Our Heritage

MY PRECIOUS HERITAGE

by Amy Ammons Garza


In an old wooden house in a cove alongside Grassy Creek Road in the Tuckasegee Valley is where I grew up. In the front yard grew the largest black walnut tree I had ever seen, and tied to the limb near the middle was a rope.  At the other end of the rope, near the ground, was an old tire on which I used to swing far out over the creek...and back again.  Each time I would swing out, my legs would pump the tire higher so I could reach the leaves of the walnut with my feet.  I would make believe I was touching the tallest tree at the top of the tallest mountain that seemed to touch the sky all around our little cove.
    In the year 1952, my sister Doreyl, brother David and I lived in almost complete isolation from the rest of the world.  We had no inside plumbing, no electricity, and, all summer long, no shoes.  We carried water in buckets from the spring above the house, our only light came from kerosene oil lamps with smoky glass chimneys, and our school clothes were made by Mother’s hands from feed-sack material.
    The house in the cove had only three rooms. A living room that held a potbellied stove with benches in the back where we young’uns sat in the wintertime,  a small table with a battery-operated radio, a couple of chairs, and an old organ.  The one and only bedroom had two beds—all three of us young’uns slept in one of them, and our parents slept in the other.
    A large wooden table almost filled our kitchen.  Covered by oilcloth, the table almost filled the kitchen, with long benches on either side.  Along the far wall stood a wood-burning cook stove and a wood box.  Shelves covered the walls holding our dishes, a small amount of cooking supplies and utensils.  The linoleum-covered floor had been scrubbed so many times by our dirt-conscious mother that it had lost it’s luster and had worn down so that it had holes in it corresponding to the slats in the floor.  Many’s the time I saw my brother slip cornbread through the cracks in the floor to feed our dog, Smoky, underneath.
    Our glass can-goods were stored outside in the “canhouse.”  Going back into the side of the mountain, the canhouse actually had two floors.  On the first floor were shelves that covered three walls with canned corn, peas, beans, greens, beets, peaches, strawberry jam, blackberry jelly, apple jelly and meat.  Whenever Daddy butchered a calf or hog, besides smoking some of the meat, Mother would can it.  I always liked to see these jars, for even in the cool darkness of the canhouse the whiteness of the lard that sealed the meat shown up in stark contrast against the earthen wall.    
    It was the second floor of the canhouse, however, that housed three creative minds that were destined to record the history of the Ammons family.  That was the “playroom” where we three spent long hours instilling the world we lived in...into  our memory sense.
    It was a diverse world; for example, this upper room (filled with vegetables and fruit in the process of drying), became our church where we held our own revivals.  David would preach at our pretend pulpit while Doreyl and I sang out of our songbook (the Sears and Roebuck catalog). While David pounded and yelled that we were all going to hell if we didn’t quit our sinning ways, Doreyl and I held up the “Amen” corner quite well.
    Along the sides of the walls, the three of us had collected and saved what we called our “instruments.” Stored to be beat upon, scrapped upon, pounded upon by cousins who came to holiday dinners at our house, these kitchen utensils had seen better days and offered many an hour of resonating “music” to us mountain kids. We called it our canhouse band.
    Just imagin...there in a quiet cove on Grassy Creek Road, with no noise other than nature for miles...all of a sudden the sounds of many spoons, sticks, tin cups hitting pots and pans, the scrapping of thimbles on a washboard, and dried beans beating against a mason jar.  Smoky the dog sang many a featured song to the tune of “dishpan valley.”
    We loved it so much, my sister and I have brought this back to life within our performances in the schools. During the time we share with the children, we invite them down to the stage to join us, and once again, along with the thump of my bucket bass, there’s the sounds of many spoons, sticks, tin cups hitting pots and pans, the scrapping of thimbles on a washboard, and dried beans beating against a mason jar. Doreyl and I relive our childhood each time we entertain in the schools, sharing our stories with children of today who will probably never live the way we did way back then.



My heart fills every time I dance with a child to the tune of the Canhouse Band, just watching eyes light up and smiles play like spring rain on the faces in the audience.
    Each time I share my stories, my simple life of growing up in the mountains, I feel so rich.  I would not trade it for all the diamonds and rubies you could give me. It’s my precious heritage.