Grace Wortman Cox remembered her father's parents, Franklin Wortman and Elizabeth Turney Wortman. Franklin was one of the Chain Gang...those Arkansas Peace Society members taken away by the Confederates and forced to join the army, though Franklin later escaped and joined the Union. Grace's father John told her that he would never forget the sight of his father being taken away in chains. Grace also got to know her mother's parents, Henry Andrew Morgan and Mary Rebecca Overton Morgan. Grandma Morgan smoked a little pipe. She would ask Grace to get a twig off a tree and chew it for her to make her a toothbrush.

Grace, her parents John Lemuel and Henryetta Wortman, her sisters Mary Elizabeth and Delia Jane, and her brothers Henry Franklin and Isom Matthew lived on a farm near Witts Springs. They raised their own meat, poultry, vegetables, fruit, and grain. When they killed the pigs, they would use everything except the squeal. John took the grain to the grist mill. They grew cherry trees, apple trees, and gooseberry bushes. Among the dishes that Henryetta made for the family were scrambled eggs with greens in them, fried mush, poke salad, creamed carrots, and multi-layered apple pies. They also had to preserve their food. They put huckleberries on a sheet on the roof and Isom watched over them so the birds would not eat them, and he took the berries off the roof when they were dry. Henryetta cut pumpkins into strips and hung them on poles to dry. When the weather got cold, they dug a hole in the ground, put the vegetables in, and covered them with straw to keep them for winter use.

The family would sit and sing around the fire at night, and stay up late and read. Isom and Grace kept squirrels as pets, and Isom also collected arrowheads. One winter Grace wanted to go to a Masonic funeral to see what it was like, so her mother bundled her up well and put her on the horse and she rode to the cemetery. The family left Searcy County when Grace was eight years old, but she valued her time there and her memories.

Compiled by Lisa L. Cox and originally printed in the Searcy County Ancestor Exchange, 2002

Franklin Wortman appears in Searcy County Those Who Served®

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