Morelock

Another of Kent's letters, this one from almost 16 years ago. I love the stories about TGP as a young boy, especially around the dining room table at the Hollys.
My favorite Hollys dining room table story, from the same era as this post, goes as follows:

There was company at the table and Kent and Donn and Hall told Polly that Vert had a story. Everyone got quiet and TPG told his story: "Do you know how to catch a polar bear? Cut a hole in the ice. Put peas all around the hole. When the bear comes up to take a pea, kick him in the ice hole"

Still a good joke 70 years later.

Kent Hollingsworth
November 16, 1993

Dear Wright:

Morelock, blind and bedridden for some 10 years, died Sunday at 91. Dorcas called and asked if we would share a floral spray. Oh, my yes. There would be a visitation Tuesday at Kerr Brothers Funeral Home on Main Street. We will get there as soon as I get out of class and return from Louisville.

With artificial coloring, she appeared rigid, stern, cold, lifeless-of course. The image I recalled so readily from more than a half-century ago was of a tall, strong, gentle woman whose beauty was in her smile, her warmth, her caring, her zest for life.

Morelock's sister Mary, 79, a nurse burdened all these years with supernumerary patients at home, laughed her sister's laugh in greeting us: "Vertrees called long distance, and we talked for 15 minutes, but I never did get to tell him that story she loved so..."

Vertrees had his second birthday in Morelock's house at The Hollys.

Father had that house (Ed note: Whitlock's house, not the Hollys pictured above [with 3 year old Vertrees on the back deck]) built on the Carrick Pike (now known as Stone Road) at the back of the farm. It was the standard Combs Lumber Co. tenant house: white clapboard frame, four small rooms on the first floor, unfinished second floor under a hip roof; it was heated by a coal stove in the living room, wood stove in the kitchen; no electricity, no plumbing, privy in the backyard; whole deal cost $2,500; well drilling and hand pump out back were extra.

Big Jim Whitlock, a born offensive lineman, had leased the farm for 13 years from Ted Bassett's grandmother before Father bought the 126 acres from her for $20,000 in 1939-$10,000 down, with the $10,000 balance to come, in Father's usual term, “60-90 days." In this instance, the period extended several years after the seller's death, driving Ted's mother to distraction trying to collect.

Father asked Mr. Whitlock to stay on and manage the operation for him, raise the tobacco and hay, help him stock the place with registered black Angus cattle, purebred Dorsett sheep, Duroc hogs, Plymouth Rock laying hens, Toggenburg goats, Silver pheasants, exotic white turkeys, and tumbling pigeons that would strut around the garden house roof and tumble off backward onto a startled peacock which screeched that the sky was falling.

Father agreed to build the house for Mr. Whitlock in the back pond field so he, his wife (Vertrees reduced Mr. Whitlock to "Lock" and when confronted with Mrs. Whitlock, designated her "Morelock"), and their 16-year-old son Jay (a Jim junior, he hardly could be called Little Jim because he was three inches taller than Big Jim, and a diminutive name just could not be fixed to a huge center, "The best basketball player I ever saw in Scott County," proclaimed Coach Adolph Rupp, who raised Herefords farther down the Carrick Pike) could live there.

The Whitlocks moved into the tenant house and Father started remodeling the main residence, the north wing of which was said to have been built in 1806, the main portion with the Greek Revival Doric pillars and portico added by Lexington builder John McMurty in 1845, when Dr. Wm. Addison Smith married Julia Coulter and got the land as a wedding gift from her father David.

During this remodeling, Father and Mother stayed in town at the Lafayette Hotel (now the Urban—County Government Building at Main and Martin Luther King Streets). Rather than drive back to Lexington for lunch, Father wondered if Morelock could cook lunch for us. Well, her dining room was too small to seat Big Jim, Jay, Father, Mother, baby Vertrees, and sundry siblings.

Father thought the new tenant house was too hot in the summer anyway, so he added a 15-foot screened-in back porch that ran the length of the house, incorporating the hand pump (which pleased Morelock, having access to pump water under roof). Wafted by soft summer breezes on the new porch, we enjoyed not just light lunches, but great, grand, immemorial noonday feasts prepared by Morelock.

