Hickory nuts and black walnuts fell soon after the leaves. Ma sent Lola, Luther, and me to pick up as many as we could. Ma sometimes went with us and filled her long apron with them. Hickory nuts shed their outside covering before we picked them up, but the walnuts still kept their green, rough skin. We stored them in a dry place until their skin turned brown. The green walnuts oozed a juice that stained your hands yellow-brown and was impossible to wash off.
My hands had stains all fall. I kept them in my lap as much as possible at school. Eventually, the dye faded, and by then, it was time to remove the brown outer skin from the walnuts so they could finish drying. The skin was tough. You needed a big rock to lay the nuts on and a hammer or another rock to pound the skin loose. The walnut fell out of the skin, revealing still another sharp, ridged shell which also had to be broken before the tasty meat appeared. It was a lot of hard work, but we knew how good they would taste in the winter.
—Florence Cope Bush “Dorie Woman of the Mountains”
I’ve found hard work does indeed make food taste better. What a joy it is to pull out a jar of tomatoes on a cold winters day and know we started the seedlings, tended the plants, harvested the tomatoes, and put them in a jar by the sweat of our brows.
Today’s Thankful November giveaway is a used copy of “Dorie Woman of the Mountains” written by Florence Cope Bush. Leave a comment on this post to be entered. *Giveaway ends November 6, 2022.
Last night’s video: Pumpkin Biscuits – The Perfect Taste for Fall of the Year.
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There is a lot of joy and satisfaction in growing and harvesting your own food. I grew up eating venison and fresh vegetables from the garden because it was the most economical way to live. It’s not always as economical nowadays but I enjoy having a garden and harvesting wild game. Canning and preserving food can be a lot of work but I find that the outcome is worth the effort. Thank you Tipper, for sharing another wonderful post!
This post reminded me of my childhood 🙂 What pecans are in the USA, walnuts are in Germany where I grew up. They (and hazelnuts) are used in almost every recipe that uses nuts. We had a walnut tree in the backyard and I know exactly how those stained hands look like 🙂 But it is worth the effort and the stains. Fresh walnuts are sooo yummy 🙂
Hey Tipper, This brings back memories as a child. We would get us a big rock or a chopping block. We had a rock ir hammer and go to town on em. I ate them like that. Didn’t wait till they dried. Aw it was good. Now we would get some and the squirrel’s get em. But that’s ok they have to eat to.
The book sounds good.
All this talk about picking out black walnuts has me longing for a slice
of Cousin Kate Alice’s Black Walnut Cake. She put a few slices of
Maraschino cherries in it to brighten it up, which seemed very exotic
for us. I hope I have her
recipe in one of my notebooks but have no black walnuts
here in Austin. Loved all the memories of stained hands from
the hulls recounted by your readers. Nothing to be ashamed of.
I enjoy the images and tasks the stories talk about to help me experience a time and place I have not lived.
David-Thank you! So glad you enjoy what we do 🙂
My husband’s grandmother use to make a hickory nut cake that everyone said was the best. I wanted so much to try my hand at making one and a friend happen to have some hickory nuts. well let me tell you trying to get the meat out of those nuts was a job. I now know where that saying comes from “hard as a Hickory Nut”. I was beginning to wonder if the cake was forth it but I prevailed and the cake turned out OK. I wish grandma was still with us to get pointers from her. It’s sad that we don’t pay more attention to the little things.
I love experimenting with natural dies in wool. I have many Cherokee river cane baskets. So, ive always wanted to worth with the black walnuts. When I lived in bryson city , the cherokee would come in with mason jars filled with black walnuts to sell this time of year. That’s when I really began to understand how much work went into a quart of walnuts. They were $20 then, don’t know what they are te now. Either way, it was a bargain and made the most delicious cakes, etc.
my neighbor said he would run over the nuts in the paved driveway with his car for his wife, who was a fan of them and loved the entire process of gathering and putting them up. He would go up and down the driveway cracking them for her.
Im sorry to say, he passed away recently in his 90s. They also had the most beautiful rhubarb and it came from a staring she got from her mother when she was young. I can’t even imagine how it was and what a unique variety it was.
