Spell Family History  

Memories Of Juanice Thaxton Fox (daughter of Fannie Spell Thaxton)

I treasure the memories I have of the old home place as I spent a good deal of time there as a child - from 16 months of age to 8 years when I went to Florida with my mother. I came back for most of the summers - the last one when I was 17.

Uncle Tom gave me the nick name of "Dickey Bird', which was shortened to "Dickie", and my family still calls me by it. He said I was always hopping and skipping around like a Dickey Bird in the snow.

I picked many an apron full of pecans off the old pecan tree. The story I was told as a child was: When Granny was ten years old, her father, took her with him in an ox drawn wagon to South Carolina to see relatives, including his sister, Rachel (Craig).* Granny was given the pecan seedlings and brought them back and planted the. When the trees were good sized saplings, her brother, Ben, and another brother, cut a strip three inches wide up the trunk of the tree to the west, to make a braided whip. This stunted the tree. Granny was not told what really took place until later - as Ben was her favorite brother. We always figured the age of the tree by taking 10 from Granny's age.

There used to be a small burial ground to the south of the old cabin. I went there with Aunt Kate, Uncle Tom, and Granny on the day they set aside for grave cleaning. There was a low picket fence around the cemetery and a small house over one grave - a roof on four posts with picket walls. There were small concrete tomb stones marking the adult graves, and "lightered knots" and "brick bats" marking the children's graves. It was in the wooded area south of the field and we crossed a fence to get to it, so it would have been Uncle Tom's woodland.

I have the "Granny" broach which was handed down to the youngest daughter, down the line. Great-grandmother Duckworth had it on in the picture (large one) that Granny had hanging on the wall in the old cabin. My mother, Fannye, had a safety clasp put on it before she gave it to me.

Much of the land of the old home place was once Choctaw Indian land. My brother, Preston, and I had picked up shoe boxes full of arrow heads following behind Uncle Tom as he plowed. We left them with Granny but someone took both boxes. They were gone the first time we came back for the summer from Florida. We found most of them in the field to the east of the house. This had probably been a meadow where the Indians had camped or hunted game.

Your cousin,

Frances Juanice Thaxton Fox

*author's note: The 1930 WPA writings relate the story, as to how Granny Keziah visited her sister, Elizabeth Speed Rawls Wood, a few miles to the south, and brought back the pecan trees in the pocket of her riding skirt. Three trees were planted. Her brothers, Bill and Ben Speed, broke one tree down. The other two lived. One grew rapidly and is one of the largest pecan trees in the area. The stock bit the top out of the other one, causing it to be a dwarf tree.