Her grave marker is inscribed MOTHER Sallie E. Porter, Mar. 30, 1852-Nov. 7, 1941. She was not actually a mother, but rather a stepmother. She knew of her husband's son somewhere in Texas, and saw him only in his pictures. He remembered her at Christmas and on Mother's Day, and no doubt was responsible for having had a marker placed at her grave; She had lived many years after her husband's death. I'm told she had two stepdaughters, but I don't recall her ever mentioning them. Some folks referred to her as Sal Porter, and that always bothered me. Sal was not a fitting name for the dear little woman. She was my Aunt Sallie; she was that to non-relatives too, who affectionately called her Aunt. She was special to me, different from anyone I'd known, always interesting and inspiring. My memories of her are clear, and she continues to come back in my dreams, unchanged. She had a singular life-style and a unique language. "Um" could mean "I," "you," "they," "them" or things - almost anyone or anything. I recall the time a neighbor brought her a pie when she was very sick. I saw it piled high with the best looking meringue I'd ever seen. Her reaction, "Um don't like um old soap suds." She had a great fear of automobiles, although she saw few of them in her many years. "Um old cars might run over me." She requested that she should be buried far from the "big road" so "Um old cars won't run over um's grave." Her wish was granted. "Um needs to clean house after a 'do' not before." I've learned the meaning of this sage advice in later years of housekeeping. Aunt Sallie dressed in either black or white, and I realize now that this characteristic probably exemplified her philosophies. Her ideas and ideals were clearly of right or wrong; there were no neutrals. In her last years she wore black - black skirts, long-sleeved buttoned-to-the-top blouses, and even her stockings and high top shoes were black. In the daytime she wore a small black scarf tied under her chin. If weather required extra warmth, she'd wear a black shawl. White for night clothes. She wore long sleeved, high neck, buttoned-up gowns and white night caps. She kept her thin, silver hair covered at all times in her last years. Getting ready for bed was a sort of ritual. My first memory of the order of undressing properly was watching her place a straight back chair beside her bed, and having me set another at the foot. She instructed me to fold carefully, right side out, my outer garments on the top chair rung. I observed that she was slowly undressing and layering her clothes as she was telling me to do likewise. She showed me how to set my shoes side by side under the chair, toes and heels evenly aligned. Many years have passed since, and I continue to arrange my shoes as she taught me. To do them any other way would seem downright disrespectful to the memory of my teacher-friend. Aunt Sallie's readiness for bed was never a hurried process. Neither was her arising. She sat on the edge of her bed, and repeatedly stretched her arms, and yawned in sounds of "ah" and "um-m-m." She rolled her tongue around in her mouth, and smacked her thin lips. She exercised this ritual before she reached for her clothes waiting on the chair near by. I often slept with her and waited patiently for her preparations for her daily routine. These moments were the beginnings of each new day in which she would mostly spend her hours shuffling around quietly in her little house, or resting in her chair and smoking her clay pipe. I've learned from a relative how she was able to acquire her tobacco supply. I knew she didn't use 'store terbaccer," but I didn't realize that she gathered her own. She went every year to a relative's barn in town, and pulled off "ears," the scrappy tags left on the stalks after grading was done. She filled her cloth sacks and took them home for drying and storing. Our small town had roads and alleys, no streets. Her house was close to the main road through town. Her yard was fences, and along one side she grew summer's brightest flowers. One could expect to see a profusion of zinnias, marigolds and asters. Against the southern wall of her house she grew the town's finest tomatoes. She staked and tied them, and nurtured them to a bountiful crop she could share. Aunt Sallie's constant companions were her "Birdies," her flock of six or eight pampered laying hens. She kept them in an open pen beside a properly covered shelter. One night her chickens disappeared - all of them. Some of the town's young chaps were the suspects, and she realized what they probably had done. She promptly walked the short distance to the General Merchandise, and told the merchant she thought he had bought 'um Birdies." The two of them went out to the coops where the chickens were kept for market. She bent over and called to her own, "Come