Florence Hindman Cox Family Memories

Today I was digging for about 3 hours in Ethel Stroupe's files looking for information on Ethel and Ruth Stroupe of Cherryville, who were friends in the WACC during World War II. What always happens when I do this I find something new. Well no surprise I found this document and thought you might enjoy it. Florence is the granddaughter of Catherine Susanna Stroup. I hope you enjoy it.

Mike Stroupe

My Family Memories: Florence Hindman Cox 05-25-89

After reading the description of John Huggins, father of the Rev. John A. Huggins I would say our grandfather Joseph A. Huggins must have resembled him. He did have reddish brown hair and a mustache. As far back as I can remember he lived with his daughter Addie Huggins Bagley. He was a mild mannered man. In the winter he sat by the fireplace in his room reading. He loved to read history. In summer he sat on the front porch in his favorite place in a cane bottomed straight chair. He seemed to enjoy his grandchildren and we all loved him. He had a white Airedale dog named Rex. I could devote a chapter to this dog. He had a close relationship with his brothers and sister. I wish I had asked more questions about our grand­mother. I know he missed her. She died in 1909 and he died in 1929. Every Sunday afternoon Uncle Ed and Aunt Pearl drove over from Lancaster and Uncle Charlie, Aunt Gaines, Uncle Jett and Aunt Sallie drove out from Chester to visit with him, my mother and my aunt. Looking back, they were a congenial family.

My Aunt Addie and Uncle Charlie strongly resembled the Huggins side of the family. Uncle Ed, Uncle Jett and my mother resembled the Stroupe side. It was often mentioned that Cousin Will Huggins (son of Charles Wesley Huggins and Hannah Stroupe) and Uncle Ed looked enough alike to be brothers.

Uncle Charlie was a builder. He had his own company in Chester. I suppose he inherited the Irish temper. He could tolerate no workmanship that was not excellent. He had a fox terrier dog named Brownie that road in the car with him when he went from job to job. He often let his namesake - my brother, Charles Huggins Hindman go with him. Charles was just a little guy and loved to go with him. Uncle Charlie used to say he only belonged to two organizations: the Democratic Party and the Methodist church. Aunt Gaines was the only Baptist among all these Methodists. Aunt Gaines (her real name was Effie according to her tombstone. Do you know? I never knew this) and Uncle Charlie liked to have family gatherings at their home especially holidays.


I have a lot of fond memories of Aunt Addie. Before my mother sold her home in Chester and built a home next door to my aunt and my grandfather in Richburg - I used to spend a couple of weeks in Richburg every summer. Aunt Addie read to me the children's pages in the. Little Grit and Comfort Magazine. She told me stories about her grandparents. She was the family chronicler and historian. It was she who started my interest in family trees. Those were happy summers with my cousins. Ruth loved music and dancing and it was fun being with her and play-acting. Evelyn did beautiful handwork and taught me to embroider and crochet. I never did learn to knit however. Ella Mae had left home to teach school and met and married Martin Blackmon. Keith had also left home and worked in Chester. While we still lived there he stayed in our home. He and my brother Heyward was the same age. Their yard in Richburg had the most beautiful flowers especially roses and millions of daffodils and other spring bulbs. There was a large oak tree near the road that ran in front of the house. Along the bank were beds of iris. We made play houses under the tree and the guinea fowls roosted in the tree at night. I cannot recall any time when there wasn't a plate of cut out cookies on the dining room table.

Uncle Ed was next in line. He was an engineer on the L & C railroad. I visited in their home often as a little girl and teenager. He was a quiet, family man. All of their children were musical. It was usually a jolly household in spite of the tragic death of Ora Lee when he was a young teenager. Aunt Pearl was quite a homemaker and loved beautiful handwork. She was active, always moving fast. She loved children. Since the railroad ran back of our house in Richburg, we ran out to the back steps to wave to him every afternoon.

I think I would do him an injustice if I didn't mention Club. He is a “down country" South Carolina colored (black). My cousins Oscar and G. W. were musicians in the dance band "The Southern Collegians". They played at Myrtle Beach every summer. Club was just a very young man he had no family. Oscar and G. W. brought him home with them. Aunt Pearl and Uncle Ed gave him a home. She taught him to cook, and helped in the house and yard. He drove my uncle’s car. And as long as they lived he took care of them. He also took care of my Cousin Jeanette as long as she could live in her own house. He is still alive and when he needs something Oscar's daughters Rachel and Rebekah take care of it for him.

My mother is next in line.
She was a beautiful 42-year-old mother of four when our father died after a long illness. She resembled her mother. She was always doing for other people. She was active in her church all her life and as my brother, Charles, used to say, “You had to have a broken neck before you missed Sunday School." She delighted in holidays. Even during the depression she managed to make Christmas, Easter and birthdays special. I remember when she lived with me in Conover, N. C. she dyed Easter eggs and gave them to the neighborhood children. She loved children and was so proud of her grandchildren Florence Evelyn McAbee and Charles Huggins Hindman Jr. She would have loved all the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that were to come after she died in 1945.

