The Cousins

While my grandparents’ farm was my home, it was also the family gathering place. My father was just one of ten children. If I have counted correctly, there were twenty something cousins who were frequent visitors to the farm at Mountain Grove. Many came during the summer and often stayed for extended periods of time. Some came only for visits at Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter. Others came more frequently for weekend visits, depending on how close or faraway they lived. However, what I remember most of all were cousins who came and spent weeks during the summer months. Unless it was necessary to unite for some common goal, the cousins were divided into two groups. There was the younger group, which included myself and all of the cousins my age or younger. Then, there was the Secret Society of the Older Cousins as I like to call them. My sister and the older cousins had a sort of super pack and did not like us to tag along. They liked to talk about movie stars, pop singers, and other mysterious popular stuff. I was a real brat and took great pleasure in spying on them and tattling to Grandma when I thought it was appropriate. They had more freedom and less fear, so they were very good at sneaking off without me and getting into a fair amount of mischief on their own. I was sort of the in-between cousin. I wasn’t too interested in playing cowboys and Indians with my brother and the younger cousins, but when Sharon Kay or Joyce came, I finally had someone near my own age.

JOYCE--Joyce and I were like bosom buddies. When she came from Iowa, we roamed all over the farm and surrounding area. We spent long hours playing in the creek, catching tadpoles and crawdads, and hiking all over the pasture and woods. Joyce was used to city life, and coming to Arkansas was a great adventure. Our life on the farm with an outdoor bathroom and well water was very different from the life she lived in the city. We had few rules and a lot of freedom. After all, you would think there was not much real trouble to get into so far out in the country. We went barefoot most of the summer, but always remembered to wear shoes when we walked on the sandy dirt road that ran in front of the house. If you left in the cool of the morning, by noon the sandy road was so hot it would burn the bottoms of your bare feet. We wore our shoes when we walked down the road to play in the creek. When we started home, I thought nothing of putting my dirty feet back into my shoes. Joyce would not put dirty feet back into her shoes. She would brave the hot sandy road rather than get the inside of her shoes dirty. I loved to hear the way that Joyce talked. She had that Northeast accent. No one in Arkansas talked so eloquently.

DIANA—Diana was Joyce’s older sister. She was just older than Jerald Basham. I remember her as a very pretty petite little blond. She came at least two summers and spent time at the farm. Then she got married, and only Joyce came for summer visits. Diana was very quiet and spent a lot of time inside reading movie magazines which she brought with her, and which we loved to borrow as we did not have access to such things. She and my sister hung out together. When the other cousins came, she was part of the older cousins’ pack.

SHARON KAY—Sharon Kay Bullock and her brother Ronnie spent much of the summer with us. We called Sharon "Shinny", which was a combination of Sharon and skinny. She was and still is a very petite person. I, on the other hand, was a pudgy child and was nicked named many things, but never skinny. Sharon and I built a playhouse in the back under the honeysuckle vines that grew along the fence between the Pound property and the Way property. The Way property was forbidden territory. The honeysuckle, however, did not observe boundaries. It grew along and over both sides of the fence. We could climb inside and under the overhanging vines. It was like having a cool, shady playhouse of our own. The only problem was the barbed wire fence in the middle. We remedied that problem with a pair of borrowed wire cutters. We removed the bottom two rows of wire from between the two fence posts where our playhouse was. We left the top wire to hold up the vines. Now, we could move back and forth under the shady vines and create a playhouse with lots of rooms. I don’t think anyone ever knew we did that, especially Mrs. Way, who did not like any intrusion onto her property. Later, when Uncle Bob built an indoor bathroom onto the old farmhouse, we took over the old outhouse and turned it into our playhouse. The old wooden seat with its two round holes was our kitchen cabinet. We fitted two old aluminum pie pans into the holes and pretended that was our cook stove. It took a lot of imagination to turn an outhouse into a playhouse. However, my brother swears that he and Jimmy used it for a fort.

LINDA—For a long time, until her younger sister, Elaine, was born, Linda was the youngest cousin. She was like our baby doll and always had to pretend to be our baby when we played house. She was always so good-natured and never complained, no matter where we took her what we ask her to do. She preferred our company to her brother, Jimmy, and my brother, Kenner, who were inseparable and always involved in a mess of mischief.

MARY ELAINE—Elaine was the youngest child of Bob and Lucy Pound. She was born after my grandmother had left the farm and was living in Alma. She missed all of our summer escapades, but I am most certain she has heard the stories from Jimmy and Linda.