You like custard pie? Three big ones came the next day, each quartered (Mother always cut eight skimpy slices out of a pie). You like pumpkin pie? Three big ones the next day, dozen slices, only 10 people on hand--how about a second piece? Biscuits were large and luscious, three inches in diameter, two inches high. Mother always had those silver-dollar sized biscuits, too hard to be opened by hand, too easy to crumble when pried by a knife. Morelock’s were hot, light, ready for her peach preserves-you better take two of those before they get cold. Mashed potatoes and cream gravy, homemade applesauce with cinnamon on top, three pork chops. Pass that bowl of string beans over to him. Who is ready for some more ears of corn? No wonder Big Jim Whitlock was big.

Then the smell from the kerosene lamps Mr. Whitlock read by got to Father. He had the house wired, overhead lighting put in every room, plus wall plugs. This pleased Morelock, who inveigled Mr. Whitlock into buying one of those new electric toasters

(Ed Note: Herself has always loved toasters. See the picture of the non-pop up, then the newfangled version that Morelock enjoyed)
that popped out toast before it burned-no more peering into the oven every so often. The new gadget had been invented by a guy named Genter in Minnesota, who died without suspecting his wife would win the Kentucky Derby with Unbridled.

When Mother and Father left, Vertrees and I got to spend the night at Morelock's house. She had a great brass bed upstairs with a feather mattress that enveloped us; one did not sleep on this mattress, but in it. On such nights, Morelock would sit in front of the coal stove, under the new light in the living room, with Vertrees in her lap and read to him. Vertrees liked one particular story - it was a nothing story, something about a cow in the barn asking how the weather was out there, and the horse says it's too cold, the sheep says it's too hot, the chick-chick says somebody could drown out there, while the duck says it's just Great - and Morelock had to read and reread this same dumb story to him every night.

When Mother and Father returned, Vertrees and I went back to our regular beds and meals. We all gathered around the long dining room table and talked to rather than with each other. Father wants to tell about the big oil deal he made in Indiana, Dorcas tries to find out how she and the other cheerleaders are going to get to the next game, Mother wants to explain something about Robert Sherwood’s new play, while Donn and Hall are arguing over who is going to get the station wagon to drive to town. Under this babble, Vertrees-he‘s about three-stares at his plate and mumbles to himself. Mother notices. What is he saying, Denzil? Father leans close to Vertrees; he cannot make it out. Hold it. Hold it! Everybody quiet down. Now, son, what were you saying?

With head down, Vertrees continues to read his plate, reciting a narrative I recognized, about a cow in a barn asking about the weather. He had the thing down verbatim, even with pauses where Morelock turned the pages. When he got to the cat‘s final line, "So you see, all people do not like the same kind of weather my—dear," he raised his head, grinning in triumph to a stunned audience. The Bible notwithstanding, Mother pronounced it the Greatest Story Ever Told. Could Vertrees do that again? He nodded, and proceeded to read it right off his plate, exactly as before my—dear. Later he took to memorizing lines from Carousel and married Alice.


When the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor, Jay immediately enlisted in the Marines, Mr. Whitlock took a job guarding the ammo dump at Richmond, Ky., and Morelock was left alone. I visited her a lot, read in her saved copies of the Ladies Home Journal Daphne du Maurier's serialized Frenchman's Creek in one afternoon’s sitting in the privy. Then Hall was inducted right out of U High and was shipped overseas for the Normandy invasion. Donn housed the tobacco and enlisted to become a drill sergeant. Dorcas went off to Sophie Newcombe College in New Orleans. Father was gone most of the time, reopening a coal mine near London, Ky., and putting down some shallow oil wells around Albany, Ky. So nobody was left to milk the cows and clean the chicken houses, except Vertrees and me. Morelock closed her house and moved over with us. This permitted Mother to travel with Father more often, leaving us in Morelock's loving care.

Travel was rare with gas rationing. Everybody who owned a car initially was entitled to an "A" sticker and four gallons a week, good for about 60 miles. Because he was an oil producer "related to the war effort," Father was entitled to a "C" sticker and all the gas he needed for the 1942 Studebaker he was stuck with for the duration. When I was 15, Father averred I was a year older so I could get a driver's license, and drive myself to U High, saving a gallon a day. I had a trucker‘s "T" sticker for our 1942 Chevy pickup and enough gas for seven trips a week to town; two-a-day meant one less trip on the weekend.

