Sweet Soul Of The Smokies

There has never been a sizeable African-American population in the Smokies, and anecdotal evidence suggests that it may actually have decreased in the last half century. Certainly that’s the case in Swain County, North Carolina. 

A few years back a wonderful woman, dear friend, and walking encyclopedia of local history, Beulah Suddereth, told me that membership at her beloved Morning Star Baptist Church, once a religious bastion of the local community, had dwindled to five. I suspect, since her death in 2011, that the tiny church has ceased to exist. Yet a half century or more ago it was a thriving congregation, and on warm days of boyhood when church windows were open wide I rejoiced in listening, from afar, to the wonderful music coming from services there.

One of the voices uplifted in that musical feast belonged to a neighbor whom I then knew only as Aunt Mag. She loomed large in my youth, thanks in part to the close proximity of our family home to hers and others in a small enclave of African-Americans. I had daily interaction with and knew them all, but I was closest with the woman who carried the honorific “Aunt,” thanks to advanced years and being universally held in high esteem. 

My parents thought the world of Aunt Mag and regularly helped her and a niece, Elma, in their ongoing struggle to survive. Sadly, most biographical details on her have vanished like milkweed spores driven by a chill autumn wind. Uncertainty marks much of Aunt Mag’s life. Census records disagree on the place and date of her birth, offer no evidence on her maiden name, and until quite recently only a battered 5-by-7 inch tin plaque marked her grave.

It would be a pure joy to learn more details of Aunt Mag’s life, but that information is likely forever lost. Various censuses list her as a laundress or unemployed, although from the years we were friends I can confidently say she was never “unemployed” if that so much as hints at shirking work. By 1940, she was a widow for the second time in her life. The 1940 census valued her home and the acre of land on which it sat at $500. 

Aunt Mag was born in the middle of the Civil War, likely of parents who had been slaves. She was illiterate, had several children—all but one of whom predeceased her—married a man 20 years her senior who died, leaving her penniless for the final three decades of her life, and knew nothing but hard times all her years. 

Those are bare bones of a forgotten life, yet beneath these distressing facts lie biographical rosebuds aplenty. Aunt Mag was one of the happiest, most interesting individuals imaginable. Some reflections on my interaction with her hopefully open a window into this wonderful woman of the Smokies’ soul. She was, in the words of a Roy Acuff classic, “a jewel here on earth, a jewel in heaven.” 

Already an elderly woman when I first remember her, Aunt Mag literally figured in my life from the day I was born. She washed my diapers in an era when disposable ones were unknown, accomplishing this task outdoors using a huge cast iron pot sitting atop a wood fire, stirring hot, soapy water and beating soiled cotton with a stout hickory stick bleached white from long use. After washing, the diapers were thoroughly rinsed in a separate kettle. She then dried the clean diapers on wires suspended between trees. I know all this because she was still handling laundry that way a decade later when my brother was born.

Along with her laundry work Aunt Mag frequently “came calling” when our garden was at peak productivity and when fall rolled around. We had a small apple orchard, and most years it produced far more apples than we needed. Any surplus went to Aunt Mag, who dried and canned them for winter. Similarly, Daddy always planted a bigger crop of turnips and mustard greens that we could consume, knowing that Aunt Mag would make her way up the hill to our place, talk a bit, and eventually inquire about “a mess of them fine greens.” This tickled Daddy, because her request invariably concluded with the same phrase: “I always say if it ain’t worth asking for it ain’t worth having.” Although repeatedly instructed to help herself, she invariably asked permission to gather a mess of whatever was in season. In her humble, gracious fashion she’d knock on the door, inquire about gleaning surplus vegetables, and talk a spell before getting down to the business of harvesting. She never entered the house. Apparently it was just an invisible social line or barrier she was unwilling to breach, although she was unfailingly invited to come on in.

While Aunt Mag had her own tiny garden, it was too shady for most items. The place also featured a sprawling chicken lot, privy, and four-room house. Early on I discovered Aunt Mag’s wizardry as a cook and visited her at every opportunity. On more than one occasion slipping off to sample and savor her offerings got me into trouble. Yet who could resist a delightful old woman who always had stew simmering atop her wood-burning stove, fluffy biscuits adorned with homemade jelly, or maybe a big chunk of cracklin’ cornbread slathered with butter?

It never occurred to this greedy-gut youngster that Aunt Mag was poor as Job’s turkey, although the dots were there to be connected. Instead, she was a regular, if small, source of income for me. Every spring I sold her #8 paper pokes stuffed with poke salad for a dime a bag. Looking back, I suspect that for her 10 cents was a budgetary strain, never mind that my going rate for a poke of poke was a quarter. Aunt Mag often paid with two nickels or a nickel and five pennies, invariably doing so with the admonition, “Now boy, spend that money wisely.”

