Boozer Blog

It was 1933, and life was very hard. Ruby, 11 yrs old, was very, very sick that morning. All the other kids were up ready to start the day and Grandma was cooking breakfast while she and Grandpa discussed how to get Ruby to the hospital. The closest one was in Memphis, about 30 miles away and living on a houseboat with no car or other means of transportation meant it wasn’t going to be easy. Everything had been lost in the flood of 1927 including the boat that Grandpa supported his family with, by transporting people, crops and livestock up and down the Mississippi. With four other little ones at home and one on the way, Grandma couldn’t take her. So Grandpa got ready to start the long trip and walked out the door carrying Ruby in his arms. Grandma cried, not wanting to let go but she hugged her and kissed her fevered brow, telling her that she loved her and that her daddy was taking her to the hospital where they would take care of her. Ruby cried. She wanted Grandma to go but they...

My Daddy…. Growing up, we didn’t get to spend a lot of me- time with our daddy. It seemed like he was always working, at his job and then at home. He’d come home from work and we’d work in the garden, or mow the yard and he spent a lot of time teaching us how to do things that we needed to know to grow up to be responsible adults. But there were lots of good times. I remember a cold snowy day, when he took me and Bobby rabbit hunting. Just me and Bobby. And I remember the time and patience he had, teaching us how to drive. I remember coming home from school and telling daddy about my day and I remember his thirst for learning as I explained something new I had learned that day. I remember each Christmas Eve night, and how he loved for all of us kids to sing Christmas songs around the tree. And Christmases were always awesome. Mama always made sure of that. I remember one Saturday night where daddy and I stayed up late and watched Marilyn Monroe in “The River of No Return” and it has a...

I wonder what Luella thought when Ben told her they were moving to Arkansas. I wonder if she was excited about seeking new horizons and moving to a new place and a new life and a new adventure. She would get to meet more of Bens family and life would be whatever they made it. She would have none of her family looking disapprovingly over her shoulder telling her what Ben should and shouldn’t do. And pointing out everything about her new husband that they didn’t approve of, mainly that he was uneducated. Or maybe she was terrified at walking away from everything that her life promised to be? She was leaving the only family she knew and trading her dreams for Bens. Was she scared of what lay ahead? She gave up her little home of comfort to go to what? No promise of a home. No expectations, just dreams.  I wonder if she had a choice and if she could have said, “No Ben, we are staying here”. Or did she feel resigned to make the best that she could of the situation because she would have...

Where my story begins....... The setting sun meant it would be dark soon and six year old Luella wanted her mama. She could be a brat on occasion and Della mouthed a silent prayer that this wasn’t one of those times. She wanted mama too, but she choked back her tears and tried to help Luella change into her nightgown and brush her hair. One hundred strokes just as mama would do. Both girls had dark chestnut colored hair just like daddys’ and it hung halfway down their back in curls. Every night Luella would sit in the floor at mamas’ feet while she brushed her hair until every tangle was gone and it was shiny and glossy, then mama would braid the long tresses and wrap it around her head before putting the nightcap on.  Della didn’t have mamas’ magic touch though and Luella wasn’t making this very easy. She whined and squealed as Della brushed the tangles from each strand.  “I want mama to brush my hair,” she whined as she tried to squirm away from Della’s reach. Della understo...

Ellen didn’t know anyone that was poorer than her family where most days it was a struggle to find food to put on the table. And her lifestyle was very different from Bobbys, even down to the food they ate. She had mostly been raised on vegetables and an occasional chicken or maybe some fish when her grandma caught some. Bobby on the other hand didn’t count it as a meal if there weren’t several kinds of meat on the table. Between him and others in his family, they were always  shooting or trapping rabbits, squirrels or some kind of wild animal. Ellen was learning to prepare and eat food she would never had thought she would eat. If they weren’t hunting, they were fishing or frog gigging. They had turtle, or frog legs, or coon, or all. Bobbys mom had to teach her how to cook, especially these different meats, but she taught her a lot more than that. Mostly she taught her how to be strong. She encouraged her in everything that she did and they quickly grew to love each other. Ellen t...

