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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 149
Church. Hezekiah Lanier (grandfather of McKinley Jones) was pastor of the church that Arthur attended (Missionary Baptist). Arthur Jordan said: I remember Hezekiah Lanier preaching. He had a loose bench. He'd have his foot on that bench and be rocking that bench. We called his wife Ms. Lan, short for Lanier. I remember one day when there was a storm and the backwater came up. There were wagons in those days. Not too many cars. Hezekiah was trying to get up in the backwater. The water washed the bed off the wagon. He was down in the water hanging on the limb. Trees had washed across the creek. He couldn't get out of there. He saw me and said, “Good morning, thank God!” I said, “I'm going to get somebody to help you out of there.” And he said, “No, you just get down here and stay with me until this water goes down.” Arthur said his Aunt Gertrude Jordan married Hezekiah's nephew, Edward Lanier. Arthur went to church picnics at the Union Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church located on the west side of what is now Anderson Road, which is the same church McKinley Jones attended (see McKinley Jones interview). What Arthur remembered most about those picnics was the ice cream. He said: They had a freezer [hand turned ice cream freezer] and made ice cream. Every time I went there they were filling my bowl up. I thought there was nothing better in the world than ice cream. But I ate so much it made me sick. I don't eat it now. School. Arthur's father “paid some” on the rent of his sister Gertrude's house north of Huntsville. During the school year Arthur lived with her so he could go to Councill High. There were five of them in the house??"Gertrude and her husband and the kids. Councill High had grades 1 through 12. Folk Medicine. The researcher commented that people used to make some medicines of their own, and asked if Arthur could remember any his aunt made. Arthur replied: Momma gave me Caster Oil. She said you'd keep that down, but it came out. Daddy threatened me [said he had to take the Caster Oil], and then he'd say, “Want some Coke? Yeah, you want some.” He knew I liked Coke. He put Caster Oil in the Coke. It came out. They seemed to give it for anything. A bad cold, anything. It would grip you, make your stomach hurt. 149 - (4182)