Wife Of Luther
ETHEL SAYS:
"My grandma Mary likes to smoke her pipe and feed her pigs; my father-in-law, makes clapboards, and covers houses; my mother-in-law gathers up gunny sacks and makes 'em into rugs, scarfs, and things; my husband makes railroad ties; my sister-in-law, Ellen, gathers up rags and make 'em into hook rugs, and I go about all over the neighborhood pickin' up old worn-out men's and women's hats, and make them into baskets and sell 'em and trade 'em for somethin' to eat and wear. What do you think about that?
"This man's hat that I took and put a block of wood in the crown, then I bent a hickory stick and nailed it to the block, which make the handle, then I put a mat of shredded paper over the block of wood, which filled the crown to the top, then I places a cloth over that, and decorated with flowers.
"I took the band from around the crown of the hat, and wound it around the basket handle and tied a nice bowknot, so you see, I have used the old hat and made it into somein' purty, and you'd be surprised how they sell.
"It's jist an original scheme of another Ozarkian whose tryin' to do somethin' to get by and help raise a big family.
"We have all sorts of tricks and trades down in the hills to get by on, and that;s one fine thing about the Ozarks. If one lives here very long, they'll learn to originate and figure out things for themselves, and you'll purtnye have to, if you make a livin' in the old stony hillls, and nobody knows that better than the Boxx family does and that's why we have learned to do this, that, and t'other.
"Me and Ellen even go way back in the hills and gather pine burrs and fix 'em up and ornament 'em and sell 'em for five cents apiece; and take in several nickels that way that helps us out a lot; and, gee whizz, there's a lot of things a feller can do to get by if they'll only use a little horse sense!"
.......from "The Pioneers of the Ozarks" by Lennis Leonard Broadfoot