To slake your thirst as the afternoon wore on, you could draw water from the
well and drink from a dipper or pump it from a hand pump on a side porch and
drink from a glass-always a deeply stained, rust-colored glass. Sis Maude never
apologized for the color because it was a fact of life that there was "iron in
the water"-a heavy concentration of minerals, particularly iron salts, that
eventually left indelible stains on glassware.
Water like that at Sis Maude's-"impregnated with iron salts and said to have
healing qualities," as the dictionary puts it-is called chalybeate and springs
that possess it are called "chalybeate springs." Chalybeate springs could
contain other minerals, such as sulphur. John Motley Morehead, governor of North
Carolina 1841-1845, later went into real estate development in Morehead City. He
hyped the fledging village's "sea breezes and sea bathing; its good drinking
water and its fine chalybeate spring, strongly impregnated with sulphur, (that)
will make it a pleasant watering hole." Governor Morehead either had defective
olfactory nerves or a weird notion of "pleasant" if he fancied sulphur-laced
water, which smells like rotten eggs, as creating a "pleasant watering
place."
Some of you may have guessed by now where this talk of little chalybeate
springs is headed-to Harnett County, just a few miles from where it bumps
against Wake, and the small community called Chalybeate Springs on Highway 401,
so named, of course, because of the iron salts found in the water there. The
name is peculiar but not unique. There are Chalybeate Springs in Kentucky,
Alabama, South Carolina and even in New Jersey.
Chalybeate Springs Baptist Church, originally called Hector's Creek Baptist
Church, was founded by Archibald Neill Campbell, father of James Archibald
Campbell, who founded in 1887 what is now Campbell University. James Archibald
Campbell grew up in the Chalybeate Springs community, was baptized in the church
there and became a life-long friend of David Henry Senter, whose family was a
mainstay in that area.
David Henry Senter was a prosperous farmer and merchant, founded the Bank of
Lillington, published the Harnett County News and served in the North Carolina
General Assembly. He also is the grandfather of my friend, Meredith Stevens
Senter Jr., the prominent Washington, DC communications lawyer. My curiosity was
piqued a couple of years ago when Meredith told me that upon his father's death
in the late nineties, he had come into possession of Meredith Senior's five-year
diary, 1937-1941, which he kept faithfully from the time he was 10 until he was
15. His father had operated Senter Tractor in Raleigh from 1962 until his death,
when son Michael took over management of the company. Eventually, Meredith sent
me a copy of the diary.
To me, at least, it is a fascinating insight into the life of a rural,
eastern North Carolina farm family during that period. It reminds me of how
interdependent folks were before we all became so self-contained. Visiting back
and forth. Eating at each other's tables. Staying overnight. Quilting. Sharing
labor. Sitting with the sick. Mourning the dead.
Keeping journals is in vogue now, and writing instructors recommend it.
"First, write about what you know," students are told. As for me, that's about
all I know how to write about. Young Meredith did not pour out his emotions on
the pages of his small diary as I suspect some young people do today as they sit
in Borders, drinking designer coffees and scribbling. Instead, like Thomas
Jefferson, he chronicled events, but his devotion to his mother, his admiration
for his brother John Aaron, his love for his other siblings, his strong Baptist
upbringing and his work ethic, came through clearly.
I picked January 1, 1939, when Meredith Stevens Senter was just 11, to begin
reading because I noticed the handwriting was different. He had injured his hand
and his mother was making entries for him. It was January 9 before he could
write, and already there had been two funerals in this small community. The next
day Mr. Davis Harrington died from "head trouble." Death, illness, weather,
quilting, club and church meetings, play, the birth and purchase of animals,
tending and harvesting a tobacco crop-all were noteworthy for young
Meredith.
On January 16 it snowed and Meredith made snow cream for supper-a treat I
fancy made of fresh-fallen snow, vanilla flavoring, eggs and sugar. On January
19, expecting extended cold weather, the Senters killed hogs. The next day Mrs.
Senter, the former Ida Jeffress who gave her maiden name Jeffress to one of
Meredith's brothers, canned sausage. In the days following, Meredith's brother
John Aaron, later to be mayor of Lillington, was in and out. Brother Jeffress
and "Sister" (Virginia) were away at Wake Forest.
On February 2 the ground hog saw his shadow. Has he ever not seen his shadow?
On the third there was a community oyster supper and a play. My kind of evening.
Then on Saturday night, liquor started a fight down the road. The victim "had
papers taken out." Mrs. Senter entertained that week and "[s]he served three
kinds of fruit." On Valentine's Day, Meredith received 14 valentines.
Meredith noted his mother's activities religiously, but on February 15, he
mentioned his father for the first time. David Henry Senter, who had married
late and would turn 70 that year, apparently had business interests that
required that he be away. "Father home," Meredith simply noted. February 20,
"Roe's tryal tomorrow"-a reference to the fray.
March 4, "We boys played hide and seek, horse shoes and baseball. We are
going to have oysters for breakfast." Now that's something to write about. Ida
Senter went away to a church gathering, and Meredith had the responsibility of
locking the hen house each day-a duty he recorded as faithfully performed.
Mrs. Senter had an infected finger, and the doctor made several visits to the
house, finally removing a nail. "He's afraid she will have blood poisoning.
Having a lot of company. Mrs. Latta sat with Mother last night and kept her arm
wet." She improved. On March 27, Meredith observed that John Aaron and Vita Lee
"are going to marry soon." On Saturday, April 8, they married in the Baptist
Church in Dunn and headed south on a wedding trip, later sending cards from
Atlanta and New Orleans. On the 24th Meredith was promoted to the 7th grade.
Springtime, Meredith and John Aaron, who was twice his age, were plowing and
breaking land-a hard task for a young boy. On May 2, it rained, hailed and
snowed. "Such a time for May," he observed. May 8 there is a rare mention of
father. "Father had his necked dressed, doing nicely." No elaboration.
Frequent mentions of work related to the tobacco crop give insight into how
labor intensive tobacco farming was-sowing plant beds, setting out tobacco,
chopping tobacco, suckering tobacco, barning tobacco, curing tobacco, rebuilding
a tobacco barn that had burned. Meredith, going on 12, took on the hardest
task-working in the field "priming." In mid-May the strawberries were in.
"Mother preserved one gallon." On July 7 she made blackberry wine, for medicinal
purposes, I assume, or to soak the Christmas fruitcake. And on July 13 she
celebrated her 51st birthday. On July 18 she made tomato juice.
August 5. "Father wants to go to an old soldier's convention at Colorado."
Two days later, "We traded the '37 Chevrolet and got a '39 Dodge. It is
beautiful." Then on Thursday, August 19, "Father has gone to Colorado," I assume
in the shiny new '39 Dodge. Meredith dutifully recorded the arrival of post
cards from Asheville, Tennessee and Arkansas and a telegram and then noted that
his father's 70th birthday was August 24. I realized at that point that David
Henry Senter and I were both Virgos. Between you and me, I could picture him
then for the first time in my mind, driving alone down a narrow, two-lane
highway somewhere in the southwest-far, far from Chalybeate Springs-perfectly
content to commune with himself and to listen to the car radio, just as I do
when I head Down East. I can see him now reaching for the dial.