This story is about my uncle Ed. Now he was a character from the day he was born. He was the youngest boy and was doted on by his mother who thought he could do no wrong. His older sisters adored him. After losing two boys, the girls thought that the boys should be looked up to and catered to them all the time. This included Cliff, Charlie, and Ed. I don't know what mischief that he got into when he was young but he was always one to carry a joke to far. His first wife, Beatrice, was a friend to me always. They lived with us right after they got married until their daughter, Jean, was born. They lived in the back bedroom and the house stayed extra clean when she was there. Now my mom was a clean person but she had just had a baby and couldn't do much. I just don't remember if Ken or Jean was born first. I was just 7 years old.
When Ed moved to the farm with Ma Jones, they lived upstairs in three rooms. When I look back on those times now, it just seemed natural that the privy was in the back yard. Unless you lived in town, you did not have an indoor bathroom. All the water was drawn from a well and you had to draw enough to take a bath in the wash tub. There were no everyday showers, just a quick rinse in the wash pan. When I think about those times, we were healthy. So no one went to the Dr all the time. Home remedies were the cure-alls. But back to my story. Every time I went to see Ma Jones, uncle Ed would lock me in the outhouse. He just loved to play jokes on me. I would have to hollar until Ma Jones would hear me and let me out. She would scold him by then, he was over 6' tall and didn't pay her any attention.
Now Ed was a "con man." He was all the time having some scheme to get money from anyone. My uncle Cliff is usually the one who got hooked. The rest of the family had caught on to his schemes and just blew him off. But uncle Cliff was the one who usually went to Florida on his make-to-do get-rich-quick trips Only they never came back with any money, just fish. I don't know how many tricks he pulled on people but he never got in trouble.
There was an episode when he worked for General Electric and went on strike. Uncle Ed was walking the picket line with a stick. Now Ed had a bad temper and when someone smarted off at him, there was a scuffle and the other man was hurt. I never did know all the circumstances for the altercation but Uncle Ed spent some time in jail.
The night my mom was killed, she had gone to a tavern called "Green Gables" on highway 27 toward Armuchee. My uncle was there and he told me about what happened on that night. Of course I didn't hear about this until I was grown. Little girls weren't allowed to hear such stories at age 15. I learned later about the fuss with her second husband and the drinking. Then she drove off at a high rate of speed. He was waiting at the hospital as we pulled up after the accident and told me that my mom was dead. This was in an earlier story.
After I married and moved to Calhoun, I was having some problems in my marriage so I separated from my husband and stayed with Ed and Beatrice in Garden Lakes. Ed was a fisherman so he took my boys fishing. They can remember this still today. Not too long after I moved out, his son, Eddie, died. It was so unexpected that I don't think he ever got over it. His son, Joseph, died about the age of thirty. He had cancer. His girls were checked regularly for a long time after.
Uncle Ed died about the year 2005. I sang some songs at his funeral because he loved to hear me sing. He was one of the faithful who listened to my radio broadcast on Sunday afternoon. I saw him quite a lot after he moved to Calhoun. He often had some scheme to catch someone with and this included my first husband. It happened in a car trade. We found out later, that he didn't own the car that he traded, it belonged to his brother and he was looking for the vehicle. My cousin, Jean, told me they never knew what to expect for supper. Whatever he brought home from a hunting or fishing trip. Fish or turtle or maybe a rabbit or squirrel went into the pot with dumplings. Or maybe some other surprise. Yummie!!! Maybe yes or maybe noooo....
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