JIMMY—Jimmy and Linda were my Uncle Bob’s children, the youngest Pound sibling. They were two of my Little Rock cousins, along with Aunt Nell’s two children, LaNelle and Jerald. Jimmy was a year older than my brother, Kenner. They were a matched pair. Someone built them a barrel horse to ride when they played cowboys and Indians. However, tree houses were their specialty. We were no more welcome in their company than that of the older cousins. On one occasion, they nailed a live, bleeding frog to their tree house ladder to keep everyone, especially us, out. It certainly did the job. However, we tattled, and they both got a spanking from Uncle Bob, not so much for keeping us out but for driving a nail through a living frog.

BETTY—My Uncle Glenn lived in Madison, Wisconsin, where he was the Dean of Agriculture for the university there. He and my Aunt Daisy had two children, Betty and Bob. They usually came only once a year during spring break or at Easter. Betty was just younger than me. She was beautiful with large brown eyes, olive skin, and lovely dark hair. She was also very shy. It was usually still pretty cold when they came to visit so we did not get to do much outdoor exploring. Mostly we played inside with our dolls. I loved it when they came because I had a cousin my age, and because Aunt Daisy brought boxes of hand-me-down clothes for us. It was like Christmas in spring.

BOBBY-Bobby was Betty’s older brother. He was only a year older than me, but he was accepted by the Secret Society of Older Cousins. Bobby was extremely smart and seemed much older. I seem to remember that he had even skipped a grade in school because of his high I.Q. I remember Bobby helping me read a book I had brought home from school. It was a story about some little chickens, and I was stumped on the word, “peep.” He was aghast that I did not know how to read that easy word. I was incredulous that he was accepted by the older cousins who always commandeered my grandparents’ front bedroom as their private clubhouse and posted a guard at the door. I think that might have been the job they gave to Bob. We younger cousins were really good at listening outside the door and spying through the keyhole. We always wanted to hear the music they were listening to on the radio. My grandpa was not happy when they changed the radio station from the one where he listened to Braxton B. Sawyer, a Baptist preacher, to one of the local FM stations that played rock and roll.

RONNIE-Ronnie Bullock, Sharon’s brother, was always a favorite of mine, even though he belonged to the Secret Society of Older Cousins. He was always so kind to me and rarely joined in when I was teased. My mother, known to the others as Aunt Dorothy, did a lot special things with the older cousins. Sometimes she took them to the dollar-a-carload drive-in theater on Midland Avenue in Fort Smith. They would make bags of popcorn to take with them, and of course we were allowed to keep some too. I only remember getting to go one time. We saw the Disney movie, “Song of the South”, which I only partially remember, because I fell asleep. I suspect that is why I rarely got to go with them to the movie.

LANELLE-Lanelle, or “Lanal” as she was nicknamed by her brother, Jerald, was one of the Little Rock cousins, and belonged, of course, to the Secret Society of Older Cousins. She was just younger than my sister, Beth. Lanelle seemed to me like the beautiful fairy princess who lived in the far-away-kingdom known as Little Rock. She was a petite blond with blue eyes, and the latest, most exquisite clothes, which Aunt Nell passed down to me until I outgrew Lanelle. She had both penny loafers and oxford shoes, which were very trendy. LaNelle was a cheerleader and very popular in school. She once brought her yearbook and showed us her picture in the homecoming court at Central High School. She had a boyfriend who was a popular football player and who let her wear his class ring around her neck on a chain. LaNelle also sang on a radio talent show. To me she had movie star status. I have a memory of her sitting on the edge of a half bed that was in the corner of Grandma’s living room, painting her toenails a beautiful, bright red.

JERALD-Jerald was LaNelle’s older brother, and just older than my sister, Beth. He was very smart and later became an Air Force pilot and engineer. Jerald had a James Dean hairstyle and carried a comb in his back pocket. He also had a James Dean leather jacket and rode a motorcycle. During the year that Central High School was closed because of the integration crisis of the 1950s, Gerald attended and graduated from a Catholic high school in Little Rock. He rode his motorcycle to and from school every day. He also brought a transistor radio when he came to visit. Whenever present, he was the undisputed CEO of the Secret Society of Older Cousins.

