11/25/07 VERSION: BEDSOLE HISTORY FROM 1673 ... - NCGenWeb

something they picked up at the supermarket, since there was no such thing then.
They were fishing for their families to have food and for their very lives. The next
day, it usually took several people an entire day to skin and clean the catfish, cut
them up and fry them. At the table to eat, needless to say, was any neighbor crowd
who had gotten the word.
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The Annual "Settling Up" : My Own Experience
For those Bedsoles fortunate enough to own their own land, harvest-time meant they
picked, hauled, traded, stored and sold their produce and crops, for cash and/or
trade-goods. But the vast majority of them, like us, ended up being
share-croppers.That means they would work all year for a landowner and when the
crops were harvested and sold in the fall and the costs deducted, the landowner
would theoretically share the difference with the sharecropper. However, since the
landowner had made advance arrangements with a store owner to allow the farmer
a specified amount of credit during the year for food, clothing, and farming tools, the
cost of all that had to be deducted from the profits before any profit was divided
between them.
In sharecropping, the landowner would guarantee payment in the fall to the store
owner and the farmer was always forced to almost starve his family because the
landowner would set such a low credit limit, such as $300 for the entire year. Even
back then, that was not a lot of money. The farmer simply could not adequately
provide for his family on such a small pittance. Imagine, $25 a month for 12 people,
which was to pay for any and all expenses.
Therefore, hunting and fishing were meaningful activities, for acquiring meat. In
addition, the landowner and storekeeper but not the farmer, kept “the record” all
year, since the farmers could neither read nor write, this left the storekeeper and
landowner free to overcharge the poor farmers, whatever they could get away with.
But, that’s how share-cropping was done and had been done as far back as anyone
could remember. My own parents also were typical share-croppers their whole lives
and that’s how we lived. In late 1926, when his own father died, my dad, being the
oldest son and responsible for his fathers estate, entered into verbal agreements
with a store owner in Alabama, who eventually foreclosed on him and took all my
grandfathers land, eleven houses and property and left us no choice but to become
share-croppers.
This did not mean a lot of difference in living for us, though. Although my dad could
probably have prevailed in court in this case, he was very ignorant of the law and
procedures and his word was his bond. Unfortunately, he thought everyone else with
whom he did business was also as honest. That was and still is, a very big, very
costly, and very sad mistake. One I still make myself, which gives you some
indication of my level of stupidity and total lack of intelligence. Anyway,