Pike County Miscellaneous - Mr. & Mrs.Claudie B. Boutwell & Family ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.genrecords.net/alpike/ ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb by: Patsy McCoy pmccoy@pacifier.com May 2003 The Opp News November 24, 1983 "It Was tough" Good Ole Days or Not by Jean Rausch Living within "hollering distance" of where she was born, Ethel Boles Boutwell recently celebrated 69 years of marriage to Claudie B. Boutwell. When they married, she was 17 and he lacked a few weeks of being 21.They moved into a little house "setting on land Daddy gave me. "Mrs. Boutwell recalled, and began working hard to make a living. When they recall all the work over the years, both Mr.and Mrs. Boutwell agreed eith this statement: "Call it good ole days or not, it was tough!" But it wasn't all bad, although "times was rough." Mr Boutwell declared. They were looking toward better timesand said "To keep from going in dept, we ate cornbread and syrup sometimes for breakfast, trying to live where we could do better." Elijah Boles left Memphis, Tenn. when he was 3 years old and, with his family, spent four years traveling to South Alabama. His father George P. Boles, and and his mother, Penelope Montgomery Boles, along with several other families, made the trip from Tennessee, cutting roads and fording streams to finally homestead on fertile, timbered soil in what later became Babbie. It wasn't Babbie however, Claudie Boutwell pointed out, until the railroad came through. Elijah Boles owned land where the railroad was laid and had a general store next to the site of the old depot. When he was about 19, Elijah Boles homesteaded land next to his father's place. Grover Cleveland signed the deed. Mr and Mrs. Elijah Boles built a sturdy home on their land. it had two big bedrooms, three smaller bedrooms, a parlor and a big kitchen. Down the center was a dog "Dog trot," to tunnel the summer breezes through the house. Two smaller bedrooms on the front were for the boys, Bury and Keith, and a small bedroom in the back was for Ethel. The big bedrooms were one for Mr. and Mrs. Boles and another for guests. It was on the front porch of that house that Ethell and Claudie Boutwell were married Oct. 25, 1914. They moved into a little two room house next door on 40 acrea of land Boles had given them. Little by little, the tiny house grew, and so did the Boutwell family. At first they added two rooms. Years later, in about 1938, when their youngest child was about 3, they added two more rooms on the south side of the house. Meanwhile Carlor M. Boutwell was born, then Quleen and the Loretta. Today, all children live within a mile and a half of their parents. Carlor is married to the former Esther Carter. Quleen is married to T. D. Mills and they have three sons, Dennis Vernon, Doyle Wayne and Danny Myron. Loretta is married to Claude J. Davis and they have two sonc, Larry Dudley and Troy LaVaughn. In addition to their six grandchildren, Mr. and Mrs. Boutwell have five great-grandchildren. Claudie Boutwell was born in Pike County near Henderson. There were 12 children in their family. His mother Theodora Eldora "Doshie" Cosby, was married to a schoolteacher named Thagard and had three children, before she was widowed. She later married Claudie's father and had nine more children. Claudie's half-sister, Vida Thagard, 96, is still living in Crestview, Fla. Of the nine Boutwell children all boys, a set of twins and another little boy died as infants. Two are still living, Claudie, who is next to the oldest, and George, who is next to the youngest. George also lives in Crestview. Boutwell's father, George, was reared in Center Ridge Community between Henderson and Elba Road (State Road 87). They moved from the community to Brantley and then to Bullock Community before finally arriving in Opp in 1913, and then Barbbie in 1914. They arrived in the spring, and Claudie met the pretty little Boles girl soon afterward. They were married in the fall. He has been in the community ever since, as Mrs. Boutwell says. "Right here on the same land my daddy homesteaded." She was 86 Oct. 1, and her husband will be 90 Jan. 1, 1984. During their 69 years together. he has farmed, truck farming and row crops. Part time, he said, he worked for