Three sisters, still living in their own homes, doing remarkably well, and all in their nineties! That's worth looking into!
The life of Dixie Jones Lane, the middle sister, is a great example of aging gracefully. Well into her nineties, Dixie gardens, keeps house, still plays a sharp, weekly game of bridge, and - as she puts it - "I still have a few of my marbles left."
Ninety-six year old Lane said that somebody remarked that the sisters may have lived that long because they were active youngsters and ate organic food while growing up. "But, who knows? I don't think we need all these chemicals and things, and I don't think they are progress, I think they are a hindrance. But we can't do much about it, can we? My sister Vera Stinson, is remarkable at 98 and my younger sister Annie Wickcliffe is 92 and can remember things better than any one," Lane confided.
Lane is the daughter of Solomon Jones who had eleven children, five sons and three daughter surviving childhood. The Jones family lived along the border of North and South Carolina where they owned 165 acres of land and played a prominent role in the history of this area. If you trace way back in time, the mountain natives are almost all related to each other in some way, and the Jones family is no exception.
"Having a large family is a blessing. In fact, there is no greater blessing than to sit down at the table with 10 to 11 people. We worked and played hard and when we sat down to meals, we ate whatever we had. My dad would say: 'If you don't like something, you don't have to eat it. But your mother has worked long and hard to prepare this meal, so don't make any remarks,' We always had plenty of food to eat. It wasn't gourmet, by any means; but I thought it was," Lane reminisced.
Lane feels that part of the problem with families today is that they don't sit at the table for meals and discuss things. "The mothers don't cook much, and I can understand why. The dads are out of the house and are not part of the communal meals, either. The children don't exhaust their energy and whip up their appetites by working and playing outside. "They stay in the house and play with their computers, instead; and I think that's the reason they are not hungry and pick at their food," Lane commented.
"We had a great family and a remarkable mother and father. Although times were tough and there was an unending number of chores, my mother never complained. She was so happy. My dad was so good to her. He would help her out whenever he could. We didn't have money. To tell you the truth, I didn't know you had to have money! Even now, money doesn't mean that much to me We just had each other. We still are all family and stick together," Lane remarked.
Discussing behavior, Lane said that during the first half of the 1900's children did as they were told, out of respect. "If my dad had told me to go out and stand in the middle of the street, I would have gone and wouldn't have asked why. My dad disciplined the boys and my mother disciplined the girls. When they said: 'Do it", we did it. We were much happier than the children of today. I feel that children really want discipline and that is the way it was meant to be. You learned that your parents had more sense than you did!" Lane said.
When the conversation turned to the many present day catastrophes: floods, earthquakes, fires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and droughts: Lane wondered if the Bible was fulfilling its predictions and we are in our latter days.. But, thinking about it, she added: "Of course, nobody knows but the Good Lord. And the drought which we are now experiencing also happened in 1925 in the Southeast, but things later came back to normal. So, who knows?
"For years, around 1925, it was dry, dry, dry. I was 12 or 13 years old at the time. I can remember folks wouldn't let us sing the song: "It ain't going to rain no more, no more," she recollected with humor. "In fact, I heard my husband's father say that the Chattahoochee River dried up so much they had a small turnip patch on the side of the little creek, barely one foot wide, that was left.
"In fact, I remember that drought so well here in these mountains at that time. We used to get our water from a spring near our house and it dried up. We had a spring house with a trough where the water went all the way through it. That's where we put our butter and milk because it was such cold water. In fact, you couldn't bathe in it. We'd catch the water and let it warm up before we got a bath.
"But when the drought came and our spring dried up, we had to find another spring about 1/3 of a mile away from our house. I remember it so well because I had to carry all that water to the house in a bucket. By the time I got to the house, it was about all splashed out and I would have to go back and get another bucket! But lots of people were out of water and had to carry it different places. So the drought we are having now is not so strange. I've always heard, what goes around, comes around. There hasn't been as much rain as we used to have. I think that taking so much of the forest off the high mountains tops has done a lot of harm to the springs. I know I am conservative with my water now," Lane remarked.
When Lane was young, they used to live at a hotel at 'Caesar's Head,where her father was the postmaster. Many educated travelers stayed at the hotel and they taught the children a lot about life! At that time she went to the one-room schoolhouse at Cedar Mountain. It was a long way for a little girl to walk to schooll and her brothers said they wouldn't carry her there. So, she didn't start school until she was eight years old. "I later taught at that same school. In fact, I used to say that I was the teacher, the principal, and the janitor: the whole thing!" Lane laughed as she described the situation.
After Lane took the job, she told her brother she didn't think she could do it because there were seven grades to teach. So, he sat down with her and showed her how to do it. He said: "Now, you'll take the third grade students and have the second and first graders sit with them and have the the younger ones learn from them And then you will arrange the rest of the school the same way:. "So,they all learned each other. They were great kids and were not trying to get out of learning. I loved those children dearly and they loved me," Lane recalled with pride.
When she was a young lady living in Decatur, Georgia, she met her husband, Curtis Lane, on a blind date in Atlanta. They were immediately attracted to each other and Curtis said: "I want to take you back to your home on the 4th of July." And I answered: "I already have plans. I have a date for that time." But he replied: "Well, I would suggest that you cancel that other date, because it would be strange to have two men there at the same time, and I am coming, anyway."
Dixie dated Curtis for six months before they married and she felt that they knew each other pretty well because they had a date every night. Since he played softball for Chrysler Motor Company, they had a lot of friends on the team. They would go to downtown Atlanta to the Varsity Club to see Nipsy Russell, the entertainer, who was often their waiter. Curtis then went to work for the post office , using the trolley or a bus for transportation. Later he was promoted to supervisor of the incoming mail at the Atlanta Post Office.
Lane's children, Nancy and Barbara, were born in Atlanta where they went to high school until Nancy's last year. The family then moved to Decatur and Nancy attended Druid Hills High School. Lane would chaperone the kids on trips to Daytona Beach, Florida and Savannah, Georgia. "I would say: 'Now, you make your own rules; but you've got to go in pairs wherever you go and you have to be back in bed by 1:00. One girl said she wasn't coming in at that time. So, I told her:''You know, there's a bus leaving at 9:00 in the morning; and, if you don't get back by 1:00, you'll find yourself on it.' She was back by 1:00!" Lane related
When her husband Curtis retired, her brother Joe Earl and his wife, Blanche, let them come to live in their garage apartment near her old homestead.. Joe Earl and Curtis have both passed, but Dixie and Blanche are best of friends and dearly love each other.
Nowadays, Lane is known by many as the "Dahlia Lady', as she has grown such magnificent specimens for years. In fact, there are long even rows of stakes planted in front of her home where these flowers. grow. Lane explained that the bulbs usually do not freeze in her garden and do not have to be dug up and replanted each year. However, they do multiply and it is necessary to separate the clumps every two to three years. Replanting the new clumps increases the plants and her garden keeps getting larger.
Lane is interested in current affairs, has a positive outlook on life, and embodies the strength and spirit of the local mountain women. She is a fountain of information about the old days in this area and is an inspiration to younger people. Each 4th of July her grandsons and their families, who live in Pompano Beach, Atlanta and Cincinnati, come to visit and are welcomed home, as there is a deep and abiding love and kinship between them. They are all drawn back to the mountains which they love so much.
