It was the week of Thanksgiving
There are some things that happen in childhood that are etched in in our minds. This happened 83 years ago and I remember as if it happened just yesterday.
We were living at Pender’s Crossroads in the old Pender House. Almost all my memories and stories are fun things from childhood but this day was very different.
It was a warm sunny day the week of Thanksgiving and I was in the yard with my mother. We had shelled some fall peas and she had the bucket filled with the hulls to take outside for daddy to take to the hog pen. She loved to sing and dance and did both quite well. Gardner’s School had a Stunt Night just a week before that eventful day. My mother, her sisters, Blanche Bridgers and Ruby Bridgers Greene, along with Dorothy Bridgers, Lucille Bridgers, Ulma Page, Agnes Thomas Taylor and Pauline Thomas Proctor had been the hit of that event. They all loved to dance and their performance of the Charleston brought the house down. They had the perfect speakeasy outfits for that dance and it was the hit of Stunt Night at Gardner’s School. I believe their rendition of the Charleston was more fun than at any club in the big cities.
On that day as my mama was placing the bucket of pea hulls on the side porch of the Pender House, we heard a woman screaming and looked up. There was a house across the road up a path about the length of a football field or maybe longer. The woman was running down that path toward our house holding a small baby in her arms. My mother actually dropped or threw the pea hulls and started toward the screaming woman. The pea hulls were now scattered in the yard.
Etched in my mind is that lady screaming and crying, the baby looks still and has big bubbles coming from her mouth. It was a scary sight. I remember my mother, in my memory, almost in slow motion reached out and took the sick baby from the woman. She told me to “run and get your daddy and tell him to come quick and it is an emergency.” When I left to run get my father who was at the barn where he had some game chickens, my mother was wiping away the bubbles from the baby’s face and trying to calm the baby’s mother.
By the time my dad got there the bubbles were mostly gone but the baby looked really pale. Mama had the baby in her arms and had gotten a small blanket for the infant. Daddy told the neighbor lady to get in the car. She got in the car and mama placed the baby in her arms and assured her that Dr. Putney would take good care of her baby. Dr. Putney’s office was about five miles from Pender’s Crossroads in Elm City. Like most folks back then, the baby’s family did not have a car.
Daddy drove away to get the neighbor and her child to Dr. Putney. Mama and I picked up the pea hulls and put them back in the bucket and waited.
As mama and I returned to the chore and picked up the pea hulls she talked to me about the situation and how important it is to help people and how grateful she was that the family would get help and that everything was going to be alright and the baby was in good hands with Dr. Putney. She said it is almost Thanksgiving and she listed a few things that we had to be thankful for. At that time as a five year old I couldn’t forget the sight and sounds of the crisis. After the pea hulls were picked up, we went back in the house. She turned on the battery powered radio and sang along. One song I remember her singing that day was Stardust. This was before the Pender’s Crossroads neighborhood got electricity. She changed stations on that oval shaped radio and picked up some big band music and started dancing the Charleston. She was trying to teach me to do the dance but my mind was still on that baby. She picked up her broom and started dancing with the broom. As much as she loved to dance, my dad was not interested in dancing. He did love to sing. I asked my daddy years later why he didn’t like to dance knowing how much mama loved it. He said with a twinkle in his eye “Dell told me I couldn’t dance because I had slow feet and fast hands.” They were very different but happy.
Everything turned out okay for the sick child, who had an allergic reaction. Dr. Putney took care of the mother and the baby, and everyone was grateful.
We had a lot to be thankful for that day and we have a lot to be thankful for today.
Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone.
Montress Greene
Email: montressg@gmail.com
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