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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 25/125

Grandpa Dicks decided to run for county commissioner in his district in the mid-

19208—and he was elected. He then felt he needed a car for this job. He bought a four-door
Ford to inspect roads and bridges, especially after rains. But Grandpa never drove that car.
He walked down to our house and asked me to drive him wherever he had to go to check on
certain roads or bridges. I was about 17 years old.

Lots of times Grandpa Dicks told Pa he needed me to drive him some certain day and
time. I became Grandpa’s chauffeur, and I was thrilled beyond words. This was the only time

Grandpa ever rode in his car. He let me have his car every Sunday afternoon.
After Grandma Dicks died, Grandpa married Florence Stalvey. She had a son, Ewel
Stalvey, who would have been my step-uncle. Ewel married my mother’s sister, Essie, and
that made him my uncle by marriage. I never did know why, but Grandpa wouldn’t let Ewel

drive his car. Ewel would go with me in Grandpa’s car, and we’d tell Ma we were going to
ride around some. He liked to go into Lake City to buy ice cream cones. I would then drive
home real fast before Ma could possibly think we had been to Lake City.

Grandpa Dicks still used an ox cart for a while after I was born. He loaded it with
sugar cane, hauling the cane from the cane patch to the sugar cane mill.
During my life time, I saw transportation progress from ox carts to rockets.

One time when Grandpa was grinding cane, his young son Press happened to be
watching. Press then climbed up on the cane mill sweep to enjoy a ride. A mule hitched to
the sweep was pulling it around and around. Then the sweep took Press and fed his head

right in between the two big iron rollers through which the cane is fed and then mashed into
juice to make the syrup. Grandpa had been attending a kettle of juice that was turning the
juice into syrup.

As soon as he realized what had happened, he picked up Press, who was unconscious,
and took him to the house. He told Grandma that he thought Press was dead. Grandma

fluttered around all excited, not knowing what to do. Grandpa told her to just clean him up
and as soon as he got the boiler of syrup cooked, he would come see about him. I don’t
know if Grandpa thought Press was going to survive, but he did and with no ill effects.
It was true that Grandpa couldn’t leave sixty gallons of syrup' cooking. He had to

watch the kettle to keep it from boiling over, controlling the cooking by pulling the fire out
of the furnace to cool it or by putting more firewood into the furnace to heat it more. The

syrup also had! to be skimmed while it was cooking in order to make clear, red syrup.
The skimmer was made of tin, shaped like a pie pan except that it was larger and had a
few small perforated holes in the center. The pan was fastened to a long wooden handle like

a hoe handle. The dipper was the same except it had a big tin cup on a long handle.
Grandpa Dicks never raised' his voice to his children. When they got into their

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