Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 20. WHEN PAPA CRIED (Pp 34-35) Papa was a gentle person and most everyone
liked him. He liked to laugh and have a good time but I also remember two times when he cried. The first time was when I was just a very small child, three or four years old. My mother had died when Mattie was born and soon after that Papa sold his part of the dairy to Uncle Jim Leigh and moved to a farm in Jamestown. When families planned to move, they notified their neighbors and early in the morning on moving day wagons would be in front of the house
ready to move the furniture. Each neighbor was responsible for transferring one room of furniture and after they had put it on the wagon they took it to the new home and put it inside. The neighbors could clear out a house in one day and the family would be housekeeping that night in the new home. When I got big enough to sit up in the wagon seat Papa took me with him everywhere he went. We passed near our old homeplace one day and when we got in sight of the house where
we used to live, I recognized it. In my childish way I said to Papa, "Oh there's the old place! We're going back to get Mama!" I can still remember the wrinkles in Papa's face and how he broke down and cried. It brings tears to my eyes now to remember how Papa cried when I said that. The other time Papa cried was when we were building what is now known as the Chancey Place. It was built between the log house we lived in and the road to the Paxton Place. I was
thirteen or fourteen years old -- big enough to haul brick from Conners Mill for the two chimneys of the house. Conners Mill is called Mattox now and there used to be a brick kiln there. I hauled two hundred bricks with a blind horse each trip. Uncle Jim Leigh had helped Papa's grandmother raise Papa and Uncle Owen, and had also been in the dairy business with Papa. Now Uncle Jim was very old and sick so Papa sent me to Folkston one morning to find put how Uncle Jim was
getting along. When I came back home Papa was up on a scaffold on the side of the house and was nailing wood shingles on the roof. I drove up and stopped the horse and Papa said, "How was Uncle Jim? Was he living or dead?" I said, "Papa, he died last night." Papa just fell over on the roof of the house and cried and cried. Uncle Jim was like a daddy to Papa and it broke his heart when Uncle Jim died. | 