Later, as a teenager, I began trapping and was successful enough to catch the occasional muskrat. Their pelts were worth $3 or a bit more in the mid-1950s, big money for a boy whose weekly allowance was a quarter. When I discovered Aunt Mag would pay what she termed “cash money” (15 cents) for muskrat carcasses, I was in high cotton.

Of course she cooked the muskrat, and eventually I discovered their meat was absolutely delicious. That culinary epiphany, along with Daddy’s incredulity at my consuming “rat,” remains a treasured memory. This revelation came on a bitterly cold January day when a deep snow had closed school and I had been out rabbit hunting.  

At hunt’s end I stopped by Aunt Mag’s and as soon as I opened the door a wonderful aroma greeted me. Inquiring about the tempting smell’s origin, I received her standard enthusiastic response. “I’ve got me a big pot of stew going. Get a bowl.” I did just that. My, was it fine—carrots, onions and potatoes, along with tender chunks of meat, floated in rich gravy. The savory dish was so scrumptious I had a second helping.

Finally, as mystified by the meat as I was satisfied by the taste, I inquired: “What am I eating?”

Aunt Mag had been waiting for that moment. Cackling in sheer delight, she replied: “Why boy, you be eating muskrat.” It was a wonderful example of old-time living off the land, which taught me a valuable lesson about not disdaining earth’s simple bounty. Whenever I think of that nourishing, delicious stew from a bitter winter’s day it warms my heart.

Similar warmth infuses me when it comes to fishing and Aunt Mag. With the possible exception of my mother, she loved fish more than anyone I’ve ever known. Both considered a platter of fish—wearing golden brown cornmeal dinner jackets, flanked by dishes of fried potatoes, slaw, and cornbread—as close to culinary heaven as anyone needed to be.

By happy chance, Aunt Mag’s place included a patch of ground which was a fishing worm paradise. Fifteen minutes grubbing where she watered “yard birds” in her chicken lot would produce enough wigglers for several days fishing. She was quite happy for me to “farm” her worm garden, albeit with unspoken understanding that some of the fish I caught would end up at her house. 

The nature of my catch didn’t matter. She was equally happy with a stringer of knotty heads, a batch of catfish, panfish, or, as my fly-fishing skills improved, trout. The latter weren’t caught on worms, and Mom insisted on first dibs when it came to trout. Still, periodically she would suggest I give Aunt Mag a mess. So it went, summer after summer, until I headed off to college in 1960. Aunt Mag, worms, and fish were integral parts of my mountain boyhood. She was as consistently grateful for my offerings as I was gratified by carefree hours astream.

On one memorable occasion, however, there was an unfortunate break in established ritual. I dug worms in Aunt Mag’s chicken lot for three days running but failed to deliver any fish. The fourth day I showed up she politely inquired: “Ain’t you been catching any?”

I allowed as how I had actually been catching plenty but since they were small, had released them to grow a bit. She looked at me in perplexed dismay and asked: “Were they bigger than a butter bean?” I acknowledged that, while small, the bream were indeed appreciably larger than that. “Well,” Aunt Mag said, “I’ll eat a butter bean.”

I got her message. If a fish was big enough to bite a hook baited with one of her worms, it was large enough for her to eat. I never repeated the mistake of practicing catch-and-release with this woman committed to release-to-grease.

Aunt Mag died while I was away college, and by then those days of innocent youth belonged to a world forever lost. Yet, looking back, I realize friendship with this simple, impoverished woman was among the brightest facets of my boyhood. She was as goodhearted a soul as has ever graced my world—poor but upstanding, no stranger to hard work, and someone who struggled mightily just to get from one day to the next.  

Yet Aunt Mag managed to “get by,” working at simple tasks with a will, growing much in the way of her basic food needs, harvesting still more in the form of nature’s wild bounty, and periodically getting some help from neighbors. My parents considered it both a duty and an honor to help as they could. In addition to sharing surplus garden and orchard produce, they invariably remembered her at Christmas. Also, Daddy and another neighbor, Irv Thomas, always saw to it that periodically truck loads of wood scraps were delivered to be used in her wood-burning stove. In return, Aunt Mag frequently brought some kind of scrumptious baked goods to our door.

Her life and lifestyle formed exemplars of traditional mountain folkways which knew no racial boundaries. No photo by which to remember her survives, and probably there aren’t a score of individuals alive today who even recall the woman. Yet it behooves us to accord tribute to such faceless, fading, largely forgotten souls, for mountain yesteryears knew many, black and white, like Aunt Mag. She was a sterling example of an admirable work ethic, a giving spirit, a deep-rooted integrity, and abiding love for mankind. Materially a rank stranger to treasures and pearls, she embraced the essence of all that is good and gracious, enduring and endearing, in high country ways.