My mother had some very fond memories of her!

But it was not a pair of shoes she found in the box that Christmas Eve; it was a beautiful new doll

Apparently there had been some kind of mixup at the store. Her father gave her a choice. She could keep the doll or he would carry it back to the store and return it for the shoes.

For a ten year old girl, it was an agonizing decision; but, she knew there was really no choice. She had to have the shoes!

That's her a couple of years later cutting up with her sister-in-law, Della, in the photo on the left. Mama always claimed to have been one of the first women to wear pants in this area!

By the time of the photo, my grandfather had found a regular job working at a sawmill in Eastport which now is considered a part of Jacksonville; but, back then was seen as a separate entity.

It was a big change for the "country girl." They had running water, inside toilets, and everything!

My grandmother was not convinced!

My grandfather showed her the plumbing and tried to explain to that there was no connection between the toilet and the plumbing in the kitchen; but, it was a long time before she excepted that new-fangled gadget!

It was in Eastport that my mother met my father when she was just fifteen which was considered a lot older back then than it is today. My father was 24 and came from a background somewhat better than hers.

For pictures of the Garrett side of my father's family, click here.
His father was Francis Marion (Frank) Garrett, the son of William Garrett and the former Henrietta Hogan.

My father's mother was Elvie Catherine Mobley, the daughter of Jesse Daniel Mobley who, along with his wife, the former Tabitha Taylor, raised my father after Elvie Catherine's death when my father was very young. My mother thought very highly of "the old man" which is to say Jesse Daniel Mobley.

For Mobley pictures click here

My father's "somewhat better" background does not mean he had inside plumbing as a boy. The first time he encountered a flush toilet was on a riverboat on the St. John's River. He flushed the toilet. It made such a noise, he ran out thinking he had broken it!

This is the boy who thought that women didn't "go" because they were "too nice!"

There were not too many bridges then or motorcars. My mother's father often used a wheelbarrow to cross the River. He would get in it and paddle across! For those who could afford it, there were ferrys at select points. A riverboat, my mother said it's name was the "May Gonner," went up and down the river; and, for some people it was the only way to travel the length of the river since you couldn't do that in a wheelbarrow; and, these people didn't have horses or mules. My mother's family were among these people.

My grandfather took my mother to Jacksonville on the riverboat once and bought her a little blue hat. Can't you tell she was "Daddy's little girl." Actually he petted both his daughters; and, considered his four sons, with some justification, as worthless!

Only one of his boys ever got any kind of education. My grandparents gave their children the choice if they wanted to go to school or not. Three of the boys chose not to go. By the time the youngest, Edward, came of age I think it was manatory. Nelson, the oldest, learned how to read and write later in life. Both girls went to school all the way through what today would be junior high. To go to high school, it would have been necessary to go into Jacksonville each day. Times were a little better by then and my grandparents were willing to help their girls go; but, Nellie decided to get married instead; and my mother was always scared of getting lost so couldn't bring herself to go to the "big city" all alone. It was a decision she always regretted.

About a year later, she met my father.