Uncle Jay with his big-wheel tricycle.
Editor’s Note: At the request of his readers and in memory of Warner M. Montgomery, Ph. D, we will continue to publish his Adventure Travel stories for the time being.
My uncle, J.K. Gourdin IV, arranged his own funeral. A female Unitarian minister conducted the service. A black gospel choir sang spirituals in the chapel. A guitarist and saxophonist played Dixie at the graveside in the old St. Stephen Episcopal Church. He was a unique person to the very end.
Jay, as I called him, knew he was dying of prostate cancer, a choice he vainly made himself. He began writing his memoirs because, as he said, “Many times I have wished my forebears had written their life story.”
He started with his grandfather, Dr. Peter G. Gourdin, then rambled through stories of his parents, siblings, cousins, and neighbors during his childhood in Pineville… but he never finished. He died on page 46.
These 46 pages have given me a glimpse into who did what, when, why, and how in Pineville in the first half of the 20th century. Many of the stories I had heard around the hearth, at the oyster roast, or during hunting and fishing trips to Pineville. Or from my mother at the dinner table in Columbia. Uncle Jay’s memoirs have helped me distinguish between fact and fable.
The Pineville School—Around 1900, the people of Pineville built a one-room school for the white children. It closed by 1920 and was used to store cotton seed for Ed Marion’s cotton gin which was next to it. Jay remembered the oilcloth blackboards nailed to the walls. The gin and the school burned in 1946.
The School Teacher—J.K. Gourdin III, the school trustee, hired 23-year-old Irene Schmidt as the school teacher in 1914. She received $40 per month, board, and laundry. She lived with Clarence Gourdin who had five children. The school day was 9 am to 1:30 p.m. She taught music after school for no extra pay. On holidays, Miss Schmidt was driven to the railroad depot for free.
Miss Schmidt married J.K. Gourdin III, a widower with three children, in 1918. He was 57.
Gourdin demolished his old house in 1925 and built a new house on the same spot. It had 32-volt direct current with “knob and tube wiring” powered by a gasoline generator which also ran the water pump.
There were wood-burning fireplaces in every room. Three mantlepieces were removed from the dilapidated
Belle Isle Plantation, former home of Gen. Francis Marion but owned by J.K. Gourdin III at the time, and installed in the home.
Under the back porch was a concrete basement room that began as an “ice box” for meat but ended up as a storm cellar. The kitchen was a separate building in the backyard. The house is now on the National Register of Historic Places.
Irene Gourdin gave birth to J.K. Gourdin IV in Charleston on March 2, 1926.
The Yard—Irene kept chickens, turkeys, geese, and a milk cow in the yard. She and a “colored” woman milked the cow, shelled butter beans, shucked corn, and cooked dinner everyday, hustling between the cow shed, porch, and kitchen.
Jay’s father kept a buggy under another shed in the backyard. He drove the buggy with a black horse to and from the fields everyday. For trips to town (St. Stephen or Moncks Corner), he purchased a Model T Ford with a self starter. It was Jay’s job to step on the starter button to “crank” the engine for his father.
Also in the yard were Jay’s tricycle and bird dog, Jake. The trike had a large front wheel and skinny tires. Jake was larger than Jay and loved to hunt partridge.
The Chapel—The Pineville Chapel was built in 1810 and has served the Episcopalians of the village ever since. It was just a few hundred yards from Jay’s home.
In 1933, a flock of pigeons nested in the steeple and threatened the original wooden shingles. Jay watched in amazement as Marcus Gailliard, a “skilled colored carpenter,” removed the shingles and installed a tin roof with a special hand tool.
During the construction, Jay climbed in the bell tower and read the inscription on the church bell: Ship Benson 1806. He questioned in his memoirs about its origins.
Jay’s father found a baby pigeon, a squab, in the roof and gave it to him. Jay took it home and kept it on the back porch for several years.
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