The Remarkable Autobiography of Charles Burns
The following is a continuation of excerpts from the book “The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal” by Beverly S. Curry.
The script from the 32-pages handwritten by Charles Burns was typed verbatim. The font has been changed to a script that lends itself to the personal nature of the account. The researcher has limited any inserted comments so as not to disrupt the flow of Charles’ writing. Earlier in this manuscript the Horton family was discussed. The reader will recognize the names and become more acquainted with the life and members of Everett Horton’s family and the Burns family. Charles mentions in his writing that Mandy Lanier was the second wife of his Grandfather James P. Horton and the one who he knew as a grandmother when he was growing up. She was also the grandmother of Felix Lanier who was interviewed during the course of this research (Georgia and Felix Lanier interview). Mandy’s son was Felix’s father. The location and description of the Silverhill School (C-132) was established in a previous section of this manuscript. In the memories of Charles, the names of other students who attended the school and additional names of teachers are found. Perhaps even more important, Charles presents a view of the fields, the streams, the boys who played, and the interaction of a family, including the love, the joys, the sorrows, and the problems.
There comes a time in a busy man’s life when a glance backwards over the road traveled turns him into a picture taker of sorts, and his life becomes a colorful path of memories connecting the past with the present. My life has been like that: a series of paths, each leading through a landscape of places and faces made dear to me by familiarity and family ties. My earliest memories, childhood glimmerings, are of the paths that my family’s feet had trod through the bottom land connecting my parents’ home in Mullins Flat, Madison County, Alabama, with the homes of my neighboring relatives. Perched precariously on my mother’s back, she would carry me over large stretches of the 2 ½ mile trek to her parent’s house.
We were both often afraid as we were constantly running into snakes and lizards. I couldn’t be looking down all the time because the blackberry, plum, and grape vines would reach out and grab us. I was a heavy load for a little woman, and mother often rested on fallen trees or stumps. Sometimes she would cry, and I would cry along with her. We easily crossed many small streams on our way, but trouble usually started when we got to the bigger stream or creek named Windbank Springs. This is where my presence on Mother’s back presented a big problem. She had to walk a log used to cross the creek. There was a long pole for steadying purposes, but sometimes I was so sure that she was going to fall off that I would let out a holler, fasten my hold around her neck, and knock her off balance. To quiet me she would threaten that if I didn’t stop choking her and crying, she would let the crap shooters, men who sometimes gathered in the woods shooting dice and swearing, get ahold of me. This usually did the trick, and I would be very still. Sometimes it was too late though, and we would come tumbling down with a splash. Even when it hurt and we both cried, I knew my mother loved me more than life and that she would protect me from everything.
Once over the creek, we arrived in a pasture. The cows and horses didn’t scare me as long as they had their heads down grazing, but when they stopped eating and came up to me to smell and lick my legs, there was no way I was going to stay on the ground. I sprang for Mother’s back and stayed there until we got to the old creaky gate and stairs that separated the pasture from the tenant houses and Poppa Everett T. and Mamma Frances Lacy Horton’s big house in Silver Hill.
Mother always had a friendly word with the families she would meet on the path, and then when she would get up to the well, all of the aunts and uncles would run out to meet us. Each one would pick me up and hug and kiss me. Poppa and Mama Horton’s big house held many mysteries for a small boy. That house became a part of the rituals of my growing up. It was my habit as a toddler to inspect the whole house room-by-room. I am not sure whether I was looking for something in particular or if it was my way of stalling the climax of my inspection, which occurred when I ascended to the attic. There, amidst musky old clothes and tempting home-canned fruit, my youngest aunt Maggie would be dressed in one of Mama Francis’ fur coats. made out of monkey hair, waiting to jump out at me and scare the living daylights out of me. Down I’d scurry all the way to the front door, across the porch and out to the fruit orchards, where, if I was lucky, my Uncle James Horton would grab me up and console me.
For one little boy, growing up as an only child, I had the biggest family this side of the Bible. My mother was a Horton. Her parents Everett T. and Francis Lacy Horton were wonderful grandparents to me. Mother Clara was their oldest child but she had plenty of younger brothers and sisters who all became devoted aunts and uncles to their first little nephew. There was James Horton, Booker T. Horton, Spencer E. Horton, Leona Horton, Celester Horton, Cebelle Horton and Maggie Horton. All of my aunts were beautiful, and all of my uncles were handsome. They were all very light-skinned and intelligent too.
