The Fōth (Fourth, 4th, ¼)

My maternal grandfather, William [Uncle Billy] Phillip Moore died in August, 1925 leaving a 70 acre farm behind with no house as the log cabin had recently burned down. His family consisted of his widow, Rosa Pearce Moore, and five children, aged 15 to 24, who lived with the nearby relatives, especially Uncle Charlie and Uncle Sam.

Uncle Billy and Rosa - my grandparents
(This portrait was photographed circa 1900 and was not discovered until the 1970s by my mother in a small closet under the stairs!  She surmised that the portrait was kept hidden, because it would have been considered much too ostentatious during the depression!)

To replace the log cabin, a four room house with attic and full front porch were built mainly with lumber sawn from the 70 acres.  The windows, doors, and hardware were purchased from Roxboro Lumber Company.  This is still stamped on some of the unpainted wood doors yet today.  Because of the fire, a separate kitchen building stood behind on the side south of the house.  Between the front two rooms was a hallway leading from the front door.   The northeast room was daughter Alma’s bedroom, and the northwest room was the parlor.  Behind these two rooms were two more rooms being my grandmother’s bedroom on the southeast corner, and the dining room on the southwest corner.  This dining room was the largest room in the house and because of its southwest exposure was the warmest and brightest room.  It alone had four windows, while all the other rooms had two windows each.  Not only was dining done in this room, but also it was large enough to be a sitting room as well, probably what today is referred to as a “great room.”  Sometime prior to 1940, Bill added two more rooms across the width of the south side.  Next to the big room was a new kitchen with a walk-in pantry.  Grandmama cooked on a wood stove with an oven and two overhead warming bins. Electricity arrived about 1948 making possible running water from a well, instead of hauling water from the spring.  Bill then built new cabinets with a built-in sink.  The other side of the south addition was a screened in porch.  Again in 1948, the porch was enclosed and a bathroom was added to the southeast corner of the porch.

Three members of the family were left to live on the farm as daughter Lula became a teacher, married and moved to Virginia; Jenny studied nursing, married and move to South Carolina, and Sara studied nursing at Watts Hospital in Durham and married there.  Alma became a teacher and continued to live at home and owned the first car in the family.  Bill spent his time farming the 70 acres.  Grandmama cooked, cleaned and did the household work.  She would spend many hours in the dining room, reading and doing handiwork.

Exactly how my grandfather’s estate was divided up among Grandmama, Alma, and Bill are unclear to me, as I have not found a will.  Both my grandmama and mother have explained the arrangement to me over the years.  Alma, the oldest and unmarried schoolteacher got the house and five acres surrounding it.  Bill, also never married, got the remaining acreage for his farm, where he built a two-story log cabin with large rooms on each level; later, he added two more rooms behind the log cabin.  All of this he built himself, and when he was not farming, he worked as a carpenter.  There were many other buildings on the farm including a two-story pack house with full basement, stables, chicken house, tobacco curing barns (two very old made with logs), and corn crib.

Pack House (left) and Bill's House (right)

So, what did Grandmama (the widow) get?  She got the Fōth and a lifetime right to live in the home!  What is a Fōth (pronounced with a long O sound)? Thus, she was to receive one-fourth of the farm’s income from growing tobacco.  After the sale at the warehouse, she was to be given a quarter of the proceeds.  It was sold in multiple bundles on the warehouse floor with lots of separate receipts.  Grandmama was not always sure that she was getting her rightful share, and demanded to see receipts.  Bill was known to spend a buck or two on whiskey and beer!

Why did Rosa even need any money – the Fōth?  Alma went to the A&P for grocery necessities spending her own salary. Despite all the biscuits and cornbread, Alma bought “loaf bread” especially to make tomato sandwiches.  Right there at hand were the dairy cow, and chickens, and a couple of hogs, not to mention the one acre garden in the summer.

Rosa Moore needed money for the following special items:

·       Snuff! 

Yes my grandmama had a nicotine habit and satisfied it with dipping snuff. Her brand of choice was Tube Rose.  She made her own dipping brush from a twig of the black gum tree.  She kept a pint or quart glass jar on the floor beside her chair to spit in.  Sometimes she used a metal tin can instead. Never make the mistake of accidentally kicking over that container!

·     
Saturday Evening Post which she read cover to cover every week when it arrived. The Post introduced me to the art of Norman Rockwell, who drew the most covers.

·       

Progressive Farmer magazine.

·       
Farmers Almanac in which the calendar must be followed! Know when the last frost will occur.  Forecast published in August, 2013, has been remarkably accurate for the 2013-2014 winter!

·   
Coats and Clark thread.  There was always sewing to be done, whether it was mending, crocheting, or a bobbin to be wound.  Four doors away on the corner of my block in Durham, NC was a neighborhood grocery store.  Right at the front next to the cash register was a glass display of threads.  I was usually sent with a color thread to match up.  The thread was wound on wooden spools, which never could be thrown away, because they would be repurposed as pot lid handles!  In the 1940s, feed sacks were indispensable for material for making some clothes, particularly pajamas.  Yes she made my pajamas.  Rosa had an authentic Singer foot paddled sewing machine, which she famously carried out of the burning log cabin home.  My mother had one also in our dining room next to two bright sunny windows.  Grandmama crocheted beautiful colorful edges onto pillow cases and towels for gifts.  She could also make lace – the doilies for the table tops.

