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| My Birth Home |
I was born in the two-room house pictured above on July 14, 1927. As you might imagine, several changes have been made over the years, however the basic structure is the same although additional space has been added.
Already living there was my Mom, my Dad, my sister Edith who was two at the time and my brother Robert who was four. One might ask how five people could sleep in a two-room house and my answer would have to be, I have no idea and cannot remember back that far. I sense, however that my parents had very few skills and no influence whatsoever for such a large family to wind up in a two room house. I just barely remember living there since we moved when I was about five or six. I do know we had a happy family with few luxuries. No, make that no luxuries. The amazing thing is that we actually had overnight guests in that two-room house. I do not recall how or where they slept but I do recall having them.
During these times, Doctors made house calls, so I was delivered by Doctor Henry Jerome Langston and as a matter of fact was named after him. He was our family Doctor until the day he died. I remember my Mother would pay him $1.00 each week and did so as long as I could remember. I have heard that when he died, all of Mom’s debt was cancelled. What a tribute to a great person. Try finding one of those Doctors today. It is impossible to do so.
The first thing I recall about my birth house was one night the police came and arrested one of my Dad’s sons by a previous marriage, I cannot recall the name of the son or the reason for the arrest but recall he was hiding in a very small closet when they found him. I could not have been more than 3 or 4 years of age at the time.
Already living there was my Mom, my Dad, my sister Edith who was two at the time and my brother Robert who was four. One might ask how five people could sleep in a two-room house and my answer would have to be, I have no idea and cannot remember back that far. I sense, however that my parents had very few skills and no influence whatsoever for such a large family to wind up in a two room house. I just barely remember living there since we moved when I was about five or six. I do know we had a happy family with few luxuries. No, make that no luxuries. The amazing thing is that we actually had overnight guests in that two-room house. I do not recall how or where they slept but I do recall having them.
During these times, Doctors made house calls, so I was delivered by Doctor Henry Jerome Langston and as a matter of fact was named after him. He was our family Doctor until the day he died. I remember my Mother would pay him $1.00 each week and did so as long as I could remember. I have heard that when he died, all of Mom’s debt was cancelled. What a tribute to a great person. Try finding one of those Doctors today. It is impossible to do so.
The first thing I recall about my birth house was one night the police came and arrested one of my Dad’s sons by a previous marriage, I cannot recall the name of the son or the reason for the arrest but recall he was hiding in a very small closet when they found him. I could not have been more than 3 or 4 years of age at the time.
Henry at age 3
To clarify the jumbled mess surrounding my family tree, I will state right here some things I never understood and probably never will. I never in my lifetime heard of my Dad’s parents, nor do I ever recall seeing or meeting them. I only know that he had five sons and two daughters, Geneva and May. The sons who would be my half brothers, I knew quite well over the years, although we rarely associated with one another. The son’s names are Presley, Carl, Doc, Howard, and Elbert. I can barely recall Geneva and May, although I do have some slight memory of them. To the best of my knowledge, none of them are alive as of this writing. On my Moms side, she had a son, Robert C. Dixon by a previous marriage. Edith and I always considered him our true whole brother since we were raised together. Robert passed away with a heart attack in the early 1980s.
My birth home, as I stated, was a two-room house. It contained no running water inside nor did it have indoor toilet facilities. Instead, as all the mill houses, it had a toilet, (then known and described as an "Out House"). It was situated 50 feet from the house on the outside. The best thing about all these luxuries was the cost. Dan River Mills charged 25 cents per week per room for their rental houses. [What a deal!] This included electricity, water, painting and repairs as needed, toilet paper that was delivered and thrown into the Out House every two weeks, and of course, cleaning out the toilets approximately every two years. It was easy to predict when the Honey Wagon, as we called it, would arrive since the odor would arrive several weeks prior to the actual clean out. A black man with a bad eye always drove the Honey Wagon. Consequently, we called him “Bad Eye” and he was known by that name throughout Schoolfield. A horse pulled the Honey Wagon. I always pitied that poor horse for having to endure that awful odor every single day. I feel certain it was just as bad for “Bad Eye.”
There were many other advantages to living in a Schoolfield house. The Company provided police and fire protection for free. In addition, they had a coal yard, a department store, a drug store, a movie theatre, and a Y. M. C. A. All these were available at little or no charge, and if a charge was made, it was deducted from one’s paycheck.
During this period of time, most local grocery stores had salesmen and they provided free delivery. It is amazing to think back when our sales representative, Mr. Shumate, would arrive early in the morning and review our grocery needs with Mom. He would mention anything that she might be prone to forget. The order would be delivered the next morning. My only question is how could all this be done on the small amount of money Mom made? I guess that will always be the question, albeit hard to understand.
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