While at work today, I called Daddy to tell him about some tires that Jamie had gotten for him. He finally answered, but I could tell I had interrupted something. I asked him what he was doing and he said, “I’m out on the river putting my nets out.” My heart sank, because we all have been so nervous for him to get back out on the river, in his boat. “Who is with you?” I asked. “No one”, he said, “ I don’t need anyone. But I wont do it again. I cant deal with all this at once, chickens and cats and sticks, it’s a mess…...” I didn’t really understand what he meant, so I hurriedly told him about the tires and got off the phone because the images of him, in a boat, in the fast running river, putting out his nets, fighting chickens or whatever, all while talking to me on the phone, scared me to death. Just a few minutes later, I called mama while driving home from work. ‘So daddys out fishing, huh?” “How did you know?”, she asked. So I told her about our conversation and she was concerned ...

So I showed Daddy some vintage pictures that were on Facebook of a houseboat around Marianna dated sometime in 1937. He said that it looked a lot like the houseboats they lived in but it wasn’t theirs because a ten year old girl was standing in front of it. From there, the conversation went on and we started talking about picking cotton. Of course the conversation was one sided, because I know nothing about picking cotton. But he told me that the best sandwich he has ever eat en was this sausage link that an old man used to grill and sell to the cotton pickers at lunch. While most of the pickers worked and lived on the farm, and their lunch was paid for by the ‘boss man’, the other day to day pickers like Daddy, had to pay for their own. He also sold Greasy Dick beer. You could only get one for lunch while you were working but I almost choked. My Daddy said Greasy Dick beer. I was almost embarrassed. He finished the story but I couldn’t forget that name. When I got home, I decided to ...

Growing up, there were bountiful Christmases and then not so much. The earliest Christmas I can remember was when I was 8 years old. We had just moved into a really nice house across from the school and we were pinching pennies but I didn’t know it. Daddy had a great opportunity to buy the house and the 8 of us were living in a tiny 2 bedroom trailer. So he jumped on it even though it meant we didn’t have enough furniture to fill it and we had no extra money to go shopping. When Christmas rolled around, we hurriedly ran into the living room where the Christmas tree stood all aglow and we each had one present apiece. I remember that Bobby got a bb gun, the 3 youngest girls got baby dolls and Rhonda and I got a sewing basket with everything we needed to make clothes. But we were only 6 and 8. Still that basket had such an impact on me that I always wanted to learn to sew and to this day, I still enjoy making clothes. I don’t think that I ever used it for what it was really for but I cher...

Boozer!  Yep, its kind of a funny name but so much strength, honor, and hard work built that name that I cant help but be proud to say its mine.  Somewhere around the year 1810, a 10 year old boy got on a ship leaving Switzerland for America. His father had died sometime earlier and his mother had remarried and reports say that all came over together. Henrys name may have actually been Baser, Buser, Booser or many other numerous spellings but in America it was written as Boozer and from that point on, it was the accepted way of spelling it. I’m sure he missed his dad and records don’t tell us if his mom or little sister even survived the passage, so we can only assume he was all on his own when he was indentured to a man named Becker to pay for his passage over to America.  Henry grew up and married Caroline Painter and they had many children, two of whom fought in the American Civil War for the north. Both, John and Eli served as members of Company D in the 111th Ohio V...

November 2018 Daddys mind is not as clear as it once was. He has his moments where he loves to reminisce and then there are other times that he doesn’t talk at all and you wonder if he’s even in the room. He doesn’t appear to be listening to the conversations around him and he doesn’t contribute anything and if you ask him anything, he gets confused.  But I want to write the stories as he tells them because when he cant tell them anymore I will still be able to read it and think of him One such story is the night that he went to jail for a bar fight. Another is the night that Raymond Boozer was born. I may get them a little mixed up because they are about the same people and maybe? close to the same time. Raymond was born in Hughes Ar. And his mother, Meg was at the clinic giving birth. Alfred was with daddy, not sure what the details are but they got stopped by the police and they took Alfred to jail in Marianna. Daddy tried to tell them that they were trying to get to the c...