I get long winded with you Tipper. You evoke memories and spark other stories for me. Thank you for that.
Tipper…this is the latest of any day I have read your Blog and all the comments, and I have to say WOW. I would love to hear what you have to say after reading our comments about you read and your comments….such an interesting bunch of listening and reading fans you have….I am in awe.
Glenda-I love all the comments! So much knowledge, wisdom, and memories-I’m thankful for it all 🙂
We were fortunate to have several black walnut trees lining the lane to the barn; a large hickory nut bearing tree was near the barn. When it rained, us young’uns spent lots of time in the crib cracking nuts. Black walnuts were so much easier to crack than hickory nuts; and still love black walnuts, today – even “store bought” ones. Hickory nuts had “too much try and not meat” in the nut to make them worth my time and effort’s. And having an “ol straight hair pin” was almost an essential tool when cracking them. Thanks for another enjoyable memory, Tipper!
Shud read“Not enough meat” in my comment.
Aw i do remember black walnuts. Several years ago i picked up some from our churchyard and put them into the ground close to home. Never came up. They are so hard to crack i don’t know how anybody gets much out of them. I remember as a kid telling my mom i would crack the walnuts if she would make a cake. I did & she did.
Hickory nuts – i remember they tasted good but haven’t seen one in decades. Also remember something called “scaly barks” similar to hickory nuts.
We had a walnut tree in Bethel NC where I grew up. Most of the walnuts fell in the gravel driveway at our house. Daddy would run the truck wheels back and forth over them to break the green shell off. Then we youngins would pick them up to dry. Wore gloves but still got stain on our hands! In the winter me and Mama would put on old iron between our legs and crack the walnuts on the iron with a hammer! Lots of work picking them out! But the memories are special! And the Black Walnut Cake was delicious ! I miss those days !
Gathering wild plums and blackberries, shelling peas and and beans for canning, picking out pecans for the Christmas fruitcake and pralines and much more. These are my memories from growing up in Northeast Louisiana. I’m a country girl at heart even though transported to a suburb in Texas. I loved listening to you read both “Dorie Woman of the Mountains” and “Mountain Path”. My ancestral roots are deep in both Pulaski County, Kentucky and Northeastern Tennessee.
About 50 years ago our neighbor cut down a big tree behind his house one spring. A little while later several boys came to me and showed me two little hairless flying squirrels in a coffee can. I knew the squirrels would not be alive long and talked the boys out of them. I knew just who to take them to. My brother Ed and his wife Linda were absolutely obsessed with wild life. At one time they had a pet coon they got as a baby. And they once had a groundhog named Sugar that was as tame as their cat. She actually made a den under their garage and one spring she came out onto their back porch with a litter of young. I remember watching them eating ice cream.
Anyway, I took the baby flying squirrels to them and they raised them, in the beginning getting up at all hours to feed them milk from a toy baby bottle. They had them about 6 years and my brother would drive a hundred miles every fall to my grandpa Shumans farm and pick up two or three huge bags of hickory nuts from a tree up behind grandpas house to feed them.
And if we were lucky enough to visit grandpa in the fall we would pick up bags of black walnuts from a few trees that he had on his 78 acres. Yeah, they were a lot of work but how I loved my moms black walnut fudge.
I would LOVE, L❤️VE, LOVE to own this book! I have listened to your reading of DORIE, WOMAN OF THE MOUNTAIN, at least twice.
When we were kids, we would go collect walnuts. I loved the cool, crisp, foggy mornings of fall. Us kids would see who could collect the most, who was the fastest. It was easier for us smaller ones, as we didn’t have as far to bend over.
Of course, just like Dorie explained, that was just the beginning. The hard work was still ahead.
We had a little dog named Tiny. She loved walnuts! We dried the walnuts in our basement. One day she found them and helped herself. She ate so many her hair started failing out! We had to hide the walnuts from her after that. Whenever she heard us cracking walnuts, she would beg, cry, and whine. It always made me feel so bad for her. Every once in awhile, I’d sneak her a little. I had to be careful not to give her too much, as I didn’t want to make her sick or have her hair fall out again.
