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TTEARST'S SUNDAY AMERICAN. ATLANTA, OA., SUNDAY, I)!'(T.M KLM 2R. 1*1?..
3 E
Atlanta Veterans Conquer Old Age With the Weapons of Peace
Tor the Joy of the Do
ing’ They’re Alway?
Busy Making Canes
and Lingerie, With No
Thought of Pay, but
Just to Keep Sane.
By TARLETON COLLIER.
T HERE are times when the big woods
around the Old Soldiers' Home to the
south of Atlanta is the most lonesome
place you could imagine, and when the old
"men sit here and there on rustic benches, or
who walk, stick-supported, up and down the
long, gentlo slopes, are weary of peopling the
place with ghosts of Cobb's Legion and For
rest’s Cavalry and Stonewall Jackson’s flying
army.
And they are apt to become a bit morbid
and a bit childish, with nothing to do hut sit
and talk over the old days and tell the old
stories that are worn threadbare with the tell
ing. Day after day, and weeks and months
it. Is so, until—
Oh, you just must find something to do. It
doesn't matterwhat. the occupation is. Your hands
and your brain must be busy, or you will find
yourself dreaming too much or maybe talking
aloud to nobody, and you will know then that
you are nearing the end of the journey.
The men who followed Lee and Jackson
very naturally would be fit and capable and
sensible persons, even to-day, and they realize
this need. Consequently, to keep themselves fit
and rational, they turn their hands and brains
to the nearest work at hand, and fall sometimes
into the quaintest occupations Imaginable.
There Is Frank Glazier, who knits and
crochets as well as any woman in Atlanta. He
weaves baskets, too, of marvelously intricate
design, and raises canary birds for sale. A
rather adaptable person.
And old man Yopp, who with his 86 years is
jealous of his title as the oldest man in the
Home. He is another who can sew with any
woman in these parts. Rather sheepishly he
will show yon a filmy lacs garment, run through
with blue ribbon, that he made the other day.
It is a woman's garment, to be worn far re
moved from public gaze. And Mr. Yopp a
bachelor!
George Keith plies the needle, as well. At a
recent bazaar of the Daughters of the Confed
eracy. one of the show pieces was a girl's lace
dress lhat he made.
There is nothing of effeminacy about the
dainty avocations of these old soldiers. In fact,
sewing and knitting and basket weaving with
them become rather virile feats, consecrated
work, tasks done for the mere pleasure of
working, and with no more hope of reward
than perfection.
"Uncle" George Mills finds his work out of
doors. With a stout knife and a little belt saw
! b>f-shions bows out of hickory saplings and
arrows out of reeds. Then ho makes whistles,
and popguns, and many's the boy in Atlanta
who knows “Uncle" George As a heroic figure.
Imbued with all the romance «f woodcraft and
the outdoors. If there is one of these quaint
craftinen who always has work to do and a
market for hiB wares it is “Uncle" George. It
is really a prodigious something to control the
output of bows and arrows and popguns and
whistles.
However, now, if you consider those who are
always busy, you must glance at the person
of .!. W. King—Captain J. Vi. King, rather,
for he commanded Company D, Third Battalion,
Georgia sharpshooters, and you are likely to be
charged with an unpardonable sin if you refer
to a captain without his title.
Captain King is always busy. He mends
shoes. A soldier and a skilled mechanic all
his life, he found that his accurate fingers could
master the crude cobbler's art with no trouble
whatever. So he made him a last out of an
oak log. and has kept young ever since, and
'* fit to defend his captain's title.
That's the secret of the workers: pleasure in
l heir work. It keeps them young. Even crochet
ing Is a regular fountain of youth, if sufficient
enthusiasm is put in the work. There's Mr.
Yopp, for instance, the oldest one of them when
it comes to years, but one of the livest of the
3 gray-haired little army. He is the artist of the
corset-cover. And there's Mr. Glazier, who
knits and sews and makes baskets. He really
impresses you as being a juvenile spirit.
'Sure, mv work has kept me young,” he said
the other day. “That's why I took to sewing
and weaving. 1 never thought I'd do it in the
old days, but when I came here I found the
need of something to do was very great. Else
I would have dried up and blown away, I
reckon.
"None of us do these things particularly for
the money that’s in them, althought that’s an
important part. But we take our time, and
turn out work that is really good, and we like
the work Itself. In fact, we live on It.
"Naturally, when a fellow likes his work he
does It well, and he keeps his Interest in every
thing fresh. Poor work Is the most enervating
thing in the world. A shiftless man is a de
caying man, and an idle man Is as good as
dead.”
He was a florist in the old days, when he
was not a soldier. The desire to deal with
pretty, dainty things, instilled when he was
working with flowers, remained with him, and
it was natural that he should turn to lace work
and embroidering, and then to basket weav
ing. Some of his designs are more Intricate
than you would believe human brain could con
ceive. One of the exhibits that aroused star
tled gasps during the recent bazaar was a pair
of lace arm-length gloves he made from flue
thread. His baskets, of vari-colored straws in
terwoven after the Indian fashion, are pattern
marvels. Yellow star? and moons and flowers
are formed against red and green and blue
fields. Altogether the baskets are really pro
ductions of an artist.
