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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 28
It's a one-story house with a porch across the front. Sam and his wife live there with their sons and daughter Corrine. One of the sons is named Sam after his father. J.B. is getting older now, so Sam runs the farm [J.B. died in 1939]. There is always activity at the big house. Juanita and Millburn and their children live there, and J.B. and Martha's granddaughter, Ima Jean. When the TVA people came, they boarded with J.B. and Martha. TVA acquired about 200 acres of Harris property. Some of the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) people might have stayed there also.
Martha Harris keeps a bottle of quinine in the middle of the kitchen table, and everyone takes some every day to ward off malaria. Across the way, Sam's wife has a bottle of Grove's Chill Tonic, and she gives her children a dose of it every morning for the same purpose.
After TVA drained off some of the areas where mosquitoes breed, the problem wasn't quite as bad, but there are always mosquitoes, and if they are bad up here on the hill, you can imagine what it is like for the sharecroppers who live down in the bottomlands.
The Harris family always has plenty of food. They grow string beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, field peas, watermelon, and cantaloupe. They take cane they grow to Dave Barley for his mule driven press to crush and make molasses.
Juanita Lassiter makes what she says is a non-alcoholic brew from the sugar cane seeds that are obtained during the molasses-making process. She laughs and calls it “California beer,” but she doesn't explain why.
When she makes the beer, she puts the seed mush into a five-gallon churn with water and syrup. She works the churn and then leaves the concoction to ferment for a couple of days. Then she empties the churn and bottles up the beer. She says you can only make what you can drink, because if you leave it too long, it will explode. She says everybody makes it.
Jennie Harris (Sam's wife) does most of the cooking for her family, but she has “Uncle” Jim Toodleman to wash the dishes, and he helps by watching over the pots while the food is cooking.
The family always has their big meal in the middle of the day. They call the noon meal dinner. The meals are breakfast, dinner and supper (the term “lunch” is not used). Over in the big house, Martha Harris has a woman, Cleo, who comes in after each meal to clean up. She also comes on Sunday afternoons. If a turkey is to be had for a holiday dinner, it is also Cleo's job to cut its head off and prepare it for cooking.
Martha Harris raises the turkeys. They run around the yard, and Juanita is afraid of them. Martha Harris inoculates the turkeys herself when they need it.
Aunt Betty Timmons does the laundry for the Harris family. Sam's wife has never ironed and doesn't know how. Aunt Betty comes on washday and gets the clothes from Sam's wife and takes them down to the big house. She washes everyone's clothes there. Aunt Betty boils all the white clothes.
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