I know Aunt Alta had a hard life. She never knew anything about modern appliances. She worked so hard and the best I remember kept her house clean. Most people have a mate that helps them, but I don't remember any of that. Thank the lord she had a family that stood by her. She was so sweet and kind. She used to hug me and say, "I love you."

I remember one time (there were probably other times) she went to the Goodwill Store in Ybor City and picked out some clothes for the kids to wear to school. She got some starch and washed those dresses and ironed them. She brought them over to Mama. Those were the most beautiful dresses I ever saw, and they looked like new. The boys' clothes looked new too.

I'm proud to be her niece. I was there with Jerry when she passed away. Later, at the funeral, I remember how much I loved her and that she wouldn't have to work so hard again. She did an amazing job on her children. They are so smart and talented, and there is nothing they can't do.

As far as Uncle Everett, I don't remember much to tell about him. He was in the Seabees during World War Two and served in islands in the Pacific. I remember when he came back home, Aunt Alta was sick, and she was at our house. Charlene and I were walking down Hillsborough Avenue between Haines and Church, and a cab stopped beside us. This man said, "What are you girls doing?" I looked at him, and he said, "I'm looking for Dolphus and Isabelle Smith. Do you know them?" I knew for sure he was Uncle Everett, and I told him, "I'm Lois." I don't know what he did then, probably went to the orange grove.

I want to say that I have some of the prettiest gifts from Virginia - a beautiful Tiffany style lamp. I love it and appreciate it so much. Thank you, Virginia. Also, I have a beautiful bed sized throw that Jerry crocheted and sent to me. She also sent me a potholder. I got two more at the reunion. One is a raccoon, and I hung it on my front door. Thank you, Jerry. I love them.

Aunt Alta was a good Christian woman. Thanks to her she got Mama (Isabelle) started to going to church. She also became a good Christian woman.

When Aunt Alta and family lived in the orange grove in Temple Terrace the fruit got ripe. My daddy (Dolphus) got some fruit snips and got Curtis, Wesley, Lois, Mart, Jim and Bill to clip off the oranges and put them in a bushel fruit basket and take them to the farmers market. It was work, but we had fun. After that Daddy had all of us plant black-eyed peas around the trees to fertilize them. This helped Aunt Alta with the extra money she needed and gave her peas to eat when they were ready. We had some too. I sure would like to have some. They feed the black-eyed peas to the cows here in South Carolina.

Aunt Alta was so sweet and good. She had such a hard life and lived for several months with cancer. She prayed and read her Bible, and strangely enough she suffered no pain. I'm sure God took care of her, and she will have a place in heaven.

BY Dorothy Burdett Fuerst

Alta was the second daughter of Nellie and William Burdett, born January 2, 1904. Alta did not come to Florida in 1921 with the rest of her family as she had a job with the Western Union in Ohio. She was engaged to (a man named) Otto when her mother asked her to come to Florida to help her keep five sisters in school (after William left the family). Alta had taken Reatha to live with her for two years, and Reatha went to high school in Dayton, Ohio.

Alta came to Florida during the 1930’s. She had to take a cut in pay as Florida didn’t pay as much in wages as Ohio did. Alta went back to Ohio a year later on her vacation, but Otto had gotten him another girl and didn’t take her back. She met Everett Johns on the bus on the way back to Tampa, Florida, and married him two weeks later (on the rebound).

Everett took her to Okeechobee to an unpainted old house near the water. There was no running water. There was no plumbing in the house, so Alta had to carry all of the water they used from the lake. She boiled the water they drank.

In the 1930’s Okeechobee had a small theatre, one filling station, one store and a lot of Indians. The Indians often stopped by Alta and Everett’s house. Everett was gone most of the time. Once an Indian asked Alta, "I want you to be my squaw." Alta said, "But, I’m already married," and the Indian said, "That’s alright. Me kill ‘um." Alta’s sisters thought Alta would have been better off with the Indian.

