Brickhouse Family
Newsletter – March 2007
Greetings
Brickhouse Family and a Happy New Year to all! I am sorry it has taken so
long for me to get this newsletter out but if I tell you that I am typing this
with a new born baby on my shoulder you will see why I have had difficulty even
getting started.
From what I have been told the Brickhouse Family Reunion was a wonderful event, the food, the speech, everything. I hope everyone had a great time and will make it again this summer. Mom has a lot of pictures of the reunion, and here’s something I noticed, Earl Brickhouse is in many of the pictures! Its a little bit like ‘Where’s Waldo’, there’s Earl talking to some people in one picture, smiling at the camera in another. I have to vote for him as the ‘most photogenic’ and ‘most popular’ of the family reunioners. I have not had a chance to talk to Lee Brickhouse yet so I do not know if he will be hosting this year’s but if anyone else would like to host, please contact me.
Last
year was a busy one for us, my daughter Nadia and I attended three bridal
showers, one baby shower, and then the whole family was present for three
weddings. As you all know we were also expecting a new addition, she made her
appearance on Dec. 18th-Faith Evelyn Flor. She was born 2 weeks early but in very good health. I have been
thoroughly enjoying having another baby in the house, as are my other two
daughters. They are always trying to make Faith smile. I don’t know if she will
be our final baby since she completes the verse from 1 Cor. 13:13 and now these three remain:
faith, hope and love- Faith, hope (Nadia), and love
(Caelyn). If we have any
more I think we’ll have to start a new series.
I would also like to add that I received a call from Marty, daughter of Abner and Maude Brickhouse whose story and picture was featured in last summers’ newsletter. I thought that rounded out the story well, she said she recognized her grandfather and wanted to call and let me know.
News and Inquiries from Across the Nation
Puzzle pieces-Does anyone have information about an Emily Brickhouse
marrying Joseph Hudson before 1850? She had a son she also named Joseph Hudson
but the 1850 census shows Joseph Sr. living with his son and new wife in Ashe
County, NC. I have several Emily’s in the book, but no Joseph Hudson.
Thank you to everyone who responds to this section of the newsletter, many of the questions posted are answered from other members of our family!
Obituary: Lena B. Beck passed away on April 18th, 2006
while sleeping at her home in West Virginia.
Picture pages - I received an email from Sharron Brace asking if anyone can help her identify these pictures she submitted. The picture of the children she believes is of her grandmother, Allie Brickhouse, born in 1895 and two sisters. The older man on the horse could be either Ira Berry or William A. Brickhouse. The family picture is thought to be William, wife Zoradi, daughters Allie, Lily and baby India, and two sons; Sharron does not know their names. In the book William is listed as having 12 children, however, the book I have was my dad’s working copy, he has x’s over some of the names so his information may have changed. If you have the correct information, please write or email me.
Thank you to Hazel Gibbs Butler for the following story and picture of Gus Brickhouse.
CHILDHOOD
MEMORIES OF MY GRANDPARENTS
GUS AND VIOLA
SEXTON BRICKHOUSE
(By
Hazel Gibbs Butler)
Many of my fondest childhood memories are of visits to my grandparents. Since my family lived on a farm in Hyde County our visits were usually made on Sundays. Early Sunday morning we would gather butter, vegetables and any other produce we had to share and pile into our old Ford and take off for Kilkenny, where my grandparents lived. Since my grandparents never owned a car we were sure they would always be at home. Oftentimes, granddaddy's brothers, other relatives or friends would come to visit. No matter who came they were invited to stay for dinner, the midday meal. Sometimes strangers came to get eggs, figs, grapes or homemade wine. They arrived as strangers but always left as friends. When we returned home after our visits we were loaded down with figs, grapes, pears, nuts or anything my grandparents had that we did not.
Granddaddy Gus and grandmamma Viola had the most wonderful fig bushes. Granddaddy gave away or sold many of the figs. When he was able to keep any grandmamma would pour great amounts of sugar on them and let them sit overnight. The next morning she would start cooking them very, very slowly. My sister says she put them on the back of her wood burning stove and cooked them several days without stirring, while cooking meals, until they candied. My sisters, brother and I all agreed they were the best candy we ever ate.
