“Always Stir in One Direction…”

GWM: Could you describe the values and skills of your mother, who grew up at Drayton Hall?

 

Annie Brown Meyers: Mother’s main thing was cooking. She’d have company coming over, who’d not called ahead, and she’d go in that kitchen and whip up a meal in no time. Everybody liked her fried chicken. They could always smell Lucille’s fried chicken cooking. She’d also make fruitcakes during the holidays and lemon meringue pie and cook her turnip greens and collard greens. Red rice and shrimp, seasoned just so, was my favorite.

 

I grew up down the Ashley River Road from Drayton Hall, near what is now Tobias Gadson Blvd, which was the country then. I didn’t learn to cook when young because she did it all, but us children had responsibilities around the house. As far as cooking, that was a no-no. It was her responsibility as a wife to cook the food.

 

Mother could make the best potato pie, peach pie, nut cake, and pound cake. Fruitcake was her specialty. People in the neighborhood would watch her so they could learn. Sometimes she’d even go to their house, and they’d buy all of the ingredients. She’d tell them, “Now, you put in this much of this or that, and you stir it,” and “Always stir in one direction.”

 

Since I went to Immaculate Conception School, operated by the Catholic Church, we never ate meat on Friday, so at home on Fridays, we’d have fried fish or shrimp and red rice. I couldn’t wait to get home!

 

When Mom’s brother Richmond Bowens, who grew here and later worked for y’all at Drayton Hall, would come home from Chicago, he’d call ahead and say, “I’m going to be there next week, and I want herring and rice.” She would fix the herring and rice for him, and he’d take some home with him because that was one of his favorites.

 

Any time she went to bake a cake, she’d always do it late at night, because she said if you walked on the floor or slammed the door, it would cause your cake to fall. She’d wait until everybody had gone to bed and be up at 4 o’clock in the morning, taking one cake out of the oven and putting another in.

 

Teenagers lived nearby whose father had left their mother and the 12 children. They’d hunt coons and things like that and then sell them around the neighborhood. Daddy’d say, “If those Edwards boys come by, make sure you get whatever they got because they need the money.” Mother would then fix coon for dinner.

 

From my book, “Drayton Hall Stories: A Place and Its People,” to be published this fall by Evening Post Books.

 

Note: Annie Brown Meyers recently passed away; her passing is a sad reminder of how very important it is that stories like hers be preserved.

 

 

An excerpt from my new book  “Drayton Hall: A Place and Its People,” due out this fall 2021.