There never was a church of any kind at Herman Junction that I ever heard of. But, in Bay there were four churches and today as far as I know those same four churches are there, plus as Assembly of God church. The First Baptist church met in a rock building on the Northeast side of town, the Broadway Baptist met on Broadway St., and the church of Christ and Methodist church both met on church Street. When the First Baptist church built a new building the Assembly of God bought their old one and today all of those churches still meet in the same locations.
I was raised in the church of Christ, baptized at the age of 12 and made my first 'talk' in church at the age of 12. Aubrey Vanwinkle asked me one Sunday morning after services if I would like to speak to the auditorium class that night. Aubrey liked good, long, advance notices you see! Well, with my Mom helping me work it all up I made my first public appearance that night and it wasn't long until I was doing that quite often. I also began leading singing at about that same age and Jimmy Chester and I did a lot of the song leading until we both grew up and moved away. I loved to sing and still do. I have some wonderful memories of church as I was growing up. We were always the first ones to arrive. We always parked in the same place. I remember going to 'gospel meetings' in the summer time and the house being completely filled and people standing outside and looking in and listening from the windows which were wide open because it was so hot. I recall many, many, baptisms, dinners on the ground, afternoon singings, vacations bible schools that lasted two weeks, gospel meetings that lasted 10 days to two weeks, and the church growing and was strong. The gospel was preached in love and I don't remember any big fusses or the church splitting because of personal differences.
I went with my buddy Jim Isbell to visit the Baptist church one night and I hoped that nobody would see me and tell Mom that I had gone to the Baptist church. But, you can't get away with much in Bay! I had hunkered down as low as I could so Max Taylor couldn't see me but it didn't work. When Max asked all the visitors to stand and I didn't, he said, "Well, I see Hook Knight back there to but he didn't stand up." Now, everyone in four counties knew that I had been to the Baptist church! Well, as you can see, I survived it!
I don't remember any big fights among the churches although there were severe disagreements doctrinally. I think that we all knew that those disagreements existed but we all agreed that there was a way to address those disagreements with a good spirit. That's the kind of people that we had at Bay and they even let us Herman Junctionites come into town and worship with them and I enjoyed it immensely.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
E. D. SMITH'S GROCERY: POST #61
I don't know what our family would have done had it not been for E. D. and Aunt Mollie Smith and their grocery store. This is where all of our groceries were bought for many, many, years. We would go into Bay on Saturday night and Mom would take her grocery list and hand it to E.D. and he would go about the store gathering all of the items and piling them on the counter. Then, he would take a pencil, spit on the end of it, and record every item and price of it on his little book and charge it. It took quite some time to do that too because there was always a long list and especially when Grandma Halfacre would send some money and order bologna, cheese, bread, and other stuff for us all to eat when we got back home. Can you imagine the food that it took to feed all of us? In the winter there was a roaring fire built in the stove in the back of the store and people gathered round that thing while the head of the clan would take care of buying the groceries. It was as crowded as Wal-Mart it seemed to me.!
I guess most of the other shoppers paid for their groceries at the time they bought them, but the Knight's charged theirs. I guess we must have paid once a month or something when Dad would get paid on the railroad and then later when we were farming and he was a carpenter. I don't know how all that worked out but we sure spent a lot of money at the Smith's grocery store. Later, E. D. retired and in 1956 he passed away. Dad bought the 1949 Chevy truck from Aunt Mollie and I loved that truck. He drove it until it was demolished by a train one day on the railroad crossing right in the middle of town. Aunt Mollie ran the store for a little time and then she closed it and sold it to Ben and Hazel Swanner and they ran it for a few years. They tore the old building down and built their home there and the house is still standing. I sure did hate to see that old store building go down. Dad built Aunt Mollie a house right next door and he and Mom lived there until they both passed away.
