Blocton Chronology
The fire was over about 2:00. I don't remember discussing my plans with Mama, but I wandered around the burned out area looking at the ruins. At our plac e I found the 32 calibre pistol that Mama had used to shoot that owl years ago on the farm [its reported in earlier part of the Nudges book]. It was burned and of no possible use, but it was the only thing in the ashes that I recognized. Some way or the other I got re-connected to the family. The Baptist preacher let us stay with them overnight. [We may have stayed a few days with them, but I don't remember.
We moved into an up stairs part of a vacant store a few blocks down the street. I don't know why Mama didn't rent the downstairs part for a store. A few days later she rented a dinky little shack a block and a half further west for use as a store. It was a poor locations and we did very little business, and she closed it and rented the downstairs of the living site as a store. The locations was better and business was pretty good. Lawyer Wright's office was across the street, in front of the lawywer's residence. It was at this store location that mama developed the friendship of Red Wing, a black woman who always wore predominately red clothes. I never knew what they talked about, but did notice that Red Wing would spend considerable time sitting in the store talking with Mama.
It was just a few days after the fire that we got the job cleaning bricks. We would use a hatchet to clean the mortar from the burned bricks and stack them about twelve bricks high and about 20 X 15 stacks. The work was in the open sun and our fingers got blisters. I think they paid us 1 cent per brick. I always assumed that Aubrey lined up this job, but never knew for sure. A month or so later I got the job at the Silver Moon. I don't know if I ever knew how I got that job either. I was in the 6th or 7th grade.
Aubrey got a job at Davie's store which was one of the first stores rebuilt, It was one step above a 5 & 10 cent store, and a step below our present day Target stores. He did well there. Johnnie got the job with Mr. Herren, the soft drink distributor.
In his senior year Aubrey worked out a deal with Massy's Business College in Montgomery. They got him a job with the Alabama Journal managing some paper routes in a negro section of town that allowed him to attend classes where he took a business course including typing and penmanship. He then got additional work at the Journal in the Circulation department.
When I finished the 9th grade and turned 16 years of age Aubrey wrote that he had arranged for me to get some paper routes if I wanted to come to Montgomery and go to school. I went and enrolled at the brand new Sidney Lanier High School. My paper routes were located in the very best section of town, [not the richest, but the best].Everything went well.
Back in Blocton all of the mines closed and it became clear that the town was never going to recover from the fire. Mama, Esther, Bill and Elva decided to move to a farm Mama owned in Hale County new Grandma Stewarts place. There was no house on the place and Grandma allowed her to live in a shack on her place [ I never knew what it looked like].After a time Johnnie got a used, vacant mine dwelling [I never heard if he bought it or it was given to him], took it apart, saving every piece and every nail, loaded it onto a truck and took it to Hale County. Mama and the children gathered rocks and built foundation piers on which the house was to be placed.
The folks rebuilt the house and lived in it for years. The floor and the ceiling were built of tongue and groove lumber. Mama noticed that the floor was badly worn through years of use.
So Mama decided to put the old floors up as the ceiling and use the former ceiling lumber as the new floor. The family folks often spoke of this as another example of the genius of our mother. A few years later Mama decided the house needed painting, but there was no money to buy paint. She found a spot on the farm where the soil was an attractive shade of red and gathered a quantity of it and took it to the house. She put the soil into a pot with enough water to make the right consistency and proceeded to paint the house. It didn't have a gloss but did make the house look very good and colorful.
The children attended the school at "The Valley" [I have never known where the school is located] until they were ready for High School. For that they rode school busses to Greensboro.
Aubrey persuaded Johnnie to come to Montgomery to go to Lanier Hi. However, Johnnie preferred W.B.H.S. and after a few weeks returned to Blocton. He worked at the Silver Moon, but I never knew for how long. After graduation he got married and moved to Tuscaloosa. He opened a restaurant 10 or 15 miles out from Tuscaloosa, but business was not good enough and he got a job at the Coffee Pot restaurant in Tuscaloosa. The owner liked him and later employed him to manage another restaurant in a nearby town.
