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Martha Annie King Pattison

By Telitha E. Pattison Cooper, her granddaughter

and recorded by Nellie Cooper Rogers
When I was a little girl, we lived in Georgia. My Grandmother, Martha Annie King Pattison lived with us. My Papa's name was Robert William Pattison. He was the only son of my grandmother. Mama always called him Billy.
    Papa saw that Grandma had a room all her own. I can remember that it was the happiest days of my life when, once in a while, I could sleep with grandma. It was wonderful to be that close to her. I thought my grandmother, Martha Annie King Pattison, was the most ideal person and so very beautiful. She had such a sweet jolly disposition.
   Papa, was a foreman on a cotton plantation, being over a group of Negroes. We lived on Barebin Plantation where I was born, later moving to Kilemoky Plantation. Later we returned to Barebin.
   On these plantations, our family raised all the corn, sweet potatoes and vegetables we needed. We had chicken, geese, duck and made pillows and feather beds (mattress) from their feathers. We also had turkeys, and cows. The cows furnished our milk, butter and cheese. We raised sugar cane from which we secured syrup.
   Mama's sister, my Aunt Mary Waller Merrimon, was a widow and lived with us with her daughter, Martha. With Aunt Mary, my cousin, Martha, and my Grandmother Pattison living with them, it was hard for my father (Billy) to do his job as an overseer and to find time to raise the crops and animals for food for our family. With so many to feed, some one had to help with the outside work so that more could be done.
   Grandmother was very old and lame and could not help. And it would not have been proper for Aunt Mary to go out and work with Papa, (Billy), so mama, (Emma) went out to the fields to help raise food for the family, and left Aunt Mary to do the house work and take care of the children.

No Tattling
By Telitha E. Pattison Cooper
   Of course, Aunt Mary would often have to correct us children, and then we would run to Grandmother with their troubles. When we children would come running into grandma's room telling her something against Aunt Mary, something Mary had done to displease us, Grandma Pattison would put her small hand out and say, "SH! Don't talk about anybody. She is a good woman." Grandmother did not believe in the least bit of gossip, and wouldn't let us children even indulge in tattling.
 
 
A Shiny Bucket
By Telitha E. Pattison Cooper
Grandma always brought me something when she came home after a visit to some of her relatives, an apple or something. When we came home and the house smelled of apples, we would all cry, "Grandma is home!"
    One time she brought me a little shiny bucket with a lid. It was about the size of a number two tomato can and had once held lard. I thought it was the most beautiful bucket I had ever seen. My sister Mary wanted this bucket so badly that she came running in one time and said to mother, "If Honey (that was my nickname) dies, I'll get this little bucket." Now, I was ill a lot as a child and several times they did not think I would live. So, my sister, being a child, also thought of this when she wanted the bucket.

Grandma's Pipe
By Telitha E. Pattison Cooper
      We knew nothing of the Mormon Church at this time, and my grandmother smoked a pipe, as a great many women her age did. When she wanted her pipe lit, she would always let us kids, Dennis, my brother, or me light it for her. We thought that was a great privilege.

I Nearly Died
By Telitha E. Pattison Cooper
   My grandmother raised me on coffee. As I said before, I was sick a lot and my grandmother thought that a little coffee whenever I wanted it, helped me. In fact, she claimed, that coffee was what kept me alive as I was a premature baby. When I was born m mother was so ill and weak that she had no nourishment for me, she couldn't nurse me, so sweetened milk and coffee was the first thing I ever tasted. We had a spinning wheel and either grandmother or Aunt Mary was at the spinning wheel most of the time. I came up one day and saw what I thought was coffee in a saucer on the spinning, wheel. I picked it up and drank it. It was lye water made from ashes. My mother did not think I swallowed any of it, but I was out of my head for a long time. The lye almost ate my mouth out.
   Grandmother thought "her baby" was going to die and she was very worried. They all tried to pour cream and anything else they could think of that might help, down me to try to save me.