Memories of Ida (Traylor) Barber as told to her granddaughter Karen Sue (Barber) St. John in 1978 (Karen St. John to John Clement, 3 May 2003).

With twelve brothers and sisters, I grew up in a three room house. In spite of the cramped quarters, I remember mother always singing. When we misbehaved, we were whipped with the cistern strap. Pigs were allowed to run under the house; so it was a regular chore to clean up under there (ibid).

The family picked berries, raised vegetables and made butter which we sold to regular customers. We also had bees for honey out behind the house (ibid).

My husband to be, Owen Barber, was around as long as I can remember. We both attended Swann School. We became well acquainted during a play at school; that is when he started to "come to call" at home. We both attended Swann for eight years, he went on to finish three years of high school (ibid).

Getting to church was near impossible due to bad transportation. But we did hold Sunday school at Swann School in the summertime. Many of the neighbors gathered there on Sunday evenings to visit, eat and play ball. Two of my best friends, both first cousins, were Edith Swann and Della Traylor (ibid).

Owen and I were married at the home of my parents. Mostly family attended; there wasn't much room in the house. Cake and ice cream was served (ibid).

For the first year of our marriage, we lived with my parents-in-law. Then we moved to a two room house and stayed there until after Hazel, our ninth child, was born. From there we moved to a four room house on Highbanks Road (ibid).

All my babies were born at home with a doctor attending. We could always count on a relative or friend to help. Once I had five children sick with the whooping cough at the same time. In fact, we lost Lillian to whooping cough at age three. Donald died at age one with diarrhea, and Helen lived a few short months with heart trouble (ibid).

I had to make clothing for all the children; and washed the laundry daily with homemade lye soap (ibid).

There were get-togethers and contests at the race track. Owen would ride race horses at times. In one contest, I won an apron for the loaf of bread I made. In those days, we had to make our own yeast from hops (ibid).

There was always a gang of kids in to visit us. We harvested ice from the pond to make ice cream. Apples were brought out from the cellar. Pop corn was enjoyed and we made pop corn balls. We raised sugar cane to make sweets, and taffy was a favorite (ibid).