·       
Gifts for her grandchildren on special occasions.  When I graduated from high school, she said that she wanted to give me a gift that I could use in college.  So, I chose Merrian-Webster’s Collegiate Edition Dictionary.

·       
Shoes which she bought at Roscoe Griffin in Durham.  She only had one style, which was black leather ankle high lace up.  She never ever wore anything else on her feet.

·       Certain undergarments, most notably a girdle.

Lady Slipper Cove

Always referred to as “The Farm” or “The Country” when I was growing up, I decided in recent years to call it “Lady Slipper Cove” because several years ago, I found lady slippers growing and blooming here. The picture of a pink lady slipper in the sidebar was taken on my farm in May, 2005. Because this is a favorite part of my world, I decided to name this website after it, in case you have been wondering where the name came from. This farm has been in my family since before the Civil War and has been divided many times among Moore descendants, and my portion today is 70 acres. My great-great grandfather settled here, and he was the grandson of Stephen Moore of Mt. Tirzah. See the Stephen Moore blog post. My mother, Sara, and her siblings (Alma, Jenny, Lula, and Bill) grew up in a log cabin on a site just to the east of the current frame house. The log cabin in this picture was built by my Uncle Bill and he alternately lived between the “big” house and this four room cabin. In 1925, the family’s log cabin burned to the ground. Lore has it that my grandmother (Rosa) carried her new Singer sewing machine out the door on her back. That machine must have outweighed her 125 pound frame. The family members split up among nearby relatives until the new house could be built. My grandmother loved to tell stories and she gives this account of why my grandfather died in August that year. She was very superstitious and believed his death occurred because he started a project (cutting lumber for the new house) on a Friday! Her superstition said that “if you could not finish whatever you start on a Friday, you would not live to see its completion!” She has had me so convinced that even today I will not start reading a book on a Friday. It is said that it was such a cold day in August (1925) when they buried my grandfather, that they had to light a fire in the stove to keep warm. The house was built and the family was reunited. It consisted of four rooms and a hall. At this time, there was no kitchen, for fear of fire – so the kitchen was a separate building behind the house. A few years later, Uncle Bill, who was a carpenter, added a kitchen, pantry, and back porch. The cabinets you see here were built by Uncle Bill also. Later still around 1950, Aunt Alma had two more bedrooms finished upstairs. 1948 was a big year because electricity reached the farm, and the house was wired. Until then, there had been no indoor plumbing, bathroom, etc. The back porch was enclosed and a bathroom was built. This occurred when I was five years old and I still remember when the overhead lamp in the big room burned kerosene. Aunt Alma would light a fire in the refrigerator; I still have a hard time explaining how a fire in that contraption could produce ice. Originally there were two bedrooms downstairs – Grandma slept in one of them and Aunt Alma slept in the other. Bill, the only other family member living at home, either slept in the big room – today the dining room, or later upstairs in the west bedroom. My sons, Greg and Brian, have both told me separately of “footfalls” they have heard when sleeping upstairs and they have been the only ones in the house. Does Bill still roam around? I have not heard him. Since I took over the house in 1985, I have added some modern conveniences, but I have tried to keep all the original character of the home, including not painting the front two rooms and hall.
The lawns are large and beautiful. Recently, a wild grape vine was gradually overtaking an old pear tree in the backyard. Greg and his friend, Larry, who lives over on the next farm, pulled that vine from the tree and filled the bed of the truck. An abundance of wildlife lives there including deer, foxes, raccoons, and wild turkeys. Here you can strain your eyes and see the turkeys in the field beside the house, a picture that I took from the dining room window.
You leave the house and lawn, which are on the northeastern corner of the property and proceed past old original structures such as the chicken houses, corn crib, pack house, and Bill’s log cabin to the road to the fields. This road has tobacco curing barns to the side and cuts through the woodlot. This woodlot had the large timber cut about 20 years ago and planted with pines for wood production. When you arrive at the fields on the highest point on the property, you may see soybeans or tobacco growing. A neighbor farmer now tills the fields and takes care of the land. Some years, you may see corn or wheat growing as he rotates the crops, but this is still primarily a working tobacco farm.
Most of the pictures you have seen thus far have been taken in the summer time. Winter does come to the farm and a warm fire in the fireplace insert in the living room seen above help to make those days cozy. Snows occur during some winters, up to about 5 inches rarely, and ice storms are seen in other winters as seen here.
Whether it is a weekend here or a week there any time of year, Lady Slipper Cove is the place I retreat to. In the summer, I may be seen rocking on the front porch and reading a book. In the winter, I’ll be near the fire. But this always feels like home. I grew up in nearby Durham, 25 miles to the south, and almost every weekend and every summer was spent at this farm. My grandmother, Aunt Alma, and Uncle Bill gave me an appreciation for the country life. Today, I live three hours to the south in Wilmington, NC on the coast, but every chance I get, I retreat to the cove.