Grandpa Was a Cotton Farmer

 Grandpa Was a Cotton Farmer

John Prine wrote this song, and the lyrics will be familiar to many people who loved his Dylan-esque rewriting of Great Bob’s unsurpassed  contribution to American folk poetry and to Rock and Roll, but Prine wrote the same kind of imaginative lyrics adapted to the character of traditional county-and-western folk music. And he was a master of this kind of lyric, as in a song called “Grandpa”:

Grandpa was a carpenter, he built houses stores and banks

Chain-smoked Camel cigarettes and hammered nails in planks

He was level on the level and shaved even every door

And voted for Eisenhower 'cause Lincoln won the war

John Prine at MerieFest, 2006

What I did, several years ago, was to take Prine’s lyric and adapt it to my own circumstances, to my own grandfather, a cotton farmer and hard worker who never owned an acre of land but rented all his life. Here is Prine’s song, “Grandpa Was a Carpenter”:

Oh, grandpa wore his suit to dinner nearly every day

No particular reason, he just dressed that way

Brown necktie with a matching vest and both his wingtip [C]shoes

He built a closet on [G]our back porch and put a [D]penny in a burned-out [G]fuse

[C]Grandpa was a carpenter, he built houses, stores and [G] banks

[C]Chain-smoked Camel [G]cigarettes and hammered nails in [D] planks

He would [G]level on the level, he shaved even every [C]d oor

And voted for Eisen[G] hower, 'cause [D ]Lincoln won the [G] war

[G]Well, he used to sing me "Blood on the Saddle" and rock me on his [C]knee

And let me listen to the [G]radio before we got TV [D]

Well, he'd [G] drive to church on Sunday and he'd take me with him [C] too

Stained glass in every [G]window, hearing [D] aids in every [G] pew

[G]Well, my Grandma was a teacher, she went to school in Bowling [C]Green

Traded in a [G]milking cow for a Singer sewing ma[D]chine

Well, she [G]called her husband "Mister," and she walked real tall in [C]pride

She used to buy me [G]comic books [D]after grandpa [G]died

The song is written in the key of G and sticks to the familiar chord sequence: C-G-D with no variation, only the country inflections of Prine’s haunting and magical voice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Prine

“Grandpa was a Carpenter” by John Prine appears on his third studio album, ‘Sweet Revenge’ – 1973. It’s a story song, told in the first person. It’s a sweet memory of his grandfather and grandmother.

Grandpa wore his suit to dinner nearly every day

No particular reason, he just dressed that way

Brown necktie and a matching vest and both his wingtip shoes

He built a closet on our back porch and put a penny in a burned-out fuse

Here is my version of this song, borrowing key motifs from Prine’s song, but with variations fitting the words to my own Grandpa, Thomas Franklin Pounds--born Missouri 1891, died Chandler Oklahoma in 1966 at the golden old age of seventy-five.

GRANDPA WAS A FIDDLER

with a nod to John Prine

Grandpa was an orphan, 

mother died when he was ten,

The farmin families all around 

took the four youngest in.

Grandpa was the oldest, 

took the other three out to work;

That was the start of his farmin life 

in that Lincoln County dirt.

Grandpa was a fiddler 

but I never heard him play,

Played for country dances 

way out Merrick way;

Rolled his own Prince Albert smokes, 

a hard workin man and poor,

Voted for Eisenhower cause Lincoln won the war.

After they got married, 

Grandma made him quit that fiddle;

She didn't want him dancin jigs

with the children so little.

He'd take them all to Sunday school, 

whether near or far,

Taught the adult Bible class 

and led the singin in the choir.

Grandpa had a pair of mules, 

their names were Ben and Pete,

Finest mules in fifty miles, 

never had been beat.

When the county crew was buildin road 

         and couldn’t pull out a stump

Ben and Pete walked off with that thing 

       and  left the county boys standin dumb.

Grandma came out west by train, 

      all the way from ol' Kentuck;

They missed the train they were supposed to be on 

      When Uncle Henry got off and got drunk;

But that train derailed and fell in the river 

and most of those people died;

Just goes to show a little whiskey's okay 

as long as God is on your side.

Grandpa was a fiddler, but I never heard him play,

Played for country dances 

way out Merrick way;

Never owned an acre of land 

a hard workin man and poor,

Voted for Eisenhower cause Lincoln won the war.

