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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 315

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Luci Turner canned fruits and vegetables and, after the hogs were butchered, she canned. sausages. Some of the sausage meat was smoked in bags. Gene couldn't remember how she did the bags, but he said they were “flattened down.” As was common in that day, Luci Turner had a big iron pot outside. She used it for rendering fat when the hogs were butchered. She also made lye soap in the pot. Farming. Gene Neal did not recall who owned the bottomland that his grandfather rented for him and his brothers to work; but he gave directions to it, going south from the store toward the river. Lucinda (“Luci”) Turner. Gene said: The bottomland we worked was on the right side as you went south toward the river. We turned in to the right on a road to the field. There was a pond along that road. We used to back the wagons off in the pond to let the wheels swell up. [Why did you want the wagon wheels to swell up?] So the wheel would hold the track [a steel band] on. The wheels were wood and they would shrink when the wood dried up. The tracks would come off if you didn't keep the wheels swelled up. [What did you do about meals?] Sometimes we'd cook them down there, and sometimes somebody would bring us food. Sometimes we camped out down there. We'd sleep on the ground sometimes and sometimes in the wagon. Wherever we passed out [because we were so tired]. School. Gene and his brothers went to Farley School. The school bus came by their house. Gene said the bus was a Dodge with a wooden body and canvas roll-up windows. Duncan Woodward said the bus was a Ford; however, Duncan was speaking of the first school bus that he ever rode, so the Dodge may have come after the Ford. Gene's first grade teacher was Lilly Gardner. 315 - (4348)    

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