Lillian Lorena Smith, Part 1

This biography of my mom; Lillian, was written by her on November 12th 1997.

I, Lillian Lorena Smith was born on the 8th day of August, 1944 at 8:00 a.m. and weighed 10lbs 11ozs. There were seven years between my sister and me with no other births or pregnancies between. I was delivered by Dr. Crow. He brought all of us kids into the world along with many others.

My first real memory was when my brother Raymond was born. My sister and cousin Toot (William O. Hicks Jr.)took me and my brother Gene (Son)up on the hill; probably 1/8 of a mile from the house, and played with us till Raymond (Beetle) was born.

I have been told that my sister couldn't go anywhere without me tagging along. One day my mother tied me to her so I had to be with her all day. It didn't stop me though. I learned alot from my sister. She was the one that taught me how to walk.

Before I started school, I would sit and watch my mother and sister read. I wanted to be able to read so bad. I would hold a book and pretend that I was reading. I would make up stories and read them aloud. I just couldn't wait to read. About this time I was five or six years old. I had a make believe friend that I called Arlar. He was so real to me that I thought that I could really see him. The whole family knew about Arlar.

I remember that my brothers and I liked to go up on to the woods behind our house and play cowboys and Indians. We would take old dead tree limbs and make us hideouts. We loved to swing on the grapevines until our mother would find them and cut them down. She came looking for us often and if she found us on a grapevine she would be real mad. I remember that we would eat the opossum grapes off of the vines.

We had a big cedar tree up the hill behind our house and we would climb it. I loved climbing trees, but was always scared to climb back down. My mother put a rope that had a board in the bottom of it up in the tree. One day I was swinging to high and fell out. It knocked the breath out of me. I never swung that high again.

Stay tuned........... There"s more to come.......