Memories of Charlton County - by Gibson and Mays Back to Table of Contents 42. UNCLE OWEN (Pp 85-87) At one time my Uncle Owen Gibson was about the most
influential and respected person in Charlton County. He was a very smart man and was a minister of the Primitive Baptist Church. Uncle Owen had some pretty strong opinions and one of them was his choice of the person his daughter, Alice, would marry. Alice was courting a fellow that Uncle Owen didn't approve of and he found various ways of expressing that disapproval. One Sunday afternoon in the fall of the year Alice and her friend were in the living
room of Uncle Owen's house and out on the front porch were several of his friends that were visiting that day. Uncle Owen tried to figure out a way to prevent the young couple from being alone so he pretended to be cold and went in the living room and built a fire in the fireplace, interrupting Alice and her friend's conversation. Uncle Owen asked his visitors to come inside but none would for they wanted to let the two young people be alone. Uncle Owen stayed inside, poking at the fire. Alice and her friend moved to chairs and a table on one side of the room and began communicating by writing notes to one another. When Uncle Owen saw this he whipped out his pencil and pretended to be figuring something on a paper. He intentionally broke the point of his pencil, then went across the room and borrowed Alice's pencil. Her boyfriend finally took the hint and left soon after that. Alice never did get married. Papa once told
me about Will, Uncle Owen's son, and his coat. Papa was a very good natured man and it didn't take much to make him smile and laugh. When something funny happened, Papa laughed and laughed. One very cold day, around 1880, Papa and Uncle Owen were working outside at Uncle Owen's farm. Will was a small boy and he came out to watch them and was wearing an unusual coat. His mother had sewed croaker sacks together for an overcoat to keep him warm. Papa thought that was one of the funniest things
he had ever seen and he laughed and laughed. Will left them but came back a few minutes later dragging Uncle Owen's gun. He wasn't big enough to carry it. When Uncle Owen asked him why he had the gun, he replied he was going to shoot his Uncle Henry for laughing at him. Uncle Owen spanked him and made him take the gun back to the house. One time the members of Uncle Owen's church were having a baptism at the creek near the church and a large crowd was gathered at the edge
of the water. It was a spot where there had been a ford for many years and people were standing on a bridge that had recently been built. Along came a man I'll call Fred, in a buggy pulled by two horses. Like many men at that time, Fred did not mind sipping strong drink and he had tasted some that day before he went for a ride. Fred was driving the buggy right on down to where the baptism was taking place when old man John Rogers stepped out in front of him, stopped the
horses and told him to get his team away from there. Fred immediately backed his horses out and left. But that wasn't the end of the matter for during the church service that followed the baptism, Fred and strong drink was the subject of Uncle Owen's sermon. Several weeks later Fred and old man Herrin who sold sewing machines were on their way down to the Suwanee canal to fish for a while. As they got near Uncle Owen's house, Mr. Herrin suggested that they stop and ask him
to come along with them. Fred said, "He won't go fishing with me! He preached a sermon about me last month!" But Uncle Owen surprised them and agreed to come along. After they were in the canal fishing Fred tasted some more of his strong drink and got so carried away he began preaching a sermon to the men in the boat and to the cypress trees. After they got back home Uncle Owen acknowledged that it was one of the best sermons he had ever heard!
| 
