This is a picture of our faithful worker and my part-time Nanny, Aunt Mary Johnson. We are shown in a field of Snap Beans on the Phillips farm. Baby Alison Phillips, age two, appears in the foreground. The picture was taken in 1920. It is now the spring of 2003 and "Little Alison", who is authoring this page is 85 years old.
Aunt Mary came to work for the Phillips' family sometime around 1910. She and her husband, "Johnson" occupied the historic Murray dependency shown here. Johnson worked the team and tilled the fields. Aunt Mary was a domestic that looked after me part time and kept the household in clean clothes and helped in other ways as she could. To keep our clothes clean, she built a wood fire under a giant iron pot and boiled our dirty clothes with naphtha soap until the soil was loosened. Then she scrubbed each garment on a scrub board immersed in a No. 3 galvanized tub. A hand pitcher pump was close by to provide well water.
One of my favorite memories is visiting Aunt Mary in her kitchen on a cool wintry day. Her kitchen, heated by a cast iron cook stove was nice and warm. I enjoyed watching her make biscuits. She would pinch off a portion of dough, roll in her hands, and then ,holding the dough in on hand, give it a punch with the heel of the other to form a nice round biscuit with a slight indentation in the center. She would bake the biscuits on a hot griddle on top of the stove until they were brown and crusty. Then, while they were still warm, serve me one with a cup of hot sweet tea. I had to promise not to tell Mom that she had given me tea.
One of my earliest childhood memories was sleeping at Aunt Mary's while Mom and Dad visited Aunt Nora who lived across town in Algonquin Park. Aunt Mary would take two of her wooden kitchen chairs, position them face to face, and place a soft feather pillow on the chairs so that it spanned the two bottoms. That was my feather bed. She would cover me up and tend me as if I were her own child until mother returned for me later in the night.
Perhaps the fondest memories of Aunt Mary were our tranquil chat sessions on her steps in the evening when the day's work was done. I would chatter incessantly and she would suck on her clay pipe and reply: "Ummh. Ummh." Once I asked her who made the winding dirt path which led to the wash pot in the side yard. She thought a while and replied: "Well one winter a long time ago, we had a big snow that covered the ground like a deep blanket. And, Johnson took his shovel and shoveled the path so I could get to the wash pot." That seemed a very satisfying answer to me at the time, and I remember some eighty years later.
Aunt Mary's husband, Johnson, was a good man. He worked long and hard in the fields, and I saw little of him. One time when I was just a tot playing in a pile of damp sand, he stopped, watched me for a moment, bent over and took his strong forefinger and punched a pattern of holes in the sand. He smiled at the joy in my eyes and walked away. I then had fun punching holes myself. Johnson came in from work one day and found an intruder in his home. A violent confrontation ensued, and I witnessed a frantic black man running from the house and heard screaming. As I watched the man run away, I called dad. Johnson had been stabbed to death with a bloody dirk even as Aunt Mary watched. Dad called the sheriff and a posse searched the woods and swamps and apprehended the murderer, James.
Until I was about six years old, I visited Aunt Mary regularly and watched her iron our clothes which she had previously boiled and scrubbed. She kept several flat irons heating on the wood stove at one time. She would pick one up, give a tiny spit on the flat surface, and if it sizzled, she would put that iron in service. I was always asking her questions, and one day as she replied, I saw a strange look come over her face; her mouth twisted, and I cried out "Aunt Mary you are having a stroke!" She muttered a negative, but I quickly ran home and told Mom. Yes, Aunt Mary, had suffered a stroke, and it was a debilitating one. How was a child my age so perceptive with this diagnosis? It relates to Mom having read Treasure Island to me, where Billy Bones is stricken with "thundering apoplexy." I asked Mom what that meant, and she explained to me that it was a violent stroke and told me what a stroke was like. I had a mother that read to me frequently, and for this I am indebted to this day.
We tried to care for Aunt Mary at home for a brief period, but it was too much. So, Mom and Dad arranged with Saddie Fuller, an outstanding resident of Queen City, to take Aunt Mary into her home and care for her. This was a Godsend. Saddie was a fine person and she cared for Aunt Mary well. About once a week, Mom would prepare a basket of food and essentials that I delivered to Saddie for Aunt Mary. I would take the mile walk along the well worn paths across the fields and along the overhang of the woods to visit Aunt Mary. I would sit with her for a spell, but she had great difficulty in talking. Her health deteriorated and the Good Lord called her home in due time, but she still remains in my heart. She contributed her part to what I am today.
Over her working years, Aunt Mary had saved her money and bought a lot in Queen City where Saddie Fuller lived. Unbeknownst to us, she left a will, and would you believe it, she had looked ahead to her demise, and willed the lot to me. Mom and Dad saw to it that the property was turned over to Saddie Fuller and her husband, George.
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