Aunt Dovie

Aunt Dovie lived a long life and was, herself, a wealth of information.  She was up at dawn and worked until the late evening.  She believed you were to hoe your garden early in the mornings, and that the afternoons were used to get things done around the house.  She stayed busy.

Aunt Dovie never bought dirt.  As a matter of fact, she would think one was crazy to buy dirt!  She would get her bucket and shovel and to the woods she would go,  She would dig away the leaves and look for the blackest dirt she could find.  This was the richest dirt to use.  After filling her bucket, she would go back home and make another trip to the barn where she gathered the rich deposits of the cows.  Mixing the manure with the dirt, she would plant in pots.  Her plants came from folks who let her have cuttings or seeds.  Her plants were beautiful.  A person must ask for cuttings or seeds; if not the plants you took would die.  You never "steal" a plant, cuttings, or seeds.

Aunt Dovie lived through a time when ladies' dresses touched the ground.  She told me how, as a little girl, she love to watch the long skirts roll the little stones as the ladies walked in their long skirts.  That was a good memory of her childhood which held many painful ones.

She lived during a time that her father had the ultimate say without questions.  When she was eighteen years old, she eloped with my uncle Roy.  They left in a buggy and went to church where they were married.  Her father came looking for her with a hickory to whip her, but by the time he found her, she was already married.

Aunt Dovie lived through the Great Depression.  It was because of this hardship, she made sure she had plenty of food canned for the winter.  She had a storage building in which she stored all her canned foods and a freezer filled with more food.  She would never go hungry.

It is me again, Lord, thanking you for the gift of knowing wise folks like Aunt Dovie.

A little Georgia Wisdom reminding you to talk to the elderly folks in your life and treasure their advice.  It never hurts to be prepared for the future.