Alta’s youngest brother, Bud, went to Okeechobee from Tampa and spent the summer with Alta. One night some Indians wanted to spend the night, and she said, "You’ll have to sleep on the floor as I don’t have any beds." Bud was asleep in the back room on the only bed besides the one Alta and Everett slept in. The Indians said the floor was OK with them, but the next morning when Bud (who was twelve years old) woke up an Indian was in bed with him. Bud lost no time getting out of that bed.

Alta had three boys: Mart, Jim and Bill. She had four girls: Reatha, Martha Nell, Gerry and Virginia. Alta was a peacemaker. She tried to keep everybody friendly with each other. Any man would have been lucky to get her.

A TRIP TO SEE AUNT ALTA

By Cecelia Greene Wofford ("Corky")

One weekend we went to see Aunt Alta when she was living in Okeechobee. I can remember Mama and Daddy talking about the trip before we left. We would be staying overnight and would be sleeping on the floor on pallets made out of blankets. We were told to eat whatever we were given and not to ask for more because Aunt Alta and Uncle Everett didn’t have a lot of food, and we were a lot of extra mouths to feed.

I don’t remember if Brian was born yet, but I do know that Ivan was, because the next morning when Daddy went out walking Ivan decided to follow him and fell through a wooden walkway into Lake Okeechobee. They said he was lucky he came up in the same place he went down. Otherwise, the man who pulled him out could never have found him before he drowned.

We got to Okeechobee late in the afternoon after driving all day. Daddy never drove more than 25 or 30 miles an hour unless he was mad. Then he drove 60 and scared the bejabbers out of me. For someone who drove all the time he never did drive that well. He spent more time looking at things along the way than looking at where he was going.

I don’t remember exactly what we had for supper that night, but I do remember we could have fresh milk or buttermilk. I chose buttermilk because I’ve always liked buttermilk even though Nanny (Grandmother Greene) and I got ptomaine poisoning from a bad batch one time; that’s another story. We also had cornbread sticks made in cast iron molds shaped like ears of corn which I thought was neat. Mama always just made cornbread in a round frying pan. I think we had fried salt pork that had been boiled first. I remember Uncle Everett had one or two of the boys going out in the woods to look for something, so I think Aunt Alta cooked swamp cabbage in the water she boiled the salt pork in. I can remember Mama and Daddy being a little uneasy because they thought Uncle Everett was going out to kill some squirrels, and they weren’t too keen on eating fried fuzzy tailed rats. Little did they know what was good to eat when you live deep in the swamps of Okeechobee.

Aunt Alta had chickens and a cow. The next morning while Ivan was trying to drown himself I was watching Aunt Alta milk the cow. For breakfast we had eggs, grits, biscuits and butter, and milk to drink. The grownups had coffee. I remember the milk wasn’t cold because Aunt Alta didn’t have a refrigerator (or Refrigidaire as Aunt Dorothy always called them; but that’s another story.)

Aunt Alta went out and killed one of her hens to cook for dinner, but we had to leave so we could get home before dark. We didn’t get to eat any of the chicken and dumplings that Aunt Alta was going to cook. She gave us some biscuits and cornbread sticks to take with us so we would have something to eat for lunch. I don’t remember getting home; probably went to sleep in the back seat of the car before we got there.

MAMA

I had Mama’s diary. She cut out pictures that she liked sometimes and pasted them into the diary. She kept a record of what we had done. She wrote about my telling her how the home economics teacher, Mrs. Collins, had scolded me about my talking in class and saying, "Martha, I think you were vaccinated with a Victrola needle."

_by Martha Nell Johns Hoover, 2nd daughter

Alta Ruth Burdett/Johns

Born January 2, 1904 at Kenton, Ohio. Died January 10, 1957 at Tampa, Florida. Married at the age of twenty-seven to Everett E. Johns at Brooksville, Florida. Mother of seven children, three boys and four girls. My mom had been a telephone operator, a teacher, and a private tutor before getting married to my dad. My mom was one of a family of nine girls and three boys. These are only cold, dispassionate facts. These facts reveal precious little about who my mom actually was.

