Lettie Edna McLEMORE
Lettie's family lived near the Gaspar River in Logan County, KY. She was the oldest child of a large family, her father having married several times. The family was poor, according to letters written by her mother to an older half sister, Letitcia Berry. Lettie was no doubt named for this aunt.Lettie's subsequent life in West Texas was no different, because life was very hard for her family in that environment. She always said that to she was left handed, both hands had to work and we do not doubt that.
Lettie was a charter member of the First Baptist Church in Lamesa. She had to walk some distance to church, but hat and gloves and fan went with her as she was very much the lady. Her kids used to say that whenever they had a few pennies, they were required to contribute to the church building fund. They surely had a large ration of "Hellfire and Brimstone preaching" in their young lives. Lettie would read her Bible everyday, sitting in a straight backed chair, and then she would fold her hands and mediate about what she had read.
Some of my early memories include the sifting of the chaff, no biblical reference intended. We put wheat into bedsheet and tossed it to separate the hulls and the grain. There were corn shucking after the crop was dry. The corn would be taken then to the millers for grinding into corn meal. We ate a lot of cornbread and even more homemade biscuits. Some children took biscuits to school in their lard bucket lunch boxes. That was often all they had. Aunt Francie said that everyone was really glad to have fresh green beans when they were ready, as there was not much in the way of fresh fruit and vegetables. My mother told of watering the large garden with five gallon buckets.
Grandmother Lettie would install a quilting frame which hung from the ceiling. When a quilt top was ready, she stretched it inside the frame and invited ladies to come and help quilt it. I finished up one of Grandma Lettie's applique quilts, featuring my baby clothes. I decided that was the hardest work I had ever done...to stretch your body over a frame and make those tiny stitches by hand was laborious. Lettie usually pieced her quilts by hand, although she had a treadle sewing machine, which was said to have been delivered on the same day that I was born in Grandma's home. My mother Elsie said that she worked and made the payments on that machine, which could not have been large payments, but mother said it was hard to get 15 cents together in those depression days. The warm woolen patchwork quilts made of the boys old clothing, though scratchy, were real snuggly on a cold winter night. The sewing machine was put to making dresses for the girls from the feed sacks fabrics they collected.
On wash day and house cleaning day, Lettie took off her usual bonnet and put on a bandana. She washed the old fashion way, boiling the clothes in the yard and scrubbing them on a board. Wash day was Monday. Don't know what happened when the sand was blowing on a Monday. She cleaned house on Saturday, taking a brush and dustpan and sweeping piles of sand from the window sills. Lettie had a sneeze that could be redistribute all the dust in the entire house. For a gal of five food one, she had a powerful sneeze. Joe and Lettie raised a family that loved and respected each other. That was quite an accomplishment. Lettie died at ninety in Hale Center, Texas, Rest Home and was laid to rest in Lamesa Memorial Cemetery, beside her husband and their daughter Dorothy Jean, who died at 17.
Submitted by Pat McKinney Grant