A nephew remembers Aunt Magdalene

June 26, 2017

Y’all,

I thought of this on my walk.

Aunt Maggie was a charter member of the original Red Hill Community Club, an organization of ladies which met regularly in the clubhouse which used to sit at the northwest corner of the school grounds.  The land on which the clubhouse was built was dedicated to the club’s use for its lifetime. Who funded the construction of the building I don’t know but I imagine the construction labor was volunteered by the husbands and brothers of the lady members. The club was “sponsored” in part by the Elmore County Home Demonstration agents.  Needle work of all sorts was demonstrated, along with other housewifely skills,  I remember clearly watching Mrs Nancy Lloyd (wife of Walter and the longtime driver of the Tallassee School Bus) standing in front the huge green and yellow wood stove in the kitchen, during a hands-on, canning demonstration. And I remember quilting “bees”.  Once I had a copy of the document signed by the organizers and Judge GH Howard. But apparently I lost it in one of my relocations.

Regards,

Charles Taunton

A niece remembers Aunt Maggie

June 28, 2017

 I remember lots about Aunt Maggie. I spent the night with her many times and she would take me to church with her on Sunday nights. She was a gentle woman and a hard worker at the mill and in and around her house. My job was usually dusting and I had to be very careful because she had many glass things on the shelf. It was the first place I saw pretty hardwood floors and she had small rugs that we could run and slide on when she wasn't looking (we thought). She loved Red Hill and Refuge Church.

Norma Kay Taunton

Remembering my Grandmother Mary O'Daniel Taunton

William Martin and Mary O'Daniel Taunton

June 26, 2017

Our Grandmother Taunton had serious heart problems and had been quite ill in late Spring 1952. Our family had been staying with her and Granddaddy at night. Finally on June 9 she was better, and I (soon too be 13 years old) was to stay with them that night. Aunt Maggie told me to leave the porch light on if I wanted her to come after work on the 2nd mill shift and stay with us. I left the light on. The next morning Grandmother came in with a brisk step to wake me up. I dressed and went into the kitchen to tell her I was going home. She was washing her hands at the sink. Granddaddy had gone outside to empty the coffee grounds in her flower pots. She moved to the flour sack towel hanging on the door and began rubbing the back of her hand repetitiously. I knew something was wrong, ran over, and put my arm around her. She sagged against me, and I screamed for Aunt Maggie. I had not heard her come in, but I knew she was there! Grandmother Taunton died on Friday, June 13, from a stroke. 

Roma Lee Taunton

Remembering Bobby Orr, Sellers Hall and the hornet nest

Sometime around the mid 1940's, my cousin Sellers, my Uncle Forrest Hall's oldest son, and Bobby Orr were walking along the old dirt Red Hill Road just about where it used to curve in front of Refuge Church before the new intersection was built with Martin Dam Road.

It was still a dirt road at the time but it wouldn't be much longer. There was a wooded area on the east side of the road, across from the church. On the opposite side of the road, Mr. Milton Griffith had a home that still stands today, about where Martin Dam Road joins Red Hill Road. .

Mr. Milton had a really nice garden going that year, with a really great crop of pole beans, ready for the picking, and hanging in abundance on the elaborate vine runner racks he had constructed for them. Bobby notices that hornets have built a really huge, oval shaped, gray paper mache nest, on a low hanging limb of a hickory tree in the wooded area across the road from the church and Mr. Milton's garden.

Bobby tells Sellers that there is no way he can throw a rock so accurately as to knock that nest off the limb with a single throw. So Sellers decides to take up the challenge and begins to search for just the right rock, and in Red Hill there were plenty of rocks to choose from. Bobby, realizing that Sellers just might luck up and hit the thing on his first throw, begins to put some distance between himself and Sellers.

And sure enough, the first rock finds its mark, thunk, right into the top area of the nest, penetrating right through the nest and severing its attachment to the tree limb. Bobby is now running to put more distance between himself and Sellers, because he knows what is about to happen.

The hornets come pouring out of the nest and immediately spot their antagonist. And Sellers is just about to pick up on what is coming and begins his retreat, but too late. The hornets descend upon him with a vengeance.

He is running toward Mr. Milton's garden and has just gotten to the edge of it, near the pole beans, when the hornets begin exacting retribution on him.

If you have ever suffered a hornet sting, you know that one can ruin your day. Several are a disaster! Sellers hits the ground of the garden right at the beginning of the pole bean row. He begins rolling through the pole beans, destroying the bean racks, and screaming in agony.

When the hornets finally fly away from Sellers, Mr. Milton's pole bean crop and the poles are on the ground, and Sellers face and arms are swelling in a dozen places.

Bobby is doubled over in laughter and Mr. Milton thinks Sellers may have had some kind of seizure or an epileptic fit before he realizes what has happened. You learned real soon not to ever take a dare from Bobby Orr.

