Memories of My Great Uncle Don

Uncle Don was married to my Grandpa Sinor's Sister, Aunt Ellar.  He was also my Grandma Sinor's Cousin.  He was really a very kind hearted man, but he did have a few things that made him a very
human person.  He was a binge alcoholic.  He would stay sober for about 6 months. Then he would go
over to the next county and go on a drunk. Baxter County was dry so he had to go over to Marion Co.
to be able to buy booze.  He used to have his own moonshine still but that is a story for another time.
He went over to Marion Co and got drunk and when he came home, he wasn't quite sober enough to go home to Aunt Ellar so he built a fire by the creek, but he used the log we used to cross the creek when it was running full.  My sister Dolores got a little upset with him. She was his favorite.  So he
cut down a tree big enough to cross and creek and big enough around so we could walk across it safely.
Uncle Don could play the fiddle good enough for Nashville.  But in those days they didn't put up with the stuff stars get away with now.  They didn't put up with alcoholics.  When anyone in the neighborhood (within a ten mile radius) wanted to have a dance, my Uncle Don would play the fiddle, My uncle Estel (my dad's brother) and my Aunt Dorothy ( Uncle Estel"s wife) would play the
mandolin.  We had our own country band,  We would just move all the furniture back or into another room and have a square dance.  When my dad was there, he would call the square dance. That takes a pretty good memory, as there were different names to the dances.
Uncle Don had some land on the White River.  I have to say, he was a little lazy.  He hired my Grandpa and I to hoe the Johnson grass out of his corn. We went down and camped along the railroad track.  Grandpa set up a trot line on the River.  We used mussels that were in the creek bed for bait.   The creek was named for My Great Great Grandpa Cunningham who settled that land when he move to Arkansas.  We mostly caught catfish. Not the little bullhead kind but the blue catfish.  They are really good.
 The railroad tressel over the creek was close to where we set up camp and the first night when the train came and blew its' whistle I sat right up from a sound sleep and screamed.
The next night after hoeing corn for 8 hours, I never even heard the train.  That's what a little hard work will do for you.  Give you a good nights sleep.

 

This is a picture taken in the late Thirties of my Uncle Don and Aunt Ellar.

 

This is my first time at blogging so you will have to forgive mistakes and I will take advice as to how to make it better