How best to illustrate what type of person my mom was? Why not relate the results of her having been here? In short, tell what influence she had on the lives of others.

Her oldest son John Mart became owner/operator of a heavy equipment business. John Mart was grievously injured while working on a piece of equipment. John Mart was fast approaching middle-age, confined to a wheel chair for the rest of his life, and no longer able to pursue his profession. Did this reversal of fortune defeat John Mart? Well, not exactly. John Mart wheeled himself into an appliance repair shop and told the owner that he could help the owner expand his business. The owner, taken by John Mart’s attitude, hired him. And so the business grew, just exactly as John Mart had predicted. John Mart took it upon himself to attend night classes and learn microwave repair. Subsequently, he handled all the bench repairs, thus freeing others to handle the field work. Where did this self-assured attitude come from? Mom believed that all of her children were special and thus they became.

Mom’s next oldest, James Everett had to have a cataract operation. James Everett showed up at the appointed time. As the nurse was recording his vital signs, she commented, "well, I’ll be darned." James Everett asked her what was wrong. The nurse said that nothing was wrong but that this was most unusual. Most people facing an operation have an elevated pulse rate, higher blood pressure, and are usually breathing heavily. James Everett sat there as calm as if he was still cradled in his mother’s arms. And in a manner of speaking, perhaps he was. James Everett told the nurse that if his getting upset would help the doctor do a better job, then he would see what he could do about getting upset. He also expressed the opinion that if he didn’t think the doctor knew what he was doing, then the doctor wouldn’t be working on him. Where did this extreme example of grace-under-pressure come from? James Everett learned from the best of all possible teachers, our mom.

I received a citation in Junior High School for being "Pupil Of The School Year". This simple citation was typed on a sheet of plain typing paper. After fifty years, this citation is now old and worn and wrinkled. The old part comes from fifty years. The worn and wrinkled part came from my mom carrying it around in her purse for months just to be able to show people what her son had done.

Years later, I was presented with a complex programming problem at my work. Most people there felt that the job, as proposed, could not be done. I said that I could do it. When asked how I was going to do the job, I said that I didn’t know yet but that I could do it. And so I did. These attitudes reflecting quiet self-assurance came from where? Mom believed and thus we became.

Why shouldn’t mom’s oldest daughter, Reatha Marie, go to work after raising two children? Reatha Marie wanted to do this, prepared for it, and subsequently retired from the County school Board after a long and successful working career. Martha Nell, the next daughter, wanted to become a nurse. So, she went to nursing school and has since spent many years as an R.N. Mary Geraldine wanted to work after raising four children. She chose to learn welding and got a job building boats in a ship yard. Why not? Mom thought her children were all special and capable of doing anything they desired. Virginia Isabelle decided to go to college and become a teacher. And thus it became so.

Mom exhibited a faithfulness and caring for and a confidence in a husband and seven children that at times went beyond belief.

In closing, I’ll take the liberty of borrowing a few lines from a eulogy I presented for another precious lady recently: If I could bring mom back, would I do so? Oh yes, I certainly would. But for purely selfish reasons. I miss her. I wasn’t ready for her to go. But would I bring that beautiful spirit back and give it that tired old body to live in? Would I really take mom away from her rest and her reward? No, I couldn’t do that. I would not do it even if I could. I still miss her. I still hear her spirit talking to me every time anger prompts me to act in haste. Her spirit still makes me ask myself, "how would mom have handled this?" No, I wouldn’t bring her back. But that doesn’t stop me from loving her and missing her and wanting to be more like her.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom

_by your 3rd son, George William ("Bill")

Memories of Mama

When we were small we moved from house to house a lot. I remember that we lived in a house in Temple Terrace down a sand road. We had a mulberry tree that Mama would send the boys out to cut switches from when they had been bad. One day they decided that they had had enough of the mulberry switchings, so they went out and stripped all of the little branches off of the tree that they could reach. The only problem was they piled them close to the house. Where Mama just had to reach down to pick them up when she needed them.

