Notes for Anna Shepherd

GAYLE AND MARTY GALBRAITH GENEALOGY

Notes for Anna Shepherd

Anna Shepard, my grandmother, was a hefty and energetic farmers wife. If you can assign a quantity to love, I loved her the same as I loved my mother. She did all the things a farm wife needed to do with skill and wit. She was an intelligent woman and could express herself well, in speech or writing. My earliest memories of Grandma are of a motherly soul who loved me and always gave me good things to eat, and cared for me while I was in her home. Since we lived only a quarter mile away, that was almost every day.

Every day, when I was three, going on four, I walked the quarter mile with a tin sorghum pail to get milk for my baby brother, lee. No parent today would think of letting a three-year old walk a deserted country road, but It was different then. There were very few motor vehicles. Most people had horses and were too poor to own a car. Every grownup in Thompsonville knew everyone else and would take care of any young child that wandered astray. It was a wonderful time and place for a child to be alive.

Sometimes I would stay for dinner and take a nap with grandma in the afternoon. She would put Glovers All-Purpose Salve in her nose to keep it from drying out and we would lay on top of the bed covers and take a nap. I remember she would lay on her back and she always snored a little. I thought I was a perfect gentleman at all times, but once she jokingly told me I was a sweet little boy when I was asleep. She never said how I was awake.

Grandma was a gentle person, like Grandpa and I never heard them argue with any heat. When Grandma got exasperated with Grandpa, I noticed she would softly sing the old song "Reuben and Rachael" while she worked in the kitchen. The only part I can remember was "Reuben, Reuben, I've been thinking. What a grand life it would be, if all the menfolk were transported, far across the Northern Sea".

Grandma's kitchen was large and had a big wood-burning cookstove near the back door. I still bear a scar on my elbow where I got against the stove one time. She would burn oak or hickory for the big meals, but would just use fast-burning corncobs for a quick breakfast meal. We had a woodpile just outside the back door, next to the attached smokehouse. That way, the wood, and all the bacon and hams and other stuff in the smokehouse were very close to the kitchen.

Her cooking was heavenly. I loved her Chicken and Dumplings and Fried Chicken. Her Blackberry Cobbler was a delight. It had three layers of crust and was indescribably good. When we had chicken, we didn't get it from the store. Grandma would go out into the chicken yard, catch a chicken, and wring it's neck off. It would flop around for a minute or so before it died. Chickens had so little brains, that if they could have found a way to eat without a head, they wouldn't have needed one. Then she dipped the chicken in boiling water, and picked off the feathers. After that, the entrails were removed, and the chicken was ready to take into the house.

In the house, she cut the chicken up and got it ready to cook. It was like this with all the food we ate. It took a lot of work to prepare three meals a day in those days. Grandma always cooked the chicken feet with the dumplings. I guess she thought it gave them a festive touch of color. It seemed normal to have a couple of yellow, curled-up chicken claws sticking out of the dumpling bowl, but I never saw anybody eat one.

Many of the rural men in those days had a couple of foxhounds. It was customary for two or three men to combine their hounds and have a fox chase in the evening. They would build a fire in a dry wash, and sit around drinking whiskey, and listening to their dogs run. The object was not to catch the fox, but to listen to the hounds chase him and compare the merits of each others dogs. This would go on all night, and the men would come dragging home in the early hours of the morning. Needless to say, this sport wasn't very popular with the womenfolk. At that time, foxes were scarce in Franklin county, so the dedicated hound-dog men would live-trap foxes in other counties, dig them den-holes and release the foxes nearby. Grandma had no use for hounds. To her they were just biscuit-eating, chicken-chasing parasites. So, Grandpa had to content himself with listening to other men's dogs run. We did this often while sitting on the front porch in the evenings.

Grandma and Grandpa loved the Lord, and it was they who introduced me to Him. This was a gift of eternal value and for it I will be eternally grateful.

Grandma entered the hospital at Benton, Ill on 1 August 1954 for a gall bladder operation, was operated on at 7:30 AM, 4 August, passed away 1:35 PM on 11 August, and was buried in Pleasant Hill Cemetery at 2:30 PM on 13 August. She died of a stroke caused by a blood clot. She died within a few seconds of the first symptoms of the stroke.

The following were listed as relatives attending Anna's funeral:
Mrs Della Shepherd
Mr & Mrs Henry Adkisson
Mr &Mrs Menard Hawkins & Sandra
Vidalene Chapman
Fleta Martin
Ray and Lola Williams (Ray and Lola once lived a few hundred yards from Grandma on Akin Road. Relation ?)
Mr & Mrs Otis Galbraith
Mr & Mrs James Donley
Della Pinkham
Mrs Dame Moomey (Dame Shepard, Ann's sister. As far as I know we never met))
Mrs Hattie Mae Ash
Mrs Ethel Herman
Mr &Mrs John Williams
Mr Isaac Shepherd
Mr Blaine Shepherd
Mr Logan Shepherd
Mr & Mrs Roy Seitz
Mr Lawton Galbraith (Oscar's cousin))
Mr Barney Galbraith (Oscar's cousin)
Mr Charles E Alisher
Mr & Mrs Loyd Bowyer

Flowers from possible relatives:
Mr & Mrs Ames Shepherd
Mr & Mrs Robert Shepherd
Mr & Mrs Walter Shepherd

Recorded by BG Galbraith
There is some question about Ann's maiden name. Shepard or Shepherd? It is written in her family bible as Shepard.