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Mattie Belle and Irving L. Adams
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An Alabama heritage of farm and family
by Alvin Benn
Depressed and lonely after the death of her husband, Mattie Belle Smith Adams began to write her memoirs, carefully collecting her thoughts about having lived into her late 80s and, for the most part, enjoying every moment.
Writing in wide spiral notebooks, her hand was as steady as when she was a girl in elementary school crafting every cursive letter to perfection.
"I was born to Ed and Emma Smith on a cold November morning in 1912 and was their eighth child," she wrote. "Mama went into labor in the late evening of the previous day. When dark had come and I had not, Dr. James Donald decided to spend the night being afraid that he could not get back in time for the delivery."
The doctor she mentioned lived about 3.5 miles from her house and he often traveled by horse and buggy over roads deep and soggy in mud.
"He spent the night dozing by the fire and I arrived shortly after breakfast the next morning," Mattie Belle wrote.
Her mini-book is a vivid collection of memories about yesteryear when she and husband Irving "Buck" Adams raised two daughters and rarely missed church in Marion Junction.
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The Home Place was constructed in 1910 and five generations have lived here.
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The Home Place was the name of their farm and, years later, would be selected as one of the most important in Alabama.
She had no way of knowing about circumstances surrounding her birth, of course, but she was a loyal listener as family friends and relatives regaled each other with stories about it and other fascinating moments out in the country.
"My mother was an interesting lady," recalled daughter Audra Adams Westbrook, a retired educator. "She loved The Home Place better than anything. That’s why we asked her to think about her past and put it down on paper."
She and Buck were inseparable, and they spent 60 years together before he succumbed to a lingering illness in 1997.
Their courtship was far from a whirlwind experience. After meeting him on Christmas Day, Mattie Belle would admit that she had some "issues" with Buck at first since she was a devout Baptist and he was Mormon.
When he agreed to convert to her faith, everything fell nicely into place after his baptism.
"Daddy died a Baptist," Audra said.
Writing a memoir in longhand isn’t done much these days, but it has a way of encapsulating recollections without drawing them out unnecessarily.
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Reuben Sanders Tubb (great-grandfather) purchased the land for The Home Place in 1906.
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Audra kept tabs on her mother as she aged and, when she got home from the school where she was employed, she got a kick out of the latest additions to the growing memoir.
Mattie Belle worked on her book for about two years and it tended to keep her alert and fresh as she completed page after page.
"Mother would check family Bibles, obituaries and other sources to help her," Audra said. "I told her that I would put it all in a format that could be shared with the family. She was very specific in what she wanted."
Audra never forgot her mother’s admonition, "This is for my family – it is personal."
Among her favorite childhood memories was enrolling at Marion Junction School and remaining there until her high school graduation in 1930.
Her descriptive recollection focused on a school with no cafeteria, requiring her and her friends to bring their lunch in a box or brown paper bag. It consisted of biscuits with fried chicken, ham or sausage, a baked sweet potato and a tea cake, apple or orange.
"Sometimes we would slip off and go to one of the stores to buy crackers and cheese, a dill pickle or an oil sausage, but it was against the rules. We ate outside under the trees or on the steps," she recalled.
Mattie Belle didn’t live long enough to enjoy one of her family’s most cherished moments when The Home Place was selected as an Alabama Century and Heritage Farm, but Audra and husband John were on hand to represent her.
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Emma Tubb Smith and Joseph E. Smith (Mattie Belle’s parents)
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The announcement was made last November at Central Alabama Farmers Co-op in Selma, signaling the admission of The Home Place into select company across the state.
The Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries has recognized nearly 600 farms under the Century and Heritage program and Dallas County had 11 farms on the list. Alabama has thousands of farms, so selection isn’t a given by those who try to apply.
Credit has to go to Audra, a born researcher who used her skills to check records needed for the application for inclusion as an Alabama Century and Heritage Farm.
The subject of applying for the coveted honor surfaced during lunch at the Elks Club in Selma one day and Audra took it from there.
"I love digging and spent days at courthouses where what we needed was available," she said. "What I needed were oral stories, dates, names and other details. I went back into generations of our family and made copies once I found them."
Applications for admission into the Century and Heritage club included a myriad of requirements including a list of structures over a 40 year period. They included houses, outhouses, windmills and silos.
Audra’s application included the family’s home that was built in 1911, a dairy barn, milk house and one-car garage built in the 1950s. Photos were also provided with the application.
The history of The Home Place covers a span of 104 years with the roof progressing from wooden shingles to tin to asbestos shingles and then back to tin. Generation after generation provided their share of improvements.
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Century and Heritage Farm Certification presentation for The Home Place. Pictured are (from left) Audra Adams Westbrook, fourth generation; John A. Westbrook, fifth; John J. Westbrook, sixth; John W. Westbrook, Audra’s husband; and Glenda Adams Brock, fourth.
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Neighbor Jimmy Holliman, former president of the Alabama Cattlemen’s Association and a prominent farmer in the state, suggested at that Elks Club lunch that the Westbrooks see about applying for inclusion.
Audra indicated she was unfamiliar with the Heritage program and when she contacted Amy Belcher of the state Department of Agriculture, she soon got a packet of information providing lots of details.
Selection standards were split between Century and Heritage farms. The requirements are relatively similar and the Westbrook application went into specific details to make sure their farm qualified.
During her research, Audra discovered that, in addition to row cropping at the farm, J.E. Smith also operated a small blacksmith shop on the place. He suffered a stroke and died in 1937.
The original property for The Home Place was purchased by Reuben Sanders and Sarah Elizabeth Tubb in 1902. John and Audra, along with their son, John, own and operate the farm today where they raise beef cattle.
In the past, the family has grown cotton and corn, and raised sheep, turkey and dairy cattle on the farm.
John became his wife’s biggest cheerleader as she spent countless hours researching records in Dallas and Perry counties.
"I knew what Audra was doing would be something relatives would value through the years because it would enable them to study factual history of the farm and not have to rely on hearsay," he said. "She spent up to five months doing the research before submitting the application."
Mattie Bell’s final memoir memories were as colorful as her first and pretty much summed up much of her golden times during the decades since her birth.
"Today in 2001, I still live in the family home built for my mother more than 90 years ago," she wrote. "How I wish she could see it now! Its looks have changed, but it will always be ‘home.’ To me, it is beautiful! I was born in the front bedroom (1912)."
She let future readers know that her birthplace – home to six generations of happy families – meant just about everything to her.
"Married in the living room (1936) and have never moved in my life," she wrote. "I hope that it will endure and that future generations will have as much pride in it as I do."
Mattie Belle Adams died of an apparent heart attack at her home on Aug. 10, 2002.
Alvin Benn is a freelance writer from Selma.