the railroad for $1 a day. Later he got a raiseto$1.10. Usually he did that in the summer time, he said, when they needed somebody to "shovel mud out of the ditches." "If you couldn't sling the mud out of the shovel," Boutwell said, "You'd have to scrape it off with a wooden paddle." Alabama clay can be mighty sticky. He recalled when they were first married and he was working on halves with his father-in-law, growing corn, cotton and "cotton, cotton, cotton." The year they married, he said, he had seven bales of cotton and couldn't pay to have it ginned because "it wouldn't sell." In 1917, World War I was underway, but he had a wife and a baby so he didn't have to go to France like his two brothers did. That year, Boutwell remembered, "I walked a little over a mile and hope a neighbor strip sugar cane. He paid me 50 cents for a day's work and charged me a dime for my dinner. About 34 years ago, Boutwell and his oldest son, Carlor, started a fishing pole business with the cane that grew thick in the swamps. They suddenly found themselves with a successful business and were shipping fishing poles all over the southeastern states. Carlor still manufactures the poles, and Boutwell has a king-sized fishing pole leaning against the barn at his house. It towers taller than the barn. About that time, Boutwell lost an eye and now has por sight in the other eye. along with the loss of hearing in one ear. About 10 years ago , she suffered a stroke and that also has added to the problrm, making it diffcult for her to get about; but she grabs hold of her walker and determinedly goes on. He usually cooks breakfast for them now, she asid, because it is hardest for to get about in the morning. She cooks during the day, she said but their children usually bring in the evening main part of their meals each day. She has regrets. "We once had a lot of pretty flowers in the yard." she recalled, "when I was able to work on them." She especially recalled a rose bush on the fence that bore four or five colors of roses on one bush. She got a cutting of it from a neighbor. It has died, though. She just wasn't able to care for it properly, she thinks. One, said, she scrubbed her wooden floors with sand and a corn shuck mop. Today her daughters do a lot of the cleaning for her. Loretta says, "They always worked hard and taught us kids to work hard, and appreciate the imporant things of life. We may not always have had what we wanted, but we had what we needed." Descendants of the original Boles settlers have moved on from Babbie to Florala, Texas, North Carolina and other Alabama communities. Mrs. Boutwell has two nephews living near them on the original George Boles homestead and a niece in Elba; but Ethel and Claudie Boutwell are still in the home where they moved the day they were married, on the 40 acres her father gave them for a wedding present, within "hollering distance" of the old house where she grew up. They are familiar with every plank in their home, every buimp in the floor and knothole in the shining heart-pine walls. It's good when you get old to be in a dear and familiar place surrounded by your children, grandchildren and great-grandcgildren. You get a better view of the continuity of life. It's a good way to celebrate 69 years of marriage. **Note's** Thanks to Pauline Stanhagen for sharing this with us!!! There are six photos which I will share the caption (1) Photo of Mr. and Mrs Claudie Boutwell (2) Photo of Marriage Certificate gift from Judge Leland Enzor (3) Photo of Barn and Fishing Pole (4) Photo of Claudie and his favorite Clock Loretta gave him with big numbers (5) Photo "Boutwell Home In Bullock" In front of their home in Bullock Community, about 1912, are, from left behind fence, Claudie Benton Boutwell, Molley Boutwell, Clarence Boutwell. In front of fence, from left, George Boutwell, Daniel Boutwell, Theodora Eldore ("Doshie") Cosby Boutwell, Hobson Boutwell and , with bike in front, Louie Boutwell. (6) Photo "Elijah Boles Family: About 1917" from left, in front, Elijah J. Boles, Ella Rebecca Lloyd Boles (seated,) Carlo Mathron Boutwell (little boystanding in front) Claudie Benton Boutwell, Minnie Day Boles (Mrs. Bury Boles), Bury Mason Boles. Standing in back, from left, Ethel Boles Boutwell and Fernando Keith Boles.