Father: Roy CAIN
Mother: Nora Lee Ingraham CAIN
Family 1 : Cecil Melvin WRIGHT
__ __| | |__ _Roy CAIN ______________| | | __ | |__| | |__ | |--Annie Lorece CAIN | | __ | __| | | |__ |_Nora Lee Ingraham CAIN _| | __ |__| |__
Notes:
By virtue of her
longevity, Lorece Wright had become a wellspring of family history and was an
excellent story teller. She had personally known my great great grandmother (Sarah Wright Holland), as "Aunt
Sack," as well as my great grandmother (Cora Holland Warner), my
Aunt Lena, and many of the
other Holland/Warner family members. A transcription of the long interview of
her which I did in 1999 is something which I eventually need to complete and
place on this website. From a family history which she had written: |
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A Backward Glance By Lorece Wright |
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I was born in Montgomery County near
Winona, Mississippi, on Sep. 29, 1914. My parents moved to McCrory when I was
16 months old. I have lived in and around McCrory ever since. As we were not landowners, we rented land from different people, therefore we lived in different communities going to whatever school was nearest to where we lived. I attended school at Beards, Chappell Grove, Deview and McCrory. Beards school was named for Mr. George Barber's ancestors. Chappell Grove was named for the Chappells that have lived there for many years, Richard, Jim, Lewis, Joe and Edgar, to name a few. There were a lot of churches in the country back then. Morris Grove Methodist Church was named for our beloved Dr. J. W. Morris, who lived to be 104 years old. Then there was Good Hope where we went most of the time. Deview Methodist was near. When my sister and I were about 8 and 10 years old, we went to the Deview church on Sunday mornings. Carrie Lee Wright was our teacher. We loved her because she was so kind and friendly to everyone. On Sunday afternoon our mother would go with us to Good Hope for Sunday school. It was in this church that I gave my heart to the Lord, and was baptized in Cheatam Lake by our pastor Bro. A. A. Overton in 1928. In October of that year, Mr. Rob Wright passed away. The whole community mourned for him because he was a friend to everyone and a giant for the Lord. I married his son in 1932. In those days, there were a lot of schools and churches in that country. That was our social life. In school we had a lot of special occasions, Halloween parties, Christmas trees with lots of gifts for the children and grown-up Easter egg hunts were the highlights of spring. Then came Mothers Day and, of course, Valentines Day. We had so much fun making our mothers and best friends valentines. We had pie suppers and box suppers on Saturday night at the church. The girls would take a pie or box lunch and the boys would buy them. I always hope it would be someone I liked, but that didn't always happen. But I had to be nice to him anyway. The homemade ice cream socials on Saturday night were something everyone looked forward to, as well as the "all day singing" and dinner on the ground. Some of the women would use old trunks to bring their food in. There was fried chicken, potato salad and chocolate pies at every picnic. I think that was everyone's favorite. We all had to work hard but that wasn't so bad, as we worked in the fields, my sister and I could hear our brothers planning what they were going to do on the weekend. We knew we would get to go with them. Had it not been for older brothers, there would have been a lot of times when we would not have gone. There was always someone who had a fiddle and could play well enough that we would have our music for parties. That was a lot of fun. We would walk home down a dark road, laughing and talking and looking forward until the next Saturday night. The thing I cherish most among my memories of our family life is when we were entertained by our parents. Mama picked her guitar and Papa played the harmonica. Mama sang songs like Carry Me Back to Old Virginy, Swanee River, Old Black Joe, but the one I loved best was Pretty Red Wing. We also parched peanuts and popped corn and made homemade candy. I remember in the spring of the year, Mama would help us make kites. She saved newspapers and string. Everything was wrapped in string back then, and it was used for many different things. We did not take a daily newspaper, but Papa had a friend that lived in town and he saved the Sunday papers for us. We looked forward to the funnies. The only newspaper we had to read was the Kansas City Star. I think I read it from front to back. I kept up with Lindberg's flight across the Atlantic, his and Ann Morrow's courtship and the wedding. Then their first child was kidnapped and killed. Bruno Haufman was convicted and put to death for the crime, but I also remember a lot of people thinking that they convicted the wrong man. We will never know. There were a lot of hard times as we grew up, and life was not always fun and frolic, but we learned to take the bad with the good, and if they were weighed in the balances, I think the good would win out. The men folks would cut and bale hay and store it in the barn for the livestock during the winter. They also cut wood so we could keep warm. they would go to the woods with their tools and stay all day. Mama would fix their lunches, and they took large jugs of water. One afternoon, Mama dressed two fryers, with the help of Jennie and me. She was going to fry them for the woodcutter's lunch. But late that afternoon, we had guests drive in. Mama's sister Aunt Ida and her husband Uncle Hugh and Agnes. Aunt Ida had taken Agnes to keep because her mother had passed away. We were all surprised but happy to have them. So there went the woodcutter's fried chicken. Mama fried them for supper. She could always set a good table. There was not a cookbook in the house, but she didn't need one. Back then recipes were handed down orally from one generation to the next. Each family had their own way of cooking, canning, sewing and keeping the house in general. Papa went to town every Saturday to take the corn to be ground for meal and to get groceries for the week. In the fall when we were gathering the crops, he would take a bale of cotton. Sometimes Mama would go with him to buy our winter clothes and shoes. We younger ones would go. That was so much fun riding on a bale of cotton. Hog killing was something to look forward to. Even though it had to be done on cold days, two or three families would go in together, that way they would get through faster and they enjoyed the fellowship. We ate pork all winter and were hardly ever sick, we never heard the word cholesterol. Most country homes had fireplaces. So every night after supper, we would gather round the fire and study our school books by the light of the fireplace or coal oil lamps. Some people had Aladdin lamps and that was equal to electricity. That was primitive living, but since we didn't know any other way of life and all the rest of the people lived the same way, we were happy and content. It is good to learn to be content in whatever circumstance you are in. |
McCRORY — Mrs. Annie Lorece Cain Wright, 91, died
Wednesday. Visitation 6-8 Friday, Thompson-Wilson Funeral Home. Service 2 p.m.
Saturday, First Baptist Church, Mc-Crory. Interment, Woodman Cemetery.
Survivors: son, Robert Wright, West Memphis; daughter, Helen Gwaltney, Calico
Rock; brothers, Roger Cain, Cave City, Hershel Cain, West Memphis; seven
grandchildren ; 13 great-grandchildren ; five great-great-grandchildren.
Thompson-Wilson Funeral Directors, Mc-Crory, (870) 731-2551. |
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This page created on 04/23/00 01:33:20 . Updated 10/07/05 11:25.