My Memories of Grandpa: Elijah Sherman Austin Sr., 10 Sep 1860 – 23 Jul 1961
10 March 2008 - 8:22:06pm

Written By: Shirley Austin Smith

Grandpa Austin was one of the most colorful people that ever existed. He was a very small man compared to today’s standards. He was 5’3” tall, with a halo of snow-white hair. His skin was the color of dark caramel. When he laughed his eyes crinkled up and everyone around him had to laugh with him. Grandpa was an old man when I was born. He was born September 10, 1860, in Jackson, OH. He said he didn’t know when his birthday was and he celebrated it in April and said he was born 10 years before he actually was. He lived in a small house, right beside our house with a fence separating the two yards. He had a dog which I now know was a Border Collie that he named Fritz. There were eight of us at home, ranging in age from 15 years to 2 years of age when he lived next door to us. In the summer months there were nine of us at home when my blind sister Charlotte would come home for the summer from the School for Blind in Columbus. As a child, I spent many a long summer afternoon talking to my Grandpa as he rocked in his cane bottom chair. Our houses were on Delano Road, five miles north of Chillicothe, next to the Norfolk and Western railroad tracks where Poppy worked.

I can still see him sitting under the apple tree in the front yard, listening to all of us sing gospel songs. He would smile and nod his head as we sang. Just when he really began to enjoy our singing, the devil would enter us and we would start singing at the top of our lungs and dancing around. “Mammy’s Little Baby likes shortin shortin, .Mammy’s little baby likes shortin bread.” Grandpa would jump up from his chair and say in a loud voice. “My patience, my patience, I’m going to tell your Pa, that’s the devil’s song.” Afterwards, with great dignity he would march into his house and lock the door. We would roll on the ground laughing and calling out “Grandpa come back, we won’t do it again.” He wouldn’t come back out until evening when Poppy and Mother were sitting outside. We didn’t dare tease him when they were home.

He always got a hunting license and never failed to vote. He was a republican, because of President Lincoln. He said he remembered when the Civil War ended and he truly might have since he would have been 5 years old. He also told us, he met Jessie James and saw a snake so long it took it 3 days to turn around. Of course, I believed everything he said. He insisted that he came up from Virginia when his parents came, but that was impossible because he was born in Ohio. He used to describe the trip in graphic detail, telling how they walked over the mountains and cooked beans in a little pot ‎(Connie has the pot now)‎ that could hold at most 2 cups of cooked beans. He used to speak to us in some African language and when we asked him what he said, he would just laugh and say “It’s for me to know and you to find out.” He described his parents to us. He said his father looked like a white man with blue eyes and light hair. He said his mother was very dark and that was why his skin color was dark caramel.

One time I came home from school when I was in the fourth grade and went over to Grandpa’s house to talk to him. I told him this elaborate tale about a girl in my class that didn’t have any arms or legs. Grandpa believed every word I told him about the girl. I told him how no one would help her but me and how I took her outside at recess and helped her get on the bus when it was time to go home. He felt so sorry for me that he gave me one of his treasured candy bars, a Clark bar. When my brother Enos told him I made the whole thing us, he told him to get away from his house and if I did make it up, it was a mighty good story.

My brothers, Bonfiles ‎(the Bapper)‎, Homer and Enos would torment my grandfather every day. If they were not teasing Fritz, they would wait until Grandpa went to the outhouse and then they would rock it back and forth, scaring him half to death. He always threatened to tell Poppy but he never did no matter what they did to him. He used to save all his wooden ice cream spoons and when he got constipated he used them to dig the stool out. He would stay in the outhouse for a couple of hours at a time, most of the time you could hear him singing and talking to the Lord, while he waited for his bowels to move.

He had many old interesting pieces of furniture in his house. He had a bed that looked just like a chest of drawers, but you pulled it down and it was a full sized bed. I believe it was called a Murphy Bed. He had a wooden tub washer with a wringer that you put the clothes in and turned the handle to wring the water out of them. Woven cane bottom chairs, huge brass kettles and a lot of other antique pieces. I used to help him with his washing and house cleaning, even though I was just a little girl around 10 or 11. He would always let me come into his house, when none of the other kids were allowed.

