REMEMBERING THE CIVIL WAR WITH UNCLE FLOYD

The General was born in Lawrence County. The County Seat is in a town called Walnut Ridge. The General said, as a girl of fourteen, she remembers walking down the street and coming up on a row of three fine houses. They were painted white with green shutters and the lawns were beautifully kept. All three of them had front porch swings and she watched them as they moved gently in the breeze. It made her feel warm and cozy to see such a sight. The grandest thing of all was this huge twenty-feet high by thirty-feet wide sign that sat right out in front of the first house, just a little to the left. It proudly proclaimed, “FLOYD MESSER REAL ESTATE AGENT.” She told us many times down through the years, that at that moment, she had a quick glimpse of her destiny. It was revealed to her that she’d have the name of Messer someday. The idea pleased her, as she thought it a beautiful name and a most impressive sign.

Mr. Kooprider had come to Arkansas in 1930 in the midst of the Great Depression. He had once owned a large, beautiful, yellow brick home in the windy city of Chicago. The steel mills had faltered and he lost his job, and eventually, the brick home that he loved so much. He brought his wife and five daughters to live in an old house behind Mr. George and Ol’ Queeney. He had heard up there in Chicago, that in Arkansas there was food from the garden, and game from the woods, and down there a man could at least feed his family. The remarkable thing about that incident was he drove from a far off place in a wood paneled, Model T-Ford. It had an open top, and you could hear that ol’ car a coming for miles. There were few cars in those days. Mr. Kooprider, in dire need of money, would hire out to drive sick folks, and anyone else, to where ever they needed, or wanted to go.

Another thing I remember about Mr. Kooprider is that he was almost blind from looking into the hot fires of the steel mills. It made him squint. He had an odd pair of glasses that had devices to push the eyelids up and open. Without this apparatus, his eyes would close involuntarily and he was forever twisting and adjusting the wire frames.

Before the General got her false teeth she suffered tremendously with constant toothaches. She’d often go around the house with a rag wrapped around her head. That gave a little warmth and comfort to her aching jaw. One day the pain became unbearable, and My Daddy contracted Mr. Kooprider to take her to a dentist in Walnut Ridge.

My Daddy had often spoken of wanting me to meet his Uncle Floyd. He was my Granddaddy Messer’s older brother by many years. As far as anyone knew, he was the only Messer that ever lived beyond the age of ninety. He still holds the record, even down to the present day. The Messers have a very bad habit of never reaching the age of sixty. My Uncle Floyd was ninety-two when he died. To add to the great mystery, he was reported to have had vast wealth. He was known to be a man of culture and great dignity. People, even to this day, speak of what a distinguished man he was. All imagined he must have descended from a great southern family.

My Daddy came to school and picked me up, on this memorable day, in the spring of 1943. He said today would be the day I’d meet my famous Uncle Floyd. My Daddy was dressed in overalls, a blue flannel shirt and a brown Stetson hat. He was seated up front with Mr. Kooprider who was dressed in khaki pants and shirt, wearing that little, dinky, blue sock hat he always wore. The General and me, we sat in the back. The General’s head was covered with a large bandanna, and around her jaw she’d wrapped a big, thick white rag. Away we went on our journey. We must have been a grand sight putting off toward the City of Walnut Ridge, twelve miles away.

Mr. Kooprider dropped us off at the Messer house and proceeded on to the dentist with the General. Sure enough, there was that big sign right out front, the letters were a little faded, but there it stood, and I recognized it from the General’s description. My Daddy and I approached the door and he knocked. After several minutes an old woman of eighty, or so years, opened the door. “Johnny, it’s you,” she exclaimed. She seemed quite happy we were there. "Floyd will be delighted," she said, and then turned her attention to me. She raved of my good looks and my resemblance to the Messers. I took that to be a very good thing indeed.

We were ushered into what I took to be the living room, and there standing in the middle of the floor was an older gentleman with very black hair. I noticed he had hardly any gray. He was well dressed in a long sleeve blue and white striped shirt. The stripes were about two inches wide and ran vertically up and down. Around his neck, he wore a neatly tied, solid black tie. He was about five feet three inches tall and looked like he weighed about a hundred and twenty-pounds. He had a long tube he used to help him hear. I can still see him standing there in my mind’s eye. Every time we’d say something he’d hold the tube up to his ear and say, “ EH!”

