Robert J. Walker

The Way Things Were: Short Stories of Past Experiences Robert J. Walker

DEDICATION to My Children and Grandchildren A special note to my children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, my nieces, and nephews, and all of the Walker generations to come!The Way Things Were is a collection of short stories that I have written in order to help preserve the memory and history of a way of life that once existed in the 1900s (Twentieth Century). It was a time in the late 1940s and early l950s when we, Charles (Billy), Robert (Bobby), and Elaine (Chicken) were children growing up in Sebring, Florida and Millen, Georgia. I think the Walkers of the 2000s must have some information regarding the Walkers of the 1900s. I also want the future generations to know the principles and what it was like when I was a child: the atmosphere of the 1900s, the people and racial issues; nature and climate, animal and plant life; the working and living conditions of Black People; the economic and political situations of that time, and of course the conditions on the Home Farm of Grandpa, Alfred Walker, in Millen, Georgia. Grandpas daddy was Willis Walker and his wifes name was Bessie. Great Grandpa lived in Waynesburg, Georgia. Willis and Bessie had seven children: Alfred, Rosy, Charlie, Aaron, Marian, Sadie and Catherine. Grandma Louise had twelve brothers and sisters: Bessie, Mary, Sadie, Lillie, Flora, Ella, Willie, Johnny, Sam, Lee, James, and Nathaniel. Modfett was Grandma Louises maiden name, and she was born in Waynesburg, GeorgiaGrandpa (Alfred Walker), born June 16, 1871 in Waynesburg, Georgia, moved to Millen, Georgia in 1916 when Daddy (Charlie Walker) was five years old. That was the year that Uncle Albert accidentally hit Daddy on the head with an axe while cutting wood. Grandpa (Alfred Walker) had ten children by two wives, Mary and Louise: Ezekiel, Hattie, Nellie, James and Lila; Johnny, Albert, Charlie, Willis, and Louise. (Charlie, my daddy, was born May 16, 1911.) In 1926-27 Grandpa Alfred bought the Walkers farmland in Millen, G