The following transcription is from a series of recordings my father made in the early 1990s:
The cotton gin and rail cars...
My memories drift back to the cotton gin, the railroad and the
great big platforms where they used to place the bales of cotton after they
were ginned. As I mentioned before, one
of those platforms would hold two or three hundred bales of cotton.
There was a railroad spur that ran off the main track and up
beside the platforms. Empty rail cars
were left for the gin workers to load the cotton onto them from the
platforms. The loaded cars were then
picked back up by the railroad and taken to either Ferriday or Winnsboro to one
of the compressing plants where the bales of
cotton would be compressed to about 1/3 of their original size.
As kids we played on the platforms and in the cars. I remember on several occasions where we
almost got locked inside one of the cars with the cotton. One time in particular stands out in my mind. John Fairbanks and I were playing on one of
the platforms when we saw Mr. Fred Chambless coming.
He was the depot agent and he had warned us not to play there. Part of the game was to dodge Mr.
Chambless.
 |
| Sicily Island Railroad Depot |
Well, to dodge him this time, we ran up into one of those
cars that was loaded with cotton. At the
last minute, we decided to get out of the rail car and back onto the platform to
hide between the bales of cotton. Mr.
Chambless walked right up and grabbed the lock and pulled it across the very
car we had just run out of. This was in
about 1937. After that, John and I were leery about ever running into
one of those cars again.
 |
| Evelyn Ogden Rife |
The last time I
ever remember playing on the platforms was with two of my cousins, Evelyn Ogden
and Dorothy "Bit" McNair. Bit jumped off one of
the bales of cotton sitting on the platform.
It was about a five or six foot jump.
When she jumped off and landed on the platform, her foot went through a
rotten board. Her leg became wedged in between two boards all the way up to her knee. Oh, she
screamed and hollered! Hell, I took off! Evelyn was trying to help her but I left!
I remember running by Cousin Jessie’s
house. Cousin Jessie was Bit’s
mother. She and some of her family and friends were sitting out on the
front porch.
 |
| Dorothy "Bit" McNair Reed Smith |
I didn’t stop to tell
them. I just hollered as I ran by,
“Bit’s leg is hung in the platform!” I
know it must of have scared Cousin Jessie half to death. I do know it scared the hell out me!
In the meantime, Marvin Nolen had come by on his bicycle and
heard all the commotion. He stopped and
helped get Bit’s leg out from between the boards.
Marvin was just a young teenage boy at the
time. He later married one of Bit’s
older sisters, Kitty McNair. Kitty died
about two years ago. Marvin is getting
remarried today, November 3, 1991. Bit
is going to the wedding with Marvin’s son, Brother and his family.
My mother told the story about an old empty box car that
stayed up by the depot for months. During this time, the Iron Mountain Railroad ran through Sicily Island. The Missouri Pacific Railraod took over in about 1911.
 |
| Mary Allye Steele Edmonds |
As
little girls back in 1907 or 1908, she and Mildred Harris had used that old box
car as their playhouse. They had it all
fixed up with shelves that held different colored little bottles they had
picked up. They even had their dolls and doll clothes in
there.
One day my mother and Mildred were here in the Village on
the main drag up town and they looked up as the train came through. The railroad had picked up their car! There went their playhouse going through
town. My mother told how they cried and
carried on so over the railroad taking their playhouse.
I guess somewhere, wherever that car ended up, someone
opened it up and saw where some children had all their dolls and their doll
clothes and everything in there.
Mildred Harris was the daughter of Mr. Richard and Mrs.
Laura Harris. Mac Harris was the oldest
of the Harris children. Mildred was the
second child. She later married William Edward "Buck" Smith and had two sons, Sonny and Richard, and two girls, Gerrie and Kay.
Note: Parts 1-58 of 'The Stories That Should Be Told' can be found in the Tags List on the right-hand side of the blog.
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