Raccoon Hill

Coon Hill, located in a heavily forested area in the northern piedmont region of North Carolina, sat on a winding dirt road in the southwestern portion of Granville County, about five miles from the small village of Stem. A few manmade clearings were planted in tobacco, corn, wheat, cotton, and other money-producing crops.

Coon Hill got its name because it was overrun with raccoons. The numbers of these masked bandits occasionally decreased when the men went hunting, accompanied by their dogs and in fall and winter you could hear the hounds howling when they treed one. A large male coon could put up an awful fight and beat the dogs, or at least stay treed out of reach. But a treed coon is no match for a farmer and his gun.

Most of the farms in and around Coon Hill were owned by the Roberts, Veasey, Sanford, and Jones families. Homes were modest wood-frames with huge shade trees to help block the hot summer sun and act as windbreaks against the howling winds of winter. Each house had a number of out buildings; a chicken house; a barn for storing corn, wheat, and farm implements with a portion set aside for cattle, horses or mules; a smokehouse where meat was cured and stored; and a wash house where clothes were scrubbed on a washboard or boiled in a big, black, iron pot. At the edge of the fields stood one or two tobacco barns, built of logs. A separate fenced-in area held hogs for fattening.

Usually, close to the house were two garden plots, one planted in mid-spring and the
other in late spring or early summer. Not much money was needed in those days. Fresh vegetables were plentiful in summer and the excess, canned in glass jars, carried folks through the winter. Hogs were slaughtered during the first cold spell of fall, and large portions were salted down, smoked or put up in heat-sealed glass jars for the coming cold months. Chickens

gave eggs and when they grew too old to lay, were killed and made into a stew. Occasionally,
a young chicken, called a pullet, had its neck wrung or head chopped off with an ax, and the body scalded to remove the feathers. After the entrails were removed, it was cut into pieces, rolled in flour and fried. This dish wasn't limited to the midday or evening meal. Often it showed up on the breakfast menu, especially on Sunday.

In spring, dew berries grew along the edge of the fields, and July was blackberry-picking time. Thorny black berries grow in dense, tangled underbrush, and picking required long sleeves and pants, not only because of the thorns but because of chiggers and snakes. The women made the berries into pies or cobblers and preserved some for winter. Most farms also had apple, peach, and plum trees.

Part of the corn crop was taken to the mill and ground into cornmeal, and a portion of the wheat was ground into flour. Irish and sweet potatoes were stored in a cool, dry cellar, leaving only coffee, sugar, baking soda, and salt to be bought or bartered.

Grace, the oldest child of John and Abbie Veasey, lived with her family on a farm in the community of Coon Hill.

Twelve-year-old Grace sat on the side of the bed, stretched, yawned and then ran her
fingers through her long, dark brown hair. Just as she stood up, her mother appeared at the door.

"It's about time you got up," Abbie said. "We got lots to do. I need you to help fix dinner while I'm cooking breakfast."

"I know, I know. Seems all I do is work, work, work," Grace replied in a whiny voice.

"You don't do anymore than the rest of us. Now go on and get yourself dressed."

When Grace got to the kitchen, her mother, a tall big-boned woman with thick dark hair, already had the fire going in the cook stove. The sun was rising over the tree tops, casting its light through the open door into the kitchen.

"Peel the potatoes there on the table," Abbie instructed. "When you get through with that, rinse the string beans."

"Can't you give me a minute to wake up and get myself together?" begged Grace.

"You know you don't have time for that. We're running late already. You should be doing things without my having to tell you. When I was your age, I cooked and waited on my grandpa, made biscuits and everything without any help."

Abbie was frying the fatback in a black iron skillet, and the grease crackled and popped as it rendered from the meat.

Grace's three sisters came into the kitchen, each competing for attention. "Grace, go get the baby. I hear him crying," Abbie said. "Change his diaper while I finish cooking breakfast."

"How can I peel the potatoes, wash the string beans and change Buddy?"

"Don't get smart with me. Just do as I say. Leanna, you start peeling the potatoes."

"But I don't know how," complained Leanna, who was eight-years-old.

"It's time you learned."