We did our shopping for clothes from Sears-Roebuck and Speigel's catalogs. What a great day it was when one of those big orders would come in and everyone would sit around and Mom hand out to each one what was meant for them. It all smelled so good and fresh. New jeans, shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes were distributed to everyone in the family. We sure looked spiffed up for some time before they would all begin to fade into looking just like the ones that we had before. We had Sunday clothes and everyday clothes and you didn't dare get those Sunday clothes all torn and messed up. They all had to last at least a year before we would make another order.
Sometimes I long for those days and those times. No credit cards, hot checks, thieves, etc. It was quite nice really and as we made our way back to Herman Junction we were glad that Bay was close by.
I guess most of the other shoppers paid for their groceries at the time they bought them, but the Knight's charged theirs. I guess we must have paid once a month or something when Dad would get paid on the railroad and then later when we were farming and he was a carpenter. I don't know how all that worked out but we sure spent a lot of money at the Smith's grocery store. Later, E. D. retired and in 1956 he passed away. Dad bought the 1949 Chevy truck from Aunt Mollie and I loved that truck. He drove it until it was demolished by a train one day on the railroad crossing right in the middle of town. Aunt Mollie ran the store for a little time and then she closed it and sold it to Ben and Hazel Swanner and they ran it for a few years. They tore the old building down and built their home there and the house is still standing. I sure did hate to see that old store building go down. Dad built Aunt Mollie a house right next door and he and Mom lived there until they both passed away.
We did our shopping for clothes from Sears-Roebuck and Speigel's catalogs. What a great day it was when one of those big orders would come in and everyone would sit around and Mom hand out to each one what was meant for them. It all smelled so good and fresh. New jeans, shirts, underwear, socks, and shoes were distributed to everyone in the family. We sure looked spiffed up for some time before they would all begin to fade into looking just like the ones that we had before. We had Sunday clothes and everyday clothes and you didn't dare get those Sunday clothes all torn and messed up. They all had to last at least a year before we would make another order.
Sometimes I long for those days and those times. No credit cards, hot checks, thieves, etc. It was quite nice really and as we made our way back to Herman Junction we were glad that Bay was close by.
SHOPPING AT BAY, ARK: POST#60
Bay, Arkansas was a suburb of our town of Herman Junction. That is where most of our shopping was done as well as visiting the Doctor, going to church, school, and most other things that we could not take care of at Herman Junction. By the time that we arrived at Herman Junction the school, hotel, sawmill, and the post office were closed. There was the one little grocery store left and that was about all. So, when we wanted to 'go to town' that meant going to Bay or to Truman and we chose to go to Bay most of the time. Truman just seemed a little unclean to Mom because it was in a 'wet' county so we stayed in the one that was dry even though the old highway that ran in front of our house was lined with empty beer cans and whiskey bottles that were thrown out of the car window as the consumer made his way back to the 'dry' county.
Bay was a bustling little metropolis as I was growing up. There were several grocery stores. E.D. Smith and his wife Aunt Mollie had one on what is now called 'Church Street'. Sitting beside the store was a Grist Mill where corn was taken and made into meal. West of the Grist Mill was Dick Davis's barber shop and across the alley was the Herman Hill/Carl Taylor grocery store and then on the corner was a Drug Store. The drug store burned and just left a huge, gaping hole in the place where it had been and there has never been a building built there again on the same spot.
Lining Main Street were several businesses. There was Raymond Collins Barbara Shop, another grocery store that I don't remember who owned it, a Cafe that various ones ran, Sam O'Daniel's grocery store, another building that housed a variety of businesses, the Post Office, and then there was another big grocery store. At one time Willis Holmes owned it and then a man named Roach owned it for several years. Following that the 'Chinaman' owned it and I never did know his name, it was just the Chinaman. Across a small parking lost there stood Fred Friends Gulf service station.