Another basket weaver is F. E. Childress,
who was wounded July 10, 1863. That was a
sad day, and he has it marked well In his mem
ory, for then he was deprived of the free use of
his legs, and since has walked on crutches.
Weaving baskets has kept him fresh, too, al
though probably not so much as has his fiddle.
Here is a marvelous thing. A Confederate
soldiers’ home without a corps of fiddlers. There
is only one or two In all the Atlanta home, and
Mr. Childress is one of the most assiduous.
'Most any time you can hear his “Money Musk”
and “Virginia Reel, ” and “Turkey in the Straw”
sounding out. That is, when he is not making
baskets.
Basket weaving has become quite a popular
pastime with the inspiration furnished by Mr.
Glazier’s really superb creations, and with the
instruction that Mrs. Wlmbish, the matron,
gifces the old men. But there Is one industry
that is practically controlled by H. W. Baggett,
who Is one of the very cheeriest of all. He
makes walking sticks.
Almost any day you can see Mr. Baggett out
in the woods with his big knife, looking every
where for young trees that grow straight up
into the air, with just the proper right-angular
crook of their roots where they enter the
ground. The root is fashioned into the handle
of the walking stick. The artful Mr. Baggett
carves It Into the shape of a dog’s head or of
an alligator head, or a snake’s maybe. There
are ears and eyes and mouth and teeth and
everything carved Into the handle of that walk
ing stick, and sales are always heavy for the
Baggett walking stick concern.
There is nobody quite so proud of his work
as Mr. Baggett. He has made several hundred
dog’s-head canes, probably, but with each one
there is a fresh Interest.
He holds a finished stick before your eyes,
and turns it slowly for your inspection.
“Yes, it's a big job," he tells you. Then he
smiles. You mustn’t show that you see him
smiling. That will spoil the Joke. Merely list
en to him, and nod your head wonderingly, as
he goes on:
“Yes, It’s pretty hard to find these sticks with
the dog's head on them, and with the right
kind of ears and eyes. But If you look long
enough, and know where to look, you’ll find
them, heads, mouths, ears, eyes and all.”
It all comes of the effort to keep occupied
and Interested and alert. This crocheting and
sewing and carving is the creative work. There
is recreative work as well. For instance, in
tiie library you will see a perennial group.
Four old men are there always, morning, noon
and night, no matter what the season or the
weather. They are playing setback.
Three games an hour, ten hours or more a
day, six days a week, for months »nd years.
Altogether, the four have played, they calcu
late, more than 100,000 games of setback. J. L.
Little, quite a swagger figure with his well-
kept derby, has for his partner Reuben Saf-
fold. a cheery old man with a skullcap and n
stubby beard. Athwart this pair of partners
Is a long-bearded couple, Mr. Wood, with his
big slouch hat that smacks plainly of the style
of 1863, and Mr. Bankston, another who Is
attached to his sknllcup.
The rivalry among this party of card players
Is as keen as Lee’s and Meade’s. All day long,
as serious as If the nation’s fate depended on
Mr. Saffold’s making or losing the three he has
bid on spades, or on Mr. Little’s "setting” Mr.
Bankston, they play cards. Some times they
talk, but usually they play with a silent, venge
ful determination. And consequently they re
tain their Interest in life.
Certain bands of religious workers seek to
interest the old men by frequent services in
the home. But usually the attendance on these
services, except when there is a substantial
sermon, is meager. It seems that songs and
prayers are not the wholesome incentive that
work is. And, besides, you will find that an
old man is generally a little bit bored at yonr
attempts to convert him. Just as one of the
veterans said the other day, while the services
were being conducted:
“You're not going to see many of us con
verted out here. We’re old men, and are sorter
set in our ways. That’s why you don’t see
many there In the chapel. But those of us who
find something to do, we keep out of mischief,
and good enough, I reckon.’ /
And so this story may be considered ae hav
ing a moral. Mr. Glazier pointed that moral,
when he told how his work has kept him young
and how he has seen men among his com
rades grow feebler and more childish day by
day, as they sat around Idle. It is all too few
of these old soldiers who have the spice of
interest In life to keep them sound in mind and
body. Most of the others you can find any
time dawdling about the big wooded lawn in
front of the home, or in their rooms, or on
the wide front porch within a few steps of
their beds and rocking chairsi
You can tell the workers. Their eyes are
brighter and their smile is quicker.
Certainly, there is a moral to this story.
Aunt Tish, a Jewel of a Negro Mammy, Comes ‘Home’ for Christmas
r HIS is just the story of a negro mammy,
who loves her white folks, and whose
white folks love her. To some extent
i-cr life and service and evolution and faiths
typical, although Aunt Tish. the folks say,
i -Hi unusual person, even for a mammy.
