Literature
Memories of James Onman Davis, My Grandfather
September, 2003
I always felt like I was his favorite because I was named after him. Actually, there was more. Onman was a tall slender man and I looked more like him than any of the others. I was sure I had more of his genes because I had inherited his explosive temper and his pectus excavatum, which mother also had. She told me that Onman never realized that his chest was abnormal because his generation of folk did not remove shirts even when working the hot fields.
I got my middle name "Davis", (which I disliked about as much as the pectus) from him, and even Onman preferred to call me James. It took me 20 years to settle down on a solid name, "Jim", after passing through "James, Davis, and Doodle". Eventually, I shook the explosive temper.
Onman was a farmer, and he and grandmother owned a 130 Acre farm. Every Sunday we drove to the farm for a large noontime Sunday "Dinner". Grandmother was the best cook in the entire world, and she made a coconut cake that men would kill for. The kids and our friends, who often went with us, explored the hills and woods, dammed the creeks, played in the hay loft, and got lessons in hunting and shooting.
Onman’s first wife, Mattie Tillet, had died of pleurisy when mother was four years old. Later he married Mattie Jenkins, a spinster who owned the farm near Normandy, Tennessee and moved in with her. We know very little about his life with his first wife except that they lived half way between Shelbyville and Tullahoma, near the church where many of the Tillets are buried.
Onman was a skilful farmer, and he introduced advanced farming methods, such as crop rotation and contour plowing that greatly improved his crop production. He added many improvements to the farm, such as indoor toilets, electrical pumps for the wells, new wings to the home and outbuildings. He added honeybees to the farm, providing additional revenue and a never ending supply of honey. He convinced the county to build a grammar school on land that he donated. (The school operated until the mid 1940's).
During World War II, both the U.S. Army and Air Force had bases in Tullahoma. The Army base, Camp Forrest, also served as a prison camp for German prisoners of war. Onman worked as a prison guard at Camp Forrest and often brought prisoners to work on the farm. I had heard such horrible tales about Germans that I was terrified to learn that there were three of them walking up the road with Grand daddy. I immediately ran to Grand Mother and never left her side the entire day.
The Germans were apparently thankful to have the freedom and to actually be paid to work. Some of them were excellent craftsmen and they presented him various crafts, including two woodcarvings of flowers. On the back of these carvings, which my son Jim now owns, are written in German, "In memory of prisoners of war". They also presented him with a silver ring with the initials JOD carved, which he gave to me, unfortunately, when I was too young to appreciate it. I lost it many years ago.
During the summers my brothers and I often worked with Onman for a dollar a day doing about the hardest work I can remember in my life. We followed along behind his mule drawn plow, picking up potatoes. We pulled yellow dog fennel from the pastures, stacked hay, and cut firewood. The worst job I ever did was holding down sheep while one of the helpers cut off his balls with a pocket knife. I learned a lot from Onman, who went out of his way to teach me things. But he never explained why anyone would want to cut off a sheeps balls. Apparently, the helper’s pay was the sheep’s balls, and I heard one of them say "They’s good eatin".
In the winter visits we spent many hours sitting around a warm crackling fire, roasting corn and potatoes in the coals. Granddaddy’s and Grandmother’s rocking chairs sat in front of the fireplace and they became part of our play. On the mantel above the fireplace sat a grandfather clock that housed a set of rattle snake rattlers that Onman would remove and rattle for us. This was the clock he used to quiz me when I was learning to tell time, and winding, watching the pendulum, and listening was part of the ritual.
Onman was an industrious individual, always devising new ways to improve the farm and create additional resources. One of his side industries was honey production. He had what amounted to a small honey factory on the farm with beehives and all the equipment needed to extract and can honey. In the process of canning the honey one of the problems was preventing the honey from crystallizing into sugar. While looking for better ways to do this he discovered a process in which the honey would turn into a creamy candy, and candied honey became one of his biggest sellers. I rarely see this delicacy in stores even today. When the weather was nice on Saturdays he would sell honey from the trunk of his 47 Oldsmobile on the Shelbyville town square. Sometimes he would visit us for lunch. Mother was always so happy to see him and she always had ice cream (or simply "cream", to him) for dessert, his favorite dish. That made his visit even more exciting to me. Near the end of every meal, without fail, he would come forth with a long gurgling burp that seemed to go on for minutes. All of we children had been taught that this was a no-no, but not for granddaddy. We came to recognize this as simply something that is okay for Granddaddy. I remember this fondly more than any other part of the meal... except maybe the part when the "cream" was served.
One Sunday afternoon when I was about 12 years old, I was attending a Boy Scout outing with Mother and Daddy at Northern Field in Tullahoma when we were interrupted by an ominous appearance of Wallace Cartwright (now a brother in law). He told us of an emergency at Granddaddy’s farm and that we should come with them. We followed them towards the farm. About half way there mother insisted on stopping him to find out more details. She asked Wally if it was her mother or father. He responded that it was her father. "How bad is it?", she asked.
"Very bad", was his response with tear filled eyes. She knew not to press him further. She knew that she was soon going to experience something horrible. We arrived at the farm about 10 minutes later. Wallace took me away from the house towards the barn, while Mother and Daddy went to the house. As they arrived at the house I could hear mother screaming. Granddaddy had been found lying on the ground in the back yard with most of his face blown away by the blast of a 12 gauge shot gun.
The death was ruled "self inflicted", which meant to some people that he had committed suicide. Those of us who knew him had little doubt that his death was accidental. He died beneath three electrical high-wires that carried power from the house to a smoke house. Small bits of flesh from his face remained, draped over the wires and could be seen for years before eventually drying and blowing away with the wind.
About 15 years later, Grandmother asked me if I would like to have the shotgun that killed him, since she still perceived me as closest to him. I accepted the weapon and stood it in the corner of my study. The weapon is a double-barreled, twelve gauge shotgun with hand-cocked hammers. One of the hammers was missing. Perry and I discussed taking it out and firing it, but decided to run a few tests on it first to assess its condition and safeness. During the tests we made a horrifying discovery. Perry cocked the remaining hammer and held the gun up and slapped the butt with his other hand. To our horror the hammer spontaneously fired. We discovered that the gun was extremely dangerous, and unstable. All Onman would have had to do would be to stumble and hit the butt and it would have fired accidentally. We looked at each other in horror realizing that we had just discovered how he had most probably died.
A few months later as I worked late in my study and fell asleep in my chair, I dreamed about Onman and woke feeling the presence of the shotgun. The feeling was extremely depressing and left me sleepless for hours. In the weeks that followed that night’ the feeling returned over and over every time I passed the study. I began to avoid entering the study and eventually developed a deep dread when coming near where the shot gun stood. I knew the feeling was all psychological, but the knowledge helped little. Eventually, I asked mother if she would keep the weapon, since its presence in my house had become troubling. She took it and told me she would keep it for me until I wanted it back.
Perry, being a gun collector asked if he could have it and I agreed. I never had any desire to have it again.
What I did choose, however, when the time came, was the grandfather clock and the two rocking chairs that now sit in front of my fireplace. When it came down to choosing between all the antiques and heirlooms there was never a question in my own mind about what I wanted most.