I had pneumonia in the third grade and he came over to our house, which he never did because we had steps and he said he could not climb them. He not only climbed the steps to see me, but he bought me oranges which was a real treat. I was too sick to eat them, but I always will remember what an effort it was for him to come see about me. His name for me was “Limberjack” because I could do all kinds of acrobatic feats and would do them for him. His favorite was when I did the back bend and walked all over the yard while he laughed and egged me on.

Poppy used to take him to the store and of course we always wanted to go. He would get in the back seat and spread his legs out so we couldn’t sit down. Every time Poppy would have to tell him to close his legs so we could get in the car. He never ate pork, but did eat a lot of candy bars and beef. He would take a candy bar wrap it in a slice of bread and eat it. He always put his beef in a pot of water and boiled it until it was tender. I could never eat that gray meat. To this day I find it hard to eat boiled beef.

Every Sunday, Grandpa’s 3 sons would come out to see him. Uncle Ray, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Hopi and their wives and children. All of my brothers and sisters who were not living at home would come on Sundays with their spouses and kids, The aunts would bring food and Mother would cook whatever we had in the garden. Grandpa would sit in his yard like a king on his throne and wait for everyone to come and pay their respects. He was the only one that would eat Aunt Nellie’s pies; they were always white and soggy on the bottom. She would bring a couple of them every Sunday. Whatever Grandpa didn’t eat, mother would put in the slop jar for the hogs. All of the adults would sit in the house and all of the children were run outside where we had to stay, The only thing we could do was entertain Grandpa with our crazy antics. One of our favorites was playing church. Bonfiles was the preacher and he had to baptize everyone of us and believe me that was a lot of baptizing. Uncle Ray and Aunt Maybelle usually had 4 with them. Uncle Hopi and Aunt Grace would bring 3 or 4 of the 12. Uncle Charlie and Aunt Nellie would bring all 6 of theirs. We always called Boni the bapper and after he preached us a good sermon, with us all giving him a lot of Amens and praise the Lords we were duly lined up and baptized. Boni did grow up to be a preacher and preached for many a year until he passed away in 2001.

I have so many memories of Grandpa that I can’t put them all on paper. He could read some and would read his bible out loud perhaps to see if any of it got our attention. He had some annoying habits that would make us want to scream. He wouldn’t allow us to ever take his mail out of the mailbox, or touch his newspaper; or use his outhouse. He had a nasty habit of expelling gas at the most inappropriate times and then he would laugh and say. “There’s more room out than there is in.” If we would ask him for something that he was eating he would let out gas and say “Takes that”. He had a really good apple tree in his front yard, but he would not let us pick the apples unless mother was outside with us. In fact, he would never let us in his yard unless mother or poppy was outside. I can’t say I blame him; we were not the most well behaved kids in the neighborhood.

I can remember clearly the day he moved into town with Uncle Hopi. I was 12 years old. It was a beautiful summer day and I stood there crying as everyone was helping load up the car with all his things that he wanted to take. Everyone was laughing and talking except me. He was my friend the person I could talk to about anything and I knew he would listen. As he was getting into the car, he called out. “Come see me Limberjack.” He did not invite anyone else. I know I was his favorite and that made me feel special.

The last time I saw him alive was in the summer of 1961. I went to Uncle Hopi’s house and took Phillip and Cherie with me to see their Great Grandfather. I didn’t think he would remember me, but when I walked into the house he looked up and his eyes lit up and he said. “Hello Limberjack, who you got there with you.” When I told him they were my children, he replied. “My patience, my patience, you’re still a baby, now you got babies.” Grandpa died about a month after that visit and in times of stress, I still think about him and wonder what he would say if I could talk to him.

Cornelius Austin
9 March 2008 - 10:59:38pm

In 1840, Cornelius ‎(Neil)‎ was living in rural Henrico County, Virginia, about thirty miles outside of Richmond as the head of a household. His mother may have been Betsy Austin, a free person of color living in the same area and appearing in the census records as early as 1820. Neil and Maria gave birth to five children before moving to Ohio sometime between 1841 and 1843. On April 10, 1843, Neil purchases forty acres of public land from the United States government in Jackson Township, Jackson County, south of Swiftsville, Ohio. After the move, they gave birth to Mansfield and Maria in 1843 and 1844. By 1846, Neil longer appears in the record and Maria marries John Bowman on September 8, 1846. Maria and John give birth to Jacob ‎(1847)‎ and Joshua ‎(1851)‎.