The major change I made in the lyric was making the setting the abandoned but never forgotten town of Merrick in Lincoln County, where my Grandpa in his teens was a hanger on and fiddle player. In the photo below, Daddy stands by the sign:

 

 

Archie Pounds in Merrick, 1993

All that the curious reader is likely to discover about Merrick is written on the above sign:

Merrick, 1893-1944, the first date coming one year after Grandpa was born. 

Google and the internet never heard of Merrick, but in the Pounds family it reckons large as the place where as a young man Thomas Pounds played the fiddle for country dances, before he got married and his wife made him put the fiddle away--afraid the drinking that went with the fiddling would endanger her babies. The pertinent verse above reads:

After they got married, 

Grandma made him quit that fiddle;

She didn't want him dancin jigs

with the children so little.

He'd take them all to Sunday school, 

whether near or far,

Taught the adult Bible class 

and led the singin in the choir.

And that’s the whole story: Dear John, I sent your fiddle home. I’ve often thought it was one of the saddest events in my life that I never head Grandpa play his fiddle. I’ve seen him sit in his rocking chair for an hour at a time, however, and rehearse the rhythms with his long fingers tapping it out on the arm of the chair. In my childhood, that’s as close as we got to Grandpa’s fiddling, but in itself, in my mind, it remains unforgettable.  Here is my brother Archie Jr., originally named A.M. after our dad’s initials--Archie McClellan, on the subject of Archie Sr.:

2008年 10月18日 土曜日 23時43分30秒 

件名： RE: something Daddy said 

Dear Bro

 

I've always taken that comment to mean sales of cars/trucks/pickups.......he had a variety of ways to say that which all had the same meaning that he had treated every person fairly and could "look them in the eye".  Dad wasn't always consistent in things he said at different times but I think he was consistent in remarks about being honest and treating people right.  You'll remember that Uncle Earl, having worked with him as a business partner for 30 odd years and in the family forever said, "he's the most honest man I ever knew". 

Having said that, he also liked to "make homeruns" where he had an exceptional amount of profit . He was paid him on a profit sharing arrangement in Duncan working for Chief Oil trucks, and he made more money there than he'd ever made in his life.  It maybe that he only made home runs on business and corporations and not on individuals?  When he worked for us at Chief GMC, we were building a unique vacuum tank, pumps and equipment that couldn't be purchased anywhere else but through our manufacturer, Deco Vacs, owned by the same individuals who owned Chief so when the sale included the vacuum assembly and a new truck it was sold as a package and typically carried a very high markup.

  Anyway, I'll give it some thought and see what else I can scratch out.

 A.M.

 A dream and a letter:

Chandler, 16 August 1994

I dreamed that Daddy and I are riding a bus, when I look back and he's having a heart attack. He holds a sheaf of newspapers on top his head like a hat, his face stricken and apologetic. I explain to the driver in Japanese so we can get him to a doctor. Language no barrier—the old man's lumped and mottled body speaks eloquently enough. 

Up in the black of 6 a.m. and soon running south down Bennet Boulevard past the house where I was born. Pop cycle strawberry sky over black of eastern hill. I run past the houses of the dead: the Hickses—they're gone. Uncle Ira— he's gone. Mr. Neer, my eight-grade math teacher, he's gone. Ms. Hutton, 6th grade English teacher—she's gone. The white houses sit wide apart, silent as tombstones on the shadowy lawns under knowing trees. In the distance a rooster crows. Back at the house Muz is awake sitting in the dark living room. She sleeps only four to five hours a night to Daddy's nine plus naps, thus giving her a few hours respite from his otherwise unceasing demands. Others in this family have w/drawn from the world through religion and Alzheimer's. Daddy is withdrawing into sleep. Nine at night and two hours in the afternoon—that's eleven out of the twenty-four. "What else do I have to do?" he demands with an undertone of accusation. “All of my friends are in the graveyard.” We are responsible for what life has done to him. 

At a time like this, with the old grouch asleep, Muz and I could talk, but we know better than to try. She reads. After while I will sit down and read too. It's the best we can do. Till the father arises, and his monologue resumes.  Then we we will pay attention to him. First in a dream, then in a letter.

In the first flush of dawn, the purple flox and the red and white geraniums in the back yard radiate calm. Tall cana w/ muscular leaves scrolling upward to a point and a single bedraggled tiger-eared bloom speak of the difficulty of the August heat, and a hibiscus holds a large petal or two as prizes of past splendor. Like Daddy, perhaps, they remember when the past was peaches. The vegetable garden is exhausted too, tomato vines already pulled, though a few red globes still gleam from the straw. Cantaloupe vines and strawberry runners still green, covering the ground. 

