Aunt Mattie loved to play the accordian.
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, wrote a 46-page memoir just before he died in 2004. This is a continuation of his memories of life in Pineville in the 1930s and 1940s. I have edited his words but not his thoughts.
Aunt Mattie. Aunt Mattie (Martha Marie Gourdin) and her twin brother, Uncle Charlie, were born in 1875, the youngest siblings of J.K. Gourdin III. She married Edward Marion in 1901, and they lived in a large house in Pineville just off the highway. The entranceway was covered with vines and was always dark and foreboding. The children thought the place was haunted.
Uncle Eddie was a modern farmer for his time. He constructed a gasoline engine to pump water from the well to a tank on a steel tower. Thus, Aunt Mattie was the first woman in Pineville to have full-time running water.
Uncle Eddie also rigged up a gas lighting system for the house. He built a generator in a small outbuilding wherein water dripped on calcium carbide creating acetylene gas that flowed through pipes to chandeliers and lamps in the house. The carbide waste was used as a whitewash paint. Aunt Mattie was first to have on-demand light in her house. Others only had kerosene lanterns.
Uncle Clarence sits on the back porch of his Pineville home.
Aunt Mattie was famous in the village for her accordion playing and her chickens and guineas. On her 80th birthday, she was given a new expensive accordion by the Pineville people, and she rewarded them with a delightful performance. Her chickens provided eggs for many families, and the guineas served as watchdogs for the Marion home.
Aunt Mattie and Uncle Eddie had no children. He died in 1943, and she in 1971 at age 96.
Uncle Charlie. Aunt Mattie’s twin brother, Charles D. Gourdin, never married. He lived in his store across the highway from his sister’s house. The Pineville people considered him an eccentric loner; the children thought he was spooky and stayed out of his way.
This village black sheep sold bootleg whiskey from the rear of his store and supplied legal services to the “colored people” of Pineville. As a notary public, Uncle Charlie was able to perform marriages for a small fee and would even grant divorces. It has also been alleged that Uncle Charlie fathered numerous illegitimate mulatto children from late night escapades.
Uncle Charlie never socialized with other family members. He had a spat with his brother, J.K. Gourdin III, because, as Uncle Charlie often stated, “J.K. took some of my kerosene and never paid for it.” They never spoke to each other again. Uncle Charlie died in 1958.
Uncle Clarence. Clarence Palmer Gourdin was a boy without shoes, a diamond in the rough, a rugged man, a man who slept in a hammock with a brick for his pillow.
Uncle Jay loved to go fishing with Uncle Clarence in the Santee swamp. Before the Santee-Cooper Project, the swamps had many small lakes teeming with fish. The “colored folks” grained (speared) for mudfish and carp with long-handled pitchforks. Uncle Jay loved to fish for trout (large-mouth bass), goggle eye (crappie), and stiffnin (white perch).
The day before a fishing trip with Uncle Clarence, Jay and his “colored” playmate, Buster, who lived in a tenement house on Lazy Lane, dug three cans of worms near Crawl Branch. Jay went to sleep early knowing that Uncle Clarence liked to get to the swamp lake at day clean (sunrise).
Jay got up at 4 a.m., got dressed, and knocked on Uncle Clarence’s window waking him up. Uncle Clarence boomed out his morning mantra, “St. Paul says wherever you may be, let it come free,” and he let loose a blast of gas that could be heard all over the village.
Uncle Clarence reached behind his press (clothes cabinet) and pulled out a half gallon of moonshine, took a big swig, got dressed, then met Jay for breakfast. In the kitchen, Uncle Clarence shoved a few sticks of wood on the still-hot coals in the stove and put the day-old coffee on to boil. He tossed several hardtack biscuits from the night before on the stove next to the pot of coffee.
Uncle Clarence poured two cups of muddy Java. Jay took a sip and complained, “This is awful, full of grounds.” The old man chugged his cup and replied, “Double damn, drink the bush and all. It’ll make a man o’ you.”
Buster came around with the oxcart, a two-wheel homemade affair with a spring seat taken from a buggy. Jay got in; Uncle Clarence walked behind. Buster took the oxen because Uncle Clarence said, “Flies will eat up a horse or mule while we fish, but not the oxen. If he gets ornery, we’ll just build a fire under him.” And he meant that literally.
When they got to the lake, the boys fished from the bank with cane poles and worms. Uncle Clarence took a 16-foot-long dugout out into the deep water. At dusk, he paddled back in with dozens of warmouth flip-flopping in the bottom of the dugout. The boys had a string of small goggle eye.
Coming back home, the oxen lay down in a ditch and refused to move. The cart straddled the ditch. Uncle Clarence pulled out his matches, but Buster said he had a better idea. The “colored boy” got a tin can of water out of the ditch and poured it in the oxen’s ear. After a few “double damns” from Uncle Clarence, they were on their way to a fish fry.
Leave a Reply