Me and Grandpa Riggan 1948
Born Howard Edgar Riggan, Sept. 22, 1886, Grandpa was a laid-back individual who never got in a hurry or upset about anything. From what I have learned, he was the first-born son of a farmer / businessman and landowner. They both were Baptist and members of the Lagardo Baptist church but rumor has it that Great Grandpa was maybe a little bit of a ladies man and he and Grandpa clashed in this area.
Granny was born Betty Jean Ferrell, Aug. 20,1890. She was always worried about something and would walk around wringing her hands. She was a devout hypochondriac and had a collection of pills to fill a small pharmacy (most were placebos) and she was a Methodist or Baptist I really don't know because I never knew her to go to church.
They had six children ( one died in her first year ), ten grand children - I am number 4 but most importantly I am the first grandson. I lost touch with most of my cousins so I can't tell you how many great grand children they had but the count is around ten.
Great Grandpa died 3 months before I was born and Grandpa was already 61 but he still woke before daylight, had his milking and feeding done and was eating breakfast when the sun rose in the east. Although he at one time drove a truck for the Gallatin Creamery, he was a farmer when I came along. He raised tobacco, corn and other crops, he plowed his fields walking behind a plow pulled by a team of mules. He was a fearless man who walked among his animals speaking softly to calm them . He was slender, actually skinny, I would be surprised if he weighed 150 lbs . He wore bib overalls and kept a leather coin purse in the bib pocket, a pocket knife, corn cob pipe and pouch of tobacco were hidden in other pockets. Relaxation to him seemed to be puffing on his pipe and overlooking his surroundings or reading his bible. Farming life was hard when you were not mechanized, but he never seemed to complain even though he had a double hernia. When he died, I remember seeing him in his coffin, calm and peaceful like he normally was, his hair jet black with just a little grey around the temples.
Granny, as I said before, was the opposite - gray haired, stooped a little from the work she had to do the old fashion way. She was a worrier and though she was never sick she was always complaining about being sick. She cooked on a wood stove (warm in the winter, hot in the summer), laundry was done by hand after buckets of water were hauled from the well or dipped out of rain barrels and heated on the wood stove. Clothes had to be scrubbed by rubbing them back and forth on a washboard, then the water was wrung out by hand twisting the clothing tightly and finally they were hung on a clothes line somewhere in the yard to dry. No wonder Saturday was considered wash day, no woman in her right mind wanted to wash several times a week.
Mom was pregnant with my little brother Pat before I was crawling, my birthing took a toll on her so she was sick a good bit. I am told that I was farmed out at an early age to whoever would take me and that was my Aunt Addie / Uncle Harold or Granny and Grandpa Riggan. Aunt Addie used to tell everyone that my first word was " Harold ". Dad was on the Great Lakes working and Uncle Harold was the man in my life.
Getting back to the story - from a very early age I spent a lot of time at the farm, mostly in the summertime up until I was about 12. I enjoyed my time with my grandparents. Granny was always worried that I would get hurt wondering off on my own but Grandpa would let me tag along wherever he went. The people in two counties knew me as Mr. Howard's Grandson - some of them even knew my name.
I had many adventures on the farm and got into my share of trouble. My imagination would run wild and I could see bands of wild Indians coming over the hill and behind every tree. I was allowed to explore the farm by myself. I roamed the fields, swung on low hanging tree branches and drank the sweetest water from a stream. I would dig fishing worms out by the pig wallow beside the barn and Grandpa would let me fish while he plowed the field by the lake. This made Granny a nervous wreck as she knew if I fell in and screamed for help I would die because Grandpa was deaf. Grandpa would tell Granny to "hush, the boy will be all right". The water was only about 6 inches deep and I never did fall in but that didn't stop Granny from worrying.
At least twice a month Grandpa would spend part of his Saturday taking Granny to a doctor in either Lebanon or Gallatin. Rumor has it that she had been a patient of every doctor in two counties. She would go to one doctor until she felt that he was doing nothing for her, then she would change doctors and rave about how much better she felt. It wouldn't be long before she was ready to change again. I once overheard Mom and one of my Aunts talking - my Aunt told Mom that most of the pills Granny had were placebos. Candy or not, Granny would down the pills and tell everyone how much better they made her feel.
