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(especially in whimsical pieces like face jugs), it was muted by die
demands of the trade. This regimentation, of course, was relaxed with
the decline of subsistence farmers as a clientele and their replacement
by tourists and folk-art collectors. Nevertheless, Cheever and Lanier
Meaders were both slow to acknowledge any fundamental change in
the expectations of their customers —and, as such, were content to be
production potters.
STONEWARE IN FARM LIFE
Because the uses of stoneware pottery are closely associated with
the cycle of farm activities in the region, it is helpful to describe some
of these activities. Arie Waldrop Meaders, born in 1897, relocated
with her family from Franklin, Macon County, North Carolina, to
White County, Georgia, in 1911—three years before she married
Cheever Meaders. Settling with her parents plus eleven brodiers and
sisters in Zion community about two-and-a-half miles from her future
husband, she grew up in a fairly typical farm family.
In early spring, the Waldrops sowed their garden in beans, beets,
turnips, okra, tomatoes, cabbage, onions, and mustard greens. About
the same time, they also planted their fields in cotton and corn, the
latter interspersed with pumpkins, peas, and cornfield beans.
Pumpkin seeds also found their way into a nearby sorghum patch. As
described by Arie, this was a time of continuous and intense activity.
Her father plowed all the day with oxen, and later, as the family
grew and the work load increased, with mules. He prepared his
ground, planted his seed, and cultivated his crop as it matured
through the growing season. While he busied himself with the
plowing, the younger Waldrops walked along the rows of plants, hoes
in hand: "If there was anything in the row that the plow didn't get, he
made us cut it out. We'd go twice between the rows, next to this row
going this way and next to the [opposite] row coming back. He kept
us right in there to keep us out of menace."
This daily round of activity was highlighted by three meals. Around
five each morning, Mr. Waldrop would start a cooking fire in the
kitchen fireplace. While waiting for the coals to approach breadbaking
temperature, Mrs. Waldrop would fry the mornings ration of
meat and gravy in a large skillet. She also parched wheat for her
husband's "coffee." Immediately following breakfast, father and