. .......................................................................... When we were children, we always called our grandparents Grandmama & Grandaddy Bennett. Our cousins called them Mama & Pappa Ben. We didn't live very close to them; so we missed out on a lot of love and learning. You can’t make up for missed experiences. No matter how you try, it is shared experiences that build relationships.
When we came to visit, the whole family came to see Daddy & his girls. Daddy was the only boy in a family of girls. He always had that twinkle in his eye that made his sisters really love him. It showed.
Grandmama would have several cakes and probably homemade pie for meals. Daddy’s favorite was coconut cake. Umm Umm! Her potatoes had lumps in them. I remember that because Mother’s were always smooth and creamy. Fresh vegetables. Several types of meat. Homemade biscuits and fresh churned butter. Whole milk and butter milk (which I never liked, but my Dad did).
My mother-in-law always had a spread when we ate with her. But Grandmother Bennett would have had twice the food. I’m sure my aunts brought over food from their homes, but I always thought of it as Grandmother’s doing.
How I wanted to feel a part of things when we visited. But it is a little like visiting a club. Everyone tries to make you feel included, but it is still a little foreign or awkward. My cousins were much older or much younger, male (except Paitie) and had very different lives. They shared a familiarity with my Grandparents that we would have enjoyed. We were very formal little girls.
My dad and his sisters always had chores growing up. They were busy feeding the pigs & horses, helping with the garden, helping prepare meals, hanging out laundry. Life was very manual. Daddy told me he walked dinner to his dad at the water works.
Somewhere I recorded a story Aunt Lois told me about how the children all laughed at Grandmama trying to learn to drive their first car. That tells me that they were very familiar with horse & wagons. My parents generation witnessed the transportation transformation from horse & wagon to model T’s to space travel. From listening to radio broadcasts to television to cable to satellite.
When my Dad, Jim Bennett, was a boy, he had an air rifle. This type of gun shoots pellets (I think). A handle was pumped to create a vacuum to provide power. Behind his house the family had a pig pen. He and a buddy put some mud or dirt in the front of the gun & really pumped it. They were shooting the little pigs in the rump. The pigs would squeal and run around the pen. The boys thought that was so funny.
When Pappa Ben heard them, he decided to teach them about fun. He came outside laughing. He told Jim to “Go put that tin can on the fence post. I’ll show you something really funny.”
My dad leaned over to pick up the tin can. When he leaned over, his jeans were really tight across his backside. That’s when it happened. Pappa Ben shot the air rifle at Jim’s bum. Pop! Jim felt a sharp sting right where you sit down.
Pappa Ben said, “Now that’s how it feels. It’s not fun to hurt people. It’s not fun to hurt animals. Don’t shoot the pigs anymore.” And Jim never did.
My dad’s generation lived through the depression. They always had a garden to grow fresh vegetables. They would can food for the winter. Life was certainly not easy for anyone during that time. One thing he mentioned was wearing out the soles on his shoes. His mom would take card board and cut it to fit inside his shoes. She would rub the side facing the holes with lard to “waterproof” them a little bit. At least it kept his feet from actually touching the ground as he walked.
In the summer my dad spent a lot of time out doors playing with his friends. When it was too hot to keep playing, they had to rest for a while. People didn’t have air conditioning. They might take a break and sit in the shade on the lawn or covered porch. They would enjoy a chance to talk while rocking in a rocking chair or porch swing. A good glass of cold well water would taste so good. One of his favorite summer treats was watermelon. His grandpa had a large garden. When it was really, really hot, his grandpa would let him go find a good ripe watermelon. Grandpa Poteat might even let him use his pocket knife to cut it open for all to share. He used to joke with his grandchildren if they swallowed the seeds a watermelon would start growing in their tummies.
My grandmother, Paitie Bennett, was a gifted seamstress. She made all her clothes and all her girls’ clothes. She could see a dress in a store window and come home and make it without a pattern. Like lots of folk, they used floor sacks for fabric.
My dad got his first “store bought” clothes as a teen. He thought he looked really sharp. He was wearing them when some girls drove up a model T. Just before they came up, my dad had lit some fire crackers. He quickly snuffed out the flame on the fire crackers & stuffed them in his back pocket. He was walking over to talk or maybe flirt with the girls when the firecrackers blew up. They blew a hole in the back of his pants.
When I was in elementary school, I was afraid to go out on their side porch. There was a large drop off the side. The big issue for me was her cactus plants. She had a large collection. All I saw were the spikes. I never liked any kind of stickers or thorns. I wonder if cactus seemed exotic to her. Connecting her to places she might never visit. Travel was limited during this time. People might relocate to another area of the country. But travel was limited by the available types of transportation. Interstate highways were just getting developed. Planes were for the very wealthy and adventurous. Trains travel still took multiple days. So her interest in cactus must have come from an interest in the world. Of course she may have been too busy to worry about plants that took too much time.
My earliest memories of my Grandparents home seemed bright and light. But later the house was always dark. My grandmother developed glaucoma. After a visit while we lived in Greenwood, my dad questioned aloud how long my Grandmother Bennett might live. Glare gave her terrible headaches. Perhaps she didn’t have a diagnosis yet and he was afraid because no one could explain what was wrong. When I was in high school, she had more medicine bottles than I had ever seen. My dad was wrong about her dying young; she lived until age 83.
