The Remarkable Autobiography of Charles Burns 2

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.

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.

Then there were the times on weekend and holidays that we would spend the night or whole weekend at Poppa T.’s. Those occasions were great and fun. In the summertime everyone would get around the piano and sing, or they would play Edison’s “graphnola.” In the winter when night came early, we would sit around the huge fireplace and read or tell jokes and laugh a lot. There was plenty of candy, cookies, and nuts for all. The men would have a drink of wine or whiskey. Poppa T. always had a keg of Bourbon whiskey that he would order from Louisville, Kentucky. Mama Frances made wine for the holidays. The fire, drink, and food made everybody sleepy, and the pleasant evening would end in the assignment of bedrooms for the large group. My aunts would all share a room with two beds to split between the three of them by putting two in one bed. When I spent the night, I slept between my Aunt Maggie and Cebelle. My mother would sleep with Celester in the other bed. My father would sleep in a room with his brothers Spencer and Booker T. A hired hand slept there too. In a child’s eyes it was fun to be packed so close together. From the aunts’ giggles and the uncles’ guffaws, I know they loved it too. We spent nights and weekends with Poppa P. Burns and Grandma Amanda. Grandfather Burns had a big farm, but he did not do any farming himself. It was done by farmhands. Poppa P. ran a General Store, a blacksmith shop, and a cotton gin.

A cluster of childhood memories circles around World War I. I was four years old when it started. My dad and all his brothers received letters from Uncle Sam — I hadn’t met “him” yet — calling upon them to enlist in the armed forces. J.P. Burns and his brother-in-law Jerry Lanier went into the army. They both went to England and France and finally to Germany. When they came back, they brought with them helmets, gas masks, guns, and swords. They also returned with some great war stories.

The end of the war in 1918 was overcast at our house by the final illness and death of Grandfather Burns on March 22, 1919. Poppa P. was a fine man, very attached to me, his first grandson, and I to him. His country store was like Santaland to me. He had everything anyone could want. There was sawdust on the floors. I liked to run my toes through it and form my letters or shape a heart for my mom. I was always fascinated by the store and being there with him. The smells especially caught my attention. Even when I wasn’t hungry, the scent of peppermint candy, cheese, peanuts, pickles, and baloney triggered my appetite. Sometimes Poppa P. would get tired of the store and close it, and then we would walk to the house, where some of the family and friends were picking cotton. Granddaddy would put me on a cotton sack and pull me on it while he picked cotton. He liked the fresh air and the feel of Fall that accompanied cotton-picking time in north Alabama. I used to feel like that cotton sack was my magic carpet. When we would get to the end of the row, Poppa P. would sit down and put me across his lap. Then he would sing a song. In it, he was “working on a building for his Lord”, but before he finished his song, which he accompanied by patting me on the behind with his hand, I would be fast asleep. Then he would carry me to the house, and I would wake up when he put me down.

In the mornings Grandma Amanda always fixed us lunch, but in the evening, we would sit down to a big meal of turnip greens, cornbread, potatoes, and milk followed by blackberry pie. Before eating, we always said the blessing. After eating lunch, we would take a nap and then head back to the store. I felt like such a big little man. When Granddaddy closed the store at dark, we would come back home. After supper we would go out on the front porch, and I would always sit on Poppa P.’s lap. Poppa P. Burns’ death was a big shock to me. James P. Burns died of double pneumonia in 1919. I remember the day of the wake and funeral as if it was today. I was frightened, not by him, but by the thought that they were going to bury him in the ground. Everything was black that day. The funeral director, Mr. Golson, was a handsome jet-black man. The horse was black, and so was the hearse. And everybody was wearing black clothing.

