YVP: Hattie A. Rumple

Hattie with two of her sons, Tom Rumple on the left, Flake Rumple on the right.

“My name is Hattie A. Rumple. I was born in Wilkes County in 1898, got married in 1914 and reared nine children.

I recall mailing a card for one cent, a letter for two cents I remember as a girl going with my Daddy to town, we crossed an old covered bridge over the Yadkin River. Cars were not around then. The horses would get scared seeing the water through the cracks in the floor of the bridge I remember my Grandmother saying she was working in a cotton mill in Elkin, N.C,

When the Yankees came through, they set fire to the buildings. The owner met them with a smile and a kind word, they put the fire out.There was also a store near by, they threw the merchandise out. One old lady got a side of meat and ran with it. They also left their worn out horses and took the farmers’ good ones.

My Daddy grew wheat, corn and tobacco. The wheat was harvested with a cradle; combines were unheard of then. The thrashers would come with a steam boiler. The neighbors would exchange work and that called for a big meal. We also made molasses in a boiler. The cane mill was drawn by a horse or mule.

Yadkin • Valley PEOPLE

Grandmother Rumple, Mrs. W.D. Rumple, wrote this piece in 1978 and it is shared by her grandson, Don.

We also kept cows, churned in an old wooden churn, kept the milk and butter in a box in a creek. When an unusual rain came it would wash away. We graded tobacco leaf by leaf which was the winter’s job for the market. We looked forward to the blackberry season, which we canned in tin cans for the market to buy winter clothes. My mother did a lot of canning, freezers were not on the market at that time.

Barn yard hens furnished eggs, raised broilers. We also dried apples on a scaffold in the sunshine. We kept turnips and potatoes in a mound of dirt and straw.

I remember when folks had choppings, barn raising, corn huskings. The neighbors would come in and help. We wold gather fox grapes and muscadines for jelly. We grew our own meat and stored in what was called the smoke house. Them hams were delicious. Our heat was a fire place, we burned wood.

Times have changed in my almost 80 years but I pray my children and grandchildren won’t have the hardships we had. We were happy and folks seem to love each other, I suppose for the reason no one felt superior, all about the same level.”