I remember one of the elders telling about when Mama was a toddler her family had a hired hand named Tom. Mama loved Tom and would go out to the barn to talk to him. One day it was raining, and Grandma wouldn’t let her go out. There she stood crying her head off, and the big people made up a song about her:

Alta Pud (her nickname was "Pud", rhymes with "stood") in the door she stood A cryin’ for old Tom.

She cried all day ‘cause she couldn’t get awayTo go out to the barn.

When I was very small we lived in a house in Valrico. One time when Mama and Daddy were gone I stepped on a sharp object and cut my foot almost to the bone. Jim, just a little boy himself, had enough sense to wrap my foot in a cloth and elevate it until they came home. He was a strange child who seemed to have been born grown. He would comb and braid our hair, cracking us on our heads with the comb if we squirmed. He cooked for us and went looking for us if we wandered off.

We lived on Grandma Burdett’s farm in Darby when I was five and six. We ate a lot of things we had to catch such as soft shelled turtles. Mama could make the best tasting turtle soup. The three boys and our cousin, Norman, would all pile on top of the mule, and when she got tired of them she would just bump them off one by one, the boy in the back being the one to go.

One day I came into the house holding my hands behind my back, and Mama demanded to know what I had in them. For years after that she liked to tell how I brought them out for her to see and opened them to show her the two big toads I had caught.

We attended a Fundamentalist church in Darby. After I grew up and began to suffer from migraines I realized that I probably had had the childhood form of them. One time I was feeling really terrible, so the church people came to pray and to "lay on of hands". They yelled and hollered and clutched my head in their hands, shaking it and vibrating it with their praying and yelling. Afterward I hurt so bad I thought I was going to die.

At Thonotosassa, where we lived after Darby, Mama made Virginia and me Halloween costumes out of black and orange crepe paper sewn onto some cloth garments. I still have a picture of us in those costumes.

I don’t remember feeling poor or deprived although I realize that we may have been seen that way by outsiders.

_Mary Geraldine Johns Fay ("Gerry"), 3rd daughter

MAMA

When we lived at Rome and Waters (Tampa) Mart, Bill and I would go over to the dog track. We had slingshots, and we filled our pockets with rocks. We would climb trees outside the fence. Then we would shoot the greyhounds, and they would forget they were running a race. One time a cat came up and was rubbing against the tree. We grabbed that cat and threw it over the fence. We thought it would just climb back over, but instead of that it ran across the field. The greyhounds went crazy trying to catch the cat. They ran every which way. They couldn’t hurt it because they were muzzled, but they sure weren’t thinking about winning a race. We decided then that we’d better just leave.

That was after we lived in Temple Terrace. When we were there Virginia was a baby, and she would take off on her own. One time we found her up by the hard road naked as a jaybird, not a stitch on. We had found her tracks and followed them. She was about three at that time.

At Thonotosassa there was a revival going on at the church. The revival people gave one of the girls a little cross on a chain. The cross glowed in the dark. She brought it home and hung it on Mama and Daddy’s bedpost, then went off and forgot it. That night Daddy came home from the tavern sort of drunk. He went to bed, and in the middle of the night he must have woke up and saw that cross glowing in the dark. He woke the whole family up yelling.

It seemed that Mama’s total reason for being was to see her kids grown. She sacrificed everything for us. I remember her washing clothes on a scrub board. When I went to work I made $32 for the week, and I gave that to her for groceries. She was crying because she had spent my whole paycheck. I hated it that she would feel that way.

Now, I’m supposed to read this on a computer? I have to ask the grandkids to program my watch. How do you expect me to work one of those things?

_James E.Johns ("Jim"), 2nd Son