Queen Dickerson Franklin - Part III - memories of a very long life

QUEEN REBECCA DICKERSON FRANKLIN 
Part III 

(Family lineage: Queen Rebecca Dickerson¹; Edna Bethel Franklin²; Judith Ann Hayward³)

1891 – 1998

Nellie Ferguson Baker, Oliver Baker and Queen Dickerson  1910 in West Fork, AR

As noted in the two previous posts detailing her life,  this woman could not be crammed into only one post (actually this is the third of 3 parts and was previously published in April of 2014). Her natural talents were many, including oil painting, poetry, a  prestigious memory and story-telling ability.

Some of those memories were captured in her autobiography written on September 23, 1985 when she was "only" 94 years old  and entitled “Life as lived on Greenbrier Creek – My West Virginia Childhood Home”.   

A year later, she recruited one of her granddaughters to help her move from Indianapolis to Venice, Florida so she could be closer to her adult  “kids”. She never regretted that move.  For the rest of her long life she was surrounded by her family, enjoyed the warm Florida weather, and loved to watch the oranges grow from seedlings on her daughter's fruit trees.

It is impossible to include all the poems and stories she wrote over the years or show even a small percentage of her paintings.  But the following is  a sampling of her artistic talents before she became what she called “too old to remember” (that never happened!).  

The following poem set the stage for her  autobiography:

Seasons

Summer is past, October's here; the loveliest month of all the year.

Bumblebees, daubers and other pests – - like weeds and grasshoppers have gone to rest.

Likewise, Spring, Summer, and gorgeous Fall - must come to each of us – one and all;

Spring season, to me, is like childhood - with tears and laughter, bad and good.

Summer, like youth, unresponsive and gay - with Fall, we've traveled three-fourths of the way.

Have our lives been - as Winter draws nigh – useless like weeds which live and die?

May we live as seasons come and go – lives useful and clean, like pure white snow.

We cannot travel this way "a-gain" -  let us leave a “mark but not a stain”.

Queen R. Franklin 

 She continued to philosophize as she described the reason for her various paintings.

"Boys only" swimming hole in a hollow tree

"The idea for my painting of a fire in a hollow tree came from memories of my childhood when the boys would go 'possum hunting and build fires in trees – as hunters of earlier times had done. The technique of girding or burning  trees was taught by the Indians and involved cutting a shallow ring around the tree with an ax.  After the sap was cut off, the tree would die. I have linked  imagination with love and a paint brush, which works wonders!"

Queen's painting of the family farm

When I was a small child, most of our neighbors would let their livestock run free. Fencing was only erected around the fields which were tilled. The cows and sheep wore bells and knew where to go for milking or feeding. We children had the task of rounding up our particular family's cows by listening for different bell tones."

Queen's painting of a sorghum mill with mother Emarine and children working

"Threshing machines were hauled from one farm to another on flat-bed wagons drawn by horses or mules, as were sorghum mills.  After processing the cane, the machines were moved over mountains, with the men walking on the ground above while holding rope rings to prevent the equipment from flipping over. The roads zigzagged up the steep mountain-sides, always climbing upward until the summit of the mountain was reached or crossed.  Then the men changed sides as they started back downhill.  If a farm couldn't be reached by this method, the grain was hauled by sled to a pen which was made of poles or logs. Underneath the floor was placed canvas to catch the grain as it fell through the cracks."

I have one horrible memory of sorghum making.  I was only six years old when I heard
my ten year old brother, Boyd, who was feeding cane into the grinder, cry out in pain. Men ran to him and backed the horse up to reverse the mill and free Boyd's hand. The men carried him to the house; and his twin, Floyd, jumped onto a horse and rode across two mountains to get the doctor.  His hand was saved but Boyd's thumb remained stiff at the joint for the rest of his life."

"After my sister and one of my brothers bought some sheep and brought them home, my mother sheared them of their wool.  Later that year, we all sat around the fire in the evening with papers on our laps to catch the falling dirt and burrs as we picked the wool apart little by little - until it was free of loose dirt.

Then Mother carefully washed the wool in warm sudsy water to make it white and fluffy, followed by gently combing the fibers until they were straightened. The wool was then shaped into rolls which were piled into a huge basket.  The rolls were spun into yarn threads about the size of a course sewing thread and wound onto “shuttles” ready to be woven into blankets."

Emarine Bartram Dickerson

"I was 13 when I was finally allowed to sit on the rear of the loom and hand Mother threads one by one, until there were enough to make blanket material one-yard wide. I still have one of the blankets. I treasure it more than I did when I was so tired from handling those threads. Some of the wool was spun into heavier threads which Mother knitted into stockings and mittens. Knitting was always done at night or while resting from heavier work.”

Queen's autobiography continued to tell the stories of her life, including her life after meeting and marrying Fred Franklin. 


She lived fully and well, with plenty of twists and turns along the way. She may have been tiny but she was strong - so strong in fact that she bowled until she was 103 and lived 107 years before dying in Venice, Florida with her daughter, Edna, and sons Evert, Paul and Carthel around her bed.

Sadly there is no record of the person who typed up Queen's story as she dictated it, but my thanks to whomever you are - it was quite a project, but well worth the effort and very much appreciated!

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If you'd like to learn more about the Dickerson family you might enjoy reading the Legends of the Family posts featuring Hiram Dickerson, William Smith Dickerson, Emarine Bartram Dickerson,  Sarah Mounts, Anne Sapcote, William David Stewart and two more stories about Queen Rebecca Dickerson's life