Birdies. Come Birdies." They responded and she, with some help from bystanders, carried her precious pets home. Her small back porch, in all seasons, sheltered a neatly stacked supply of wood. In cold weather there would be old battered buckets piled high with coal. The front porch ran the length of the house. Steps led down to the road, and I always paused to look at my cousin's baby footprints and her initials on the last one. I was told my aunt and uncle came to town on the day the steps were built, and as was the custom the baby's feet were pressed into the wet cement. For some unexplained reason I felt certain restrictions inside the house. The door to the back room remained closed. I dared not venture near the closet under the stairs at the end of the hall. The dark, unused loft I've seen only in my dreams. It, like the closet, seemed to hold strange, frightening secrets. The front room was bedroom and sitting room. Two beds occupied two corners. I preferred the larger one; I could sleep with Aunt Sallie in it. There were a few straight back chairs and one rocker. It was hers. I don't recall that I ever sat in it, or saw anyone else use her chosen chair. It was aged and worn, padded with old cushions, and kept under a window, from which she would watch the town's folk come and go. Any time I think of her in her rocker I see her with her long-stemmed clay pipe. Her house reeked of stale tobacco smoke, but I didn't mind. It seemed such a natural part of her. The fireplace was on the same side, just in front of her rocker. On the coldest winter days she kept only a small fire, just a few lumps of live coals in the center of the grate. I knew she kept warm under her layers of petticoats while I felt uncomfortable, but I would not have her know I felt the chill. "Aunt Crowe" was a frequent visitor, another elderly, widowed lady. She too wore a head cover, a becoming print bonnet. Written by Lou Richards Submitted by Dana Williams [ Story Index ][ Your Comment ] One night the three of us sat before the fire while each of my dear friends enjoyed her particular kind of tobacco. Aunt Sallie was contentedly smoking her pipe and Aunt Crowe dipping and spitting her snuff. It was she who spoke first. "Now, Honey, don't you ever start using this stuff. It's not good for you." Aunt Sallie added her admonition. "Um better not begin." It seemed strange in some ways; they were enjoying something they were telling me not to use. I have remembered their advice; they would be proud. On the corner of the "fireboard" Aunt Sallie kept a can of paper tapers fashioned from pages of old catalogs friends had given her. She used them to light her pipe and oil lamp from the live coals. There were the treasured times she and I had our meals of tasty Johnny Cakes. She mixed flour and milk, and fried them in a tiny skillet she held over the coals in her fireplace. We had either her homemade brown sugar syrup or some of her jellies spread over them. I felt we'd had a feast when we sat together and ate her particular goodies I could find no other place. I recall kneeling on the floor beside her chair as she peeled apples. I gathered and ate the peelings from her apron while she continued to core and peel them. I especially enjoyed her pickled beets on big, thick biscuits. Later I was told she made her own vinegar, and took special care of its "Mother" in order to have it reproduce. Now I know why her beets were no ordinary pickled ones. A crowded kitchen, a corner room, led off the front room. The small step-stove served her needs and provided added warmth in winter. A small bench beside the "eat in' table" was my favorite place. On the other side one could see a sparsely furnished dining room. If we ate there, and we seldom did, we carried chairs for seating from the main room. There was a smaller table opposite the dining table, but the most important object in the room was her "safe." She never thought of it as a cabinet or cupboard. It had glass doors in the upper section, but I cannot remember a single thing stored in it. The safe was significant to me because I knew about the treasure on top. How well I remember the times Aunt Sallie stood on her tip toes, and stretched to reach for a little glass jar where she stored peppermint stick candy. I would wait expectantly for my offerings. She probably never gave me more than an inch of it at any time, but it was the best treat imaginable. I savored it as long as I could possibly make it last. I have found none since which tasted as refreshing, as flavorful. There is only one unpleasant memory, a particular time I was very unhappy in her house. It was the worst case of homesickness I'd ever experienced. As I recall the agony of the situation I must have felt I wouldn't survive, and it only lasted two days. My Aunt Carrie who was a teacher in the town school