Thank you, Tipper. I enjoy all of your content and learning about your neck of the woods.
This story reminds me of picking pecans in south Alabama. Brings backs many memories.
I remember shelling walnuts with my Mommy. It was a lot of work, and I never well forget the stains that it left on our hands.
Tipper or readers, have y’all ever heard of Citron Melons? My Mother told me about them this afternoon. She found some in a field as she walked home as a child. She thought they were water melons & tried to crack one open. Even after throwing it up in the air, it would not crack. She dragged 2 or 3 home in a cotton sack & her Mom made preserves out of them.
Yes I have, we had some that would come back each year as volunteers. Mother would make citron preserves out of the inside “meat”. I dearly loved them and her hot homemade biscuits. I have not saw any in years and have heard that even deer will not them. I would pay a pretty penny for some of those citron preserves like she made.
Cracking hickory nuts on the back porch with a hammer would keep my brothers and me out of Mama’s hair on cool fall afternoons after school let out. She’d get them from her cousins in Gaston county and would promise us a hickory nut cake if we cracked’em. Don’t remember if we ate a few while cracking them, but probably not ’cause we loved, loved, loved hickory nut cake! Had a hankerin’ for hickory nut cake a few years ago, but ya can’t find them any store that I know about in California. So I ordered a pound of nut meats from an online seller in NC. They were $30—and worth every penny. Made he best hickory nut cakes! Thanks for the memories… and now I’ve got an urge to go looking to buy some hickory nuts again.
Lots of good memories of gathering and shelling walnuts here in California.
I have many memories of picking up walnuts and shelling them in front of the warm fire, and I grew up in the Central Valley of California. At least some of the nuts in California grow on trees! Ha!
Our daddy died in July of 2014, but the fall and winter before he passed he picked up bushels of black walnuts and a large orange sack full of hickory nuts. He didn’t live long enough to get them all worked up, but he sure enjoyed the hunt for them. I surely enjoy all you share and the precious memories it brings to mind!
I just talked to my 96 yr old Mom & she said she would gather black walnuts, hickory nuts & scaly barks in the Fall. She loved the black walnuts & scaly barks-said the scaly barks were easier to crack than the hickory nuts & she loved the taste better. My Dad loved Black Walnuts, so my Mom would make him homemade Black Walnut Ice Cream.
When I was a child & visiting my Grandmother on her farm in the Fall, I would watch squirrels gather walnuts & hickory nuts. Knowing how hard it was to crack a hickory nut, I would ask my Grandmother how could the squirrels crack them. She would say, “ Oh they’ve got tough sharp teeth and why if they didn’t keep gnawing on hard things, their teeth would grow a foot long.” My Grandmother also told me folks needed to eat Black Walnuts because they would get rid of worms if you had them. Tipper & readers. have y’all ever heard of that remedy?
Cheryl-I have heard of that remedy 🙂
Cheryl I assume you are referring to intestinal worms. I don’t know about about walnuts and those worms but eating nuts is suppose to be good for you. I do know that I had what was called a ringworm on my neck when I was young and a green walnut was rub on it to cure it. Like someone else said, walnut stain stays on you forever it seems like . I remember my neck having the stain for what seemed to be a long time. I keep hoping someone will want some of these walnuts I have.
I would absolutely love to read that book
What is the difference between a shag bark hickory, scrub hickory, and mocker nut hickory? After reading through all the comments, I am only familiar with shag bark nuts, which I leave for the wildlife.
There are multiple differences in bark and leaf characteristics as well as the places they like best to grow in. If you want to track down the details, I suggest doing a search for “USDA Plants Database”. There you can search for each tree by its common name. A range map for each species will let you get a good idea if it grows where you live. Hope this helps.
