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[Bill's Nutt.FTW] Polly Spence,in her book, states that Jennie had 7 children and watched all but two of them die. NARRATIVE BY MINERVA JANE McBRIDE SPENCE A long, long time ago on the East coast of Ireland, there lived a family McBride by name, whose business was the manufacture of woolen goods; therefore, as it was compulsory that each son in the family should learn a trade, Sam McBride, Jr., a the age of fourteen, was apprenticed. to a surly old tailor, and the boy immediately set his Irish wits to work to find ways to success to get away from so distasteful a profession as sitting crossed-legged on the floor, snipping and stitching day in and day out, under the watchful eye and sometimes the lash of his task master. His only recreation being the short time each day that he was allowed the privilege of sitting on the beach and watching the great ships cone in from foreign countries. He very naturally wondering where those ships went, what was to be seen at the end of the journey and this finally became an obsession with this sturdy, blue eyed, curly haired lad, so much so that he finally made the decision to leave home, father, mother, brothers, sisters and country, never more to see or hear from them. It is not to be supposed that he realized the gravity of his decision, leaving out the fact that he was giving up all who loved him and all that he loved. There were undoubtedly financial reasons had he been old enough to realize that as a manufacturer, his father could, and certainly would, have educated him to handle the business and how different this would have been from what he had mapped out for himself. Away in a strange country - friendless, alone - no doubt home-sick many, many times for this boy made up his mind to sail as a stow-away on one of the big liners bound for England and thence to America. After he had supposedly retired for the night, he made a bundle of his few possessions including the tailor's shears which may now be seen in the Museum at Hastings, Nebraska in the collection of Karl L. Spence, a great grandson of the famous or infamous Sam. We can imagine the long journey over seas for this venturesome lad, the discomfort, the sea sickness, the nostalgia for home, for mother, for the sympathy that as a boy were things of the past for him, but "all things pass" and the boy, after many days on the seas, found himself in a strange country, pennyless and alone. It is not known whether he took the situation seriously or wi th regret but he now had his life before him untrammeled as free as the country he had coosen for his own. After wandering from pillar to post, picking up a living wherever it was to be had, working at anything that came to hand, learning by hard knock from the best teacher in me world (experience) that it is not what we get but what we give that makes a man. Af ter several years our boy, Sam, landed. a job with a well-to-do planter by the name of Harrington where he made himself so useful that in a few months he had so ingratiated himself in the good graces of the master that he was not only made overseer of the many negroes on the place, but was taken into the home as a member of thee family. As there were three unmarried girls in this home, we sometimes wonder if Mr. Harrington had designs on the overseer. There were twin daughters, Sally and Polly, who naturally thought like Leah of old that they came first, red reckoned without taking the buxom Betsy (my grandmother) into consideration even though she was two years younger than they and at sixteen thought herself only a child. So when the young and handsome overseer came in, minus a collar button, who should he ask to replace it but the ever handy and willing Betsy. We can a1most hear the scamp chuckle for he had not removed the shirt from his Apollo-like person. When the button was sewed firmly in place, Betsy in her innocence tiptoed to bite the thread receiving a resounding kiss for her pains and no sooner done than he received a slap on his impudent face. She nust have forgiven him, for she afterward became his wife and being a granddaughter of theirs, I wish I might truthfully relate that they lived happily ever after. But with him as with many others, once a wanderer always a wanderer. While I never heard my grandmother, who made her home with my father - her only living son, make any complaint about the life of hardship and the many children she bore and lost and for want of the necessities of life. There were six lived to maturity: John, Jeff, Margaret, Lucy, Jim and Mary and as many died in infancy. After the death of Sam and all the children except Jim and Mary, Grandmother went to Waverly, (Humphries County) Tennessee and acted as cook for the mill hands and put her children to work in the cotton mills of that place and - contrary to all our preconceived notions of the effect on the health of mill workers - they had perfect health, my father, Jim , living to the ripe old age of ninety-two. This mill owner kept a lookout for widows and orphans that he might exploit them for his own profit as some folks believe but I would rather spread a mantle of charity over him for I wonder what the widows and orphans would have done had those who had the means to pay for work had not given them employment. We as a people had