Blackberry Picking Then and Now

Blackberries ready for a pie.

When I was back in Cleveland County recently, wild blackberries were ripe, and I was reminded of the days I picked berries when I was a kid growing up there.  My sister, our friend and I would go out early in the morning on a July day and pick berries where they grew along the railroad track near our house.  Often we would encounter black snakes and always we would be bitten by chiggers.  We didn't mind, because we knew by lunch time Mama would have made a blackberry pie or cobbler from our bounty.  And how we loved blackberry pie! 

I passed by the railroad track where now the sides of the track are sprayed and there are no blackberries growing there today.

The railroad track where I picked berries as a kid.

We lived out in the country near my grandparent's farm.  The farm and the one adjacent have been bought by a blackberry company out of Georgia and the fields that were once planted in cotton have been replaced by fields of commercial blackberries.  I stopped and took some photos and I must say there was a bumper crop of berries. 

Blackberry fields where cotton once grew.

A bountiful crop of commercial blackberries.

I did have a chance to pick a few berries though over along the road near my friend Peggy Jean's house.  Not enough for a pie though.

Picking a few wild blackberries over near Peggy Jean's house.

When we returned to Raleigh, I kept thinking about those blackberries and about a blackberry cobbler.  I went right over to the Farmer's Market and bought enough berries to make a pie---no black snakes to worry about and no chiggers.  It's not quite the same though.  As a child I felt a great deal of accomplishment in picking a bucket of berries to take home for a pie.

Blackberries from the Farmer's Market.

As I was looking over recipes for a blackberry cobbler on the internet, I discovered the Pioneer Woman's blog.

The Pioneer Woman's blackberry cobbler. (Photo from her blog site.)

I'm going to use her recipe when I make a blackberry cobbler later this morning.  I'll let you know how it turns out.

Cousins, Near and Far

My first cousin once removed, Robin Stice from Virginia and first cousin twice removed, Elizabeth Stice from West Palm Beach, my sister Martha Cabaniss from Bostic, and I from Raleigh visited our second cousins, Jimmy, Shelva and Jerry and second cousin once removed, Donna, in Cleveland County recently. Donna is the family genealogist (I hope I have these relationships described accurately) and Jimmy and Jerry know a lot about the military history of our family on the Hawkins side.

My Cleveland County Cousins (l. to r.: Jimmy Hawkins, Donna Wilson, Shelva Wilson, Jerry Scruggs.)

Hawkins Family Photo (Photo courtesy of Jerry Scruggs.)

Jerry had a family photo of the James B. Hawkins family.  JB was my great grandfather, my grandmother's father. In the photo above, my great grandfather is the gentleman with the white beard, James B. Hawkins.  The woman beside him holding the baby is my Grandmother Greene, Dora Hawkins Greene, JB's daughter. She is holding my Aunt Edith.  Dora's husband, my Grandfather Greene, is the handsome man with the black mustache in the middle of the back row.  My Grandfather Greene had a white mustache when I was a child, and once as a teenager I asked my grandmother if the mustache didn't "tickle" with a kiss. She replied "The blackberries are sweeter when you have to go through the briars to get them." *

This has just whetted my appetite for learning more about our family history.  I have enough hobbies though without taking on genealogy.  Well, I can at least dabble in it.  And I can rely on my Cleveland County cousins as a source for a wealth of information. 

*I've been married for 24 years to a man with a mustache and a beard---my grandmother was right.