Spell Family History  

Memories Of Frazier Vaughn (son of Catherine "Kate" Spell Vaughn)

Midway was a school located about 5 miles west of Granny's. During the War Between the States, it was used as a central location to muster boys into service. Each community had such a place, either a church, school, or just a designated spot. Parents would bring their sons on the allotted days to sign them up or to show cause why they shouldn't be drafted. The boys were housed and fed here until they could be moved on to the assembly point.

Granny was a high-spirited young lady, full of fun. It was always told that she rode a horse to "Midway Soldier Station" and danced 'til she wore holes in the bottoms of her shoes.

Some of that must have been handed down to Ma Kate. They used to tell about how she won a horse race with our daddy (Jim Vaughn) while she was courting him. But the real reason that she won the race was because she gave Dad the old horse that had arthritis, and she took the best horse on the place.

My Grandpa (Bill Spell), pulled teeth too. He had some dentist's tools and he would pull teeth free of charge. Back then there weren't any dentists around these parts and if a person's teeth got to hurting, they just pulled them out. Dot's dad, Mr. Ance McGee, used to tell about going to get Grandpa to pull a bad tooth for him. While Grandpa was pulling on it, the tooth broke. Then Grandpa took a knife and cut the gum away from it and pulled out small pieces of tooth, but never did get the root out. Mr. McGee said that he had never had anything to hurt that badly, but there was no way of deadening it. Grandpa did give him a drink of whiskey though.

Grandpa was very good at singing. He really knew music, though I don't know how he learned it. He would go around to schools and churches and teach singing schools. He must have been hard of hearing, for I was always told that he always cupped his left hand behind his ear and sang loud. All of his children loved to sing.

They could all "carry a tune" and sing well, too. Most of the girls could play the organ. Aunt Mahala always played the organ at Union Church.

Grandpa had a blacksmith shop, but as far as I know, he always, had someone else to run it.

Grandpa Bill had two cerebral hemorrhages. He is the only person that I ever heard of that survived one. He had his first one at Union Church. He got real sick but he got all right. A good while later, he was hauling lumber on a wagon and was nearly home on the road that leads by the Cole families, down behind the old house, and had a second attack He managed to get down from the wagon and slumped over something under a tree and died there.

After Grandpa died, one of us Vaughn boys would have to go down and sleep at Granny's every night. We would take turns. We would sleep in the little room off the front porch. Uncle Tom and Granny each had a bed in the big room. Granny was really spoiled. If she wanted a drink of water during the night, she would call to us to get it. She wouldn't drink water that was already in the bucket, she wanted fresh water drawn from the well. And we'd get it, too.

Before the revival meeting in the summer, Granny expected everybody to go with her to clean the cemetery at Union Church. We'd hoe the grass up and then sweep it off. Then when we got back home, we'd sweep off the slave graveyard. It was easy to clean since it was under big pine trees, and all we'd have to do was to sweep it.

We had lots of fun, and it was entertaining to listen to our uncles and aunts tell about things they'd done as youngsters. One story they told was about a prank that Ma Kate and Aunt Fannye pulled on Aunt Mahala. Aunt Mahala had brought her boy friend home with her from church, even though she knew that Grandpa and Granny had gone visiting. Ma and Aunt Fannye went to the kitchen to cook dinner, but instead, beat and banged pots around pretending to cook, then locked up the kitchen, rang the dinner bell, and slipped off down the road to the Cole's house. They didn't wait to see Aunt Mahala's reaction when she brought her "bow" to eat!

Ma Kate and Aunt Fannye loved working also. One of their favorite chores was to help pat the mud in the molds when it was brick making time.