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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 4/125

Ma had a long, long string of tiny red beads she kept in the trunk. I would take the
beads out so Roy and I could play with them, putting them back in the trunk afterwards. But

one day the string of beads broke and fell into the sand. I dug a hole and planted the beads. I
told Roy the beads would come up, and then we could pick all' the beads we wanted. We
both really thought they would grow!

Roy and I also enjoyed stringing four o’clock blooms. Grandma had four o’clocks
growing all over the place. She furnished us with needles and thread, and we strung long
strands and would wear them as necklaces. When it rained lightly, the caster bean plants in
the field around the house produced an offensive scent. The leaves were twenty-four inches

wide. We’d break off the leaves and pretend they were umbrellas over our heads. The leaves
kept the rain—and sun—off.

At cane grinding time, we could smell the syrup cooking for quite a distance. One
afternoon Roy and I came in from school when Pa was grinding cane. Everybody was busy
at work. Blooming chrysanthemums were all over the yard. Ma had planted every color
imaginable—pink, yellow, white, lavender, and orange. We carried bunches of the flowers

into the woods to where salamanders had worked up piles of pretty white soil. We let our
imaginations run away with us. We raced to see who could do the most with the flowers and

piles of dirt. In no time we had all of those piles of dirt built up into mounds like real graves.
We ran around and put a bunch of the flowers at the head of the graves. After we had fin­
ished, we laughed and laughed. We had a whole cemetery with' flowers on every grave.

After the Lord took Clarence home with Him, Pa had abscesses, boils and a bout with
■malaria that gave him chills and fever. He said the Lord was punishing him''because the Lord

wanted Pa to work for Him. So after these tortures, which he felt the Lord had dealt him, he
organized a Sunday School at Hopeful Baptist Church, located about one mile north of our
house, for every Sunday afternoon. He also started going to church and reading his Bible.

At that time it was hard to find a preacher, especially for a country church. Pa started
teaching the adult class. His father, my Grandpa Dicks, led the singing without any music.

Later, the church bought a pump organ, and Grandma Dicks played the hew organ. The
pastor for the church at that time was Reverend Scott Ware. He lived out in the country near
Lake Butler, which was quite a distance for him to travel by horseback on dirt roads.

The Hopefill Church had church service on Saturday mornings, Saturday nights,
Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights. At night Ma put a quilt in the wagon for me to lie on

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