Tipper, one thing I was taught growing up and I have shared this with many children and adults also is that a good book can take you all over the world without ever leaving home, whether it be a simple story about growing up in the country or living in a big city. For a lot of us older folks, the memories that come back to us from reading special may be all that we have especially if family has gone on. I can picture myself right now picking up black walnuts many years ago at my aunt’s house. Here in Johnston County, NC there just aren’t many black walnut trees around anymore. Several years ago, a lady that worked with my husband found out how much I love a black walnut pound cake so on my birthday to my surprise she made me one. I will never forget that. Have a blessed day everyone!!
I meant to say, from reading something special. And Tipper, I have to try those pumpkin biscuits. I know that they looked delicious!!
When we lived in Vermont, we had black walnuts. So much better than English walnuts. How well I remember trying to get the nutmeat out of those tough shells. The taste was unbelievably good.
I recognized the excerpt from “Dorie” right away! I just loved your reading of this book to us!! Thank you! I’m thankful for you, Tipper!
Tipper, I looked so forward to the “Dorie” story on Friday nights. Thank you for this wonderful trip into our rich history.
I do enjoy good walnuts! I’ve tried to crack them out of their shell when I was younger, however mine never came out in good half or whole pieces. People who can do that are skilled if you ask me, because it takes skill to get them walnuts out without breaking them in tiny pieces like I did.
I so enjoyed the book Dorie Woman of the Mountains, but I’ve also enjoyed the book about Alex and the book you are reading now, Tipper. Books of mountain people from the past inspires me, thank you for sharing the lives from the past to keep our Appalachia culture alive.
After watching squirrels crack and eat black walnuts or hickory nuts you learn real quick if you squirrel hunt not to pick up a squirrel until you know for sure they are dead. I know of some that learn this lesson the hard way. The squirrel latched onto their hand.
I always enjoy reading the excerpts from “Dorie Woman of the Mountains”. It gives me a good picture of the way my great grandmothers lived.
I’ve gathered a lot of walnuts in my life and still do when I can get into the woods. My favorite way to remove the hulls was to spread them out on a gravel road and let cars remove them for me. As a kid I went through the woods gathering them in burlap sacks and took the horse and sled later to collect the sacks. I sold some whole but most people wanted just the meat so I did a lot of cracking.
Tipper, my grandparents had a huge black walnut tree in their yard that grew and produced big black walnuts. We didn’t have to walk far to enjoy them. The Lord provides. One of my fondest memories is of my Grandma as she sat in the warm sun and patiently cracked out those walnuts. She had yard chickens that would sometimes bravely run up to snatch a morsel or two. That always added an element of surprise and fun for this little girl! Those chickens were something else! Haha. My Mama picked up black walnuts and made good use of them and we always had our traditional black walnut cake at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Until a person has gone through the entire process to get to the “goodie” they can’t understand how to appreciate black walnuts. My Mama planted a black walnut tree out at the edge of our backyard for our son 52 years ago. I’m going out to pick up the walnuts now and I’ll be thankful for my Appalachian Heritage and the memories and the work ethics that have been passed down to me. Thank you for sparking some more good memories. I truly appreciate you.
I felt like I could see this happening. Last year our black walnut tree was plum full, this year nary a one. Wonder why? We just moved to our house a couple of years ago, so we’re still learning the lay of our land.
This comment is for Randy in SC
I would love to pick up black walnuts.
If I can have your contact information I will plan to come. I live in Mauldin
One thing there’s aplenty of around here is Black English Walnut trees and walnuts! Once I decided to pick them up, clean them etc and my hands got stained for several months. Looking back, I could’ve used gloves—- durty dur… I ended up baking them after rolling them in sugar and chili powder. I gave them as gifts for Christmas and set them in candy dishes. All the folks who got them asked where I found them. I watched several munch and crunch before I believed them… I got hickory nuts and a lot of scrub hickory. They will literally bust your ankle and send you flying. In my future I see a big loan to have several of those scrub hickory trees took out… I have fell over the hill and coming out my door before so I got a dangerous situation here… I do know folks who gather black walnuts by the pickup truckload and sell them to buyers who sell them to walnut stain makers….
