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Nostalgia Item---Killing Time(EDITOR’S NOTE: Gilmer Mirror reader and sometimes contributor A. D. Covin, who lives in Houston and is retired, here shares his recollections of “hog-kllllng time” in Upshur County during his boyhood. Since 1974’s hog-killing weather has lately arrived we are pleased to be able to offer it as a timely piece of nostalgia.)BY ALVIN COVINMy Grandma Covin’s maiden name was Oliver. Pcrmelia, Priscilla or Penelope. I think it was Per-melia. She was a pioneer woman! A resident of Texas, on the Frontier, when it was the true border between civilisation and savagery. Comanchos, robbers, killers, mean men, ana good men. My Grandma Covin was a contributor to bringing stability, sanity and security to the frontier as much as anyone else.My Grandma Covin was a religious woman, dedicated to the Baptist Church, and a firm belief that no one could be saved unless they were cleansed of their sins by complete under-water immersion.My Grandma Covin usually wore a black dress that swept the ground. There was a pocket in this dress where she carried a few articles, such as small pocket change, a snuff box and a hickory or black gum tooth brush.My Grandma Covin married my grandfather in 1867. She was one of many children in the J. B, Oliver family. She had a full brother who was in partnership with a man named Roberts, in the Roberts Oliver Hardware store in Gilmer for many years. Another full brother, Tom Oliver, was a countyHigh on thewalnuts by the barrels full,, which my grandmother! would use to put in cakes, 1 etc., for the Christmas sea- j son, when all the kids would! come home and bring their] noisy horde of offsprings and j feast on country-cured ham,! baked hen and all kinds off cakes and pies for a whole]day-after hog-killing was a full! pot of boiled backbones, • where every one had a bait ; of the tastiest part of thef hog. I believe they get pre-1 sent-day Mpork chops” from1 the back bones.Christmas Meant Egg-Nog On the side they’d fill up with coffee, or maybe eggnog which Grandpa always made, with the help of ’’old A u n t Dosiah”, a black woman who had been a slave. She lived in a small cabin on top of a hill, raised her own tobacco and smoked a clay pipe. And, according to her own statements, she was the only person alive who knew how to make the perfect egg-nog, and Grandpa’s anual egg-nog making was sure to bring an argument between the two, and Grandpa usually lost the argument. They all loved “Aunt Dosiah’’, and she never suffered for want of the necessities of life.For Grandma Covin, the major event of her busy days, was hog-killing time. This event nearly always consumed a week or ten days.First, Grandpa would put the hogs, two or three unusually big ones, on a floored pen and feed them all the corn they would consume. No kitchen slop went to tho hogs that were to be killed, nothing but corn and water. And then the watch began for weather that would be favorable. “Hog Killing” weather! They knew it when it camc. Maybe there would be a frost on the ground. Then preparations began in erncst. A barrel was buried halfway in the ground with the bottom end slanted from the top at about a 45-degrccSausage-making consumed an awful lot of time, hard; work grinding up the meat, and making the stbeklng-typc bags which she pushed it in until full, ana later storing it in lard for safe keeping. The rendering of lard was last on the list, as by this time all the pure fat had been trimmed away and went into the washpots for the process. Now, lard, pure pork lard, was all they had in those days to cook with. All the frying, such as hams, bacon, eggs, and the like were treated to a skillet filled with hog lard over a hot fire. Grandma's chores were not over when hog-killing time arrived, until the last bucket of lard was stored away, sausage safely ensconced in containers for the long wait until time to oat sausage, at scattered intervals throughout the year.Taking care of the meal in the smokehouse fell to Grandpa Covin. It was his task to sec that the hams, shoulders, bacon sides he wonted smoked, were exposed to a bath of hickory smoke until they were “cured” exactly like he wanted them.When we stayed with them and went to school at old Emory School, reached by going out the road toward Ore City, turning off on a side road, by the Mattox Cemetery, and going on toward the Dalton Mattox place, until you came to tho small schoolhousc, long since removed from the scene.It was then we had a gourmet's breakfast: Biscuits as big as a hamburgerkm frosh rmintrv huifur.
Newspaper Details
Gilmer Mirror
Gilmer, Texas, US
Thu, Dec 05, 1974
Page 12
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 20 Jul 2023
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