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Another version of "Albert and Anne Denman," entitled "Life History of Albert Denman and Family, Proprietor Country Store," can be found on pages 13106-13120. In a deleted version of this life history, lines three and four on page 972 and thirteen and fourteen on page 974 were omitted. Otherwise, the deleted version is identical with the life history included here.
970
FL-7 February 7, 1939 Bob and Anne Franklin (white) Hicoria, Florida Country store proprietor and farmer. Barbara Berry Darsey, writer Veronica E. Huss, reviser good needs cutting
ALBERT AND ANNE DENMAN
"Anne, my wife," said Albert Denman, "she has gone to town this mornin with another lady. They ain't come back yet. I'm sorry she ain't here, and I hope she come back before you gets gone; she'll be plum glad to see you."
We were sitting on the front porch of Mr. Denman's home near Hicoria, Florida, when he made this statement. He was out of breath from hoeing in his garden and sat panting. While he panted, he wiped his brow with a dingy bandanna.
"She don't get to go to town much fer we ain't got no car, nothin 'ceptin my old truck, but I always lots her have it whenever I gits the chancet. It's a right nice change for her too, and gives her a chancet to get away from things. She works so hard."
Upon my arrival I had found Mr. Denman in his little vegetable garden between the front of his house and the back end of his grocery store which faces the main highway. I had told him what I wanted, so he laid his hoe aside and insisted on coming to the porch, adding that he needed a rest anyway.
He was a tall, thin man, with light hair and clear blue eyes. He assumed a serious attitude toward the interview, but talked freely of himself and his family. His manner was pleasant and friendly.
"Talkin about Anne though, makes me think of how she's been sufferin lately. She has a lot of pain in her side. I think she works too hard, tryin to keep us all clean and fed right.
"Sometimes she washes as much as twicet a week, especially when the 971
-2younguns is goin to school. Did you notice all them clothes on the back line, dryin? Well she put them out before she went to town this mornin."
There was a mixture of pride and sadness in his voice, but he went on with his story.
"She keeps the house clean too, and wears herself out scrubbin floors. I try to tell her not to do too much, but she won't listen.
"Of course the children all help, we are raisin them that way. But when they're all gone off to school, there ain't much they can do. We try to teach our younguns to be mindful of their home, and feel a responsibility in it. And lots of times they take right a-holt of things and do them without bein told. We ain't got much of a home now, or much furniture in it, but we like to take care of what we got. I hope to fix up some day, but there don't seem much of a chancet now. Would you like to see what we got? As I told you before, it ain't much, but it's ourn and it's clean."
He led me indoors. In the living room a center table with a linen cover caught my attention at once, on top of this was a large Bible. Other furnishings included several chairs, a cot, a trunk, and kerosene lamps. The bedrooms had little more than a bed and one chair in each. But the beds were clean, neatly made, and covered with hand embroidered muslin spreads. High shelves draped with muslin served as clothes closets. In the kitchen was a wood stove, some shelves for groceries and cooking utensils, besides a table and three crudely made benches.
There weren't any modern plumbing facilities. A pump in the yard supplies them with water, and a large galvanized tub, hanging to the side of the house, serves for bathing and washing. I saw an old fashioned 972
In an otherwise identical version, lines thirteen and fourteen on page 974 were deleted. 973
-3outhouse about 150 feet beyond the house. We walked back to the front porch, and seated ourselves in one of the old, unpainted and weather-beaten rocking chairs.
"The younguns ain't home now," he explained, "they're off to school. I'm alone. So bein there warn't no business at the store, I jest been hoein in the garden. It was good time I was gettin to them beans, cabbages and okra, they shore needed it. That's how come you to find me there. I gotta another piece over back of them pines in yonder, but the land ain't any good; I jest don't seem to have the luck farmin here to what I had in Alabama. I always made a pretty fair livin there till the last few years before we come here. But it seem that everythin has gone wrong in money matter now, for a long time."
We talked along on general economic conditions, then reverted back to his own problems.
"Anne and me was both born in Geneva County, Alabama, and lived right near each others farms. I'm 45 now and she's 37, or I'm thinkin that's what she is. I never can keep up with dates and ages exactly; seems like it takes a woman fer that anyway.
"We both learned to farm and our fathers both raised lots of corn and cotton. We married back in 1919, and I think it was then that we come to Florida for the first time and looked around the place. We heerd they was some fine farmin land down around Lake Okeechobee in the muck, but we didn't get no further when we seen this place. I jest up and bought it. It was all jest pine land when we first come. We didn't like it much though, and Anne was homesick all the time so we went back home and farmed up there for a while. 974