I must add three extra people that meant so much to us when we were growing up. "Aunt" Ollie Cloud worked for Aunt Addie. She was a small colored (black if you prefer) woman and we all loved her. To me, when I was a child, she seemed old. But then every adult seems old to children. She died when I was a teen-ager. I remember going to the A. M. E. Church to her funeral.

Love Rice, a tall, slim, light colored girl worked for our family when we lived in Chester. I have to smile over my memories of her when Charles and I were small. Up on a high shelf in the kitchen she had a can of Red Devil Lye. When either of us were really "bad" she would say, "Come on Charles (Flonce) here's your pitcher" and take down the can of lye. We dearly loved her and when she came to Richburg to help my mother get settled in the new house, we hid her suitcase when she was ready to leave.

After we moved to Richburg when I was 10 years old Helen Howard McCullough worked for our family. Helen was a large, black woman in her early 40’s. She had two other families she "helped": the Porters who lived next door (a field between our houses) and the Ropers. She went with us to nick blackberries and would warn us to watch for that "ole He Cow". Helen was always there at Christmas or when our older brother and his family came and our sister and her family. I remember so well the day I was leaving home to go to Greenville to Business College, I sat on her lap and we cried! Years later when I visited Richburg, I took my two little girls to see her. Uncle Jett was the youngest and the "feistiest" (if there is such a word) when he was small. My mother used to laugh when she told us of the things she and Uncle Jett used to do. They were very much alike. A street separated our homes in Chester. He was an avid gardener and did beautiful work with wood. He made a doll cradle for me and a hound dog for Charles. He built a desk for my mother and a hall settee. He was "the joiner" of the boys. He belonged to several lodges. I still have a doll he gave me the Christmas after our father died.

The best thing about my memories of these uncles and aunts and my mother is the relationship they had. There didn't seem to be any ugliness that so often happens in families. I'm glad.

These are my impressions. I'm sure my sister, Effie, and my brother, Charles and my cousins Ella Mae Blackmon and Walker Huggins have theirs.

My mother was close to her family in North Carolina and we remember fondly the summers we all went to Lincoln County to visit great Uncle Charlie Huggins on his farm. His first wife Hannah Stroup died in 1902 so we did not know her. But my mother had stories of her visits when she was a little girl. And the one I like best - she had been visiting her Uncle Charlie and Aunt Hannah (they called her Aunt Han) and when she was returning home by train, Aunt Han gave her a bag of turnip greens to take home to her mother. Aunt Han put her dime fare in the bottom of the bag so she wouldn't lose it. My mother said she was trying the find the dime in the bottom of all those greens and the conductor had to leave the car he was laughing so hard. I guess my mother was mortified! But every time I think of this and get the picture in my mind I can't help laughing also.

My mother was also very close to her cousins Louester and Marshall Dellinger and I have fond memories of our visits there. Cousin Will Huggins and Cousin Amanda and their children were close to our families when we were all "young".

There were others of my mother's cousins that I remember, either from their having visited in our home or our going to theirs: Cousin Lizzie Jenkins and her daughter Flossie. I do not recall a son but there must have been one since Mary Frances Jenkins Swift is a descendant. I remember the Chronister “girls” especially Cousin Connie and Cousin Ida. Cousin Sophie and her two children, Nellie and Carey Thompson, visited in our home also. I probably remember Flossie and Nellie for they were teenagers when my sister, Effie, was and they visited one another. Cousin Sophie's last visit to our home was around 1928 before our grandfather died. I do remember her mother great aunt “Jennie” (Eliza Jane Huggins Stroup). She came to help my mother with “the children" the summer our father was so ill. Charles and I used to drive her out of her mind when we’d run away and hide “over at the Bankhead’s”. We knew the Rozzel Stroupe family well. Edna was married to our first cousin Vance Huggins and they lived in Chester. I do not recall the other children of Cornelius Stroup and "Jennie" Huggins Stroup. These are just a few memories of my mothers family members.

My Grandmother Catherine Susannah Stroup (Susan Stroupe Huggins) has recorded the birth date of my grandfather, Joseph Aldolphus Huggins, and her own birth date, and the birth dates of her children; Catherine Adelade Huggins (Addie Huggins Bagley), Charles Wesley Huggins, Edward Benjamin Huggins, Effie Anna Huggins (Hindman), Don Herrington Jethro (Jett) Huggins, and Dom Pedro Dotson Huggins (3 times) and her baby sister Emily Theodocia Stroup (Dellinger) in her Bible which is in the possession of Florence Hindman Cox.