bird” and then the bird would say it back to her. Jim Mills and I played at Mom Tina’s a lot and I just loved her to death, just like everybody else that knew her. She always had a smile and she loved to play BINGO. She had a neighbor on the other side of the street (I’ll tell you her name when I do that side of the street) that would take her and they played all the time. There was an empty lot after Mom Tina’s house, I don’t remember there being one back in my day. On the right side of Lillian Street after the garage was an old Baptist Church. I don’t recall it being used as a church, don’t know when it was closed but what I remember was Mr. Well’s had a shop of some kind in the building. I was only inside once because I wanted to see where they did the baptisms. I had heard there was a pool and I wanted to see it. In my child’s mind, it wasn’t anything like a “pool” I expected, no deep and shallow end, just a long narrow hole. There was another vacant lot and the next house was where George & Hannah Beach lived with Jane, Jeanne, Joyce, Janice & Judy. This was my Aunt, Uncle and cousins so I spent a lot of time at this home also. Aunt Hannah used to watch me when I got out of school until Mother got off work from the pants factory. She always had pudding in the corner cupboard in the kitchen and I loved eating it from the pink depression glass dessert dishes. Uncle George used to grow peanuts and roast them in the oven. He always had a big garden and had all kinds of vegetables. He had a couple dogs for hunting & he worked on the railroad in Delmar. Aunt Hannah used to babysit and she also did curtains for people. She’d wash the curtains and had a real big frame (curtain stretcher) with lots of nails in it. She would take the curtains and put the pleats in the ruffle around the curtains and stick the pleat through the nails and leave them there until they dried. She was really good at it but I thought it would be a painful job with all those nails sticking out! Janice and I decided to smoke Uncle George’s pipe one day. We took it out to the outhouse and started puffing and blowing the smoke out of the knot hole in the door. We just about got sick to our stomach so we didn’t try the pipe anymore. Now I can tell you that Joyce and Janice could start Uncle George’s old car with a bobby pin and we’d go for a little ride. I don’t know where Aunt Hannah was whenever we did that but you can bet she wasn’t home! We never went far but it was really fun just doing it and not getting caught. The next house was Carl & Mamie Pollitt. Their kids were all grown with kids of their own. Mr. Carl also had hunting dogs and Miss Mamie had a beautiful smile. She was always so pleasant looking and I don’t remember her ever being mad or upset, just a good woman. Their children were Bob, Carl Jr., Betty, Peggy and I believe there was another one. Next was Lena Lowe but I forgot her hubby’s name and they had a son. I remember her husband died and she married another man. Miss Lena was Mom Tina’s BINGO playing partner. Those ladies just loved playing bingo. Next was the Lloyd’s, Ralph & Bernice and their girls, Sharon & Barbara. We went to school together and were always good friends. Later Barbara married Carroll, my oldest brother so our families have been connected for many years. The last house in that block was Charlie Taylor, a carpenter and he built the house. I can’t remember his wife’s name but they didn’t have any children that I recall. Anyone without children must have led a boring life, can’t imagine what it’s like to never be around children and having them run in and out of the house. This block is where we skated, I usually stayed in that block, I suppose I had been instructed on how far I could go but I don’t remember it. Lillian St was concrete and perfect for roller skating and we took advantage of it all the time. I do believe I might have to change this and just do one side of the street at a time, it’s taken a long time to write this one tonight covering the entire block. Hope you enjoy reading my trip down memory lane. Part 3 will come tomorrow night.
Posted on: Mon, 29 Dec 2014 03:42:34 +0000
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