Right now as I write this I probably have several bushels of black walnuts laying on the ground in the edge of my yard. Too much work, nobody wants then, I can not give them away. I remember my grandparents sitting around an old coal/wood heater in their bedroom, one sitting on each side of heater cracking and picking out black walnuts during the winter time. Granddaddy would throw the hulls in the heater. They never owned a TV. Grandmother could make some good cakes, black walnut being one of my favorites. I spend a lot of time reading, I would enjoy reading either yesterday’s book or today’s book. I have looked into buying yesterday’s book online. These walnuts come from trees that have sprouted from trees that were on my grandparents home place. The last two days have brought back memories to me that are never far away. I find myself thinking more and more of the past as I get older. If anyone lives close to southern Greenville county, SC and wants these walnuts reply to me, the squirrels are enjoying them right now.
My daughter and son in law had a black walnut tree in their back yard. When I first met my son in laws mom, she showed me jar after jar after jar of black walnuts she had put up. She asked if I would like to crack some and I’m telling you that was a lot of work hammering those hard shells!! She gave me several jars for my own baking and when I used them, I was reminded of the hard work getting the walnut out of the shell and appreciated them more in my cookies and fudge!!
When my sister and I were little there was an older lady that attended the same church we did whose by name was Marcella. She absolutely loved hickory nuts! She was physically and developmentally challenged and was always about 7 years old all of her life. We would pick up hickory nuts from the trees that grew on our property and give her a bag full every year. Marcella was always thrilled to get them and would spend the days cracking the nuts to eat. When I look back I’m glad that we were able to make this person happy and feel loved!
Tipper, When I was growing up, we always had a Smith Family (my father’s family) reunion in N. Georgia. It was always at my Great Aunt’s – Drucilla – house. We called her Drucie. The men would put up tables with saw horses and we would spread the food. Those walnut trees were in the yard close to the edge near the pasture. I had an aunt who would always pick up grocery sacks full. We usually had a least 1 pound cake with the black walnuts in it. My mother’s sister would also make a rum cake with the black walnuts. Brings back memories of long ago. I love listening to your readings on Fridays. You always make the books come alive.
Oh Tipper, what a generous heart you have to give away “Dorie Woman of the Mountains”. When you started reading it I just couldn’t wait and had to run to the library and get the book. I was just thinking the other day that I wanted to read it again with the cooler days coming. My dad used to lay the green walnuts in the drive and drive over them to break the green hulls off. I remember the awful stains on our hands and I hated their smell but they sure tasted good in fudge.
Tipper,
I look forward to your posts each day. It brings back precious memories of my growing up on a cotton farm in the hills of Alabama.
we dont do them quite like they did in the book, but we still gather and crack hickory and black walnuts. we live in an area where there are an abundance of black walnut trees. most people dont fool with them, but we do. the cracked nuts store in the freezer quite well. I put them in most any recipe that calls for nuts. i would enjoy reading the book. thanks for the chance to win.
So many memories today. We also picked up the black walnuts and put them in the driveway and ran over them with the truck or tractor to get the first layer off. I remember the stains on our hands well. But all this work was well worth it when you ate a slice of black walnut pound cake, especially if it was still warm out of the oven!
I used to go every day after school when I was in grade school to gather walnuts, it would be dark by the time I made it home, wold then pour them out in the driveway and Dad would run over them when he came home and after they dried out I would pick them up and put them in burlap bags so I could take them to sell them.
I love black walnuts on my oatmeal and in homemade fudge – the kind made with Hershey’s cocoa on top of the stove.
Cracking out black walnuts is a dying art; I don’t know many who still do it, and I don’t know anyone at all around here who does hickory nuts. Come to think of it, I don’t think I have ever eaten one.
Oh that was a great story! I would like to read that to my mom! I enjoyed you reading it so much.
Growing up, we had several black walnut trees on our farm in Missouri. My sister and I picked them up and sold them for Christmas money. It’s a hard job to pick out the nut meats, but worth the effort. Mom would use them in various baked goods, and I still love their unique flavor.
Every time you share excerpts from Dorie’book, I am amazed!
my mother and father – in – law always collected black hickory nuts every fall and beat them with a hammer to free the delicious nuts.
