| Notes |
- ! Mary Ilene Fleming (Hinshaw born in 1894), wrote of "Aunt Bell", as part of
her childhood remembrance in THE SPREADING WHITE OAK. This is Mary
Belle Fleming as confirmed when Ilene refers to the children Lora and
Josephine and "the two little boys" (Edgar and John). Ilene was only six
years old when "Aunt Bell" died. in 1900.
! "Mama called me to come to her at the steps of the old hall. I went to her
in my dreamy spell, steps slow and lazy-like. She said "You remember Aunt
Bell", "yes'um", "Well, she's dead". I turned in childish sadness to go back
to weep at the roots of the Old Oak, somehow that day - already the
breezes whispering in her boughs - had had a strange sadness, or
something, something sacred, something I didn't understand.
! "Now, I didn't know what it was! As I crouched into the crevice at the
base of the dear Old Oak, where two huge roots branched out to sink deep
into the earth - leaving a sort of niche, I nestled there saying over and over
"Aunt Bell's dead, she's dead right now, Aunt Bell's dead. Yes, Josephine,
and Lora and the two little boys have no Mama now."
! "As I sat in stillness, hearing the rustling of the tiny new leaves and
watching a beautiful butterfly sailing by me and on toward the stable, my
childish fancy followed on. But the May breezes whisked by and carried last
year's oak leaves with them down to the ravine below, and I saw the green
saplings waving in the gentle wind it seemed they pointed upward. I looked
up too, at the blue sky and the high billowy-white clouds floating there like
huge gobs of foam off the soap kettle, when Mama used to make soap. I'd
get some of the warm liquid soap and put it into a pan and add some water
and whisk and swish it into foamy bubbles, and then blow big gobs of these
out into space and see them float off; wondering where they were going
and why some went one way and some another and wishing I could somehow
go with them.
! "Now, there were those beautiful clouds, handing up there, never moving it
seems. Oh yes, I knew they were sad too, 'cause Aunt Bell was dead. A
dreadful silence came over the woods. I looked back toward the house and
there stood the chickens back under the edge of the house. Some were
just standing and staring, and some with one foot tucked up under their
feathers. After a little they'd put one foot down and put the other one up,
yes they were sad too because of the same reason I was!
! "And one of Papa's hounds came out from away back under the floor, he
was slow and sad-like too. When he got to the edge of the floor the
chickens moved over, out of his way, and he came out into the sun and
stretched and yawned, bowed his back away high, his head and tail down,
then stretched his forepaws out front and let his belly go so low it touched
the ground, and opened his mouth and gaped like the baby did when she was
first born, and walked slow-like down toward me. I knew he was awful sad
too, he didn't act like that all the time.
! "Well, whatever it was that made her die, it sure was making me sad.
Everything said, 'Aunt Bell's dead', and it became something like a million
voices. Everywhere I looked, everything said it; the trees, the clouds, the
chickens, even the old mules, standing in the lot, and the poor little calves
in the calf-lot, standing wagging their tails and standing by the fence with
their heads down. Maybe they were thinking s'pose their Mama died out in
the woods, and would never be home again. Oh, this awful. Whatever it was
that took Aunt Bell away from Lora and Josephine made everything so
unhappy!
! "Yes, Aunt Bell is dead. The wind is even saying so, it's telling everything.
Yes, there it goes down there in the thicket shaking all the trees and telling
them, even the tall grass beside the road, he has stooped down and told it.
Now the beautiful white clouds, that were standing about have changed.
They have changed! I know they know it too, for they're not happy-looking
any more, they're not white and fluffy at all. They're turning black and all
flattened out. Some of them are scurrin' around and running across the
sun, and making it dark here too.
!I "I know everything feels sorry and sad too, for the wind is telling
everything. But why don't it quit telling me? Every time it passes by it tells
me again and when I put my hands over my ears, it gets high in the limbs of
the Old Oak tree and says it louder so it'll make me hear again. I wish it
would go away and quit telling me! I know it! Everything knows it! Now, the
sun has gone away! I wonder why? I guess it has gone away by itself too,
and the pretty white clouds have all turned black! And it's black and dark
now in the hollow!
! "Oh, that sounds like thunder away over across the river! Why, that is
where Aunt Bell lived. That's where she is now, dead - and they're going to
bury her down there in the family graveyard! I wonder what a family
graveyard is? They say I have lots of cousins buried there and my
granddpap that was an old soldier. Well, everything knows about him too.
They say he was a fine man. Maybe that thunder over across the river is
telling everything over there too, now that Aunt Bell is dead. Yes, I know
that is what's happening for way over there in their direction, it's awful
looking - the sky is black as night."
|
1868 - 1900 (32 years)
Has 26 ancestors and 6 descendants in this family tree.
[1, 2] 
1780 - Yes, date unknown