Grandfather Cox (J. Lacy) died a couple of months before my fifth birthday, so my memories of him are quite limited. I do, however, remember going down to Bruceville to visit him and Grandmother (Mary, "Manie") at different times. My parents (Carl, "Car", and Martha, "Mattie") would take us to visit sometimes on weekends. Back then, in the early 1930s, it seemed quite a long journey to take in Papa's 1929 green Model A Ford (complete with running boards!). Actually, it was probably less than ten miles.
Their house was small. There was a kitchen and a parlor. I don't remember if there was another room or if all the "visiting" was done in the kitchen. Certainly the parlor was NOT used for casual socializing! The one piece of furniture that stands out in my memory was a pump organ which held a place of honor in the parlor. Back in those days, the parlor was used for laying out the dead, and for really important company, such as the preacher. I don't remember ever going up the stairs, so I don't know if there was only one room or more, but I believe it probably would have been two rooms. There was no indoor plumbing. The "bathroom" was an outhouse toward the back of the lot. I can remember a catalog being there -- the pages of it were used as toilet paper. There was an outdoor well, from which water was obtained.
Though the house was very humble and plain, the yard was beautiful. Grandmother truly had a "green thumb". I remember small pink roses (probably wild roses, but they were so pretty and they smelled SO nice), hollyhocks, and so many other flowers. Between the front yard and the road was a ditch. There were boards laid across the ditch for driving into the driveway, and there was a little wooden bridge for walking across the ditch to the mailbox. In the backyard, there was a glider-type swing with two seats, each large enough to hold a couple of adults. I can remember Grandfather taking me out and swinging with me while the others visited. I guess that is my only real memory of him.
I have a few more memories of Grandmother, since she lived until I was almost thirteen. I never saw her without an apron on, and her aprons weren't the fancy kind. Many of them were made of checked gingham. They tied around the waist and went almost to the floor. She spent several months with us during the winter of 1940-41. We had a warm spell - a false spring - and she insisted on going back to Bruceville to her own home. Then it turned real cold again, she got sick and died in February.
They are both buried in Upper Bambury Cemetery.
-- by Hazel Satchell (1928-2003),
granddaughter of J. Lacy and Mary E. Cox,
part of a letter sent about 1998.
