Cleffie's Memoirs

While my parents were researching their family histories, my grandmother (my mom's mother) wrote out some of her memories to be included in the records. PHOTO: Cleffie Hicks Burford writing her memoirs.

These became part of my book The Woods is Full of 'Em, which includes information about the relatives and ancestors in the Hicks, Arnold, and Carter branches of the family tree, along with some other families closely associated with ours.

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The Night I Was Born

  I have heard my mother tell about the incidents surrounding my birth on August 8, 1917.  I was born about two o’clock that morning.      

  It was during “World War One” and my father had been notified that he must come to Heber Springs and take his examination for the military service, along with a lot of other men, of course.  We lived at Banner, and it was twenty-five miles to Heber Springs.  Papa walked every step of the way there and back.  He was gone three or four days at least.          

  He was really dreading the examination and was hoping he wouldn’t pass it.  In fact, he was hoping so much that he wouldn’t pass that he drank several cups of coffee -- “strong coffee” -- just before time for it.  I guess that did the trick because he didn’t pass the exam.  He said his heart was really pounding and acting up from the coffee.  He had a weak heart anyway and that just made it show up.            

  He arrived home around midnight on the aforementioned night, so tired he was almost dead on his feet.  Mama knew I was going to arrive that night, too, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him right at that time.  She wanted him to get a little sleep and rest first.  He did go to sleep for maybe a couple of hours.  But it wasn’t very long till she had to get him up to go tell the mid-wife to come, and then go for the doctor.  He rode a horse this time because he knew he was coming back.  It was fifteen miles to the doctor, who lived at Jamestown.  He was the nearest doctor there was in that part of the country.  Sometimes after a big rain the creek would rise so much it would be impossible to get across but I guess it wasn’t up this time because they made it.  However, it took them a little too long and I beat them there.  The mid-wife had delivered me and I was there to greet them when they came in.          

  My mother had waited too long to send for the doctor and, really, as it turned out, she didn’t need him.  But I’m sure she felt better that he came anyway.          

  Mrs. Tamsett was the midwife.  She was Aunt Jessie’s mother.  Also Aunt Amy’s mother.

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PHOTO: Cleffie Hicks, 11 days old

PHOTO: Midwife Sarah Tamsett

PHOTO: Amy Tamsett, daughter of Sarah Tamsett. She married Cleffie's great-uncle John Carter.

Sarah Tamsett's daughter Jessie married Cleffie's uncle, George Arnold.

PHOTO: George Arnold and Jessie Tamsett.

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Spoiler alert -- Another one of the Tamsetts, Sarah's sister-in-law, married into the Hicks side of the family. But that's another story for another day.