Here is another story from my website. I never knew my natural grandfather who died in 1925 in Weakley County. Phillip Dozier was the only paternal grandfather I knew. He was a fine man who we knew as “Pa Dozier”. Grandmother was a widow for the second time when she met Phillip Dozier while a member of the Central Baptist Church in Martin, Tennessee. They married on 20 Dec 1942 and were good companions for the next 24 years. He always had a smile and a kind word. He seemed to understand the aging process by maintaining common sense activity. For instance, when he cut the yard, he would only cut until he felt fatigued and then would quit and rest. He smoked a pipe and Grandmother always made him smoke on the porch. He was active until he passed away at age 93. Pa Dozier always had a big garden on Moody Street in Martin. This always provided fresh vegetables in the summer. Grandmother would can the rest to hold them through the winter. I always remember having crowder peas when we visited. A typical meal consisted of crowder peas, mustard greens, corn, ham or fried chicken, and corn bread. The Meek family was the Dozier’s neighbor (two houses removed) on Moody Street in Martin, Tennessee. Anne Meek shared this story about Pa Dozier’s garden and the Moody Street neighborhood: "The Doziers were great neighbors. The entire neighborhood--Moody and Lee--was a wonderful place to grow up. Have you seen my brother's book ‘The Tarzan Club’? The Dozier house is mentioned in the book, because the famous "tree of jumps" was in their backyard. It was a huge ash tree on the bank of the ditch, outside the fence and behind the little barn, if my memory is correct. Maybe the boys could even get on the roof of the barn from the tree--could they? It was this tree that served as a test jumping station. As for me, I was too chicken and/or too little to start at the top of the tree and jump from limb to limb all the way down to the ground, as the boys did. I wanted to do everything the boys did but couldn't get up my nerve for that much jumping through the tree. Have I told you the story my family loved about Mr. Dozier planting by the moon and my dad planting by his education in agriculture at the university? During one season or another, Mr. Dozier won the competition, and my mother just loved to gently tease my dad about that! My dad and Mr. Dozier were both avid gardeners, growing everything possible in the backyard gardens... and what great "organic" produce we ate. 'Course, it took a lot of work on the part of everyone... and those lessons remain with me today, as I hate to see food go to waste. Food means work, you don't just throw it in the trash!” G. Robert "Bob" Farmer, Sr. [email protected]