OLD STINNETT FARM IN ARK : Genealogy Query


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Date Posted:

04-May-2008

Surname(s):

OLD STINNETT FARM IN ARK

Query Text:

THE OLD STINNETT FARM IN ARK. BY BUDDY STINNETT Papa stinnett said,"no farmer is worth his salt if he doesn't have something to sell every time he goes to town."Following are some of the ways he had something to sell when he went to town: He built a largebuilding he called the potato house. It was a long building with bends in it. He rented those bends to neighbors in the fall to farmers to keep their potatoes in. He told me about the insulation. He had an outside and inside wall three inches apart,and in between the walls he put sawdust. In extreme cold weather,he kept a small wood stove burning. Besides renting the bends,he had room to store potatoes he sold to the stores.One bend was used for our seed potatoes the next spring. We also had a large sorghum mill.His aim each year was to make enough sorghum for family use,plus 500 gallons for sale.Once, during the making of the syrup,Mama Stinnett stumbled and poured hot syrup on her arms. She had a long and painful recovery. We had 500 brown ligorn laying hens; we supplied Blacks's grocery with fresh eggs every week.Papa Stinnett called those hens,Mama's and girls dresses. Speaking of dresses we received the Sears roebuck catalogue. The girls would pick out a dress like they wanted and Mana would measure them, look at the dress and cut a pattern from our weekly news paper and make the dress. Not one of her girls had that talent. We had several Jersey milk cows; Jersey produced more butter.We sold butter to Black's Grocery. Of course,we did not have refrigeration in the country in those days. We had a big well on the back porh. Mama skimmed the milk each day,put it in a bucket,and let it down by a rope into the well. When enough cream was saved,it was churned and the butter molded. How I hated to sit and churn, I wanted to be out playing. We did not drink water from that well, but used the one in the yard for drinking and house hold use. Papa Stinnett had taken the cows sereral miles for breeding. One day,he said, "Mama that's enough of that. I am going to buy a through-bred jersey Bull and let people pay me to have their cows bred." That he did. I was always at Pap's heels and when people brought their cows to breed them, Mama kept me in the house.I was angry at her because i couldn't understand why i couldn't go to the barn with Papa. After he bought the bull, he decided to buy a stud horse for breeding purposes. About all I remember about the stud horse was that he was pretty mean. I do not remember how Papa happened to buy china hogs,but i do remember they were black with some white on them, and a large hog. I loved killing time. I am sure i was the only one that loved it. I was too young to help. On a cold day, several of the neighbor men would come to help.Mama and the girls would cook a big meal. We always tried to kill enough hogs to supply us with pork for the winter, usualy five. How we killed the hogs Papa put two posts and across the posts he laid a board, probably a 2 x 4 .The hogs were shot in the head, then they were hung by their back feet, head down, and stuck in the heart to bleed. After the blood all ran out, bucket of boiling water was poured on them,then the hair was all scraped off.Then they were split down the center and all the insides removed. The liver and heart were saved to make liver pudding or fried. After the removal of the insides, they were washed, taken down and cut up. The fat was removed for lard.Portions of the meat was made into sausage ; the hams and shoulders were hung in the smoke house and were hickory smoked for days until sufficiently cured.The sausage was put into a small sack about the size of a small stocking and smoked ate the same time. The sides were salted and that was our bacon. Part of the fat was rendered out and made into lye soap. Another of Papa's projects was watermelons. He worked with and at them until he developed a large round melon. The small ones weighing around 50 pounds;many,around 75 and 100 pounds.Every year we have a watermelon feast; all the Stinnetts and all the neighbors would come and many of the people from town. We lived three miles from town. It was said that Mr. Stinnett had the prettiest girls in the county. Many of the town boys would use the watermelon feast to see my sisters, a good time was had by all. STORY TWO NEXT WEEK,YOUR BEST BUDDY STINNETT