I walked along beside the hearse to the graveyard. It was the saddest half-mile of my life. The day was gloomy, the road was bumpy and rough. This was the first time that I had seen anyone buried. When I saw the top of the casket close and his casket lowered into the ground for the first time in my life, I felt a terrible feeling of loneliness. I couldn’t understand what was happening. It was all so sad and terrible and frightening to a small boy. The ground which had been a source of comfort and pleasure for me — the good earth which had always been my playground — had all of a sudden taken my grandfather from me. I mourned his death for a very long time. My early childhood, that time of magic, dreams and vivid imagination, gave way with Poppa T’s death to the growing pains of dealing with real life.

The lives around me were changing too. Uncle Oscar Burns found better land and moved to the city of Huntsville, Alabama. Uncle J.P. Burns bought a farm of about 80 acres and built a beautiful six-room house on it. About a half-mile away my dad moved us to a bigger farm called the Fennell Place. We then had approximately 80 more acres of land that were lush with creeks, ponds, stands of timber, and fertile fields. We even had our own cemetery {now called the Moore-Landman Cemetery}, which dad made available to the community. This area of southwest Madison County was called Three’s Place. All of the land at one time had belonged to Whites. Now, if a Negro was able to, he could buy it. Between my mother’s family and my father’s, they together owned about 2,000 acres in close proximity to one another. We had everything we needed. Most relatives lived within hollering distance. Mother’s brother, Uncle James Horton, lived the farthest, about a half-mile away.

We had our own stores, schools, and churches. The community was integrated, too, but the Whites were not landowners. They were tenants. Everyone was friendly and worked well together. They raised cotton to sell, but the rest of the products were for themselves to live on. I didn’t see much use for school with all of life’s bounty so close at hand. In time I wondered about distant names and places like Chicago and New York that I would hear the adults mention. But still, I wasn’t quite sure school was where you really learned about such things. My teachers wanted me to learn to read and write. These teachers were my aunts and cousins, and they gave over to me, yielding to my shenanigans. They loved me, but it wasn’t any good for them to do this for me. When an outside teacher was hired, I had to calm down and get busy studying at school and at home. That was quite a jolt.

Uncle James Horton had six children, three boys and three girls. We all went to school and did everything together. Their names were James, Mae, Ovoy, Leroy, Mildred, and Willie. Like my father, Uncle James was a farmer, but he also hired people to do his farming for him. He was more of a sportsman and hired his service out to the White people who wanted to hunt wild ducks, geese, and small game. The White men would spend the night in his large barn up in the hayloft. All the men, including my father, would make homebrew and corn whiskey and enjoy it at hunting time. Sometimes my father and Uncles James would hide a keg of corn whiskey or homebrew in the fields for the hungry hunters. One hot summer day, cousin James Bruce and I were playing and wandered off into a cornfield. Lo and behold, we stumbled onto a jug of corn whiskey and decided to see that it really tasted like. I lay on my back and James Bruce put the jug to my mouth, and I drank until it ran down my neck onto my clothes. Then it was his turn. They found us, still there on the ground, sick and drunk, about three hours later. I don’t remember that we got into any trouble, but I do know that neither of us likes corn whiskey to this day. We may drink it, but we’re not crazy about it.

I was eight years old when tragedy came to our close-knit community, striking my own family. Some people had begun stealing cotton, hay, corn, hogs, chickens, and other things off our farms. My Uncle James Horton had been missing cotton and found out that his stolen cotton was “being bought” by his brother- in-law, Bassie Rice. He talked to Bassie about this, asking him to return the cotton, or to give him the money for it. For weeks they argued, but it only added to the ill-will between them. Finally, on December 1, 1922, Uncle James ran out of patience and rose early in the morning to confront Bassie Rice. Uncle James came to our house on his way. He called his sister, my mother Clara, out to the porch. When she saw how angry he was, Mother called dad and me out. We were all gathered at the woodpile, trying to calm Uncle James. But like the wood that was destined soon to be consumed in flames, Uncle James could not be turned from his resolve to get his cotton or the money from Bassie Rice.