Perhaps what we ate last night was the garden's last heave. Cold slices of cantaloupe and tomato shining like jewels. A few black prunes for digestion. And a nostalgic slice of golden crisp cornbread hot from the black cast iron skillet Muz uses instead of a pan. Her daily masterpiece still unexcelled. Slice it open, steam rising from the cut, spread butter, rejoin the two halves, wait a half minute for the butter to melt. Eat with a glass of cold milk. Tastebuds tango in paradise. 

After supper I went to visit my second mother, Hope Vassar. Widowed two years now, bent awry with the strokes of eighty years, but mind and spirit still intact. I find her outside looking at her flowers, a nurse holding her at one side to help her walk. She's a dismasted vessel, and we have to rig a mast before she can get under way. Inside I make us both her favorite drink, tall ice-filled glasses of Southern Comfort and Coke. And we talk: of her children and grandchildren and their families and careers, of my first wife and our life in Japan. Of what's in the news. Her speech is slow and halting—she has slipped down another notch since last summer. I make myself another drink, but her limit now is one. A dismasted yacht, stripped of her spars, but still the lines are there. A yacht, never a rowboat. Her mind intact. This sanity-saving ritual of whiskey and talk I will perform nightly for the five nights I am here in Chandler. I am drinking, yes, but it feels safe. Hope has too much dignity for me to get drunk—not that she would give a damn. And this is precisely how I started drinking at age sixteen: to get out of my parents’ house even while I lived there.

And now the letter, with the date in Japanese: 

2008年 10月18日 土曜日 23時43分30秒 

件名： RE: something Daddy said 

Dear Bro

 

I've always taken that comment to mean sales of cars/trucks/pickups.......he had a variety of ways to say that which all had the same meaning that he had treated every person fairly and could "look them in the eye".  Dad wasn't always consistent in things he said at different times but I think he was consistent in remarks about being honest and treating people right.  You'll remember that Uncle Earl, having worked with him as a business partner for 3? years and in the family forever said, "he's the most honest man I ever knew". 

Having said that he also liked to "make home runs" where he had an exceptional amount of profit (we paid him on a profit sharing arrangement) and he made more money at Chief than he'd ever made in his life.  It maybe that he only made home runs on business and corporations and not on individuals?  When he worked for us at Chief GMC we were building a unique vacuum tank, pumps and equipment that couldn't be purchased anywhere else but through our manufacturer (Deco Vacs) owned by the same individuals who owned Chief so when the sale (normally) included the vacuum assembly and a new truck it was sold as a package and typically carried a very high markup.

  Anyway, I'll give it some thought and see what else I can scratch out.

 A.M.

That was my brother Archie Jr. writing. Below is a gallery of photographs of Grandpa Pounds, in which we see first of all his Swedish blood--he was half Swede--appearing in his height (six foot and three inches)--his two younger brothers Hank and Jim were an inch or two taller. Daddy, himself a short man, five foot eight inches, liked to talked about how big his Grandpa was. Archie had worked in a dry goods story for a year and knew sizes. I don’t pretend to remember them now, but Grandpa wore a 35-inch sleeve and a collar to match his 230 pounds. He never wore a suit coat or a tie except in his wedding pictures, where they seem borrowed for the occasion. 

In the first picture below, he looks to be in his mid-fifties. We have a better report for Thomas Pounds’s grandfather, another Thomas Pounds:

Pounds, Thomas, 1840-1907

A local news report states the facts of the case, few as they were, as follows, including older and half-forgotten cemetery names from the area of Lincoln County northwest of Chandler :

"Grandpa Pounds, of Mt Vernon district, quietly passed away last Tuesday at the home of his son, after a short siege of illness. He was laid to rest Wednesday in the Kelly cemetery."  Carney Enterprise, 3 Jan 1908.

Thomas Pounds was born about 1840 in Coshocton County, Ohio, to Benjamin and Sarah Williams Pounds. Right before the start of the Civil War, he married Sarah Hyder Elliott in Ray County MO. This part of Missouri was generally pro-slavery, so in Sept. of 1862 he returned to his former home county in Illinois to enlist in the Illinois 108th Regiment. Since his first child was born about this time, he returned to Missouri and enlisted in the 87th Enrolled Militia. After the War, he and his family lived in DeKalb and Caldwell counties. 

His Civil War pension application shows that he was missing fingers of his right hand. Whether he was injured in the War or in his farming life is not known.

