My Tribe: Hill Family Stories...the General Store

Aunt Mattie's Rocking Chair

"In the end, we're all just a collection of stories." --author Unknown

I climbed up onto the old rocking chair and settle myself on Aunt Mattie's lap. I leaned back into her, she wrapped her arms around me and began to rock, the chair quietly creaking from the gentle motion. It was late and I couldn't sleep, still afraid of the monsters that might be hiding in the dark. "Tell me a story," I pleaded, yawning. I was fidgety, but finally settled myself more comfortably, hanging my legs over one arm of the chair and resting my head against Mattie's shoulder. She patted my butt comfortingly as she rocked.

"Well," she began, "...when I was just about your age, I started helping my mama work in our family's General Store. It was a simple, large wooden building and contained lots of bins and shelves. We also had two big wooden barrels by the door that were always filled, one with peanuts still in the hull and the other with soda crackers. Those barrels were almost as tall as I was!  My older brothers, Will and Morris, also worked in the store and later my other brothers and sisters. In my day, everyone worked," she said. "How much did they pay you?" I wanted to know. "We didn't get paid money, baby, but if we were good, mama always let us have a treat from the store." This seemed completely incredulous to me, working for free. I imagined a store filled with children who owned and operated it and got paid in chocolate candy. Hmmmm. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad. "Did you like working there?" I asked. "Oh yes," she said happily. "All kinds of people came in and out of our store all the time and most of them were very nice. I loved that it was so busy all the time and often people brought their children with them, so I had lots of kids to talk to. Our store got the very first telephone in the county, so that attracted even more people. We also carried lots of useful things that people needed, along with special treats like soda and candy. We even had these neat wooden cigar boxes that were covered in bright pictures of far-away people and places. The tobacco had a sweet, earthy scent and I always thought it smelled comforting. You know, that's where your grandma got her name, Juanita. When she was born, my dad named her after one of the pretty girls he'd seen on a cigar box in the store." This made me giggle because I knew my grandmother wouldn't like me knowing that story and I loved having such a fun secret with Aunt Mattie about her sister.

I was six when Mattie told me this story for the first time and I was amazed that even kids had to work when she was a little girl. She talked about the store a lot when I was growing up...about how it was a popular gathering place and that when their home burned down to the ground, her family lived in the back room until her dad and grandfather built them a new home. She also said that she was there with a crowd that had gathered when the very first airplane flight over our county took place. Imagine seeing an airplane fly over for the FIRST time! I can't even fathom how fantastical that must have been!

We had an old phone in our house that hung on the wall in the hallway, which she said looked just like the one they'd had in the store. She said when you'd pick up the receiver, you wouldn't get a dial tone, instead an operator would come on the line and ask where/whom you wished to call. In this day and age, when everyone has some sort of cellphone, thinking back I often wonder how absurd this would have seemed to a teenaged Aunt Mattie. That world seems so very different from the one we live in today and after going to our Hill family reunion over the weekend, that's one of the reasons I've begun researching historical events in conjunction with family history that I'm learning. For me, knowing more about my "tribe" is very important and it is my most ardent hope that I will discover while much has changed from past to present, fundamental dreams, wishes and values have remained constant (although that  whole "everybody works" philosophy seems to have been unceremoniously discarded...I'll leave you to your own opinion of whether this denotes "progress" or not).

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Watercolor by my uncle Bill Aldrich of an old road near the house where Aunt Mattie lived