Mother cried and begged him not to go. Bassie had threatened Uncle James’ life several times, and we could see Uncle James’ small pearl-handled 32-caliber pistol glinting in the early sunlight from his waist belt. Mother could sense the danger, and she grabbed hold of Uncle James’ arm. But Uncle James began to walk away and finally got his arm loose from her. We watched him until he got to Bassie Rice’s house and shouted for Rice to show himself. When Rice appeared, we could see and hear them arguing. An old cultivator stood between the two men, silently offering them one last chance for conciliation. But both men whirled out from behind it and fired. We do not know who fired first, but they both fell to the ground. We flew to Uncle James, his still body lying in a pool of blood. He had been shot through the head and died within three or four minutes. Bassie Rice was shot in the groin and leg, but in his desperation, he fled on a horse.

We found out later that Bassie had gone into West Huntsville to give himself up to the sheriff. My father took command, comforting Uncle James’ wife Ella Dee. He sent a hired man on horseback to get Grandfather Horton, Booker T., and Spencer. They lived about three miles away. In the stillness of that morning, we could hear Poppa T.’s motor vehicle being started up. Within thirty minutes they had arrived. Poppa T. had his 30-aught-06 rifle, and he left trying to overtake Bassie. When that effort failed, Poppa T. rode on into Huntsville to the funeral home to get the undertaker, who came out, picked up the body, and brought it into our house. There in our living room, the body of Uncle James was embalmed. They let me watch the embalming. The burial took place in the Glenwood Cemetery in Huntsville, about ten miles from our family homes in Silverhill, the old Fennell Place, Threes Place, Mullins Flat, and the Bottoms. Bassie Rice was tried for cotton theft and was sentenced to one year in prison. He was not held for the murder of Uncle James since the killing occurred on Rice’s own property. Cousin Bruce Horton vowed to kill Bassie Rice if he ever showed his face in Huntsville. When he was freed, Rice never came back. It was a good thing that he didn’t return, because we had hatred in our hearts for Bassie at that time. We heard that he went to Louisville, Kentucky. Later we were told that someone had killed Bassie Rice in Louisville. After Uncle James’ death, Aunt Celestine Horton continued her farming along with her children, my father, mother, and myself. We drew even closer together in our effort to fill in the lonely times and blank spaces left by my gallant, headstrong, and loving Uncle James Horton.

The following list was with Charles Burns’ handwritten pages: Eliza J. Burns, born July 15, 1882, died Oct. 23, 1977; Doral Burns, born Aug. 20, 1885, died April 11, 1955; Mary L. Burns, born Feb. 15, 1885, died Mar. 10, 1957; Cora A. Burns, born Aug 15, 1886, died Sept. 25, 1886; Oscar R. Burns, born Aug. 25, 1889, died Aug. 10, 1980; Virginia A. Burns, born Dec. 3, 1890, died Dec. 10, 1890; John W. Burns, born Feb. 20, 1892, died Dec. 17, 1961; Missouria Burns, born Sept. 12, 1844, died May 29, 1955; J.P. Burns Jr., born Feb. 15, 1896, died Dec. 1, 1982; Baby Boy born dead, Feb. 21, 1897; Ophelia Burns, born Oct. 19, 1901, died Aug. 30, 1942. NOTE: Grandpa J. P. was married to Mrs. Amanda Lanier, Feb 3, 1900. To this union was born Ophelia Burns. Grandma Mandy died April 26, 1927.

Thusly ends this remarkable and touching account of the early life of Charles Burns on the land that became Redstone Arsenal. It is unfortunate that efforts were unable to contact Charles in the 1990s to see if he had finished his book to cover the later events of his life. However, it is known that he returned to the Huntsville – Madison area for visits with his relatives after writing the text above. It is also known that he lived several more years in the Chicago area, establishing a family there. During one of his visits back in Alabama, he helped to erect a memorial to his ancestors, as published in the July 8, 1987, article of the REDSTONE ROCKET newspaper when he was interviewed.