My aunts told me that once my Grandmother became ill. Her hair turned white with a streak of black. Eventually it returned to all black with a white streak.
My dad was an all around athlete. He was captain of the football, baseball, basket ball teams all four years of high school. Of course he attended a very small school. He was also competed and won State high school diving championships.
His dad was the superintendent of the Water Works. He was responsible for making sure the water was pure for the whole county. Daddy grew up swimming at Rainbow Lake was just across the road from his home. He must have spent a lot of time swimming and playing here. At some point he learned a neat trick of cupping his hands together & squirting water. He could aim at someone a good distance away and hit them with a squirt every time. I tried to learn how to do it, but never could.
This wasn’t an ordinary lake. It was a very, very large swimming pool. I will try to insert photos here.
During high school Daddy became a life guard there. A four tier diving tower was positioned in the center of the lake. Each level was closed off on three sides; so divers could only dive off one side. It was designed this way to prevent injuries from someone jumping on swimmers below. It didn’t always work out.
Once a swimmer got into trouble swimming. My dad swam out to bring them back to shore. Unfortunately lifeguards position the person they assist in the crook of their arm. Then they use a side stoke to return to shallow water. A boy on the diving tower took a running leap off and into the water. He landed on my dad jamming his jaw into the head of the person he was rescuing. His front four teeth had to be pulled and he had four false teeth anchored to his jaw. My dad never had a cavity. But later in life he had to have oral surgery to repair damage that resulted from this incident.
My dad was an excellent math student. Mr. Dorman, who later became superintendent of schools for Spartanburg County, was his high school principal and math teacher. He taught my dad math – one-on-one. My dad taught the students in the grades below him. Later when my dad went to Officers’ Candidate School, he and Bob Moore scored perfect math scores. The officials, who were administered the tests, thought they cheated and required them to retake the test with close supervision. They repeated the perfect score.
Perhaps they thought these country boys couldn’t cut the grade. My dad struggled with English in college. The southern dialect that he grew up using was not the Kings English. But it never interfered with his mathematical abilities. Both young men had that southern sound that folks from the north associated with illiterate people. However, Bob Moore ended up at the Pentagon as the youngest general in WWII. My dad retired as a Lt. Col.
My dad had a football scholarship to Wofford College & later to Clemson College. The scholarship paid for books and tuition. In addition to his practice, he had to work to pay for his living expenses. Plus he helped his sister cover her college expenses. To do this he had a variety of jobs. He worked at Floyds Mortuary. Part of his responsibility was to drive the ambulance/hearse. In the winter when folk couldn’t make it to the hospital because of snow, he might be dispatched. He actually delivered several babies when they didn’t make it to the hospital. He also worked in a local mill in the summers. He washed dishes and cleaned in a local boarding house to cover his housing. He said he ate lots of pork and beans during college. Perhaps that was the equivalent of Raman Noodles.
Once dad told me that he might work all week and try to put aside a quarter for a date. He still might not have an extra quarter; so he could ask a girl out. One thing he did that really impressed me. One summer he saved enough to buy a car. Then he rented the car to other students for their dates. Perhaps his was really the first Enterprise Car Rental company.
Study, Practice and Work must have been exhausting. Not many students had the challenge that he had. It was not always appreciated by others. Once while he was attending Wofford, he came late to a class. He had been delayed at one of his jobs. The professor choose to make a snide remark about football players thinking they were so special they could sleep in and come to class late. My dad was embarrassed and offended! He picked up his books, left class, and went directly to the President of the College to complain. He refused to return to class until the professor apologized. This is exactly what happened.
Throughout WWII my dad had half his paycheck sent home. He thought his dad was putting this money aside for his return. After he was discharged, he learned his dad had used the money for the family. He had spent it all. There were no savings. Daddy said he never said anything to Granddaddy. He knew how much his family had needed the money.
While he had been overseas my Granddaddy Bennett’s sister, Candace & her husband, who was my Grandmother’s brother, died. Their minor children lived with my grandparents for a while. Evelyn Seay (married name),my dad’s double first cousin, was one of them. She told me about this when we lived in Spartanburg. She is also a member of the church and we have exchanged some family history.
My dad had hoped to go to medical school after the war. He saw the living quarters for married students. He described them as the size of a nice walk-in-closet. He decided to go back into the army. Even though he came out of the war as a Major, he returned to the army as a Captain. The military would not use his field commission as his status on his return to active duty.
One of the memorable moments after his return from the war must have been when he learned he was engaged. Not that he knew anything about it. He met my mother before the war. He wrote her throughout the war. But his sister Lee had been writing love letters “from him” to a young woman. I don’t remember how the whole thing started. A girl wrote him. Aunt Lee opened a letter and wrote back as if he had written the letter. The girl wrote back and it just snowballed. I can only imagine his reaction when the story came out. Finally Lee had to confess what had happened and write the truth to the girl. Oh what a mess!
Daddy was stationed in England before D-Day. I don’t know if he visited Ireland, but he sent his mother a green Irish linen sheet set with pillowcases. I don’t think she ever used them. She saved them for a special occasion. After she died they were given back to daddy. Eventually Mother gave them to me. Only the top sheet made it to Utah. But it is still like new.