I won the book Dorie Woman of the Mountain when you gave it away previously. Two weeks ago a friend and I picked up bags of hickory nuts. We have tried to use a hammer to crack them but the shells are very hard. Someone said we might have to use a vise. This is the first time I have had hickory nuts in a long time and I don’t remember the shells ever being this hard to crack. They are from a shag bark hickory tree. Thank you for writing your blog each morning.
“WALNUTS”..brings back memories of black walnut divinity. Yum! For my 87 year old husband, last of ten children and living on a farm in middle TN, it brings back memories of a way he make money for his personal needs. I had a huge walnut table made from the walnut trees from my ancestral home. I love to see my family sitting there at Thanksgiving…and the memories of the farm that the “table” came from.
We would lay out the green black walnuts in our gravel driveway and let them dry and then run the car back and forth over them to remove the husks. Many Saturdays were spent tapping the dried nut shells with a hammer and picking nut meat.
Richard
Oh how I enjoyed your reading of “Dorie Woman of the Mountains”.Could hardly wait for Friday evenings. Remember picking up both hickory and black walnuts. Don’t know which was the hardest, cleaning the black walnuts or cracking them. What was such a chore back then, I’d give anything to be able to do today. The rewards were always worth it when smell of black walnuts brown sugar pound cake and black walnuts fudge filled the house.
Makes me want a black walnut pound cake!
Brings back childhood memories of gathering and cracking black walnuts. Oh and the cakes that were made with them!
I would enjoy reading the book.
Where I grew up black walnut trees were very rare in the wild. To find one on the ridges always meant an old house place. We had to go hunt them up come fall but I always enjoyed those fall gathering trips, still do. In my lifetime, Dad and Mom planted some at the old place and once more they mark a house place.
We didn’t have a hickory with the big nuts. Closest kind we had was mockernut but they were about 80% shell and very tough. There was a hickory with a thin shell but the nut meat was bitter so its name is “bitternut”.
I just picked up about a bushel of black walnuts. I am waiting for the rain to stop so I can spread them in the driveway and run them over with the car. Ha,ha That is the way my parents always removed the outer shells. Nothing tastes better to me in chocolate fudge, pumpkin bread or banana bread than black walnuts.
That’s the way we used to do it, too! We had a black walnut tree that dropped nuts on the driveway. Dad would spread an old tarp to gather up the nuts and then run over them with the car. It was a job picking the meat out, but black walnuts are definitely a taste of fall for me.
We had 2 walnut trees in our yard. I can readily relate to Ms Bush’s walnut experiences!
My grandma lived in our small midwest college town while we were just off campus to the west. She walked the sidewalks & streets, collecting the green encased walnuts and spread them out to dry on the pavement in her yard.
I loved the black walnuts which was used in lemon curd cake topping.
My mother & dad would take Sunday drives with large paperbags as leaves changed colors. They knew where the regular walnuts grew at the roadside and being country roads, very little traffic and we would all hop out and gather up as many as possible. My mother would make a roast at Thanksgiving time using the heart-healthy bounty of free Omega-3s.
When we (husband, mother-in-law, & my 2 younguns) left the big city in 1980, that first fall was kinda lean. Just a block from where my sister later lived, I spotted a huge tree & asked him to pull over. It turned out to be an ancient pecan tree on an empty block. Beneath were thousands of pecans! I only gathered a few pounds which supplied 2 holiday dinners of nut based roasts.
Sad to say, that crop was the last one…because the tree was literally on its last hurray.
There’s just something special about a holiday meal that has been gleaned in part from the wild.
One of my favorite memories is about the time my older sister and I took a walk in the woods in late fall. We found a walnut tree with walnuts on the ground, many of them already out of their shell. My very wise sister found two rocks and used them to break some of the walnuts. She took a bobby pin from her hair and used it to dig out the nut meat. We had a mini picnic there in the woods that day! Love your blog.