Andy Deiss and I happened upon two of the 3,300 tickets for the UK—Cincinnati basketball game in old Alumni Gym. This required two quick trips, hurrying home from school after our basketball practice to milk the cows, then hustling back to meet Andy at 7:30 in front of Alumni Gym. Snow began swirling when I dashed from the shower at U High, but it was not sticking and of no consequence, really, for the tread still showed on the pre-war tires, and I had the confidence of Eddie Rickenbacker at the wheel of that racy pickup.

But I had no weight in the back, and slipped a bit wide around the elbow at the old Cool Meadow Airport (now Fasig-Tipton Sales). I had to flip the wheel this way, then that, then this way, and sped on-—can I handle this snow, or what? The 35-mile—per—hour Victory speed limit was not in effect on the Newtown Pike, not for Toad, Master of the Road, 40, 45, 50, 55, SIXTY. Go Big Blue—-here I come!

Slashing through the blizzard, past what is now Walter Zent‘s farm, then C.M. Boone's place, where there is a slight left bend and an exhilarating bump, that old Chevy took flight. We landed in the righthand ditch, and hurtled down the fence line, taking out a row of hackberry saplings Chuck Schmidt never missed when he bought that frontage 35 years later.

The pilot was ejected through the windshield and did not regain consciousness until after some very nice people who lived in New Zion took him the rest of the way home. I awoke on the front hall floor as Morelock was protesting Mother's trying to pour a hot toddy through my blood-caked lips. My rescuer had reported that I had pert near froze to death lying in the road there so long, and recommended that I be given some inside heat. Morelock said that liquor would get all the blood flowing again. Mother asked no one in particular if an ambulance ever would come. It would not. A train wreck in Lexington blocked traffic on Georgetown, Third, and Fourth Streets, causing the ambulance driver to give up hope of ever making it out the Newtown Pike; he took another call.

Father was in New Orleans at the Fairgrounds with Kendor and the Studebaker. I had totally destroyed our only other means of transportation. Mother called Howard Evans at Winton, where Dr. Bill McGee now lives, and he warmed up his gold Desoto and drove to The Hollys. Morelock and Mr. Evans carried me down the icy front steps and muscled me into the backseat.

We started back to town. Police stopped us at the scene of a terrible wreck, a smashed pickup truck lying on its side and blocking most of the road. Mr. Evans advised the officer that we had to get by, taking a sick boy to the hospital in Lexington. The patrolman sniffed. You people been drinking? Mr. Evans was indignant: Absolutely not! A wrecker pulled up, ready to winch the junk out of the road, and the patrolmen waved us on, out of the way.

Mr. Evans had an unusual mannerism to, indicate his amusement. Without dislodging his omnipresent cigarette, he would hiss twice, and his eyes would twinkle. As he drove toward Lexington, Mr. Evans hee-heed, "Well, Polly, you almost got your boy to town in a paddy wagon, on a DUI charge".

The funeral parlor was filled with people Missy and I did not know. Is Jay here? He had returned from the South Pacific heavier, older, and with a different agenda. He was not interested in going to college and putting up with Coach Rupp's caustic comments. He had a beer, got a job as a fireman, played cards at the stationhouse, on—three off—two, played basketball with Dean's Wreckers, a nationally ranked AAU team, and played semi—pro baseball. He had lost a stride, but none of his athletic grace; and he played shortstop on the local pickup team chosen as foils when Bob Feller’s Major League All Stars toured through Baseball Commissioner Happy Chandler's town after the war.

I had not seen Jay for more than 20 years. I read that he: had been seriously injured when a car rammed into the ladder—extension trailer Jay was steering, but I was not permitted to visit him in intensive care after plastic surgeons put him back together. I did not recognize him at Kerr's, until he grinned. He rose slowly from a chair. His left; leg was bowed and he was five inches shorter, but his big meat hand was strong and warm as ever.

