Aunt Lucy & Uncle Fred

Aunt Lucy Webb Bieber and Uncle Fred Bieber

Thanksgiving Day, 1954

St. Petersburg, Florida

The Good Old Days When Times Were Bad

People have no idea what things were like during the Great Depression. They think now if they have to give up cable television, they're sacrificing, but during the depression, there was no money.

Daddy did whatever he could do. Every morning, he'd walk from Linden Street down to the railroad bridge where it cost him a penny to walk across that bridge to get to downtown Cincinnati, where he'd look for work. If he didn't have a penny, he'd hop a train. Sometimes Daddy would sweep floors, haul ice or throw trash. It didn't matter. There was no shame back then in the work a person did; It was all honorable. Sometimes Daddy would make a couple of dollars a week.

Mom worked too. She would take in laundry for people or ironing. She did whatever she could do to bring in money. She worked in Nell Donnelly's store and even owned her own store, but that was later. Mom could squeeze a dollar out of a nickle, but getting the nickle took a lot of ingenuity. I don't remember Mom or Daddy standing in the bread lines, but they might have. Mom always had a pot of beans on the stove, and we ate our fill of jowl bacon.

I helped Mom around the house. Mom would let me scrub the floors or fold laundry. I'll never forget the time Mom had washed the quilts and hung them outside on the line to dry. I brought them inside, folded them and laid them too close to the fire. They went up in a blaze, and Mom screamed and cried, "Reba's burning up. Reba's going to die." I didn't die, of course, because when I saw them burning, I ran outside and down the street. Needless to say, after Daddy put the fire out, he was waiting for me when I came home. Oh, I'll never forget that spanking, and I never made that mistake again.

Christmases weren't like they are today. There was no money, so we would get pennies from Daddy to buy Mom candy, and we'd get pennies from Mom to buy something for Daddy, usually a railroad handkerchief. I remember one Christmas, Buddy got a harmonica and I got paper dolls. Well, Buddy and I got into a fight, and I threw his harmonica into the fire. He just stood there and looked at me. He didn't say word, but I felt so bad about it, that I picked up my paper dolls and threw them into the fire too. Buddy finally said, "Now that was stupid." Yes, it was, and I never got over it.

The Earls lived next door to us. Mr. Earls worked for Baldwin Piano Company in Cincinnati. Baldwin Piano didn't lay anyone off during the depression. They cut hours way back, but they stood by their employees. Anyway, whenever the Earls kids got candy, they always gave us some. Mr. Earls would say, "One for Margaret, one for Millie, one for Buddy and one for Rebie." Whenever they got to go to the movies, they'd take Buddy and me also. We took many a supper in the Earls' home, and they were like family to us.

That's the thing most people today probably can't understand. We live in subdivisions now where children go home and play video games. Back then, we played on the streets. We knew our neighbors and people in the community looked after one another. We depended on one another. We had to because the times would have been unbearable without friends. Everyone was poor, but everyone was proud. We were scarred for life by the poverty, but we all survived.

Reba Webb Goff

February 10, 2009

Great Aunts on the Webb Side

I'm not 100% certain about the ladies in this picture. You see, the problem is that all the Webb girls looked a great deal alike. I think this is Laura Webb Kittrell and Bertha Webb Buchanan. It is taken at the old home place in Glenmary, Scott County, TN.

I'm guessing it was taken around 1920. The Webbs made all their own clothes, and by the looks of this photograph, the hemlines had started coming up from the ground. I never knew Aunt Laura, and I met Aunt Bertha only once when I was very young.

Legend has it that Aunt Bertha moved her family to Illinois in the 1950s. Apparently, there was some dispute between her husband, Fred Buchanan, and Annie's husband, Doc Beatty, that resulted in Mr. Buchanan being shot by Uncle Doc. I'm told Uncle Doc wasn't one to mess with; He apparently had the law and the southern powers on his side. There is absolutely nothing to prove nor disprove this story, but it's the kind of legend that adds seasoning to one's family history.

I know that Aunt Laura died in the mid-1940s, but I'm not sure when Aunt Bertha died. I know she was still living when Aunt Lucy died in 1978. My mother was the executor of Aunt Lucy's estate, and there was supposedly bad feelings about that. C'est la vie.

Children Of A Younger Day

This a picture of Lucy Webb (on the right with the bow in her hair) and Martha Webb. Lucy appears to be about 12 here, which would make the date of the picture, about 1915, or thereabouts. It is the only known picture that I have in my collection of Aunt Martha, who died in the mid-1930s.

Martha was born in Glenmary, Tennessee, to my great-grandparents, John "Spoony" Webb and Sarah Hamby Webb, in 1889. Martha was the first daughter and the third child. She married Clarence Hurt, and they had three children, Homer, Eunice and Sarah. Martha was named after John's mother.

Martha died of cancer. Her daughter, Eunice, died shortly thereafter, in the early 1940s, leaving one daughter, Joyce.

Martha is interred in the Webb Cemetery, Glenmary, Scott County, Tennessee.

Unknown but Unforgotten Webbs

Belle and Children

This is the last known picture taken of Belle Dodson Grimes McCloud Cole. Belle was born in 1889 and died in 1986. I remember taking this picture, and I think the year was 1980.

Pictured from left to right are Lena Grimes, Lonnie Grimes, Belle, Hubert McCloud and Virgie Belle Grimes Webb. Uncle Lonnie died in 1993. I am not certain of when Uncle Hubert died. Grandma Virgie died in 1996, and Aunt Lena died in 2008.

Grandma Virgie

I love this picture of Grandma Virgie. She is holding my mother, Reba, and my Uncle Buddy. It was taken in the cornfield of the old home place in Glenmary, Tennessee. Buddy was born in March, 1931, and he looks to be under six months old here, dating this photograph to the same year. Grandma would have been 21.

I love the handmade dress and her ankle-strapped shoes. Grandma was always so beautiful to me. She didn't have a gray hair until she was 80, but that isn't a gene I inherited from her.

Grandma hated the winter time and would have hated the ice storm that recently blanketed Kentucky.

Virgie Belle Grimes Webb, b. June 2, 1910, d. Dec. 6, 1997