Profiles of Prominent Charlton County Citizens

JOHN ROBERT COOPER

CHARLTON COUNTY HERALD
June 30, 1976

I REMEMBER GRANDPA
By
Kate Cooper Chancey

[Editor’s Note: The following story is furnished by Mrs. Kate Cooper Chancey of Kingsland. It tells of how she remembers her grandfather, Mr. John Robert Cooper, (1842-1920). Mr. Cooper was known to many Charlton Countians as “Uncle Bob” who served as County Surveyor.]

I remember Grandpa since I was a little girl. That was a good 60 years ago because I am 71 now.

Grandpa was County Surveyor for Charlton County off and on until he had served 32 years. That was the horse and buggy days and that’s what he used in his work and for other trips.

He figured out that a certain number of turns of the buggy wheel measured a rod and so many turns were an acre. So when a land line lay beside a road, he just rode along and counted the turns of the wheel next to him. When he got through counting and ciphering he didn’t need any of our modern computers to help him. The official papers that he executed and recorded are standing good today.

He was bald on top but he had a fringe of white hair around his neck – down to his collar because that’s the way men wore their hair then. That white hair and his big black hat are the first thing old timers think about when they remember him. I want to hear from some of them – to go and hear them tell about old times.

I heard of a gentleman in St. George not too long ago who remembered how Grandpa used to go on surveying trips “ down in the bend” (of the St. Marys River). The man said Grandpa would go riding the dirt roads through the piney woods. As far as he could see him that fringe of white hair was shining under the wide brim of his black felt hat.

We loved for Grandpa to go “down in the bend”, although he might be gone two or three weeks. When he did come home he would bring a load of fresh oysters in the back of the buggy. That meant an oyster roast for everybody out near the syrup boiler. It was always a fun time when we all got together at Grandpa’s.

We lived about five miles northeast of Folkston, across Bailey Branch near the road to old Newell. Grandpa liked to keep his children close to home. So when one got married Grandpa surveyed off a piece of land to help him get started.

By the time World War I came along he had a ring of Coopers and their families out there cutting wire grass turf and building up their home places.

There was Willoughby and Lizzie Warren (my parents); Kizzie and Charlie Lloyd; Jimmie and Sallie Rozier; Frank and Dosie Rozier; Nancy and Harry Jens; Mollie (Sis) and Hamp Wainwright; Teat and John Teston; Jessie (Bud) and Delia Johns.

Louisa and Wallace Wainwright lived on the other side of Bailey Branch. Two or three Coopers settled farther away – in Camden County, Brunswick and Savannah.

It was old time country living in the Cooper settlement. In the evening there was a kerosene lamp on the supper table and a wood fire in the fireplace. When we brought in the last armload of firewood it was good to linger outside long enough to look for the smoke from neighboring chimneys. As dusk came on, the lights of other houses, seen through the trees, told us everybody was home. That wound up the day like a peaceful good night.

Grandpa’s house was a story-and-a-half log house covered with hand-split shingles. It had a stick and clay chimney. The big front room was ceiled with tongue and groove ceiling. The wide front porch had one door into the front room and another one to the steep attic stairs. It was the grandest house we knew when we were little.

When we went there on Sundays there was always a crowd of uncles, aunts and cousins, along with visiting friends and neighbors. The men talked on the porch about crops and cutting crossties for the railroad. Man talk.

After awhile somebody would challenge Grandpa to a high jump. He jumped up and cracked his heels together three times before he came down. Nobody could match him.

When the call to dinner came everybody trouped through the front room to wash up at the water shelf next to the kitchen. The kitchen was separate from the house. There was a covered walkway from the back porch to it. That’s where the water shelf was.

As each one finished washing he dashed the water from the wash basin to the root of the cabbage rose staked outside. One after another took their turn at the pan and the roller towel until the bucket was empty. While somebody went to the well with its long well-sweep and pole, the men combed their hair at the mirror on the wall.

That reminded Grandma of the woman who didn’t see how some women could comb their hair every day. She just combed hers once a week and it nearly killed her then. Women wore their hair “done up” back then.

Grandpa always tried to see that everybody had a good time. When the men came back from the well he led the way to the table. He urged everybody to take a seat just anywhere they liked. Then he warned, “Just be sure that nobody touches that chair down yonder at the other end of the table. That belongs to Cindy.” (Grandma).

After the blessing Grandpa told him “We always say something before we eat.”

“Say what you please,” the man answered. “You can’t turn my stomach.”

The girls were busy bringing hot bread and “minding the table”. Grandpa was handy as a woman in the kitchen because he had been a cook in the Civil War. He was a Corporal with Lee when Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Va. April 9, 1865.

Grandpa’s brother, James T. Cooper, also served in the Seaboard Guards. They both enlisted July 29, 1861 at Satilla, Ga. James T. Cooper was wounded at Manassas, Va. and later died of smallpox in C.S.A. General Hospital, Danville, Va., January 24, 1863.

While Grandpa poured coffee that day he showed how he had cooled the General’s coffee on cold, snowy mornings in Virginia. He held the pot shoulder high and poured a long, thin stream into the cup. By the time the cup was full the coffee was cool enough to drink.

He also told how they kept from freezing in the Virginia snow. He said they rolled up in their army blankets and the snow kept them warm. The cold air couldn’t touch them under their snow covered blankets.

While Grandpa kept the conversation lively the girls kept “minding the table” – bringing on more food. Mashed potato salad with a tangy taste that you don’t find under every potato bush. Hickory smoked ham from the smokehouse and baked sweet potatoes to go with it. On and on. Topped off with a cake fit for a box supper. Fat pecan halves all bogged down in the white icing like it was a feather bed.

Even before dinner was over somebody was at the organ in the front room. “Take The Name of Jesus With You” was the first song and the singing went on for hours. All Grandpa’s girls could sing and play the organ. All the men sang and some of them played the fiddle, guitar or mouth organ.

Some of the young people just naturally gravitated out to the grapevine or to get a stalk of cane to chew. No matter how far down the lane they might go, they all made it back in time for Grandpa’s song. “Sweet Hour of Prayer” was his favorite and they sang it last.

That finished another Sunday at Grandpa’s house.

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