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- Memories of Dr. Franklin Lowe: "Farm life was strenuous, but made for solid, substantial citizens. One night our home burned, the fire apparently starting in the summer kitchen. I was about five years old at the time and I'm told I was very stubborn, as it was with diffucultiy that they managed to get me out through the bedroom window; only by holding me could they keep me from running back into the house, as I wanted to go to bed. The fire demolished everything, except the smokehouse. With real pioneer spirit, the smokehouse was remodeled, rooms added and we again had a home. Remains of this building still stand, in 1975. Harvest life was strenuous, going six miles round trip, twice a day, with a horse-drawn wagon fitted out with water barrels to get enough water for the work hourses. It took a six-hourse team to plow a 24-foot strip of land. We seeded, using a two-wheel cart with a chain to the sowing machine, feeding the grain out of a hopper, sowing 30 to 40 pounds to the acres. In order to space the rows, a boy roade a horse with a guideline to one of the cart's horses, spacing the rows by using the last row seeded as the guide. The seed was covered by harrow or cultivator. On the fun side, a Sunday activity of the boys was to collect bird eggs, even to going down ropes suspended from cliff tops to rob the lightening striker's nests. Taking the eggs home, we would blow and string them to hang in festoons from our bedroom ceilings -- hundreds of them. We had many happy get-togethers with our neighbors, and also th emany relatives who lived nearby, including Grandpa and Grandma Jones. Grandma Jones was a midwife, and she and a neighbor, Mrs. Young, delivered many babies herabouts. Other relatives in the area were the Works, Heatons, Morehouses, Halters, and the Dittemores."
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