Visiting on their street

We went visiting on their street, the poor's street, where my great Aunt Virgie lived .  I remember it as a big house  but a raw house.  No paint outside or inside, and it was very weathered with the gray dried out look, only age can bring to a wood house.  I don't know why, but I thought it was big.  I don't remember seeing any part of it but the sagging front porch and the kitchen.  There were a lot of kids running around there, in and out, slamming the front door.  Aunt Virgie and Uncle Hershal were sitting on the porch, always, when we went there. Momma and I sat down on one of the chairs there on the porch.  People used to have extra chairs out on their front porch for people to sit on whenever they stopped by. l didn't feel connected, even though they were family.  Delilah might have been the closest girl to my age, but I guess she was already thinking about marriage because I remember her ending up down the street with a family in a house of her own.  We didn't have much in common, although she was always nice to me. Anyway, she didn't talk to me , take me to her room or somewhere in the yard  so we could have girl talk or any thing like that.  I think sometimes I helped her bring cold water out to the porch for everyone which is why I saw the kitchen.

Aunt Virgie was very unkept and so was Uncle Hershal and all the kids.  The whole place was unkept and run down. They all seemed happy enough though.  I wondered if they had lived there many years and only now I am meeting them?  Why and how did Momma loose contact with them?  

Sometimes we visited the house across the street.  Momma had known them many years and Momma told me she had started learning to play the guitar with Jimmy, the man of this house many years ago when they were 18-20 years olf.  They were the poorest people I had ever known personally.  Their house was framed with wood strips of various kinds and then newspapers over the wood inside instead of sheetrock to try to keep the cold out.  there was no floor so cloths were scattered all on the floor to walk on and their beds were piles of cloths.  They had a wood stove I think It was just one big room .They had 3 little kids who were loved but dirty.  The man got out his guitar and Momma got out hers and they played and sang away the pain and the shame. (I learned later that this was the man that Momma learned how to play the guitar from when they were young.)

When Delilah got her house, we went there and it was clean and bright.  Furniture was sparse, though.

Up on the hill from their street was the VFW where we had the Sunday School.  Maybe 10 children came and it was a good and important ministry that Momma and I had there.  But, we didn't do this for long till Momma got restless and wanted to move on to another church where she could preach.