Jay, Mary asked, what was-that story your Mother always liked to tell about Vertrees? Lot of 'em. I mean about feeding his kitten? Oh, the one about his using Mrs. Hollingsworth's finest china. Yes, that's it. Mary laughed and turned to us “Your father had some very important investors down here for the Kentucky Derby and he was trying to sell them some horses or something, and your Mother was serving dessert in these very special little bowls, and Vertrees--he was very little and never said much- pulled on this man's arm and said, "You know you're eating out of my cat's dish." And Jay grinned, and Mary laughed Morelock's laugh.

It happened so long ago, people and things so important to me, yet almost forgotten, so I thought I would set it down, lest you miss knowing of an earlier era that bore on yours.

You have all our love,
Father (Kent)

Mr. Wright Hollingsworth
921 Stephens Avenue
Missoula, Montana 59801

Copy to Uncle Vertrees, and around

I asked TGP what the name of that story was yesterday. Here is his response:
That is a story I used to tell visitors at The Hollys when I was 4, during the war. I have no idea as to its origin, but it was a long shaggy dog tale. that your grandmother loved to repeat as an example of her youngest's brilliance. I remember Father saying "don't let the boy start that silly thing again" when we were driving somewhere. I would stand on the transmission hump in the back of the car and regale them with stories while leaning over their back seat. No wonder they have seat belts now. I think it was the expansion and extensiveness of the number of animals brought into the story that would get to Father.

Eclipse Place Cattle Roundup

This story is over 15 years old, but it still makes me smile. The Hollys is pictured in earlier stories. Cousin Tish has movies of Eclipse Place during the move in described below; the kitchen floor was dirt on that first day. And as those of us that spent the night on the farm will recall, that sulfur water smell was much more persistent that Uncle Kent's story would imply.

KENT HOLLINGSWORTH
ATTORNEY AT LAW

June 13, 1994

Dear Val and family:

Have at hand your April recollection of cattle roundups at Eclipse Place
and the want of real cowhands. Apparently, this was occasioned by Tish's letter indicating she was excited about a man who fools with cattle.
(Ed Note: Uncle Kent means Steve)

Quite possibly you and I have the most vivid memories of separating our Black Angus from the Rawdons' by affixing chain tags in the upper barn, because the girls were too young to participate in a material way.

In 1962, we were city dwellers with a pretend farm on the side--Dorcas and Jeff's 50 acres at the end of the blacktop on Beacon Hill Road—where our first horse, Aristides, grazed with the colossal Calico.

In our tiny city house, we were cramped. When we built it in 1956, it was adequate, 700 square feet on the first floor, with two bedrooms and a bath upstairs. In 1957 Randolph arrived, requiring that you and she share a 10x12 bedroom, which was do-able. In 1961, however, Amery's crib and the twin beds left precious little floor space for maneuver.

Then, too, we were making up things for you to do. We signed up for Little League baseball, Cub Scouts, choir; we made you walk all the way home, 2.2 miles, from University School with Randal--contrived devices to keep city children busy and away from pioneer television.
Hey, we have to get out of town! We have to move to the country where there are some real things to do, where our children can grow up learning the value of physical endeavor. We need to teach them, show them how to work, let them realize monetary gain from work commensurate with the quality of work devoted to a project. We needed more space, physically and mentally.

In the spring of 1963, Dorcas and Jeff sold their town- farm and moved to The Hollys. Mother and Father gave Dorcas the house and yard outright; for the rest of the farm, Jeff paid off the $20,000 mortgage and agreed to give the tobacco income to Mother and Father for their lives. Father then had no place to graze his Black Angus.

In June of 1963, Tish arrived; but there was no room for her. We had to build a wing on the tiny house in town, or move to a big old house in the country. Dick Compton showed us several farms in Scott County, but none of them would do. Talked with Joe Mainous and his sapient partner, Dan Midkiff, who had been in the business of trading horses and farms for more than a half-century.

Mr. Midkiff said he thought Floyd Clay might be ready to trade a little farm above Georgetown he had traded Francis MacKenzie for a year earlier. Francis was the farm manager at Castleton Farm and had fixed up his farm, just a little bit, with plank fence and a few sheds as a quarantine farm for saddlebred mares shipped in to breed to Castleton stallions.

Floyd Clay was the oddball grandson of Cassius M. Clay, known as the Lion of White Hall because he was a sturdy 6-foot-3 and roared a lot; he also was undefeated as a Bowie -knife fighter; further, he was rich, and an abolitionist, all of which set him apart from the Madison County set. During the Civil War, President Lincoln appointed Cassius Clay ambassador to Russia--where he met the ballerina who became Floyd's grandmother.