Raymond Eugene Hall, October 26, 2017

Disappointing Granddad

One hot summers day my little brother Matt and I were walking through the woods and found ourselves coming up on the old house we called "the sewing club", which sat for many years on the edge of the Red Hill school playground.

This place held no special interest to us since it was just a place for old ladies to get together, drink iced tea or coffee (depending on the season), and do their quilting.  However, the old school house building was a different story.........we had heard that a great sin had been committed by putting a pool table in one of the rooms facing the playground...imagine, a pool table!!!

Mr. Oberon Warren had the first pool table I ever saw, and even my granddad, Willis Hall, had succumbed to that great temptation.  He wasn't the only one either, since enough of the old boys had gotten together, found a pool table and put it in the school. one would have to say this was Red Hill's first pool hall since Tusselbug days.  Anyway, we stared at the school house and determined to know which room held the pool table, since we couldn't see into the room due to the difference in elevation. I surmised it didnt really matter which room held the cue sticks and green felt table, but i couldn't leave it at that....I had to leave a calling card...something to let the old boys know their secret was out. but how does a little chap get one up on the pool sharks of the community??  I found the answer in an egg sized rock, red in color, and zinged it in the direction of kent, but not really thinking  it would go that far...........I was convinced though, that it would clear the school building, maybe even the old Taylor pipe factory across East Coton Road from the school.  I was wrong however; my "egg" barely cleared the window seal of a particular room, which I would later find out was the pool room. the glass shattered with the sound that both excited and struck fear into my heart at the same time.  I fled through the woods faster than Pegasus could have.  Later that day I stopped by granddad's house and suffered the greatest humiliation of my young life.  Little did I suspect that the old men were actually playing pool in the very room which my rock had ventilated, and that granddad had seen me (or least my backside) running into the woods. These many decades later I really dont remember the words he said, but I have never forgotten the disappointment I felt because I had let him down and embarrassed him in front of his peers. So, Bobby Orr wasnt the only voice of temptation trying to get a "Hall" to throw a rock...........I guess a male with the last name of Hall could not resist chunking a rock, since everyone one of em up until recent years, had either toted rocks, laid rocks, or at least mixed mud to lay rocks.  In closing, to quote Jerry Clower, "I wont even throw a rock  now, what I dont call momma first and ask if its alright"

Mark Hall

November 14, 2017

Editor's note:  Mark Hall grew up in Red Hill and was briefly a student at Red Hill School before it closed.  He is currently a high-rise steel construction supervisor in the Miami area of Florida.  The pic with this remembrance is of his granddad, Willis Hall and his great uncle Forest Hall on the left with some of their rock work.

Remembering my brother, Larry Wayne Chambers

Today would have been my brother's 56th birthday-he died when he was 6 years old-unexpectedly, This is one of the poems in my mother's recent book-Mama Planted Roses

Molly Chambers Tatum

Birthdays in Heaven
Written by my Mother Irene Chambers in Early Spring 1969

My little boy and girl were out playing,
One day in early Spring,
He came in looking worried,
I told him to come and tell me everything.

As I held him close in my lap,
And I brushed his hair away,
Mommie, I've been wondering,
And this I heard him say,

"Mommie, do they have birthdays in Heaven,
Would I have one if I should happen to go,
Would all my little friends be here,
Bobby, Sammy amd Billy Joe."

"Would I have a birthday cake,
With candles all aglow,
Do you think this would happen,
If I should ever go."

He was asking all these questions,
And then I saw him smile,
He seemed to be so happy,
He went back to play in a little while.

I watched him as he ran away,
I could not speak,
For the tears were falling,
Slowly down my cheeks.

A few weeks later he got sick,
And soon he was gone,
This birthday was spent in Heaven,
I think somehow he must have known.

Birthday Party at Danny Lindsay's home.

Lindsay house today!

A birthday party for Danny Lindsay in the late 1940's.  This was one of the newest and nicest homes in Red Hill at this time.  Pictured above, left to right, are Kathryn Johnson, Raymond Hall, Mary Jo Johnson, Sonny Holly, Johnny Green, Eddie Hall, Ruby Gordon Griffith, Aileen Dopson, Morris Wayne Walls, Joyce Holley and Roma Lee Taunton.  Charles Taunton tells me that the Johnson girls were cousins to him and his siblings, Roma Lee, Huette and Kay.  The house has been abandoned over the years and looks pretty bad these days.  In an outhouse behind here, in the early 1950's, was ground zero for my first, and only, homemade bomb experiment, which was described in my book, "Channahatchee Moon II," which is available on Amazon.

"The Last of the Mohicans" for the Red Hill School

Faye Caldwell Lock Jones was kind enough to provide us with pics of her children taken during the last year that the Red Hill School was open.  They were truly adorable little boys.  Kendell Lock is pictured above.  Wendell Lock is pictured to the right, and Randall Lock is pictured below.  Thank you, Faye, for allowing us to have these mementos of the last year of Red Hill School

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