My Daddy told him that I came to hear of the Great Civil War between the States. At this, the old man took on a very pleasant, friendly look. After looking me up and down, he gave a slight smile and moved to a big, straight back chair and sat down. He called to his wife, “Effie, bring that box in here with the coins in it!” After a couple of minutes she came in, holding very reverently, a blue box the size of a modern day poker chip holder. She gently handed it to him. With trembling hands he commenced to take off the wrapping of white paper. With this done, he nervously removed a giant rubber band. Inside were at least two hundred $20.00 gold pieces. “I want you to see these,” he said to me as he displayed the beautiful coins. “Someday these will be yours. It’s against the law to have them you know,” he declared. That didn’t seem to be of any great concern to him. “These coins are from the time of the great Civil War when Confederate money was worthless, and this was the only thing that had any real value,” he continued. I could tell no ol’ law was going to be big enough to make him change them coins for no darned ol’ paper money.

He leaned back, and his eyes begin to glow. He commenced to tell of the horrible days of his childhood. “I was only nine when it all started. All the young men went off to war and left me and the old folks to home. Eventually the Damn Yankees came and killed, or took everything we owned. Every chicken, every egg, every cow, every horse and anything that walked, wagged, waddled, or quacked were taken from us. They left the old folks and us kids to starve to death. The little that was left, the darkies came and stole at night. I hate the sons-suh-bitches,” he said in such a venomous tone that left me no doubt how he felt about any darned Ol’ Yankees. He sat a few minutes without saying a word. I thought he had forgotten about us. Then he shifted his position and continued, “Most of the men folks in our family were killed. We were scattered here and there. The goddamn carpetbaggers took all the land we owned. We’d no money to even pay the taxes. Son-suh-bitches turned us off our own place. Took the cotton gin of my Grandpa and left us destitute. One time we were so hungry and had nothing to eat for several days,” he continued. He then leaned back in a lighter mood and chuckled. “We’d this old dog, and we kids all loved it, but one of my uncles decided we should eat it, as we’d not had anything to eat in three days. Us kids put up quite a holler. He finally relented and just cut off one of that ol’ dog’s legs, and we made soup out of it. That old dog lived a many a year after that, as I remember,” he said. He stopped talking, turned and looked at me. “And he could fairly scoot along,” he added and quietly chuckled again.

He leaned back in his chair and seemed quite content at the telling of his tale. “Don’t trust paper money boy,” he said, looking at me very closely. “Gold and land, that’s the thing. Always keep enough gold to pay the taxes. That away you’ll always be safe.” He was quiet for a minute. My Daddy looked at me and I’m sure he could see I was very impressed. The old man’s hatred of the Yankees and the Blacks had indeed impressed me a great deal. I knew I was in the presence of no ordinary man. I kind of regretted never seeing a Yankee, or a black man, as I felt an obligation to join my uncle in his hatred of such a terrible people.

His talk turned to the Company Farm. The farm was so called, because at one time a big land company had owned it. My Uncle Floyd had purchased all seventeen hundred acres back when land was a dollar an acre. He said to My Daddy, “Johnny, you move out there on my farm. Grow cotton on them ridges and run hogs in them woods and one day you’ll be a rich man just from them alone. They can live on the acorns, and every year you can have a big hog drive. Someday that place will be yours, you know.” This, however, never came to be.

I never forgot my Uncle Floyd. I can still see the old man sitting there with his eyes blazing with hatred against the North for robbing him of all he once held dear. I’m grateful that My Daddy gave me the, once in a lifetime, opportunity to hear first hand the horror that the Civil War brought to the South and our people. One hundred and thirty five years later, writing this on Martin Luther King’s birthday, I can only speculate at the outcome, had the victory gone to the South. I do believe slavery is the greatest of all sins against humanity. And as sad as it is, to think how Uncle Floyd might have reacted to such a statement, I’m truthfully glad that the South lost the war.

For those of you now researching the family tree of the Messers, I can give you the following information passed on to me orally. Uncle Floyd had one son by the name of Duke. He inherited all the land and all the gold coins. He shot himself in Little Rock, Arkansas in the late 1950s. The large wealth that my uncle had amassed had all disappeared. My Daddy said that Uncle Floyd often spoke of a Grandpa Witt in Georgia who was a cotton gin owner. He said that he’d had four brothers. One of the brothers had been killed working at the gin. He remembered him telling of them finding little pieces of meat when it fell out with the cotton. I wish I had the opportunity today to sit down and talk with Uncle Floyd again. I could surely fill in a lot of gaps for all of us.

I will soon be taking you to live on the Company Farm and you can experience first hand, what a grand place it really was. Maybe Uncle Floyd had a point about the gold and land. Those of you reading this five hundred years from now will be better able to decide if that was good advice.