GRANNY HARVILL, 90, STILL "TOTING PONE"

Mrs M.A. Harvill and Grandson

Longevity is the rule in the fmily of Mrs M.A.Harvill, 411 Ayers road, Macon. She is 90 years old and considers herself young yet. Her grandmother Womack lived to be 99; her uncle Joe was a hundred when he died; her mother's brother lived to be 113; Two of her brothers are aged 84 and 86 respectively. one of her aunts died young-aged 74.
Though Granny Harvill is slightly deaf, "and not so strong as she once was" she cooks three meals a day for herself and her grandson James, who lives with her; she putters........reads the newspapers without glasses.
Refusing to live with her children, or grandchildren, she rents rooms from Mrs j. alexander and with the help of {her grandson} James, who is about 16, does all her own work.
"Why dont I live with my children?" she repeated the question, and rocked gently in her chair, as she hesitated for the proper words.
"Totes Own Pone"
"Well I tell you, I heard my Grandmother Womack say a long time ago that so long as she had that pone under her arm, she'd carry it there. I'm carrying my own pone and I expect to tote it as long as I can." She wore her bedroom slippers but she was neat;  her checked blue and white apronspread over her ample lap, fresh and unwrinkled;  her white bobbed hair was smoothly brushed and held in place wit a modern bobby-pin.  Her Wrinkled face, sunkini at the mouth for lack of teeth, was good-natured , and her faded brown eyes were full of merriment.
As she talked her grandson, James, leaned against the arm of her rocker and from time to time interupted her story, politely with little apologetic pats, lovingly administered to her plump arm.  It was delightful to see the comradeship existing between the 16 year old boy and his aged grandmother.
"I took James to live with me when he was a baby," she explained, "His mother died when he was just a few days old and she gave him to me just before she died"  He's a mighty good boy," and she smiled affectionately upon him.  He returned the smile and leaned over to kiss the top of her white head.

When The Yankees Came
"Tell her about when the Yankees came through Granny,"  he said. "There's not much to tell," she answered.   "I was living in Jones county then, {when the Yankees came through} ...I was born in Walton, near Social Circle, but my father moved to Monroe county the next year. When I was 14, he moved to Jones and we were living there when the war began. I remember well the battle near Sunshine church when Stoneman's Brigade fought there. It was in the summer and that fall Sherman's army came through."
"They drove off all our cows and killed our hogs.  They would have burned our house but I asked an officer not to let them do it and he made the soldiers leave the yard and not burn the house."
"I remember it just as well -- it was raining a little and cold.  The soldiers had shot the hogs or killed them with bayonets and they would cut off a ham or two and leave the rest of the pig lying right in the field.  I watched them a little, then I followed some of the men to the smoke house.  One of them was trying to kick the head out of a barrel of syrup. I told him to go ahead and kick--it was only sorghum! One of the children came running to me and told me a man had a torch and was about to set fire to the house. So I went to the officer his name was Kilpatrick, I found out - and asked him not to let them burn the house. I told him my mother had just died a week before and how bad everything was and  he made the men stop.  He acted real nice."
There was no animosity in her voice as she recited the trials of the After-War period.  She related the story in a calm and matter-of-fact voice.

Salvaged Hog Meat
"After the soldiers left, my two little brothers and I worked all night skinning those hogs and putting the meat up.    I knew we'd need it later. I was 22 years old then;  my brothers had gone to war; my father was feeble and half sick and my mother had just died the week before. Somebody had to look after things."
" They had driven off our cows and taken our last horse.  All the Negroes had gone.  They killed our chickens and-"  The wrinkled face broke into a smile and Granny chuckled -- " The only thing on the place they didn't get were those guineas.  They tried to shoot them but they must not have been very good shots because those guineas flew off, and that night every one of them came home".
"Luckily for us the Yankees had left some old broken-down Horses behind them, swapped them for our good mules. One of the horses had a sore back but he was a pretty good horse, so we nursed him and took care of him and next year he made the crop for us".
"Both my brothers came home from the war all right. Brother Jack (he is A.J. Womack, commander of the R.A. Smith Camp, U.C.V.) had a finger shot off,  but Gus never had a scratch."

Spun Own Dresses
"Times were mighty tight after the War, but I reckon they weren't so bad as now, because then we lived on a farm and we could raise something to eat.  And folks are use to so much these days and want to much.  In those days we spun and wove the cotton and then made our own dresses and when I god a new homespun dress,  I thought I was something!  Girls these days wouldn't be satisfied with that.  They have to buy a dozen dresses at the store."
" There was a big family of us and we made eveything we wore.  I could make pants for my brothers as good as anybody could make.  I never was much on coats, though.  Mother could make the best looking coats, but I never was much on them." Abruptly she broke off the story and pointed to her flowers, which blossomed in pots along the bannister rail-of the front porch where she sat .......... and geraniums bloomed proudly. "Granny..................." explained James.  " I don't help herwith them.  She does it all-even gets the dirt for the pots.  She can just take any little old shoot and plant it and it grows to beat the band." At this juncture,  Mrs. Alexander, who is Granny's landlady, put in; "Granny isn't worn out by a good sight.  She does more than many young women can do today." Suddenly she began to laugh. "Anybody who thinks Granny is old is mistaken. Last Sunday morning, James was gone out somewhere and Granny heard the ice man ring his bell. I was still in bed and I heard Granny give a yell that you could have heard three blocks away.  She was trying to stop that ice man. " But it scared me to death.  I thought she was killed.  I jumped out of bed and started to run to her and hit my foot against a rock I use for a door stop and nearly broke my toe.  James came running and all the neighbors down the road came to see what was wrong. " Granny isn't old. Her voice isn't anyway."
Indeed she is not.  She threatens to live 20 more years, " Just to fool those pension commissioners."  She explained that her pension, due her as the widow of a Confederate veteran, its sadly in arrears, so that the " pone is about to slip from under her arm."
" They think they needn't pay the pensions, that all of us old folks will be dead before long and they won't have to pay it.  But I'll fool em," she chuckled.

Back to Womack Records

Womack Family News