Needless to say that my parents became very busy. The farm started growing and I still was the only child of Martha and Hiram Nuckols. My dad would lug me around with him on the farm as often as he could. I can remember walking through tall fields of tobacco and having tobacco worm fights with my cousin Nucks. He was a Charles Nuckols III so we just called him Nucks. Those worms were huge and green and ugly. We would chase each other all over the place trying to squirt the insides on one another. Dad thought it was hilarious but mom would throw a fit when I would get home with worm juice all over me. LOL I was a Tom boy due to my dads doings. I loved to round up cattle on the horse with him and go to the barns and check out the tobacco when it was curing. We had farmhands that hung the tobacco way up in the top of barns we had coal stoves that burned during the nite and it would cure the tobacco. This was a long process. Finally it was ready and we would take it to market. My dad and his brothers bought into a share of 4th Street Tobacco Warehouse in Lexington, Kentucky. Thats where we sold lots of Burley. Thats the kind of tobacco that Kentucky sold. It was bought by the big Tobacco Co. and processed into pipe, chewing, and cigar tobacco.. The tobacco in N. Carolina and Va. were bought and processed into cigarette tobacco. They were graded into 3 different grades
A, B, and C A grade was for cigar, B was for chew and C was ground and processed for pipe. It was a great part of the season for us cause we mostly had grade A and got usually top dollar for our crop. We were allotted a large acreage from the government to raise.
My granddad had a contract with the government to raise hemp during the war. We raised lots of it from what I was told. It was raised and harvested to make rope for the warships and other things they needed. Until I left the farm we still had government inspectors come and check to make sure the hemp crops had been destroyed and none had been growing wild. Hemp seeds blow and start growing anywhere they land. So we burned lots of small little patches that would pop up here and there. Thats one of the downfalls of doing a contract with the government. LOL They always pop up unannounced.
Granddad was a stern old guy. You could never put anything over on him. We had L&N railroad that ran through our farm. In some ways it was good in some it was bad. We could buy cattle and have them delivered right to the farm. We had a cattle shute where we could recieve cattle right off the train. That was fun too, watching them flow off the cattle car right into the field.
But the railroad workers tend to make my granddad a little angry. We had huge stone walls that ran along the railroad at crossings on the farm. The workers (which were predominantly black at that time) would sit and eat their lunches or take their breaks on the stone fences. This angered my granddad being of that generation he said they looked like big black crows sitting on his walls. So he asked the railroad to advise the workers not to sit on the walls. They continued, so as soon as they were finished he had the work hands on our farm cement pointed stones on top of the walls. They never sat on them again.
I to this day can remember those guys swinging hemp hooks and maintaining the railroads.
During the times in late summer or fall the sparks of the trains would set the weeds along the railroad on fire. That was scarey. The horses would run and the fires would spread. Of course we didnt have hydrants that far out from town so thank goodness for the spring below the house. It saved many an acre during my childhood. Of course this was another way that my grandfather would get even. He would bill the railroad for the man power used and the damage and the fresh spring water he used from the spring. LOL He was a bugger!! And believe it or not the railroad always paid him.
Mom and dad, when they first moved into our little house didnt have indoor plumbing. Guess how they got it??? Yepper the railroad made it possible with the charges granddad got from the billing of damage. LOL Mom got indoor plumbing and she was elated back then. LOL I was 2 yrs old when this happened. Thanks granddad for giving me a real potty to potty train in. LOL
OK thats all for today. Hopefully I can get in another tonite or tomorrow.
Let it be known that my granddad always took a negative and turned it into a positive for the family.
A, B, and C A grade was for cigar, B was for chew and C was ground and processed for pipe. It was a great part of the season for us cause we mostly had grade A and got usually top dollar for our crop. We were allotted a large acreage from the government to raise.
My granddad had a contract with the government to raise hemp during the war. We raised lots of it from what I was told. It was raised and harvested to make rope for the warships and other things they needed. Until I left the farm we still had government inspectors come and check to make sure the hemp crops had been destroyed and none had been growing wild. Hemp seeds blow and start growing anywhere they land. So we burned lots of small little patches that would pop up here and there. Thats one of the downfalls of doing a contract with the government. LOL They always pop up unannounced.
Granddad was a stern old guy. You could never put anything over on him. We had L&N railroad that ran through our farm. In some ways it was good in some it was bad. We could buy cattle and have them delivered right to the farm. We had a cattle shute where we could recieve cattle right off the train. That was fun too, watching them flow off the cattle car right into the field.
But the railroad workers tend to make my granddad a little angry. We had huge stone walls that ran along the railroad at crossings on the farm. The workers (which were predominantly black at that time) would sit and eat their lunches or take their breaks on the stone fences. This angered my granddad being of that generation he said they looked like big black crows sitting on his walls. So he asked the railroad to advise the workers not to sit on the walls. They continued, so as soon as they were finished he had the work hands on our farm cement pointed stones on top of the walls. They never sat on them again.
I to this day can remember those guys swinging hemp hooks and maintaining the railroads.
During the times in late summer or fall the sparks of the trains would set the weeds along the railroad on fire. That was scarey. The horses would run and the fires would spread. Of course we didnt have hydrants that far out from town so thank goodness for the spring below the house. It saved many an acre during my childhood. Of course this was another way that my grandfather would get even. He would bill the railroad for the man power used and the damage and the fresh spring water he used from the spring. LOL He was a bugger!! And believe it or not the railroad always paid him.
Mom and dad, when they first moved into our little house didnt have indoor plumbing. Guess how they got it??? Yepper the railroad made it possible with the charges granddad got from the billing of damage. LOL Mom got indoor plumbing and she was elated back then. LOL I was 2 yrs old when this happened. Thanks granddad for giving me a real potty to potty train in. LOL
OK thats all for today. Hopefully I can get in another tonite or tomorrow.
Let it be known that my granddad always took a negative and turned it into a positive for the family.
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