19140 Highlander Dr., Twain Harte, CA 95383
209 586-3545 marylin_h_martin@yahoo.com
Jennie Cooper Benton was an Arkansas country woman. She wrung out the dishcloth to wipe the dishes dry and, when her apron was soiled, she just turned it over. But still she managed to entertain her friends and neighbors as though she were the mistress of a Georgia plantation. She birthed 14 children, including twins. Only eight lived to be adults. My grandmother's memory lives on through stories handed down by her daughters, Thedis Benton Leach and Jewell Benton Gray.
Jennie was born in Rose Bud, Arkansas, August 17, 1863.
Her ice cream socials and supper parties were the talk of the community. Double crust fruit cobblers and sage roasted turkeys were a few of her specialties. She even adorned her dinner tables with fresh churned butter molded into shapes of ducks, complete with eyes of whole cloves.
Aunt Jewell once said, "Mama baked small cakes in an iron pan shaped like ears of corn., split them open and filled them with whip cream. She made 'Twinkies' long before there were Twinkies!"
Grandma Jennie created her own party entertainment. She took great pleasure in reading fortunes with coffee grounds, and her inexhaustible array of jokes and stories held others spellbound. At parties, she would play the piano, someone would accompany her on a fiddle, and others would dance fueled by Grandma's own Muscatine wine. Noted for her hospitality even at the crowded dinner table, there was rarely a meal served that someone other than family wasn't present.
An independent woman, she ordered a piano from the Sears and Roebuck catalog around 1910. My grandfather Wid didn't know what she had ordered when she sent him with his wagon to Heber Springs (14 miles away!) to pick up her order. "He was astonished when he learned Grandma had ordered a piano," according to Aunt Jewell, "but more so when he had to write a check for $150!
Jennie was an entrepreneur. She raised chickens and turkeys, and sold house wares from Lee Manufacturing's catalog, delivering them in her buggy to the ladies of the community. The 120-acre farm, where the Benton's grew cotton, corn, potatoes, watermelons and sugar cane, was just beyond the Rose Bud schoolhouse. Fruit orchards were scattered about the acreage. Jars of canned fruits and vegetables crowded their storm cellar and the smokehouse was filled with meat.
Aunt Jewell once told me, "When I was a young girl, mama would walk me to the edge of the woods, then stand and wait until I reached the schoolhouse. After school, if it was storming, she'd anxiously wait at the edge of the woods, and we'd hurry to the storm cellar. Mama was afraid of tornados."
All Grandma's children and grandchildren adored her. She always had a piece of candy or a stick of gum in her pocket to reward them. Instead of calling them by their name, she usually addressed them by a term of endearment. As my grandparents aged were able to maintain it. In 1927 they sold their farm and Grandpa deposited the money in the Searcy Bank. When the Depression struck, and the stock market crashed in October 1929, Grandpa hurried to retrieve his money. But the bank doors were closed. Inflamed with anger, he beat his fists on the door and stomped up and down the street in front of the bank.
His entire savings from a lifetime's work on the farm was gone. My mother told me, "Your Grandpa slept with a butcher knife under his pillow; sure the end of the world would come. He was never the same from that time on.
In my grandparents' later years their son Bush built them a small home near where he lived in Searcy. They spent their last days being cared for by him and his wife Anna Mae. Regardless of the weather, one of their children always came to see them on Sunday. I remember riding the bus with mother from where we lived on Beckett Mountain to visit them. There were always tea-cakes in Grandma's kitchen safe and, in the fall, baked yams in the warming closet on the stove. She would ask me to bathe her feet and legs in a pan of warm water and then she would give me a coin to buy ice cream at the comer store.
The last time I visited the farm five years ago, the rock wall around the well Grandma "witched" still stood, the storm cellar was still in use. There was a garden in the same spot where she planted her garden for so many years. The original house had been trn down, but another was built in its place. The large mulberry tree was there near the chicken pen. just as my mother described it from when she was growing up. Remembering her stories, I closed my eyes and visioned Grandma's pink climbing roses on the comer of the porch and her sitting in the rocking chair dipping snuff.
I was eight years old in 1948 when Grandma Jennie died, but the memory is still vivid. She was lying on one twin bed in the front room, and my mother had put me to bed on the other a few feet away. The family had gathered. Grandma's sons were outside the window talking in hushed voices. "I hope mama can hold on until Jewell gets here," I heard someone say. Aunt Jewell lived in Arizona and she was on her way back to Arkansas by train. Grandma's youngest daughter arrived that afternoon. Aunt Jewell was able to embrace her mother one last time. I'm sure Grandma had heard Jewell was on her way and waited for the last of her eight children to say goodbye before she took her last breath.
These past five years, I have spent researching and writing a novel based on stories about my great-grandmother Minerva McKinney Cooper, my grandmother Jennie Cooper Benton, my mother Thedis Benton Leach, and my oldest sister Robbie Leach Brown. These four generations of women suffered great hardships throughout their lives; I just had to tell their stories. They lived in hopes of a better tomorrow, but when hard times turned harder; they persevered, held their heads high, and stood strong. I believe that strength comes from their Indian heritage.
Great-grandma Minerva was Cherokee Indian. She came to White County with my great-grandfather Jeremiah Cooper around 1858 and they settled 160 acres on top of Joy Mountain. Great grandpa Jeremiah built a one-room cabin and then joined the Civil War. Minerva was left alone to fend for herself and two small children; her nearest neighbor was two miles away. At night wolves would lurk around their cabin. Minerva stood at the door with burning sticks to frighten them away. My parents, Lonnie and Thedis Leach, left Beckett Mountain, Arkansas, in 1950 and moved to Turlock, California. I was 11 years old then, but I still call Arkansas home. Mother passed away suddenly October 12, 1988, while visiting with her sister Jewell. They spent many hours reminiscing about growing up in Rose Bud; I was all ears listening to their stories. A few months before Aunt Jewell passed on in 1995, she stayed the night at my home. Before going to bed she approached me, and held out a cardboard box. She said, "Honey, this is our family genealogy. I'm not long for this world so I'm passing the torch to you." Since then, my dreams have been filled with the loving spirits of my ancestors. I believe Aunt Jewell knew someday I would tell the stories of these women, and that I would write about the strength that enabled them to survive, and the love that binds me to them.
By writing their stories, I have brought them back to life.
