My grandparents were named William Delay Jones and Nancy Mary Lou Kilgore. We called him "Pa Jones" but everyone else called him Lay. He was the son of J. Travis Jones and Arminda Howell. Her nickname was Mindy. Travis' parents were J. Jefferson Jones and Francis Hobgood ("Fannie" for short). Lay was one of nine children, having 3 brothers and 5 sisters. The boys' names were Robert L., Sampson Pinkney, and George Edward. The girls were Rose, Cordelia, Melinda, Lovancy Jane, and Lucy. In the 1870 census record, Rose was listed as 3 years old, and no other children yet. In the 1880 census, Rose is not mentioned and I can't find any more reference to her. In a letter that I got from my great Aunt Lucy before she died, she said that her sister Linda had died in a fire. In the 1900 census , Millie is listed as having 9 children, 8 still living. I am pretty sure this is before Linda died. I can't account for Rose after this period and all the rest, I find in various census records.
Now Ma Jones, called Nannie, was the daughter of Kenny Johnson Kilgore and Julia Amanda Ellis. Her grandparents were Alfred John Kilgore and Elizabeth (Betty) Johnson, John Milton Ellis and Mary Jane Rutherford. I don't have all the names of her siblings but the ones I know are Carrie, Mary, Clifford Clinton, Robert Lee, Howard, and Kenny Johnson Jr. My grandparents had 11 children- 6 girls and 5 boys. James (died about 18 months old) and he was the first child, Clifford Clinton, Paul Ellis (died about age 12), Charlie Delay and Edward Lee. Aline, Josephine, Sybil Mae, Florence Louise, Odessa Totsie, and Doris Julia were the girls. My granddad didn't like doctors after his son Paul died from complications of a tonsillectomy, so when a car hit Doris and broke her leg, Ma Jones had to set it herself. The first thing I remember about my grandparents is that they lived on the Kingston Rd. near Mizpah Methodist Church. There was a cemetery close to it and I think my great-grandparents are buried there. I can just barely remember going with Ma Jones and Katherine to put flowers on the graves. I know they weren't her sons because they are buried in Adairsville, GA. My dad was working at the GA Power Co in Rome at the time so we stayed a while with Ma and Pa Jones. This may be before Larry was born and dad was in the process of buying a house. I barely remember this but when we stayed there, my dad caught the Greyhound bus to work in the morning and home in the evening. We didn't have a car. Ma Jones always had flowers sitting on the steps. She had a big wood stove where she cooked biscuits and gravy. Sometimes we had fatback or rabbit. Can you imagine kids eating that today. ha ha Daddy would tell me not to eat the rabbits because they had wolves. I just didn't see how something as small as rabbits could have big ole wolves but I would mind my daddy. I found out later what he was talking about. Pa Jones had rabbit boxes in the woods and he would check them when I was there to see how many he had caught. I wanted to bring them home with me but mama wouldn't let me. She said that you couldn't keep farm animals in the city. I always wanted to stay all night with Ma Jones because Katherine lived with her. She was Uncle Charlie and Christine's daughter. She had a cat that I loved to play with in the yard. Ma Jones made a ball out of an old sock for the cat to play with and we had lots of fun. Sometimes Larry would come out to play with us when he started to walk. He didn't like Pa Jones because of his walking stick. He would trip us with it. He would make us mad and Ma Jones would get him told but good. When we got bigger, we would play with our cousins who lived close by. They were Uncle Howard Kilgore's children and he was Ma Jones brother. He had 2 boys and a girl named Dwight, Rudolph, and Deloris who we called "Tumpey". I didn't know her real name until I was grown. The next place I remember them living was on the farm. It belonged to Uncle James and Aunt Josie. I think sometime before that, they lived in town. Aunt Doris told me about moving to town and Pa Jones working as a night watchman for Dellinger's Spread house. It was next door to Whitehead's Florist on North Broad St. The spread house building is still standing. I can remember staying all night with Paula, who is Aunt Josie's daughter and looking in the windows of the spread house. They lived in an apartment behind the florist. We would watch the women making chenille bedspreads. I never dreamed I would make some of those spreads