The Ozarks early 1900's

I have read and listened to stories of this time from my granny.  Hillbillies or hill folk came to the Ozarks from all over the world looking for land to live off of and to make a living and feed their family's.  Some came as far away as Sweden,  Italy, Ireland, Germany,  Norway,  and other places. I have a lot of Irish and Cherokee in my bloodline.  Most people were born in cabins with dirt floors and grew up on the farm and fields working daylight to dark. People most of the time had a lot of children to help them work the farm. Starting before daylight sometimes doing chores like slopin' hogs, milking the cows, feeding the mules, horses, chickens, picking eggs, or working the garden. If there was a one room school house in the area, they would walk to school and sometimes with out shoes. If you could afford shoes, sometimes they where saved for church on sunday along with your best outfit. Teachers wasn't payed much at all and sometimes instead of pay, they was payed with eggs or vegetables.  They carried their lunch with them such as a hardboiled egg, biscuit,  or cured meat. The pioneer's really had a way with cooking with what they had available to them. Since everything had wood stoves for heat and cooking,  a lot of the discipline was cutting and chopping wood with hand saws and a axe. Dinner would most always include prayer and giving thanks to God, and would be some type of soup, beens, cornbread, maybe even pork or goat. I was told most of the time the meat was goat, pork, or chicken. The beef was to valuable to eat because you got your milk from the cows and sold or traded the beef, a lot of people even drank the goats milk and made butter with it and cheese. After dinner they might bring out the fiddle or instruments they had or made and play and sing for entertainment unil bed time. The weekends sometimes was filled with barn dances,  square dances,  church socials, it was full of friends and family's that would dance and visit. They had games such as marbles for the kids and a lot of the time they made there own marbles by picking out a round rock and rubbing or sanding it down smooth.  Adult games might be arm wrestling,  or seeing who had made the best pie, most everything was simple in the way they lived except the hard work they did. On Sundays most everyone went to the local church that everyone had pitched in and helped build, a lot of the times the pews was made out of logs cut in half. Most people lived along the creeks and rivers and the trail would most usually pass close from one cabin to the other. But if you was on a long trip by horse, mule, or even walking they would camp in the woods along the trail. If you passed by a cabin people would always invite you in for some food and rest. My granny told me it was scary to travel at night sometimes because you could hear a panther, mountain lion, or something follow you and all you could do was keep your lantern turned up bright and hope you had enough oil in it to get to where you where going. I wish granny was here to see me writing on this touch screen tablet and see how easy we have it today. Most of us garden and raise animals for a hobby instead of a living. I wish I could taste her homemade pies that we can not reproduce no matter how much we read her recipes and try. I loved listening to her stories and hearing her sang hymns no matter if she was in the garden or cooking.  Even though I got to spend a lot of time with her and learned stuff as a young boy I would love to ask her so many questions now. So I am writing a blog to share the stories and folklore of the Ozarks,  so that my children and others might take a interest in the history here and the long had struggles,  peace, happiness,  and the love of the Lord, will not be forgotten.