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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 372
Corrine Harris Shovelton Corrine Harris Shovelton (born in 1928) is the daughter of Sam Harris Sr., the older sister of Sam Jr. Corrine said her mother met her father (Sam. Sr.) because her mother's brother was living at the home of J.B. Harris. They had no electricity on the Harris farm, and in their house they used oil lamps and kept kerosene heaters. They had a kerosene refrigerator. For water they went to her grandfather's house. Corrine said the gristmill was located between their house and her grandfather's house. The blacksmith shop was on the other side of her grandfather's house. It went down hill to shops and sheds. In the mid-1930s, it cost about $3.00 to get a “hand basket” of white shirts washed and ironed. A Black woman, “Aunt Betty Timmons,” came to do the washing. She came on washday and took the clothes down to Corrine's grandfather's house to wash. Aunt Betty boiled the white clothes. She moved away about five miles. We took the clothes to her at Joe Timmons' [house]. She was still doing our things when I went to college. The Jacobs lived near there. They were well-to-do [the Jacobs families were Black]. Mother [Jennie Harris] didn't know how to do anything, like ironing. She did most of the cooking. She had somebody to do the dish washing and cleaning. Uncle Jim [she thinks his last name was Tootleman], Aunt Betty's brother-in-law, watched the cooking. We had a big meal in the middle of the day. He always did dish washing. He was real patient. When we were little, we'd want to wash dishes, and he'd do them then put them in our pan. Aunt Millie was his wife's (Betty's) sister. She was kind of grumpy. Aunt Betty left us [died] a few years back. Corrine said her grandmother (wife of J.B. Harris) had a Black woman who came after breakfast, dinner, and supper [to clean up]. “We didn't call the noon meal ‘lunch.' You never heard it called that.” The woman also came on Sunday afternoons. Corrine remembered one time during the holidays: I was going from our house to the blacksmith shop. Cleo [her grandmother's maid] was trying to cut the head off a turkey. I didn't help her much. I was scared of turkeys. Grandmother Harris raised turkeys. They were running around. Grandmother could doctor them??"inoculate them. They had cows and horses, too. She described her grandfather, J.B. Harris, as being a witty man with dark busy eyebrows. She said he tried to help people do better. He was originally from around Chattanooga. He lived in the big house until about 1936. He died in 1938. Corrine 372 - (4405)