Granddaddy was proud of his grape vineyard and took great care of it. When the grapes ripened, he would put a large tarp on the ground under them and shake the bushes. The ripe ones would fall on the tarp. Those that he did not sell or give away were canned or made into wine. He made red and white wine, sweet as well as dry. Visitors would bring gallon jugs and he would put a hose into the barrel and draw on the hose until the wine started to flow and fill the jugs. He allowed us children to taste the sweet wine in spite of my mother's protests.
They had a pear tree that produced massive amounts of fruit. It was beautiful in spring with blossoms. One year there was so much fruit hanging almost to the ground that the tree split and died. I really missed those delicious pears.
Each of us grandchildren would spend a week in the summer months with my grandparents when there was no work for us to do on our farm. I remember granddaddy getting up before sunrise, going to the river and returning with a string of fish, usually perch, hogfish or catfish. He would clean them and grandmamma would roll them in cornmeal and fry them in lard. She would remove the bones for me and we would enjoy the feast. On a warm afternoon we would dig for worms and the three of us would walk to the river, get in granddaddy's rowboat and he would paddle to a spot where the fish were biting. They taught me how to bait a hook and catch fish. We would catch enough fish, then return home to cook them for supper. Because the inside of the house was hot, we would sit on the front porch in the evenings until bedtime and listen to the frogs and other insects. There must have been thousands of frogs because they made the loudest noise. Granddaddy told me frogs loved rain and that is why they were croaking.
In addition to raising fruits and vegetables, granddaddy raised chickens. We would order baby chicks and they would be delivered by the mailman. He had food delivered for them while they were young but when they became pullets he would feed them corn he cracked. He started by putting one ear of corn at a time in an opening of his corn sheller and turned the handle to shell the corn. Then he put the shelled corn in a mill and turned a pole in the center and the stone broke the corn into small pieces. The stone in the mill was big, about 36 inches in diameter.
Granddaddy always seemed able to get things he needed delivered. He had a special relationship with the mailman who delivered mail three times a week. Granddaddy would ask the mail carrier to purchase goods they needed and he would bring them on his next trip along with local and national news. When the mail carrier started delivering mail every day he had to quit delivering things to my grandparents.
My grandparents were very self-sufficient. They even made their own brooms. I remember them gathering broom straw and when they had the right amount one of them tied a string tightly around the cut end and stood the broom in the corner ready to be used.
My birthday was in the summer and if I was with them then grandmamma would bake a birthday cake for me. I would watch her mix it and get to scrape the bowl and lick the spoon. One day I made some mud cakes. I went to the henhouse and got a couple of eggs. I mixed the eggs, dirt and water together and made round cakes and left them in the sun to dry. Granddaddy saw that I had used his eggs and was not pleased. He decided to punish me. He pulled a straw from the broom and switched my legs. Although it did not hurt I was so devastated he would punish me that I cried for hours.
Grandmamma made the greatest feather mattress. She filled the ticking with chicken feathers and down and would plump it in the morning and it would be so fat that I would sink down into and get lost. She also had a mattress made of straw but I did not like it because it was not soft and crackled when I moved.
Granddaddy had a beautiful spirited horse, which he occasionally hooked to a cart and took us for rides. Sometimes he took us to visit my great grandmamma Sally and great uncle Mike Sexton who lived a couple of miles away. This was a real treat because the trip took so long.
As I grew older, granddaddy would give me a dollar at Christmas time. One year I decided to keep that dollar so I would always have money in case of an emergency. I folded and inserted it between photos in my wallet. Years later I checked the dollar and discovered that it was a silver certificate. I still have that special dollar locked away in my home safe.
Grandmamma gave me my first camera, a Brownie Hawkeye. I took many family photos and even took it to Washington, DC, when I went to work for the federal government after graduating from high school in l954. So that I would not run out of money until I got my first paycheck granddaddy loaned me a hundred dollars. That was a lot of money back then. It took several paychecks but I paid him back.
I settled in the Washington area, where I started by own family; however, I would return frequently to North Carolina to visit family and friends. My husband and children would go with me to visit my grandfather and we would reminisce about life as a child with my grandparents.
This newsletter was brought to you by:
Donna Faye Brickhouse, Angela Lee Brickhouse, Sarah Brickhouse Hershey.
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