Histories

A Granddaughter's Memories

[excerpted from "Some of the high spots in the life of Stella Hall Green"]



My grandfather, Dr. Daniel Reed, and Cinda Meigs Reed lived in Fulton, Ill., on the Mississippi.

Grandpa lived in the largest house in Fulton, the center of town, had a wonderful garden and raised everything edible, also uncommon flowers.

That was the only place I ever saw peanuts growing. Corn never tasted as good as roasted on a wood fire.

In the old rambling house with everything nearby, on the first floor the old dining room where all the family gathered for Thanksgiving dinner.

Such dinners you would never forget. In the basement so many good things in big stone crocks. Candied plums, mince meat and sauer kraut.

Grandpa was six ft. six in. tall, always wore a silk hat. Sunday we grandchildren would go out to the ice house, where Grandpa would crack black walnuts on a stump.

He was a very popular country doctor and known all over the state. Grandma gathered her own herbs and made much of the medicine.

I was visiting when the news came that Lincoln had been shot in a box at a theater in Washington by Booth. A bonfire was built and a rope stretched across the street from which Booth in effigy was hung. It made a lasting impression on me.

Later years, Grandpa sold the house uptown and bought a large stone house. It wasn't nearly as much fun to visit there.

My grandmother lived to be ninety-two. I was at her deathbed. It took away all fear of death. When she saw me crying, she said, "Don't cry, Stella, I think no more of death than walking into the next room."