and I often stayed with Aunt Sallie during bad weather. We were two miles out without transportation. Sometimes we had an entire week with Aunt Sallie. That pleased me; it meant I wouldn't be walking the distance mornings and afternoons. On a particular cold, snowy Friday afternoon my Aunt Carrie went home with the promise she'd come back on horseback for me the next afternoon. The hours were endless! I stood at the front window and watched with painful envy all the chldren in town playing in the road. They had sleds, they skated, they whooped and laughed and ignored me. I wasn't allowed a breath of fresh air, and the greatest fun was theirs. "Um might get sick," was Aunt Sallie's reasoning. She didn't permit me to go as far as her little "out house," only a short distance behind the house. She carried an old pot inside for my needs instead. >From a small closet in the front room she brought out "pretties" I'd never seen, and I was surprised she had anything so lovely. They were no doubt small keepsakes she'd stored away. Some were so tiny I could hold them in the windowsill as I watched the good times outside. My play-pretties were little comfort, until my aunt returned Saturday afternoon to get me. My teacher aunt married, and the following year we had a school bus service. I visited Aunt Sallie less, and spent no more nights with her. My Grandmother occasionally sent a lard bucket filled with pickle beans, or buttermilk with a proud of butter floating inside. Sometimes I had a bag of potatoes or apples. These I stored in the cloakroom of school until lunchtime when I could walk down to Aunt Sallie's house. I still remember her pleasure when I went into her room, and I usually found her at that hour in her rocker, enjoying her pipe. My visits ended. I graduated from high school and went away. I missed her as much as any other family members. I took along many warm memories of her and them. When Aunt Sallie stirred the coals in her fireplace, or buit a fire in her kitchen stove, the rising smoke was the sign her neighbors had watched for. This meant she was "up and about." Their concerns for her were many, but she was not alone when death came, their greatest fear. A young lady who lived out of town had boarded with her through some of her high school years. She along with another of Aunt Sallie's friends, an elderly widow, had come into town for Election Day. They had visited. They were invited to spent the night and each was able to stay. When she awakened the next morning she didn't get out of bed. She asked her visitors to build her fires, and make some coffee. There were two attacks; the town doctor called them strokes, and she went quickly. My Grandmother had been telling me for sometime that she feared her aunt wouldn't live much longer She'd started giving away some of her treasures, some things to family members, some to friends. An old handmade washstand was passed on to a relative. On one occasion she gave my Grandmother a prized potted plant I asked why she'd give it away. That's when I was told that there comes a time when some people will part with certain treasured possessions, and it was not a good sign. In growing older I reflect on many circumstances, various occasions spent with my elderly companion. Among all the memories of her, I probably cherish most those times I could be in her soft feather bed, snuggled in warm cotton sheets and her homemade quilts, both patched in spots, and listen to the rain on her tin roof. There was a comforting kind of music in the sounds of its dripping from the house onto the porch roof before. I wanted these moments to last forever. Long after her death I began to wonder about the recollections of Aunt Sallie's hsuband, Milburn. She called him "Mibin." I've been told that he fussed at her a lot. He was a stern man, a preacher, a carpenter and one who had "good business sense." He was respected although his acquaintances didn't feel they ever really knew him. I don't recall ever seeing him living in their house. My most vivid memory of him is the day he performed my aunt and uncle's wedding ceremony in my Grandparent's house. It is vague, but I think of him as a tall, thin man with a mustache and a grim expression. He intimidated me, probably because I'd heard about his strictness. The one time I was in Aunt Sallie's back room was on the night of Uncle Milburn's wake. His casket had been placed against the wall opposite the door. Surely I didn't go in alone, but I can't recall that anyone else was with me, just the dim light from the kerosene lamp and the eerie darkness around me. Her house is gone. A Town Hall and Fire Department have been built on the site. When I pass by a rush of fond reminiscing fills me. She continues to return in my dreams, and I hope that never ends. She and her little house remain as I knew them.