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Memories of Golde Dicks Markham (1996) Golde Markham Dicks 57/125

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Pa worked and he worked hard to make every cent he could. I believe that Grandpa
gave all of his children forty acres of land. Pa borrowed money from his Uncle Joseph
(“Joe”) Dicks to buy the Axman place. Sometimes Pa couldn’t pay Uncle Joe anything but

the interest, but Uncle Joe was patient and trusted his nephew. After Pa paid that off, he
bought the Ward place, and once again he borrowed that money from Uncle Joe. Each of
those places was sixty acres so he owned 160 acres total.

Pa wanted to clear several acres of land in front of our house so he could farm it. It
would have taken a long time to clear himself so he had a “log rolling.” He invited able-
bodied neighbors to help him clear that forest. The men brought their entire families.
The women helped Ma cook a big dinner for that night’s supper. The men sawed

down trees, cut them into short lengths lightweight enough to roll into a big pile to bum.
That big pile created quite a spectacle! The men worked until dark then came to the house,
washed their hands, and ate that good supper that the women had prepared. Pa kept those

fires going for weeks by continually keeping the ends of the logs thrown up on the fire.
The trees were cut down but the stumps were left which made it difficult to plow. Pa
dug holes around each stump and built a fire under one side of the them to bum them out.
Once the land was cleared, he took a two-horse plow and broke up the land. Back then folks

believed it necessary to plant sweet potatoes on new ground. If the cows had slept on the
land and left their droppings, there would be more sweet potatoes. Grandpa Dicks had lots

of woods cows. He penned them up every night and turned them out in the mornings to
roam the woods to forage food for themselves. The cows came and went by our house every
morning on their way to look for food, then late in the afternoon on their way home.
Pa asked his father if he could pen the cows up at night on his new cleared ground. So

every afternoon Pa opened the gate into the new field and headed off the cows to make them
go through the gate. After a few weeks, Pa let them go on home and planted the sweet
potato vines. He made several “banks” of yams as some people call them.

Not too long after Pa bought the old Model-T Ford, he planted a big patch of cabbage
on the northeast side of the springhead. They grew into the nicest cabbages I ever saw. Pa
took us older kids down to the cabbage patch in the old Ford before dawn would break. As

it became light, we could see how to cut the heads off the cabbage. It was so cold that my
hands would hurt—so cold that they actually felt hot. We cut the cabbage until no more
could fit into the back end of the car. Pa then took them to sell in the stores in Lake City.

The cabbage still had ice between the leaves when he reached the store.

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