Black walnuts!!!! Lots of work to crack those!!! Daddy and my uncle used a hammer. A neighbor down the road bags them up and drives his tractor tires over them. However they are extracted, there’s nothing like black walnut in cakes and cookies
We hauled a box of black gold ( Walnuts! ) home in the fall from the Missouri Ozarks where my kin were and the single most satisfying memory I carry of my mother is setting a few nuts on the window ledge outside of the covered porch and watching for the squirrels to scurry up and fidget with them. As an adult my love of their rich meats in homebuilt fudge drives my industrious streak in the kitchen each season. As a young woman the colored hands were a nuisance I learned to keep in my lap at church while holding onto a pretty hankie.
Loved the beginning of this book, during your ‘readings’…but alas, I got too busy with farming/gardening & didn’t quite finish it out to the end. Would love a copy! I collect butternuts & they are a “tough nut to crack” and leave your fingers hurting from picking out the meats. I have to use my husband’s bench vise to crack them. I think about all of the tenement children that did piece work at home to help their immigrant families survive. Picking nut meats was one way to earn money at home. I think of their poor fingers and how easy our kids have it today. Certainly something to be thankful for!
Many years ago, 43 actually , we had a wonderful lady in our church whom we loved dearly. she was a widow before we met her and had no children. She took us in as her family and treated us like her own. My husband was a young pastor at her church. She had many hours of time by herself but she used this time helping others. She baby sat for us when our daughter was small, cooked special meals for us but I think the black walnuts she cracked and picked out for us showed just how much she loved us. Anyone who would spend that much time and effort for someone is special. We will never forget Mrs. Burrell ♡
Your words are beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
With hard work comes a since of accomplishment and pride, a appreciation. I love the vivid description Florence offers, made me smile as I read it.
Living in east central Indian, we have a lot of black walnut trees. My mother-in-law always had us gather them and lay them in her driveway. We ran over them until the outer shell was gone then collected them in a wheelbarrow. She had a couple of old irons that you heated to iron your clothes and we would sit out in the sunshine at the picnic table and crack the walnuts open with them! Lots of work but so worth it!
Living with several pecan trees around us, we usually opted for them instead of walnuts or hickory nuts. I love nuts.
I grew up on a cotton farm in AL with both pecan and walnut trees. I loved both but you’re right, the pecans were much easier to harvest. I absolutely love black walnuts and have wonderful memories of trying to open them for their wonderful kernels.
Fred one of the worse whippings I ever had was in a cotton field. Around my area of SC in the 50’s and early 60’s small time farmers still picked their cotton by hand and would hire neighborhood people to help them and pay them something like $3 for a hundred pounds. It would take nearly all day for a lot of us to pick that much. I was young and mother kept fussing at me for not wanting to work, I thought I would be smart and put a rock in my sack and when it was weigh up time and my cotton was poured out on the sheet the rock was sitting right on top of the cotton, mother reached around and pulled up a dry cotton stalk and wore my butt out. Like was said yesterday, those good memories of the past even when working like this, knocking off and eating whatever you had brought for dinner (lunch) while sitting under a shade tree with the other workers. For some that may not know picking in high cotton meant you didn’t have to bend down or get on your knees to pick the cotton.
This reminds me of when I was growing up in the 1950’s and we would go deep into the woods to a large hickory tree to pick up hickory nuts. This tree had large nuts that were easier to crack. Then we would sit by the wood stove and crack them on a piece of wood with a hammer.
I never knew anyone that worked as hard as my grandmother did! As far as I could tell from family stories she had always worked hard. As a young woman she and a friend walked from her home to the river, a distance of 8 or 9 miles. These two women took big feed sacks with them and picked creases from the fields to fill their sacks then carry the full sacks back home full. These greens she cleaned and canned for the family to eat through the winter.
This is just one example of the work she did on a daily basis.
I think of her when we are reading these books on life in the mountains, it was not an easy life!
I remember my grandfather saying, “Hard work never hurt nobody.” I love my October beans and cornbread through the winter.
Tipper,
Florence Cope Bush’s “Dorie Woman of the Mountains” excerpt brought back many “growing up” memories. Paints a vivid “mind picture” of the same thing we experienced here in Upper Northeast Tennessee.