Anyway, Floyd Clay (the Clay of Clay-Wachs Stockyards) liked to trade as much as Mr. Midkiff did: "Now Floyd," Mr. Midkiff began the negotiations on my behalf, "this young man here has been trained in the law, but he doesn't know much about trading farms, so I've come along to settle things, like--now, Floyd, we'd appreciate your leaving the light bulbs in the barns; and I'm hoping you'll not take the gates with you just because they're not fixed to the land the way the gate posts are..."

"But now Dan, I'm atakin' them sheep racks in the upper barn because Ben Ford bought them off the warehouse floor to feed our sheep we're raising on shares, and... I don't believe the young man will need them gates, because he's never said nothin' about havin' any stock..."

This went on a hour or so, Mr. Midkiff smiling, Mr. Clay frowning, my not saying anything, until it was agreed that Mr. Clay would take our little house in town valued at $20,000, we would take the 67 acres in Scott County valued at $1,000 an acre, we would assume Mr. Clay's $20,000 mortgage on the farm with Equitable, Mr. Clay would take a $25,000 second mortgage on the farm payable by us in five years, and then came the tricky part--Mr. Midkiff demanded $2,000 to boot. Mr. Clay wrote out a check and handed it to me without a word.

In reviewing this terribly informal "closing", it seemed to me that I owed Mr. Clay $2,000, rather than the other way around, but Mr. Midkiff shook his head. He said Floyd Clay wrote out the check quickly because he figured he was getting the best of it, making off with those sheep racks, and fully intending to steal all the tobacco sticks, which were never mentioned. Mr. Midkiff grinned, said it was a good trade, both sides confident they had beaten the other out of something.

So, on October 15, 1963, we unloaded all our furniture from 1,050 square feet of 1 1/2 floors in town, and we lost it in the expanse of 4,200 square feet plus portico in the country; came to one chair, or one table, per room. On that very same day, however, Uncle Hall, Aunt Becky, Bryan, Leigh, and Berkeley arrived from Florida with two truckloads of furniture. That filled the house. Then Father shipped over his Black Angus and they filled the fields.

Saw Francis MacKenzie at a Farm Managers Club meeting and he said he had heard I had taken up his old place above Georgetown. Good water, he said. Used to be a dairy farm, had to have constant water, you know, for dairy cows. Back in 1934, that dry spell? The dug well commenced to going dry, you know, so they had to drill for water. The dug well goes down 45 feet, you know. They drilled right next to it, went down 97 feet as I recall, put the pump on the drilled well. If you mind the sulfur—only taste it every now and then—why all you have to do is switch that pump over to the old dug well, which aerates that sulfur outta there. Good farm. Not much border fencing though.

That last casual comment was critically true. We could not keep Father's cattle in, and we could not keep the Rawdons' cattle out, because of all the breaks in and tramp-downs of the rusty wire that may have been a serviceable border fence 40 years earlier.

In August of 1960, we all went down to Kentucky Lake
where Ralph Broadbent put up a raucous bunch from Yale and Scott County due in the area for the marriage of his daughter Alice to a guy named Vertrees, Vuttree—how'd anybody come on a name like that? Mr. Broadbent was very close—-by a nose, surely no farther back than a head margin --to being as fine a man you would ever want to meet.

By and by, Vertrees and Alice were out of med school, into the Navy, having Eben and Sophia, and thinking about getting out of the Navy to stamp out disease in Scott County. At the same time, grandfather Broadbent was having some heart problems, and began thinking about selling his farms in Western Kentucky, and relocating his insurance office in Lexington, where he and grandmother (Ed Note: Bebe) would be closer to the grandchildren.

So one hot day in 1965, the nicest person in the world was in the neighborhood, checking out kindly old Doctor Ken Brown, and he turned up the driveway at Eclipse Place just to say hello. He arrived amid tumult. Little children (Tish was two, Amery four) were jumping up-and-down on the second-floor porch and screaming about something; Randolph came running from her piano, slamming the hall door; Val and I collided trying to get out of the library door; your mother came out of the kitchen to greet the visitor; everybody was shouting now--They're loose! They're heading up this way from the creek! Grandfather's are over there!

