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Barefoot In The Sand: Remembering the Waning Days of the Hopewell Community (1998) Bruce C. Gragg  118/123




            claimed to be associated with. All the neighbors joined in and did
            some pretty good gospel singing, accompanied by only a guitar if any
            thing. There is no trace of their barn across the road from the
            house. There were several small tenant houses that have gone also.
            Just about all the oak trees once there are no longer, just a few
            remaining dead, burned large stumps.

            At the Mills place, a few traces of her grape vines are still there
            and one of her farm outbuildings and the. old hog gallows still
            stands waiting for the next hog to be dressed. It hasn’t been used in
            over fifty years. There were at 'one time two open water wells, one
            near the house the other near the barn. Jesse Ogborn's house has long
            ago been torn down. A few house blocks remain from when the house
            burned in the early Fifties. The big yellow pines in front of where
            house stood don't seem as big as they did many years ago. They are
            very big now, but they seem to have grown smaller in time. The big
            oaks don't appear to have changed size much. All the distances from
            one part to another seem to be about as I remember, like from the
            house site to the barn, from the house to the road just to name a
            couple.


            There is a road right through the old Rhoden home place. The two big
            sycamore trees once in front of the house either died years ago or
            were taken out when the road was put in. At one time there were a lot
            of shade trees around the old home. They had a running rose on a
            post-crossmember frame six or so feet high, it was a beautiful shade
            of pale pink. The Rhodens were parents of a very large family
            Raymond, Bartow, Luther, Johnny, Louise, Calvin, James, Callie Belle,
            Colin and Carroll. There were two or three that had died when they
            were very young.


            At the Pafford place, (the old Richard Burnette place) the lane
            leading up to the house is now a long grown up lane, the house is
            gone and now a trailer is there. In front of the old two story was
            the sweetest smelling sweetshrub. That was the first house in the
            neighborhood to have running water. Mr. Cooper, put it in when he
            lived there. He put down the well built a pump/utility house with a
            gas powered pump and a water tower and ran pipes to the house, and
            heated the water with the wood stove. It was sold to the State of
            Florida and fishing, camping, horseback riding and hiking through
            trails is permitted. The old Carter tintop house is slowly falling
            in. The big equipment barn is still standing and being used to store
            equipment. It was built in the late 40's to use as a storage/work
            shop.


            At the James Burnette place the Sable palm is still there, and the
            pump in the back yard is still there and working. A younger Sable
            palm in growing in what was once the back yard in what would









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