One the other end of Main Street there was the theatre, Howard Hundley's grocery store, later owned by Carl Taylor, W.A. Hall's variety store, the Yellow Jacket Cafe, and a pool hall. Behind Howard Hundley's grocery store was a little shack that Doss Miller lived in. Mr. Miller drank an awful lot and I remember that they would limit his purchase of shaving lotion and other items like that because he would drink them. On past his little house there was another store and on the corner there was Mr. Burris's shoe shop. A big house called the "Hindman House' stood between the pool hall and Vernus Kitterman's grocery store. Barbara and I spent our first night of married life in that house. Out in the alley behind the Post Office was the huge Mule Barn and the jail house. Various families lived in part of the old mule barn building including the Knight family before I made my appearance on the scene. Various changes were made through the years but that is the basic layout of the downtown part of Bay.
When I was in my teens I worked with the Mexican field laborers driving them out to the fields, picking cotton with them, and then driving them home for the night. On weekends we always took them to town and since I had learned to speak Spanish pretty well I would work in Mr. Hall's Variety store translating for them and I really enjoyed that. He sold about everything that one could imagine except groceries. How I wish now that I could remember all the Spanish that I learned and could even expand on it but when you don't use something you usually lose it and I did.
Across the railroad tracks were two gins and several other houses in my day. The gins are still there and still operate during the fall and you can hear and smell them all over town. They sure aren't good for allergy prone people like me. As I mentioned earlier, Bay was a bustling place on Saturday evening and night. It was the place to be. I can go back there in my mind right now and really have a good time, but for right now I will move on back home to Herman Junction.
Bay was a bustling little metropolis as I was growing up. There were several grocery stores. E.D. Smith and his wife Aunt Mollie had one on what is now called 'Church Street'. Sitting beside the store was a Grist Mill where corn was taken and made into meal. West of the Grist Mill was Dick Davis's barber shop and across the alley was the Herman Hill/Carl Taylor grocery store and then on the corner was a Drug Store. The drug store burned and just left a huge, gaping hole in the place where it had been and there has never been a building built there again on the same spot.
Lining Main Street were several businesses. There was Raymond Collins Barbara Shop, another grocery store that I don't remember who owned it, a Cafe that various ones ran, Sam O'Daniel's grocery store, another building that housed a variety of businesses, the Post Office, and then there was another big grocery store. At one time Willis Holmes owned it and then a man named Roach owned it for several years. Following that the 'Chinaman' owned it and I never did know his name, it was just the Chinaman. Across a small parking lost there stood Fred Friends Gulf service station.
One the other end of Main Street there was the theatre, Howard Hundley's grocery store, later owned by Carl Taylor, W.A. Hall's variety store, the Yellow Jacket Cafe, and a pool hall. Behind Howard Hundley's grocery store was a little shack that Doss Miller lived in. Mr. Miller drank an awful lot and I remember that they would limit his purchase of shaving lotion and other items like that because he would drink them. On past his little house there was another store and on the corner there was Mr. Burris's shoe shop. A big house called the "Hindman House' stood between the pool hall and Vernus Kitterman's grocery store. Barbara and I spent our first night of married life in that house. Out in the alley behind the Post Office was the huge Mule Barn and the jail house. Various families lived in part of the old mule barn building including the Knight family before I made my appearance on the scene. Various changes were made through the years but that is the basic layout of the downtown part of Bay.
When I was in my teens I worked with the Mexican field laborers driving them out to the fields, picking cotton with them, and then driving them home for the night. On weekends we always took them to town and since I had learned to speak Spanish pretty well I would work in Mr. Hall's Variety store translating for them and I really enjoyed that. He sold about everything that one could imagine except groceries. How I wish now that I could remember all the Spanish that I learned and could even expand on it but when you don't use something you usually lose it and I did.
Across the railroad tracks were two gins and several other houses in my day. The gins are still there and still operate during the fall and you can hear and smell them all over town. They sure aren't good for allergy prone people like me. As I mentioned earlier, Bay was a bustling place on Saturday evening and night. It was the place to be. I can go back there in my mind right now and really have a good time, but for right now I will move on back home to Herman Junction.
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