GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Room For Six Strangers

Pine Mountain Settlement School
Series 09: BIOGRAPHY – Staff
Series 14: MEDICAL
Grace M. Rood, Nurse, 1937-1962
Grace Margaret Rood (1897-1988)
Stories
Room For Six Strangers

Mountain cabin. [cobb_alice_068]

TAGS: Grace M. Rood, nurses, Pine Mountain Settlement School, community nursing, Silas Day, nurses training, Mossie Day, Eastern Kentucky health, mid-wives, hospitals, family feuds, medical training, Little Laurel, Big Laurel, Harlan County, Kentucky

GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Room For Six Strangers

A walk by Miss Grace Rood, Nurse at Pine Mountain Settlement School in the neighborhoods of Little Laurel and Big Laurel. She remembers this walk and visits with the families in the area and the reflects on the way of life in the beautiful forest land and rustic remote cabins of the area. She recalls the details of the accommodating strangers who have needed shelter while passing through the area on foot.

ROOM FOR SIX STRANGERS

As I sat on Silas Day’s porch and looked off up the winding road, Mossie, his wife, told me of the recent happenings up and down the creek.

I live and work in a little hospital, way up in the mountains of Kentucky. “Although we are only 20 miles from our nearest town, our dirt road, though, “improved”, has so many curves and chug holes in it that it takes an hour for the trip. ” Being just a small town, it offers little in the way of amusement, so on my” day off I take a long walk, into the country.

As I have met most of the folks, at some time or other, at the hospital, at some local entertainment, or at a clinic in one of the one- room schools, they all recognize me, wave to me and call, “Come on up.!”, “Come and eat”, “Better stay the night,” “There’s always room for one more.”

One fall afternoon, I took the Little Laurel, Big Laurel Circuit. In an eight-mile circuit, I would have eight homes to visit. I dared not pass a single one without at least stopping to say, “Howdy!” ” for fear, someone will be offended, and I will be reproached with a. “What’s the matter? You never stopped by the other day. My old woman saw you a comin’ off the mountain and set the coffee up.”

I climbed over little logs, jumped over little streams, as I went across Little Laurel Mountain. I stopped at intervals to gaze over the hills at The flaming red and gold and yellow autumn leaves. I stopped a minute to call “Howdy!” to Aunt Jane, digging potatoes in her field, and finally was walking on the Big Laurel Creek Road.

I was a bit tired so when Mossie called out, “You’d , better come up and set a spell,” I was glad to climb the hill to her little home. I sat down on her hickory- bottom chair and, like her, tipped it back against the wall and put my feet up on the railing of the porch. This gave me a wonderful view of the creek, and as I rested, I looked at the little road, crossing and recrossing the creek, with the high hills rising on each side of it.

Relaxing, I thought to myself, “What a peaceful place, no telephone poles or electric wires, no highway with cars whizzing by.”

Mossie broke in on my thoughts. “Have you he’rd, thar’ is talk o’ puttin’ the ‘lectric through?” Silas, he says, with all that heat a coming through them wires, hits bound to warm the air and might stop the snow. You know, we depend on hit [the snow] to butcher the hogs.”

As we sat and talked, I noticed tall Lexine in her jeans, throwing clothes over the rail fence to dry. Maudine was ringing them out of a big tub sitting on a few rocks in the creek. There was a long fence full and more clothes in the tub, but the girls still looked fresh, tossing their red, curly hair, joking and fooling together.

As I looked into the sitting room, I saw a Clairabel ironing with a heavy, old – fashioned iron which she had been heating on the coals in the fireplace. As she pushed back her straggling hair from her damp forehead, wiggled her bare toes, she murmured,” I wouldn’t ker ’bout much, o’ anything, if’n we unds only had one o’ them ‘lectric irons you see in the catalog.”

Ertha was chopping wood. “Hit takes an awful lot,” Mossie remarked, “for all the cookin’ an washin’ and everythin! When you got eight young uns, hit it takes a lot of everythin!

“Mossie,” I asked, “I just don’t see how you get by, with only one pay coming in, though Silas must make some on being Magistrate for the county.”

“Bein’ Magistrate don’t bring in much, but we got a good cow, we put in plenty of taters and beans, so we got plenty put by for the winter. You never know when a body might come by, so we always got plenty for a few more.

” Then, we got the chores all set out. on school days, the five gals git …..

p.2

…..the milkin’ done, the animals fed, the beds spread up, the dishes done, ‘fore they start a walkin’ to school. While it’s pretty weather, they aim to get in every day they can.”

