Exceptional experiences sometimes burst out of ordinary life and leave a story behind. \u00a0When older ones tell their stories, a window opens to a vanished world, and we get to peek through it with someone who walked there. \u00a0Lula Byrd Renfroe Fraker, my great-grandmother, was born in 1882 and lived 107 years. \u00a0On long car rides down to Jekyll Island, I got to hear many of her stories. \u00a0I wish I had asked for more!<\/p>\n

Byrd was the eighth child, and seventh daughter of Henderson and Nancy Renfroe. \u00a0She was born in a log cabin in a day of tough, uncomplaining self-reliance. \u00a0Pa wrestled a plow behind a mule to break up red clay, then he planted, hoed, and harvested the food they ate- or he raised and butchered it. \u00a0Ma milked, churned, gathered, preserved, and cooked over the fire- stoked by logs Pa had split. \u00a0She sewed all the clothes (and often sheared, washed, carded, spun, wove, and dyed the fabric first). \u00a0Then she pieced quilts from the scraps. \u00a0Older children helped, and looked after younger children, with the aid of a good dog, while Pa and Ma labored to keep everyone fed, clothed, and trained up in righteousness. \u00a0These were days when waste and idleness were reckoned as sin.<\/p>\n

Byrd’s sister Zora Celeste, or\u00a0Zoe,\u00a0<\/em>was two years older, and they were a pair. Sometimes Pa sent them to mind cows in the bottoms. \u00a0Sometimes they helped in the house or garden. \u00a0Sometimes they played with their dolls. \u00a0Byrd’s doll had a china head that Pa had bought for five cents, and a cloth body that Ma had sewed and stuffed. \u00a0They walked to a one-room schoolhouse, when classes met.<\/p>\n

Farm life followed a pattern – six days of labor and a Sabbath rest- when the family, scrubbed from a Saturday night bath, piled in the wagon and drove to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, a hub of community life. \u00a0Evenings, they sat on the porch or by the fire as Pa smoked a corn cob pipe and told\u00a0his\u00a0<\/em>stories, and they listened as Ma read the Bible. \u00a0When darkness fell, the children climbed into the loft and fell asleep- but not the night Aunt Ann arrived from Texas. \u00a0Nobody slept that night.<\/p>\n

Pa had taken the wagon to fetch Ma’s sister from the train station earlier that afternoon. \u00a0While he waited, heavy black clouds rolled in. \u00a0When the train arrived, late, Pa loaded up the passenger, a bit unsteady from long traveling- and her bags. \u00a0He hurried off, but before they passed the outskirts of town, a pouring rain set in. \u00a0Deep streams of red mud filled the ruts, and Pa struggled to keep the wagon in the darkening road. \u00a0His sister-in-law, on the seat beside him, evidently kept herself warm in a different way.<\/p>\n

Long after dark, the Renfroe’s cabin door banged open and Ann Stone blew in. \u00a0Fashionable clothes dripping, showy black hat with red feathers askew, teetering on the threshold, Ann was a sight- as unlike her gentle sister Nancy as anyone could be. \u00a0Pa drove the horses into the barn and stayed there himself. \u00a0It was a good decision.<\/p>\n

Ann, in her mid-forties, had been married a shocking three times and had thirty thousand dollars on her, tucked here and there and sewn into her petticoats. \u00a0Where she got that kind of money in 1890, nobody knew; and nobody asked, either- (or at least Byrd never found out). \u00a0Ann swayed in the doorway and Nancy rushed to get her sister inside before she keeled over, unconscious.<\/p>\n

Nancy hoped to get Ann settled before the children woke up and saw her in such a state. \u00a0Changed into a clean, dry nightgown, tucked under a quilt next to her sister in the big bed, revived, but not much sobered by a cup of black coffee, Ann started singing. \u00a0So much for Nancy’s hopes and whispered pleas for quiet. \u00a0Byrd, Zoe, the other girls, and little Thomas, now wide awake, knowing nothing about\u00a0strong drink,<\/em> could not imagine what was wrong with this strange relative from far away, but they wished she would hush. \u00a0Ann sang until the night was mostly gone- then she slept until the morning was mostly gone and the family had been hard at work for hours. \u00a0As days passed, everyone learned that Aunt Ann had a good appetite and talked a lot, but wasn’t too handy around the farm.<\/p>\n

One day, while Nancy and Ann were out for the afternoon, Byrd and Zoe discovered Ann’s snuff box. \u00a0The more they tried to ignore it, the more curious they became. First they looked at it. \u00a0Next they touched it. \u00a0Then they opened it. \u00a0The sisters knew of women who used snuff, but Ma didn’t think it befit a lady. \u00a0The girls looked at the forbidden snuff, and then at each other, wondering. \u00a0They agreed that with Ma away and the cabin empty, nobody would ever know if they tried a pinch. \u00a0I don’t know if they dipped or sniffed, but the effect was unexpected disaster. \u00a0Snuff spilled all over the floor. \u00a0Although they managed to sweep the evidence under the bed, Byrd and Zoe were so sick when their mother returned, there was no doubt what they had been into. \u00a0Ann thought it hilarious. Nancy did not.<\/p>\n

When Ann’s visit ended, she took her snuff box and every penny of her thirty thousand dollars. \u00a0To thank her sister for her trouble, Ann left her stylish, though now weather-beaten, red-feathered hat for Nancy to wear.<\/p>\n

I know what happened to Nancy. \u00a0Widowed and blind in her later years, she lived to the age of eighty, satisfied with her life and looking forward to the coming kingdom, beloved and tenderly cared for by her children and grandchildren. \u00a0I can merely wonder what happened to Ann Stone, a gaudy, mysterious, wild bird in the family tree. \u00a0She flew back to Texas, I suppose, where I hope she eventually came to a good end. \u00a0How I would have liked to hear the stories of these two sisters who were raised on the same big farm in Monticello, Georgia, but whose girlhoods and expectations were upended by war. \u00a0They doubtless loved one another, but took divergent paths in the smoking ruins of their young lives, and had little regard for the world the other built.<\/p>\n

Almost a century later, Byrd would relate a child’s understanding of her aunt’s memorable visit, ending her story with a smile. \u00a0“I never wanted snuff again…and Ma never did wear that ugly old hat.”<\/p>\n

<\/a>The Renfroes- 1907. \u00a0Byrd and Zoe are next to each other in the second row, far left. \u00a0Byrd is holding her baby. \u00a0Their husbands (who were brothers) are standing behind them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Exceptional experiences sometimes burst out of ordinary life and leave a story behind. \u00a0When older ones tell their stories, a window opens to a vanished world, and we get to peek through it with someone who walked there. \u00a0Lula Byrd Renfroe Fraker, my great-grandmother, was born in 1882 and lived 107 years. \u00a0On long car … Continue reading Aunt Ann’s Snuff Box<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-firesidestories"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=150"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":352,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150\/revisions\/352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alluphill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}