after I got married. Aunt Beulah and Aunt Jackie worked there. I think my Aunt Sybil worked there for a while. Aunt Doris also told me her daddy was a peddler. I don't know what he sold but I think some of the things were fruits and vegetables. Most people in town didn't have room for gardens, so they would buy them. He might have had what some people called a rolling store and carried a variety of things. Couldn't run to Walmart then because their wasn't one and besides, who had a car? Most people rode the bus in town and the others still had wagons or flatbed trucks. Anyway let's get back to the farm. It was a two story house with 3 rooms upstairs. It had a winding stairway in the foyer. I liked to slide down the banister when Ma Jones back was turned. Uncle Ed and Aunt Beatrice lived upstairs with my cousin Jean. Ma Jones and Pa Jones lived downstairs. She still had her wood stove and she kept biscuits in the warmer. For people who don't remember- a good wood stove had 2 compartments up top to keep things warm and a reservoir to keep warm water. There was no running water, you had to draw it out of the well or went to the creek or spring. I can also remember Pa Jones making sorghum syrup because I could get a piece of cane and peel it and suck the juice out of it. It was better than candy. It was in this house that Ma Jones would tell me stories. One particular one was Mary Phagan and she would sing the song. She would have a can of Bruton snuff beside her and some Juicy Fruit chewing gum. Most women didn't smoke back then but they would dip snuff or chew tobacco. She would read to me from her diaries. I don't know how many she had but she would jot down little things that she wanted to remember. I do remember she told me about the day my mom was born. It was June 2nd and they were in the field chopping cotton. She wrote alot about her son- Paul- that died. He could look at any thing and draw it. Sketched it with charcoal. She kept his drawings for a long time. She kept his marbles too. Some of them were on his headstone in Adairsville, but they are gone now.
After Uncle James started to remodel the farm house, Ma Jones and Pa Jones moved in the little store building that sat facing Turners Chapel Rd. Across from it was Earl and Sybil Smiths' house. Earl was Aunt Jackie's brother. Uncle Cliff and Aunt Jackie's house sat on the hill up behind it. Their wasn't much room in this house, but Ma Jones wouldn't live anywhere without her stove. There wasn't a bathroom either, just an outhouse. No running water. Most children today can't comprehend not having a bathroom inside the house, maybe 2 or 3. We had to take a bath in a washtub- once a week weather you needed it or not. Probably my most memorable time at Aunt Aline's house was when I crawled in her rain barrel to take a bath after picking blackberries and she gave me a whipping. She had rubbed meat grease on my wrists, ankles, and neck to keep the chiggers off and it stunk. I just wanted to get rid of the smell. She was going to use the water to wash clothes so she wouldn't have to draw so much out of the well. This is when people had wringer washing machines instead of automatics. That is if you had electricity. If you didn't, it was a rub board. Couldn't you just see some of these young girls today trying to wash clothes back when!!! I take that back-they don't wash clothes, someone does it for them. Most people have laundry services. Any way, Aunt Aline had to draw water out of the well to wash clothes and I got the water dirty in the rain barrel. One summer after washing, we went down to the creek to go wading and Aunt Aline just sat right down in the water and washed her hair. Now this was alot of hair because she wore it in a figure 8 bun on the back of her head. This was the same way that Ma Jones wore hers. That was before the cow chased me up into the barn loft but that is another story.
Ma Jones didn't have any grass in her yard. It was dirt. Pure red GA clay. She would sweep the whole thing with a sage broom that she made herself. And she would sweep it until there was no dust, just packed down dirt. Right before she died, she fell and broke her hip and she could never do the things that she used to do. She had to stay in a hospital bed until she died when I was 14 years old. I will always remember the things that she taught me and the horehound candy for Christmas with an apple or orange. Every grandchild got one and their were 28 of us. 
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