Granny had a hobby - she liked to gossip which was kinda hard to do as there were no close neighbors, but thanks to the invention of the telephone that was no problem. Rural phones in the 1950's were on a party line system. In Granny's case they had to share the phone line with two or three other families, each having a certain ring to tell them who the call was for. Granny would listen for the phone to ring and after it had been answered she would pick up the phone with her hand over the receiver and she would listen in on the conversation. After a while one of the parties on the other end of the line would somehow determine that someone was listening in on their conversation and Granny would hurriedly put the phone down. Of course, any information she gathered would be passed on to Grandpa at the dinner table (guess talking hogs, mules and tobacco would carry a dinner conversation just so far).
Granny also liked to keep in touch with family by writing letters and post cards. She would leave change in the mailbox and the postman would leave penny post cards and two cent stamps. I remember when I was in Vietnam, Granny wrote me a few letters. The cursive scrawl of her writing was hard to read and a lot of the news she told me about meant little but it was good to hear from her. I think my letters meant more to her.
They lived in an old frame house with a rusting tin roof, the foundation consisted of large rocks placed under the corners and at center points in between. Any paint or whitewash had long ago worn away, the clapboard siding was a weathered grey color. There were four rooms and a front porch. The front room was large and I guess could be considered the parlor although there was a bed in it, Granny used the room for her quilting bees. Another room was small and used for storage, it was filled with old pictures and boxes of memories, it was a small room to have to hold a lifetime of memories and keepsakes. The main room was the largest and it served as the living room and bedroom. During the winter it was very crowded when the whole family came to visit. There was a coal-fired fireplace for heat and later on a potbellied stove was installed. You could stand next to the stove and feel the heat thru your jeans, you would have to move but you couldn't sit because the jean s were too hot.
The kitchen ran across the back of the house, long and narrow. In the wintertime the wood burning stove would put off heat for warmth and there was usually an aroma of something cooking. There was no insulation in the house so in the wintertime only the kitchen and living room were used. Surprisingly, in the summer it was fairly cool in the whole house because the ceilings were at least nine feet tall, with the tin roof it would get loud when a rainstorm blew over. The steps were large rectangular shaped stones worn smooth by all of the feet that had stepped on them over the years. You learned quick not to use the steps during and after a rain they added a whole new meaning to " slippery when wet ".
The rest of the farm consisted of a small barn with a hay loft and milking stalls, a flooded root cellar / feed bin, a chicken coop and a two hole out house which was periodically moved to a different location - preferably not to close to the well head. Chickens roamed the yard and left squishy piles of poop that would ooze up between your toes when stepped on. Ol' Shep was a collie dog who would lay under the house when not following Grandpa around. Out in the paddock there were two or three cows, two mules and 10 or 12 pigs and chickens everywhere.
With Grandpa, I could do no wrong and no harm would come to me. This is not to say that I was angelic in any form, just that first born grandsons were given a lot of leeway. When I was still in diapers I wanted to play with the baby pigs and was bitten by their mother for my troubles, I think Grandpa was feasting on fresh pork the next day (I still carry the 3/4 in. scar on my hand). I once played with matches and set a large field afire, about two acres or more burned before Granny and Grandpa beat it out with wet feed sacks. I was usually the instigator into some form of mischief which would get myself , brother Pat and sometimes cousin Charlie into trouble.
Wherever Grandpa went, I usually went along for the ride whether it was to the store or out to the fields. Going to the fields would mean various forms of transportation, riding a wagon was OK, although bone jarring, or standing next to Grandpa on a log sled pulled by mules was a lot of fun. Grandpa always had two mules and they were called Kit and Doc, I don't know the life span of mules but every mule he owned was named Kit or Doc. Riding a mule bareback was another thing all together, sitting on the backbone of a mule was comparable to straddling a 2 x 4 down a bumpy road. Once as Grandpa was finishing plowing for the day he put me astride one of the mules and I insisted that I could handle the reins even though I had no idea what to do, but Grandpa let me have at it and by the time he chased me and the mule down we had destroyed a big bunch of young corn stalks.
