Johnny Appleseed visits her grandfather and other childhood recollections

Collected by Mary Celestia Parler Told by Mrs. Laura Bement Elm Springs, Ark. September 20, 1953 Reel Item 1 Johnny Appleseed visits Her Grandfather and other early recollections. •••the farm was on one side of the road and his mill was on the other.And he'd come along there in the spring of the year and it'ud thaw and freeze, and he just wore rags on his feet. (That was Johnny Appleseed?) Um-hum. And sometimes he'd stay a week at a time at my grandfather's. This was in Ohio. They claimed that he went as far as Illinois one trip* But now there was a piece in the paper here a while back said he was buried right on the line between Indiana and Ohio. He just tuck sick and died there, I reckon, and they claimed he was buried there in an old forsaken graveyard* (Did your grandfather say he planted any appleseeds at his house?) Why then my father bought a farm. I was just eight years old when he left Ohio. And I can remember a l i t t l e about the C i v i l War, not much, I can just remember about the last of it. But our farm was I guess mebbe a mile, I don't reckon i t ' a s that fer, but I went to my f i r s t school right close to my grandfather's place. I was six years old then and I can remember that place, but when my grandfather had sold out there and went to Iowa City* My relations is all in Iowa City on my mother' s side of the house. And this farm then was on the one side of the road -- I reckon tag the'as springs under there but ' t ' a s cold in there in the wintertime That was my f i r s t schoolin. That was eighteen and sixty-six* And it'ud freeze over, the pond would, and mebbe a foot thick of ice. And the folks that lived there, their name was McClure, I can remember them, but grand-father left there long before I was born. But he had a l i t t l e rockin chair that Isuppose he had a l i t t l e sister, I don't remember that, but he'd bring that rocking chair out and put me in it,and him on skates - - them old-fashioned skates —- and he'd just go round and around and around that pond pushin me ahead of him. Now I can remember that.Funding for digitization provided by the Arkansas Humanities Council and the Happy Hollow Foundation