It was fi verv merry Christmas that Aunt
Tish spent, not'at all like the bleak indoor
Christmases that she has seen for the last
*■'For one r reason, she is home again after eight
years of exile in New York. And you can say
what VOU please, but New York is no place,
leirticiilarlv at Christmastime, for a negro
mammv of the old school, who was born in
Georgia, reared in Georgia, and who has nursed
children in Georgia’s first families ever since
""•Fish*Vs back home in Atlanta, where most
of her white folks live. For eight years now
the lias tried each Christmas to persuade the
Fraziers, for whom she “nurses” in New York,
to let her go back to lier own white folks In
Georgia. Each year she has Informed them
flatly, with all the delightful Imperiousness of
the real negro mammy, that she was going
back. But the Fraziers, being persons of acute
perception and appreciation, and knowing that
a Southern mammy Is a priceless jewel, merely
raise her salary each time she threatens to
return to Georgia and demand, In reciprocity,
that she stay.
But this year she had to come. Tish is a
frugal person, and has saved her money. Sev
eral years ago she purchased a lot in Athens,
on which she will make her home as soon as
the blessed day comes when she can leave the
North. On each side of Tisli’s lot the land was
sold recently, and In the transaction a strip of
three feet were lopped off the negro woman’s
domain. And down she came from New York
to protect her rights.
She came down with the stamp of the me
tropolis on her person. There is style and savior
faire In the hearing of Aunt Tish. But the
moment she saw her white folks In Athens, and
opened her arms to them and spoke out of her
heart to them, it was plain that she is the same
old tender mammy after all, Just as plain as If
she still wore the turtian and the starched
skirts and apron Instead of the new bonnet
and store clothes.
There were many Joyful reunions upon
Tisli’s arrival. In all, she has nursed 36 chil
dren in the most prominent families of Geor
gia. In Athens she has been in the families of
Mrs. Asbury Hodgson. Judge Andrew Cobb,
Henry Wells, Stephen Thomas, E. I. Smith, and
for twelve years she “nursed” for Judge Tan
ner in Atlanta.
The 35 children, most of them now grown,
she proudly hails as her own “chillun.” And
to their children she is a devoted and adoring
grandmother.
There is one young Athens man, for instance.
Now he is married, with a child of his own,
but he was a baby in her arms. When he was
married, several years ago, one of the most
valued presents was a massive piece of silver
of which was inscribed, just ns Tish dictated,
“To Mister Ed’s young bride, from hts old nurse
Tish.”
I alter on, the stork came to his home. Aunt
TLsh, far away In New Y'ork, heard of the
event. You can be sure that she keeps up with
her "chillun,” for down, post haste, came a
bundle of beautifully wrought baby clothes
from Tish. She Is gravely suspected of having
been at work on them for some time.
When Tish came back to Athens, she struck
the town on the baby’s birthday. As If It had
all been so arranged, she bore another bundle of
clothes, this time of larger size and shorter
dresses, as liefits a youngster of one year.
Aunt Tish has really lived a life of worthy
labor. She was born I>etltla Jordan—hence the
"Tish”—on the plantation of Dr. John Jordan,
in Wilkes County, near Washington, on Christ
mas Day, 1854. Tish, as a little girl, was body-
servant to Mrs. Benjamin Jordan, wife of Dr.
Jordan’s son. During the war the little negro
helped knit socks for the soldiers of the Confed
eracy, although she was hardly large enough
for that duty. Each of the negro children of
sufficient age was required to knit two pairs of
sox a week, and hem shirts and fell seams.
Each Saturday, she remembers, they drove over
to Washington, to send provisions and clothing
to the soldiers.
Her principal duty, however, was to help
nurse the little quarter babies that is, the negro
children of the slaves’ quarter. Out in the
back yard was a room about forty feet long,
n big open brick fireplace at each end. and four
or five cradles around each fireplace. Here the
youngest babies were kept while their mothers
were in the field. Two old mammies. Granny
and Betsy, eared for them, and the negro girls
too little to work otherwise, kept the cradles
rocking, according to the old Idea of child nnr
ture, which was that an Infant must be rockei
and rocked and rooked from morning till nigh
and then until morning again.
And so the germ of the art of nursing wa
planted in the little negress anil thus you ma;
know the evolution of most of the mammie;
of to-day. For several years after the war sbi
had little opportunity to follow that bent Fo
four years she planted, hoed, plowed, and picket
cotton. Then she moved to Woodville. Ga., ti
work for a Mr. Cheney, married Tom Paine
and lived there sixteen years. It was then sb
tiegan her remarkable career as a nurse, whirl
has brought her to n station where she Is prob
ably one of the most generally beloved am
best known mammies in Georgia.
And she had a great Christmas with he
white folks in Athens. She hopes she won’
Is* obliged to stay much longer In New Yorl,
iV-eause here in the South is her home, aqtj her
arc her folks. She is coming right back.