Another member of the family was Ol' Shep, a Collie dog that followed Grandpa everywhere. Shep was an outside dog, in the summertime he slept in the cool air under the house, I can only assume that he slept in the barn during the winter. I don't remember that Grandpa fed Shep - table scraps usually went to the pigs, but ol' Shep could run down rabbits for his supper and on one occasion I saw him tackle a large groundhog, Grandpa and I watched the fight for a few minutes and then went on our way, Shep could take care of himself. He once disappeared for a few days and when he returned he was missing a hind leg, seems he got tangled up in some barbwire or in a trap and probably had to gnaw the leg off. Having three legs didn't slow down Shep he just developed a different gait and carried on. I think having only one hind leg was an advantage for chasing rabbits as he could make sharper turns. One day when we came to visit Shep was gone. I don't know for sure what happened, I just know he died and Grandpa had no one to follow him to the fields. I refer to Shep as a male dog but I honestly don't remember what sex Shep was.
Grandpa would never miss church. Sunday was the Lord's day, the most work to be done was to feed the animals and milk the cows. By early morning he was dressed in his Sunday go to meeting suit, wearing his Sunday fedora hat and he was off to Sunday school. He was an elder of the church. The church stills stands today although the congregation meets in the new building next door. The sermons were hellfire and brimstone. If you sinned during the week now was the time to repent. There was a lot of " oh bless you brother" and "Amen-ing " going on in that church and somebody was repenting every Sunday morning. Granny was a God-fearing woman although she never went to church that I knew of. She stayed home and read her bible and prepared the noon meal for all of the family that was coming to visit.
I had some of the happiest times on the farm, whether it was walking behind Grandpa picking up worms as he plowed the fields or shelling beans with Granny on a rainy afternoon. There was a feeling of pride being Mr. Howard's grandson and a feeling of love in Grannies eyes when I had to leave.
I never saw my Grandpa riled up or get in a hurry. His pace was firm and steady. His demeanor was quiet and laid back. Granny was forever the worrier even when she was snapping beans for canning she seemed to have something on her mind that was troubling her.
Grandpa sold the farm and it eventually became a part of the Boy Scouts Camp Boxwell Reservation. The man who had toiled hard all his life now had days of leisure, his faith and Granny to comfort him. When I turned 13 my summers and weekends were spent working in a grocery store with Dad. We didn't visit as often as we used to, the families were getting older and the grand kids had different interest. One day in Sept.1963, Grandpa mowed what little grass he had and came in feeling a little tired so he laid down to take a nap. As far as I know he never woke up, he was 77 years old. I like to think it was a fitting end to a hard life to have lingered in pain and suffering would have been an insult to his life and his faith. The story of how Grandpa died is my recollection, just a few years ago I was told by a cousin that Grandpa did pass out in the yard and Granny found him sometime later and there was some animosity towards her. The truth is long lost in the past and at this point I prefer my version.
I remember his funeral was well attended by friends and family. My Grandpa was a well thought of man. He laid there in his casket with calm, laid back features on his face, his black hair neatly combed and only a slight inkling of gray at the temples. Granny was comforted by friends and family but still had a worried look on her face. The man who had taken care of her for 53 years was gone. What was she going to do?
Granny was taken in by the family mostly she lived with her daughter Francis in Lebanon. Every now and then she would go for a visit and stay with one of the other kids but never for long, although they all loved their mother she was rather difficult to get along with. I think it was hard for her to just sit and do nothing, but that was what she was required to do. She was old and in the way. The dutiful daughter, Aunt Francis, seemed to be the only one able to spend the time with her.
After I got out of the Navy and returned home, Linda and I would visit my relatives. When we visited Granny and Aunt Francis you could see the joy in Granny's eyes. She would regale Linda with stories of my youth and of happier times. Memories of the past were all she had to hold on to.
Granny was laid to rest next to Grandpa in 1972, nine years after his passing . She was never any sicker than at any other time I can remember but she still maintained her doctor visits and supply of pills.
Every now and then something will jog my memory cells and my mind will float back in time to some of the most wonderful and carefree times a kid could think of having. The past may be old fashioned, outdated, and even considered old school. But in this fast-paced world we live in today, having a past you want to hold on to is almost as good as having a time machine.
As an addendum there are pictures of Grandpa, his face was rugged, sharp featured, his skin (that that the sun touched) was tanned and often had a burned look after hours of plowing in the sun. Cousin Gayle claims the family has Cherokee blood coursing through our veins because Grandpa was a Cherokee Indian. I have looked at his pictures again and would say that she is right except that sister Vickie and brother Pat have both undergone DNA test and Native American does not show up anywhere.
