The Unsung Hero Lost In My Tree

Are you as amazed as I am reading about ordinary people who do extraordinary things? Aspiring Blog has given us the opportunity to read about some incredible people who did things beyond what is expected of a normal human being. And they all had things in common.

They are things which are hard to find in society anymore; They did it to help others, they did it not for money, or recognition. In fact, if someone else didn’t write their story we would never even hear about them because that’s what makes them “Unsung Heroes.”

A Simple Man

If you read Aspiring Blogs stories, you have read about “The Unseen Contributions of Slum Dwellers to Urban Life” and many more can be found on their blog or in the book ”Unfold the Stories of Unsung Heroes.”

But I’m going to tell you about a simple hardworking man who came from a line of simple hard-working men. This man is my grandfather, James Lewis Stanley. He was a pig farmer in Woodville, Tennessee during the “Great Depression 1929-1939.”

A few of these stories were local legends told to me by my aunts and uncles. Others were told to me by James Lewis himself “Papaw” we all called him. Granny was the only one who called him by name, James or “JAMES LEWIS!!” when she was mad. I picked many stories out of him while on catfishing trips. Papaw was the greatest fisherman I ever met, and I’ve met many, but I digress.

Money Is Not Always Green

There was no money during the Depression, and I mean none in rural areas like Woodville. In the big cities, people were jumping out of skyscraper windows or finding other ways to end their lives. They were just not able to live a life without money.

Back in Brownsville, my grandfather “Papaw “took stock of what he had. He had about 50 hogs including 4 boars and the rest sows. In addition, he had a few dozen hoglets. The pigs were seen as a burden (at first) because he could no longer sell them, and he couldn’t buy feed. He also had two milk cows, one mule, and the usual household brood of chickens.

Their basement shelves were lined with canned goods from the garden, so they were fixed quite well. There were very few cows in the county other than dairy cows. At the time they were too expensive to buy and keep up. Pigs could survive in the wild with or without help, but fed and managed pigs were preferred to eat and a must to sell.

Rosco Smith

The farm behind the Stanley farm was owned by Rosco Smith. Rosco grew 80 acres of corn and 80 acres of cotton. He rotated the crops each year. When The Great Depression came Papaw went to him with the plan of using Rosco’s corn as pig feed instead of making moonshine with it.

Rosco’s moonshine was prized throughout Woodville and Haywood County. If Rosco would agree, the pigs could be fed, and in return, Papaw could supply everyone in Woodville and beyond with meat. But sadly, Rosco would have none of it and Rosco gathered support from the other farmers who did not want to give up their supply of moonshine whisky.

Well, it soon turned out nobody had any money to pay Rosco for his whisky anymore. It also turned out that Papaw had co-signed the loan for Rosco to buy the 160 acres. Rosco couldn’t sell his moonshine so he couldn’t keep up his payments. As co-signer, Papaw was forced by the bank to take over Rosco’s farm. Fighting ensued between Papaw and Rosco when he refused to leave the farm.

My grandmother (Granny) “Sally” told me that every day Papaw would come home beaten up and bloody as Rosco was a very big man.

Slingshot Gunslinger

Papaw was known to be the best shot in the county with his slingshot, simply made from a “Y” shaped hickory tree branch and strips of rubber from an old tire tube. At least ten relatives told me that he could throw a rock into the air and hit it every time with his slingshot.

He could even do it in the dark. You could see the spark fly when he hit it in the dark. When I asked him if this was true, he smiled and simply said “Well, I didn’t miss very often.”

Early one morning Rosco walked to the edge of his porch to pee, a common practice living on a farm. From the brush nearby the rubber on a slingshot stretched to the maximum and a rock traveled at the speed of sound, then connected with the exposed part of Rosco. As he screamed in pain, falling off the porch, Papaw silently slipped back home giggling all the way.

From that time on, wherever Rosco went, he was never sure when a rock might smash the side of his face, the back of his head, or God forbid he try to pee in public. Two stories were told to me about what happened to Rosco. He was fishing off the bridge at Forked Deer River and he fell off the bridge.

The other was that Rosco simply decided to leave and go to Memphis, but for some reason, he left his wife behind. “Mary” became a friend of the Stanley family and remained on the Rosco farm behind Papaws.

Her shadowy figure is seen on the porch in our family photo taken in the early 1900s (before the Depression) but not long before the time of the Spanish Flu epidemic that took the lives of many of my family, others in Woodville, and many parts of the world.

Startup Organization

So, “Papaw’s” plan began. He got together with the farmers and agreed to feed and keep his pigs fat, healthy, and producing piglets. He would supply Woodville and much of Haywood County with all the meat he could produce for as long as it took.

The banker accepted one grown hog per month as the payment on Rosco’s former farm. Papaw also helped designate farms for certain vegetables based on the soil and sunlight. (The area is now famous for its vine-ripened tomatoes).

At the age of 8, I visited one of the sorghum molasses farms and sampled some of the sweet nectar by dipping in with a piece of straw. As we say nowadays, OMG!! it’s good. At the time, the canes were crushed using a mule that walked in a circle, harnessed to a wood pole, turning a big round rock. Other farms grew cotton, and the women spun it making clothes for everyone.

What Is a Blue Mule?

Horses were good but mules were worth their weight in gold, and mules weigh a lot! So of course, there was a mule rancher. He already had the market cornered before the depression, but mules were even more important now. It took a lot of veggies to trade for a mule.

Papaw would do his chores before sunrise then hitch “Blue” the mule up to the wagon and begin distributing salted down hams, shoulders, ribs, bacon, sausage, pig feet, ears, tongue, tail, organ meat, and even intestines to make chitlins. And don’t forget “Hog head cheese.”

They say every part of a pig is used but the squeal. I have eaten it all but in my elder years, I have been vegan for four of those years. So, what is a Blue Mule?

Well, mules 99.9% don’t reproduce. They are basically a donkey bred with a horse. The old saying “once in a blue moon” comes from the first known mule born from another mule which happened during a blue moon.

Self-Reliance And No Hunger

There were many widows, usually with children during this period. It was after WWI and the Spanish Flu had taken its toll. Widows had no money and usually children to feed, but it mattered not. Nobody had any money and Papaw kept them all in meat. Others kept them in veggies.

I am not going to be able to tell all the interesting stories in one article. It would be too long for a blog post. Maybe I’ll write another blog post about his exploits. So, let me leave you with this, Papaw lived with us for the last two years of his life and I heard many more stories.

Each time he would talk about his pigs, his eyes would get watery and so did mine as they are now. I’m sure most of you have unsung heroes in your family, no matter how large or small, why not tell their story?

Look for a follow-up if you liked this. I really didn’t get to all the fun stories of the man known as “Papaw” who was determined to feed his neighbors through The Great Depression.

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