The last public record for Thomas Pounds is the 1900 census, which shows him in Maysville, De Kalb, MO. The last record of any kind from him is an October-1907 postcard written from Route 7, Chandler OK, to inquire about his Civil War pension. Nothing else was ever heard from him, and in the 1910 census his wife declared herself a widow.

After a 25-year search, we are happy at long last to locate his grave in nearby Pleasant Ridge Cemetery (formerly Kelly Cemetery), where he has many kinfolk and neighbors.  (Find-a-Grave). 

This memorial, headed Thomas Pounds, born 1840 Ohio, died 1907 in Oklahoma, giving the dates and unit names for his Civil War Service, was put up by my sister Geraldine Pounds Robideaux and myself. The fine print in the lower part of the stone reads: 

Plot purchased by his son George Pounds, January 1908. Memorial erected by his great great grandchildren, January 2017. In memory of one too long forgotten. Rest in Peace, Grandfather. 

It stands in Pleasant Ridge Cemetery, northwest of Chandler, between the communities of Oak Grove and Pleasant Ridge, where his crippled son George Pounds, lived, and their children--Tom Pounds and his family, their members named in the paragraph immediately above. It is dedicated to “One too long forgotten,” reflecting the ten years it too Gerry and myself to discover a tidbit in the Chandler about the death of George Pounds’s father Thomas.

The phrase “Too long forgotten” reflects the ten years it took Gerry and myself to locate the burial place where Thomas was laid to rest--and then, to our surprise and great pleasure--there he was buried in Pleasant Ridge Cemetery, at home with a number of his relatives. The death notice, long undiscovered by us, appeared in the Chandler paper. It read: 

Grandapa Pounds of Mt Vernon District: quietly passed away last Tuesday at the home of his son, after a short siege of illness. He was laid to rest Wednesday in the Kelly cemetery.

The Stork visited the home of Mr. and Mrs. Will Deming week before last, leaving a big baby boy, and also the home of Mr. and Mrs Clint Goodberry last week, leaving another boy.

The Goodberry family, friends of the Poundses, are of no importance here, except for country ways, in which one always pays attention to one’s neighbors, even in so insignificant an essay as the present one. Gerry and I shared this death notice with the Goodberry family, who still reside in Carney, not far away, and so renewed an old acquaintance. 

What remains now in this reminiscence is a picture of our grandfather Thomas Franklin Pounds (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59736213/thomas-franklin-pounds), as we knew him in the flesh--most noticeably his half-Swedish flesh. 

Thomas Franklin Pounds, 1891-1966

Many other photos exist as family heirlooms, but the present essay has chosen to focus on Grandpa Pounds, To my humble mind, he was a great man, and in his fortitude stands above all the doctors and lawyers in town, for he was born an orphan (his mother died in 1906), and with his oldest Sister, Amanda E. Pounds Smith, 1896 to 1964 (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/80211716/amanda_e-smith) he took care of the children too young to go out to a farm and do agricultural work. One of the happiest days of his hard working landless life, was the day his fourth brother, Keith Leland (Pounds) Foreman, drove down from his home in Kansas to visit him. My dad, Archie Pounds, remembers Tom’s happiness when, passing his brother by the mailbox on their way home, he turned to the rest of the family, stopping the car, and said, “I believe that’s my brother Keith.” Daddy told me the two men got out of their cars right their on the dirt ruts and hugged each other in tears, saying “This is my brother in whom I am well pleased” or words to that effect.

The Chandler paper, of course, reported this reunion of a family separated for half a century. 

Seven of the Eight Pounds Children, 1960

Keith Foreman's birth name was Andrew Leland Pounds. The son of George B. and the Swedish immigrant Celia Pounds, he was one of four small children placed in adoption after their mother's death in 1906. There were four older children who were old enough to work, and they kept their original names. As much as possible, the scattered children stayed in touch with each other over the half century of their separation, and six of them (one had died) were reunited in Chandler OK, at the house of the oldest son, Thomas Pounds, in 1960.

Keith Leland Foreman and wife, 1960

We will end this reminiscence with a final vignette. Grandpa Pounds loved to smoke, and he had a red Prince Albert cigarette-rolling machine with which he produced his smokes--at least until he got a job in town during WWII, and then he would buy Camels. As a boy, I would watch fascinated as he used the PA roller to produce his weeds--the long articulate fiddler’s fingers rolling the near perfect cigarettes, which he kept in --of course--a Prince Albert can. 

By Thomas Pounds’s grandson

Wayne Pound, Tokyo, 2025