My mother, Born in Arabi, GA, took me to a home in Double Run where the family moved when their home burned down. There was a fire which started in the kitchen in back of the house. the kitchen was attached to the home by a covered walkway, which in my mind wasn’t well thought out.
The Double Run home was built by friends and neighbors for them. I was intrigued by the front door, which was made of diagonal boards held together by nail heads from the previous board. I was amazed at how familiar my mother made it seem with her description of events, as if she had just left there.
The living room was the first room on the right. Mother’s sister was married there when she was 16, in front of a whitewashed iron fireplace with large ferns in front of it. She wore a light blue dress with covered buttons down the back and white leather boots with buttons for closure. Just to the right was a knothole in the wall where my grandmother could spy on her eldest daughter when she had a male visitor, to the chagrin of my grandfather. Mother pointed to the front window in the living room and said that she laid on a cot with typhoid fever in front of that window for months. She couldn’t have any solid food for all that time. Mother begged the newly married sister to bring her a very ripe apple and promised to only eat a tiny bit at a time. It stayed hidden under a quilt. One day the sister came to check on Mother and found her bedding outside in the sun. She was convinced that she had killed her little sister by giving her the apple, as “sunning” the quilts and sheets was something that was commonly done after a death in the home.
The next room behind the living room was a large kitchen with what appeared to be a cooking fireplace. Very large. In this open space my grandfather would set up a “wrestling ring” for his boys to tussle, to the displeasure of my grandmother. The other side of the house was bedrooms. In the summer, grandfather would walk through the house with a homemade torch, dipped in kerosene. the smoke would drive out the mosquitos. In the winter, everyone received a warm brick from the fireplace, wrapped in cloth, to take to bed with them. homemade quilts did the rest. Five girls and five boys were raised in that Double Run home by Clifford Story Pitts and Andrew Horton Story. Just a few miles away was Pitts GA, named for “Andy” Pitts brother,
My uncle thought so highly of Double Run that he never failed to remind me that he was born there. When I was in the home, it was obvious that farm laborers were living there temporarily. It was not in disrepair, although all the paint was gone. The original steps were gone and were replaced by more modern wooden ones. The pecan trees were magnificent and more than 50 years old.
Sorry…the brother of “Andy” Horton Pitts was Ashley Jordan Pitts.
My mother, Born in Arabi, GA, took me to a home in Double Run where the family moved when their home burned down. There was a fire which started in the kitchen in back of the house. the kitchen was attached to the home by a covered walkway, which in my mind wasn’t well thought out.
The Double Run home was built by friends and neighbors for them. I was intrigued by the front door, which was made of diagonal boards held together by nail heads from the previous board. I was amazed at how familiar my mother made it seem with her description of events, as if she had just left there.
The living room was the first room on the right. Mother’s sister was married there when she was 16, in front of a whitewashed iron fireplace with large ferns in front of it. She wore a light blue dress with covered buttons down the back and white leather boots with buttons for closure. Just to the right was a knothole in the wall where my grandmother could spy on her eldest daughter when she had a male visitor, to the chagrin of my grandfather. Mother pointed to the front window in the living room and said that she laid on a cot with typhoid fever in front of that window for months. She couldn’t have any solid food for all that time. Mother begged the newly married sister to bring her a very ripe apple and promised to only eat a tiny bit at a time. It stayed hidden under a quilt. One day the sister came to check on Mother and found her bedding outside in the sun. She was convinced that she had killed her little sister by giving her the apple, as “sunning” the quilts and sheets was something that was commonly done after a death in the home.
The next room behind the living room was a large kitchen with what appeared to be a cooking fireplace. Very large. In this open space my grandfather would set up a “wrestling ring” for his boys to tussle, to the displeasure of my grandmother. The other side of the house was bedrooms. In the summer, grandfather would walk through the house with a homemade torch, dipped in kerosene. the smoke would drive out the mosquitos. In the winter, everyone received a warm brick from the fireplace, wrapped in cloth, to take to bed with them. homemade quilts did the rest. Five girls and five boys were raised in that Double Run home by Clifford Story Pitts and Andrew Horton Story. Just a few miles away was Pitts GA, named for “Andy” Pitts brother,
My uncle thought so highly of Double Run that he never failed to remind me that he was born there. When I was in the home, it was obvious that farm laborers were living there temporarily. It was not in disrepair, although all the paint was gone. The original steps were gone and were replaced by more modern wooden ones. The pecan trees were magnificent and more than 50 years old.