What? Where? What!! Can I help? asks the wide-eyed greatest guy of all time. He takes off his hat and puts that on the seat of his car; he figures he does not have time to take off his coat or loosen his tie, because everybody else is running off somewhere. What can I do?

Why, hi there Ralph, good to see you. Oh, nothing much going on here. Just that the Rawdons have moved their wild black cattle down from their hill farms to their farm next door here, and they've run through the fence again. We'd like to keep them separated from Father's cattle. Which is no big deal: all we have to do is drive Father's cattle into the upper barn, close the door on them, then whoop-and-holler the wild ones back through the hole in the fence.

Ralph nodded, keeping to himself reservations about the ease with which the bunch of cattle that was stampeding by the yard fence—kicking, snorting, making loud noises--how this wild bunch could be kept separate from the mild bunch. They all were black.

Dammit! Who left that gate open? Alerted by the question, the Rawdon cattle veered, spotted the opening, and galloped into the barn field. There, Father's cattle casually lifted their heads to see what the commotion was about; uncomprehending who, what, or why, they became terrified. They turned and ran. Slowly. The Rawdon cattle dashed through them, caught them up in the excitement of the chase, and a massed bunch of some 40 black cattle raced around the barn field.

Boy, they all look wild now, hard to tell ours from theirs. Ralph nodded. Val said Grandfather's cattle all had neck chains and number tags. Randolph pointed out that several heifers had yellow paint on them. Val explained that meant they were stockyard cattle and must belong to the Rawdons, because Grandfather had bred all his. Ralph noted that distinction, but wondered about those with red ear tags. Val said they must be Grandfather's, because nobody in the world could have caught any of the Rawdon cattle and held them long enough to get a tag through an ear. Ralph nodded.

Let's just let them run around for a while, play themselves out. Then we'll drive them slowly by the upper barn there: Val, you and Randolph step in there, raise your arms, give them a little hoya-hoya, and cut out Grandfather's cattle. Ralph, you just stand there at the barn door; we don't want you to be running around with a bad heart. Ralph nodded. When Val and Randolph cut out Grandfather's, you just roll that big door back, then slam it close when Grandfather's cattle mosey into the barn. Okay?

Well, we circled that barnfield about 88 times, mostly jogging, stumbling a lot, shouting at cattle, Randolph, and Ralph—Open it! Now! Not Now! Close it! Aw, you let him get away...There's one, red tag! Aw...Amery and Tish, sitting on the fence, giggled from time to time.

After about an hour of running and shouting, we finally got them separated. The Rawdon cattle slowed to a walk, but they were ready to break for another run around the field if anybody made any sudden moves. Well, let's just look in the barn and count what we have in there--supposed to have 19.

Ralph rolled back the big old door one more time. We all peered in. The barn was empty. The door at the far end of the barn was open. Val walked through the barn, shaded his eyes from the hot sun as he scanned the horizon. There they are, Val reported, they must have tramped down the fence in the back field, because they're all over at the Rawdons' now.

Ralph nodded. Dust, moistened by sweat, streaked his face. Scampering cattle coming off fresh grass had splattered his shirt and trousers with green glob. Early on he had removed his coat and tie; he retrieved these relatively clean items from the fence, neatly folded them over a filthy arm, and said he guessed he'd be going now.

Ah, life down on the farm. But that was long ago. Now Missy still is in France, working on stories for the Thoroughbred Times and Town & Country. Uncle Donn called, invited me to Hopewell Church, where yesterday he performed the "laying on of hands" and formally ordained both Randal and Jay as Church Elders.

Holly was there, said she had been talking to Guy Graves recently about the famous trip to Saratoga for Heather Whitney's party. She related how you and she drove up in the blue mirage that was your Merce sports coupe, carrying the French edition of The Blood-Horse, and were stopped by a flashing blue light.

Where you going so fast? Saratoga. Of course. Who's the cute thing there you're taking across state lines? My cousin. Right. She over 21? Not yet. Oke Kay. What else you got? Some French magazines. Right. What are you going to do with them? Take them to the race track for promotional distribution. Okay buddy, how about stepping out here so we can sort this thing out...