Who was your ancestor’s best
friend? How did they spend their time together? Write a paragraph or two about
an adventure they had, real or imagined based on what you know of their
childhood, time period and places they lived
Today’s ancestor will be Roy
Cook, my husband’s paternal great uncle and his twin brother Coy who was his
best friend for his entire life.
Roy and Coy’s family worked on a tobacco farm in Robertson County, Tennessee. It was a hard
living, but not uncommon in the very early twentieth century. Many people could
not afford their own piece of land to farm, so they worked on the large farms
that surrounded them. They lived in a small dirt floored cabin with their
parents and 10 siblings. They were the youngest being 20 years younger than
their oldest sibling. They were spoiled by all of them.
One day while they were
helping their dad on the farm, they decided to see if they could swipe some of
the tobacco for a smoke. What they didn’t understand at that age was that the
tobacco was green and needed to be cured. They hid their big leaf under Coy’s
shirt and secreted it away during their lunch break.
After dinner that night, they
headed outside with some pilfered matches to get their tobacco. They rolled it
into two “cigarettes” tossing the excess away and worked at getting them lit.
Eventually they got a bit to smoke and puffed away feeling very grown up.
It wasn’t long before they
started feeling a bit queer and stumbled home very green about the gills. Pap
knew exactly what they had done as soon as he saw them and after they got their
bottoms paddled, Ma got them outside quick enough before they hurled up their
dinner. Never again did they try to smoke green tobacco!!
Roy and Coy never married and spent their lives being
doted on by their family! Coy died in April of 1998 and Roy, lost without his twin, died in October the same
year.
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