NELLIE BETH AND IDA GRACE—Nellie Beth and Ida Grace were Uncle Web’s girls. They were grown women with families of their own when we lived on the farm. I remember occasional visits from them. They were both adopted from Aunt Speed’s (Mary Hawkins Pound) sister and brother-in-law when Aunt Speed’s sister died. We used to visit a couple named John and Alba Smith who lived south down Mountain Grove Road in a little rock house that is still there today. Alba made rugs out of pieces of rags that were braided together and wound around in a circle or oval shape. Alba was a large woman with many health problems. I found out years later that John was Nellie Beth and Ida Grace’s biological father. Nellie Beth moved back to Arkansas eventually and lives north of Alma. She was very close to my mother, and I got to know her much better at that time. She and her children still live in the Alma area, and I see her occasionally. We always have a good time talking about Grandma and Grandpa Pound. She has a different set of memories than I have, but there are so many similarities.

DON AND DORTHA—Don and Dortha Ramsey (Aunt Aud’s children) were also grown when we lived on the farm. I saw Dortha only a few times, but often heard Aunt Aud tell stories about Dortha’s adventures being married to a rodeo star. Aunt Aud had evidently rubbed off on Dortha because she loved life just as much as Aunt Aud. She seemed like a glamorous movie star to me. I saw Don more often. He came to visit my grandmother on several occasions. He was a very kind, happy man with a beautiful voice. His daughter, Cheree, could also sing beautifully. Sometimes they sang gospel songs for us.

STEVEN CRAIG AND DAVID BULLOCK—Steven and David (Aunt Mary Helen’s youngest) were also born, I think, after my grandmother has moved from the farm. If not it was shortly thereafter. I knew them mostly from a visit we made to Colorado Springs on our way to visit my mother’s family in Oregon. It is a shame that they missed all the summer fun on the farm, but I am certain they, like other younger cousins, have heard the stories.

NORMA JEAN—Norma Jean was my Uncle Pat’s oldest daughter. She was grown when we lived on the farm, but often came to visit when her parents were there or just with her own family. She was married to Freeman Whitlock. Freeman was one of the kindest people I have ever met. He always took time to talk to me and listen with interest to anything I had to say. I remember loving it when they came and let me help take care of their little girls.

MARY ANN—Mary Ann was Norma Jean’s younger sister. She came to the farm with her family for holiday visits, but I did not get to see her as often as the other cousins. I remember she had beautiful long brown hair. She would surely have hung out with the older cousins.

RICHARD—Richard Leroy Pound was quite a bit younger than Mary Ann and Norma Jean. He was closer in age to my sister and definitely belonged to the Secret Society of Older Cousins. He was involved in the hot toddy caper which is a story of its own. I only know bits and pieces of so many of the things my older cousins did because they were careful not to let the younger cousins know. They did not want us to tattle and certainly did not trust us to keep secrets. We usually only knew about their escapades when they got caught and were in trouble. There are many details they will not divulge to this day. I think my sister is the one who needs to write about the adventures of the older cousins.

MARTHA JANE POUND—Martha was another one of the cousins born after or shortly after Grandma Pound left the farm. She has also probably heard many tales. It has been many years since I saw Martha, and she was just a very small child at the time.

Leroy and Maud Pound

Wilburn Clive Pound (Uncle Web and Aunt Speed)
1. Nellie Beth
2. Ida Grace
Audra Jane Pound (Aunt Aud and Uncle Haskell)
1. Donald B. Ramsey
2. Dortha Vernell Ramsey
Captain Julian Haynes Pound (Uncle Jude and Aunt Hazel)
1. Diana Elaina
2. Joyce Ellen
Cleburne Green Pound (Uncle Pat and Aunt Chlorine)
1. Norma Jean
2. Mary Ann
3. Richard Leroy
4. Martha Jane
Glenn Simpson Pound (Uncle Glenn and Aunt Daisy)
1. Rita Fern Pound (deceased infant)
2. Robert Arthur
3. Betty Jane
Allyne Vernell Pound (Aunt Nell and Uncle Felix)
1. Jerald Felix Basham
2. Mary Lanelle Basham
John Leroy Pound (deceased child)
James Erwin Pound (my father) and Aunt Dorothy (my mother)
1. Martha Elizabeth (Beth)
2. Maudeen Claire (me)
3. Richard Kenner(Ken)
4. James Scott (1/2 brother who lived in North Dakota)
5. Deborah Jean (1/2 sister who lived in Oklahoma)
6. Kevin Dean Pound (1/2 brother who lived in Oklahoma)
Mary Helen Pound (Aunt Mary Helen and Uncle Russell)
1. Ronald Carlisle Bullock
2. Sharon Kay Bullock
3. Steven Craig Bullock
4. David Alan Bullock
Robert Bullock Pound (Uncle Bob and Aunt Lucy)
1. James Edward (Jimmy)
2. Linda Carol
3. Mary Elaine

Back to Life at Mountain Grove

Claire Pence

Author/Poet

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