When Johnnie saw that he was going to be drafted into the Army, he decided to join the Air Force. He was the first of the Clements boys to go into the service. He became an airplane mechanic was promoted to the highest Non Commission rank. He didn't like the lifestyle of commissioned officers and declined an offer to go to Officer's School. Johnnie did his job as Crew Chief well and enjoyed his long career in the Air Force.
We moved into an up stairs part of a vacant store a few blocks down the street. I don't know why Mama didn't rent the downstairs part for a store. A few days later she rented a dinky little shack a block and a half further west for use as a store. It was a poor locations and we did very little business, and she closed it and rented the downstairs of the living site as a store. The locations was better and business was pretty good. Lawyer Wright's office was across the street, in front of the lawywer's residence. It was at this store location that mama developed the friendship of Red Wing, a black woman who always wore predominately red clothes. I never knew what they talked about, but did notice that Red Wing would spend considerable time sitting in the store talking with Mama.
It was just a few days after the fire that we got the job cleaning bricks. We would use a hatchet to clean the mortar from the burned bricks and stack them about twelve bricks high and about 20 X 15 stacks. The work was in the open sun and our fingers got blisters. I think they paid us 1 cent per brick. I always assumed that Aubrey lined up this job, but never knew for sure. A month or so later I got the job at the Silver Moon. I don't know if I ever knew how I got that job either. I was in the 6th or 7th grade.
Aubrey got a job at Davie's store which was one of the first stores rebuilt, It was one step above a 5 & 10 cent store, and a step below our present day Target stores. He did well there. Johnnie got the job with Mr. Herren, the soft drink distributor.
In his senior year Aubrey worked out a deal with Massy's Business College in Montgomery. They got him a job with the Alabama Journal managing some paper routes in a negro section of town that allowed him to attend classes where he took a business course including typing and penmanship. He then got additional work at the Journal in the Circulation department.
When I finished the 9th grade and turned 16 years of age Aubrey wrote that he had arranged for me to get some paper routes if I wanted to come to Montgomery and go to school. I went and enrolled at the brand new Sidney Lanier High School. My paper routes were located in the very best section of town, [not the richest, but the best].Everything went well.
Back in Blocton all of the mines closed and it became clear that the town was never going to recover from the fire. Mama, Esther, Bill and Elva decided to move to a farm Mama owned in Hale County new Grandma Stewarts place. There was no house on the place and Grandma allowed her to live in a shack on her place [ I never knew what it looked like].After a time Johnnie got a used, vacant mine dwelling [I never heard if he bought it or it was given to him], took it apart, saving every piece and every nail, loaded it onto a truck and took it to Hale County. Mama and the children gathered rocks and built foundation piers on which the house was to be placed.
The folks rebuilt the house and lived in it for years. The floor and the ceiling were built of tongue and groove lumber. Mama noticed that the floor was badly worn through years of use.
So Mama decided to put the old floors up as the ceiling and use the former ceiling lumber as the new floor. The family folks often spoke of this as another example of the genius of our mother. A few years later Mama decided the house needed painting, but there was no money to buy paint. She found a spot on the farm where the soil was an attractive shade of red and gathered a quantity of it and took it to the house. She put the soil into a pot with enough water to make the right consistency and proceeded to paint the house. It didn't have a gloss but did make the house look very good and colorful.
The children attended the school at "The Valley" [I have never known where the school is located] until they were ready for High School. For that they rode school busses to Greensboro.
Aubrey persuaded Johnnie to come to Montgomery to go to Lanier Hi. However, Johnnie preferred W.B.H.S. and after a few weeks returned to Blocton. He worked at the Silver Moon, but I never knew for how long. After graduation he got married and moved to Tuscaloosa. He opened a restaurant 10 or 15 miles out from Tuscaloosa, but business was not good enough and he got a job at the Coffee Pot restaurant in Tuscaloosa. The owner liked him and later employed him to manage another restaurant in a nearby town.
When Johnnie saw that he was going to be drafted into the Army, he decided to join the Air Force. He was the first of the Clements boys to go into the service. He became an airplane mechanic was promoted to the highest Non Commission rank. He didn't like the lifestyle of commissioned officers and declined an offer to go to Officer's School. Johnnie did his job as Crew Chief well and enjoyed his long career in the Air Force.
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