.

For the month of September & October (since I don't have anything else at this time) we'll use the following for light, informative reading...Edited version of "A Transcript of the Life and Times of Rhoda Ellasteen Pearson Davis", born 1855, died 1934.

The very first thing that I can remember is the death of my Mother. It seems just like a dim dream to me now. She died in 1865, the last year of the war between the States. She left besides me, five other children, I was the smallest girl. There were four girls and two boys. A week after Mother died, my uncle Jake Pearson sent for me to live with him, my Mothers brother, my brothers and sisters went to live with other aunts and uncles. Uncle Jake lived across the Edisto River from my home in what was called the Forks then. Annie Pearson and another cousin came for me, in a surrey, something like a buggy. I remember the trip over here quite well. The first work I did after coming to live with uncle Jake was cutting indigo and hoeing corn. People there did not plant cotton. Their farming was very crude, everybody hoed their corn just as we do cotton now. Some people hoe corn yet of course, but only in fields where weeds, May flowers, cowetch vines and such grow. Uncle Jake planted indigo in five and seven acre fields. He only planted it every seven years and always in the spring. We would first grub up the new ground with grubbing hoes. (All of the girls helped do this work). Then the indigo seed was planted and when it was big enough, we'd hoe it. Every quarter of an acre was staked off and each one had his or her own quarter to hoe. It was hard work. In June we cut it down and hauled it to the indigo vats. We usually had to cut it three times before frost. The vats was just a great big trough below the Mill Pond in which the cut indigo was packed and the cover shut down over it. Then water from the pond was turned on the indigo through another trough. I don't know just how long. After that, it was thrashed by a big wheel, turned by water, until it was a bluish pulp. Then it was put into a big box, called the press box, covered up and left there several days. Uncle Jake would then cut it out, just as you do home made soap and dry it. Then it was hauled to Newberry and sold for $1.00 a pound. That is how the land was paid for.

When the Yankees came through they took or destroyed everything almost that we had. They threatened to burn the house. Two of my cousins Dave and Henry Brown were in the war in active Southern service. Uncle Jake had gone too, but I don't remember exactly how long he had been there. I don't remember anything about the actual war but I do remember Sherman's march. I had the mumps when the Yanks came and I remember crying because I was afraid but one Yank patted me on the head, told me not to cry and offered me some raw peanuts (they were our own peanuts they had stole). It was a horrible time. Everybody was worried ,trying to hide valuables, horses and mules. They loaded our cured meat on a wagon and hauled it away. They left us on starvation, facing the days of reconstruction, a future black as night. Uncle Jake had been the first one back from the war. He had got home late one night and I remember we were so happy and glad to see him that we laughed and cried all night, calling his name over and over. He was so hungry and we did not have much to eat but he was glad that Jane had hidden his horses and the Yankees had not found them or the cows either. We listened every day for news of Dave and Henry but none came. That was in February and we had to begin work with heavy hearts indeed. We just ran furrows in the fields and planted the crops with hoes. As our horses were the only ones almost that were saved in the settlement, uncle Jake plowed furrows for the neighbors, with the help of a few faithful old Negroes. The women then planted the seed, for the men that were spared, came home tired, war weary and sick. For two long months we heard nothing of Dave and Henry Brown. Aunt Mary and me walked to see if we could learn anything about them but without success. At last we thought they were dead. Then one evening later in May, Henry came home. What rejoicing and what sorrow, for he told us David was dead. He died in a hospital and Henry had seen him buried. Uncle Jake ran down to the mill pond when Henry came home and we picked up a wagon load of fish. I guess there were no fatted calves to kill. At the same time we made a mourning dress for Lizzie Brown, Dave's sister. It was a dove gray trimmed in black. How we lived the remainder of that year I don't know. It's a mystery how it all turned out but I do not think we are supposed to understand things like that. We managed somehow.