not come to the time and place where we could sit down, cross our hands and demand relief but each one must somehow make a living for himself or herself or themselves. Later, Mrs. Elizabeth Cullon (my maternal grandmother) brought her orphan brood to work in the cotton mills at Waverly, Tennessee. Large families were in order, birth control unknown. There were eight. Bill, Dave and Tom all became preachers. Katie, Martha, Ma.ry, ______. Of the daughters, Katie, the eldest, married Jim McBride, and after the birth of two daughters, Georgiana. and Mary Ellen who was now six months old, Jim loaded his few household goods, his mother, Betsy, his sister, Mary and his wife, Katie, with the two small daughters into the ox wagon and started on the long trek (probably all of two hundred miles) for the new home in Southern Illinois where he took advantage of "Squatter's Sovereignity" in tre wilderness of virgin timber there to make a start where he could by nuch effort of every nenber of the household, establish and maintain a new home. When the log cabin was built and less than ten acres cleared and fenced, another daughter born Isabel. The Civil war broke out and to be sure Jim was among the first to volunteer am was never home for three long years. During this time Aunt Mary married a man by the name of Moulton, leaving mother and grandmother with the three small daughters and themselves to provide for. Remember, they had no cook stove, sewing machine, clock, matches, kerosene, no clothing except what they made themselves. Planted cotton. Hoed it until it matured, picked the cotton from the seed by hand, carded, spun and wove it into cloth not only for clothing but sheets, pillow ticks and cases, table cloths, bedspreads and even sewing thread. From raw wool right off the sheep' s back they made all the stockings, gloves, warm dresses and petticoats, besides the famous blue jeans for suits for the men and boys. They made their own dyes to color these fabrics, my grandmother being expert at this. She no doubt learned from her tailor husband, Sam, to cut and make men's suits and overcoats. At the close of the Civil War, Jim came home unscathed and the next year, the writer of this little story appeared on the scene, a quite unwelcome guest, I should think, being the fourth daughter and the long expected and hoped for son still in the offing. However he did appear just two years and two months later and as become a first son was duly named Thomas Jefferson and believe it or not, I remember his advent and was my nose out of joint. I distinctly remember that Aunt Harriet Jack of blessed memory kept feeding me with chunks of light corn bread baked in the dutch oven by my grandmother and that clothing was as it should be with my mother in bed. I forgot to say that the writer of this story had the awful name of Minerva Jane thrust upon her for no other reason than the two neighbor women who happened to be present at the borning bore this duo cognomess whatever that is. It will be seen as this history progresses that we are a prolific family. Georgia, the eldest of Jim's ten children, died at the age of seventeen and though I was only nine at the time of her death, she had more to do with the instillation of truth and honor in my consciousness than all others together. Her's was a beautiful Christian life. Ellen the second daughter married John Burkhead and has a large family of sons and daughters, teachers and preachers among them. Belle, the third in line, married William M. Chamness and had seven, children, one doctor, Grover; one highly honored ace in the World War, several teachers. Janie, the fourth, married Charles Spence and had seven children, three of whom are living and all of the masculine gender. Two newspaper men and one lawyer. Fifth, Tom, married a teacher, Cora Montgomery, who died young, left one daughter Mae, who married Roy Jones. She is a trained nurse and very capable business woman. Sixth, Nora, married Jim Harris, had six children, two teachers, one son in the Navy, a business woman, one son died in his youth. Seventh, Margaret married G. W. Dempsey, had five children, two teachers, one farmer. The others haven' t found their occupation yet. Jim, Jr. married Lottie Doyle, has six children. One teacher, one civil engineer, one Ford owner and dealer, one Insurance man, one shoe salesman, one student. Charles, the old bachelor, of course had no family. Ada, the baby married Tom Huggins and has no children but reared Tom's orphan daughter, Mae, and a step-daughter, Wanda Huggins, both trained nurses. My father, as stated above, lived 92 years and left 92 living descendants, although he nor my mother, who died at the age of 74, could read when they were married. I still think of my father as an educated man. He was a reader and a deep thinker and always no natter how hard it was for him or mother, was determined that his children should have a better chance than they had. I remember that I got smart and corrected his English and here was the shrewd answer I got: "I have always thought that speech was the expression of thought, and so far, I have made myself understood". I didn't do it again. Minerva Jane Spence for Shep McBride (Written between 1934 and 1936) Minerva died in Texas where she was living with her second husband Willis Benjamin Lane.
Robert \\\\
Crowe