When I remembered, “It’s too bad that Roger, your only boy, is too small to do much,” she replied with a smile.”Oh,, the gals, they can do anything a boy could, and you’d be surprised what Roger can do when they’re gone. He. splits the kindlin’ fer me.

I shuddered as I looked at the four-year-old, sitting on the edge of the porch, big knife in hand, whittling on a stick..

I heard the dishes rattling in the kitchen and thought someone must be late and washing up the noon things.; When I smell bacon frying, I was more puzzled, but then Clementine came out saying,”If’n you’re not a’feared o’ my cookin’, come on in.” I understood.

I couldn’t very well disappoint the 12.-year-old girl, and as I was hungry too, I got up and went in to eat.

She had water poured in a basin for me to wash my hands. She had the table set for one, and in the middle of it was a bunch of asters and goldenrod.

As she stood around, ready to serve me more bacon and eggs, or pour me more coffee, she and Claribel told me about the different things in the room.

” You see that plate a settin’ on the mantle over the fireplace? We all call that the ‘preacher’s plate’.”

The plate didn’t look any different from the one I was eating off of, though, perhaps, a little newer.

” You know that preacher that goes around the country with. always a little hound dog a’followin’ him. He always stops here to stay. When he gets through a’eatin. he follows a puttin’ his plate on the floor for the dog to lick up. We didn’t much like that, but with him being a preacher, we couldn’t say nothing. But pap got an idea one day. So now the plate just stays up there, unless the preacher is a’ eatin’ with us.”

“Being hospitable as you are, I guess that you feed a lot of people as time goes by,” I remarked to Mossie.

” Well, the good book says to ‘take the stranger in’ and I reckon we do our share. The Lord has given us a’ plenty, and hit’s only fittin we do for others.

And Haven’tsie continued, “Have you heard anything about that Letcher family that Silas sent to the Salvation Army in town last week? They sure was pitiful. You know, since Silas’ is magistrate, we get all kinds o’ calls.”

” But surely, Mossie, you don’t have to feed them. Doesn’t Silas just give them free orders for food on the county?”

” Well. we may be chicken-hearted, but a feller can’t just see chillin’ go hungry, can they? One night last week, we were a settin’ here, the young uns an me, a’restin’ and a waitin’ for Silas to come in. We’d et and the dishes was put away. I glanced up the road and saw a woman a stumbling along with a babe on one arm and a poke o’ somethin’ over her shoulder. Followin’ her was a big girl, about 10 or 11 years old, carryin’ another young ‘un and behind them, kind o’ draggin’ along, come two other young ‘uns carryin’ some little bags. They sure looked wore out, and so I sent Clementine down to see who they were and where they was a goin; at that time o’ night.

“Clementine came back.’ up to say, ‘They are a lookin’ for Pap’; someone told ’em to come here ’cause he is the Magistrate. They are aimin’ to go to town for help.”

” I knew they could never make the 20 miles to town, even if ‘n Silas was in, it would be dark again when they would get to the next place, so I went down myself. When I asked the woman when they last et, and she tole me,’bout sunup, but we’ve been snackin’ along the road.” That finished me, and I hollered …..

p.3

….. to my gals to come down and get them all up the hill.

” My gals stirred up the fire whilst I did the milken’. We had lots o’ cornbread, So the wee unds had bread and milk, whilst the biggins had eggs and beans. They shore were hungry, but they was well mannered and et awful tidy.

” Well, Mossie, how did they happen to be out on the road at that time of night?”

” The woman told me her story. The man had been a’ ailin’ and sick for a long spell before he died. His people and her’n didn’t get on, and almost had a fight at the funeral. A few days after that, their house burnt up. They didn’t want no more quarrelin’ , so she just picked up what few things was left and took off towards out-country a ‘walkin’. We figured they all had done nigh to 15 miles that day.”

As I glanced into the two little bedrooms, I asked, “But what did you do about the night?”

“Oh, as soon as Silas came in, he had us put ’em right down. The woman and her baby, we put on George’s cot in our room, and quilts on the floor for George and a little boy of hers to sleep on. The girls just pushed over in their beds and got the others in with them, they wasn’t much big.

” They was easy satisfied and slept well. They was. well fetched up, you could tell, They all washed good, then helped with the work in the mornin’. We gave them a good meal and got them a ride to town on the back of a truck.

“‘ When you got a lot o’ young uns of your own, you can always put up a few more, and when they are small and needy, you can even find room for six strangers”.

END

SEE ALSO

GRACE M. ROOD PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM One
GRACE M. ROOD PHOTOGRAPH ALBUM Two

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GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Room For Six Strangers

GRACE M. ROOD STORIES Room For Six Strangers