My father, John W. Burns, hailed from an equally large family. When I knew him, Grandfather James Peter Burns was married to his second wife, Amanda Lanier Burns. She had one son, Jeremiah M. Lanier, who was half-brother to my father and his brother Oscar Burns and James Peter Burns II. She had one daughter, Ophelia Burns, who was half-sister to his sisters Aadie [sic], Dora, Eliza, Betty and Agerian Burns. With so many aunts and uncles, I was assured enough cousins to play with. Uncle Oscar, Aunt Liza, and cousins Jabo, Robert, Taylor, and Grace lived only a few fields and streams away.
The path between the two houses was well worn. In each yard, Uncle Oscar and my dad put a pole in the ground with a plank across it, with seats on each end and a large iron bolt in the middle holding everything together, allowing someone to push it around and around. This wonderful contraption was called a flying ginny. I got many a fall from it because I would go so fast for so long that I would be drunk and swimming in the head. It was easy to slide off, especially if the direction was abruptly changed. Much of our play was with nature’s elements. Being little and close to the ground, we spent a lot of time there. Our games of leap frog would often end in a search for frogs so we could watch them jump and swim and race them to see which was the fastest.
Still down on our knees, we would delight in watching the tumblebug. We would find his small hole in the ground, get a small straw or twig, spit on it and put it down the hole to attract the tumblebug out of his hole. Once out of the hole, the tumblebug would head straight for some cow, pig, or horse manure, get into it, then make a marble out of it and roll it all the way back to his hole. We wouldn’t see that tumblebug again until it had eaten the marble up and was ready for more. We also played with the tumblebugs, spending hours chasing them with shingles from the roof of the house or barn. June bugs that we captured with jars provided entertainment too. We would tie a long string to one of their legs and let them fly for hours or until their leg came off. We would even tie string around the necks of snakes and race them. There were a lot of poisonous snakes — water moccasins, copperheads and rattlers. We knew which ones to play with.
When we played in the fields, a lot of the smaller farm animals, like the baby horses, goats, and pigs, played along with us. We had special ponds where the boys would go swimming. My favorite was a lily pond with beautiful lilies everywhere. It was approximately 100 square feet [he probably meant 100 feet by 100 feet — only 10 X 10 feet would have been too small to match his description] surrounded by tall trees with muscadine vines all over them. We would swim and sunbathe in the mud until it dried all over our bodies. Then we would march like stiff-legged monsters back into the water and play for hours. When we got hungry, we would reach up and eat wild grapes and muscadines. The day usually caught up with us there at the pond, and we’d have to race home in time for a bath before supper. I would always get sleepy before my bath, but I never got out of taking it.
I can remember how strict my mother was about cleanliness — of the house, and of my personal things. She always wanted me and dad to be neat. She was a thorough housekeeper. Why, she even kept the yard swept clean. She had chickens, ducks, geese, little kittens, dogs and baby pigs as pets. But the yard stayed clean. Not to be outdone, my father, John Wesley Burns, was in the cleaning business too. He took clothes from the neighbors which he then cleaned and pressed. I remember one day when he had finished pressing and had placed the hot iron out on the edge of the porch to cool, I decided to play with it. While I didn’t burn myself as well I might, in the motion of pushing the iron back and forth, the iron fell off the porch, and I fell with it. That was a frightening experience.
My father was a real go-getter. He rose with the sun to do the early chores like milking the cows and feeding the hogs, mules, horses, and chickens. He often had to mend the fences because the cattle were always pushing into them, and the horses would kick them down. After his outdoor activities, father would come in and take up one of his other occupations. Besides cleaning clothes, he also built swings. But his major source of income was from sales. Father sold all kinds of books and all kinds of insurance. Because he was a businessman, he dressed very nice and was always on the go. Mother would fix a big breakfast for us at about 10:00 A.M., and then my father would saddle up his horse and be on his way selling. There were many days when he would hitch the horse and buggy and take us to Mamma Frances and Poppa T,’s house on his way to work. When he finished, he would stop and pick us up to go home. But we always ate supper there first.
Poppa T. and Mamma Frances were a beautiful couple. They had twelve children. Even as late as 1917 there would usually be ten of us around the supper table. My grandfather would always say the blessing. He sat at the head of the table and my grandmother sat at the other end. After supper all of the aunts and uncles would clear the table and wash the dishes. After that we would head for home. Mom and Dad would stay awake, but the rhythm of that old buggy and the steady clop of the horses’ hooves always rocked me to sleep before we got home. [The Charles Burns autobiography will conclude in the next issue.]
