My granddaddy died when I was 4 years old, so I only have a few memories of him. I remember he had a big green swing that hung from a large oak tree in his front yard, and we would sit and swing on it. My mother tells me I would follow right on his heels all around his farm, trying to help him. By this time he had gotten quite feeble, and was unable to do much. He fell out of the swing, and I knew enough to run for help; getting my mother and grandmother.

My grandfather was a very religious man; a deacon in his church and the father to 4 boys. He once traded a pig for a piano, since my grandmother was a piano player, and he wanted her to have a piano at home. That piano was lost in a fire a few years back, and our family grieved for it more than anything else lost in the fire. Oscar was a farmer by trade, raising crops and also sheep for a time. My grandmother told me they had a mule to plow with. Oscar had gone back to the house for something, and the mule wouldn't co-operate, so Grandmother got mad, got a big stick and hit that mule between the ears. The mule fell out, and Grandmother thought she'd killed Oscar's mule. She prayed over that mule and rubbed his head, he finally got back up, and when she clucked to him, off he went pulling that plow, never giving her another minutes trouble. She said she never told my granddaddy what she'd done to that mule, saying Oscar was amazed at how well she handled that mule and the mule never giving her any trouble.

Oscar's mother died shortly after his birth, and he was raised by his father and older sister and brothers. I wish I'd had been interested in geneology more as a child, and we'd of had Find A Grave 30 years ago. There is so much I'd like to know now, that is lost to time.