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NOVEMBER 2, 1932
Whistle Stop Pig Club Started
Due to the encouragement of the Alabama Extension Service, a local pig club has been formed. Anyone wanting information is to call Mrs. Bertha Vick at home. Bertha said that a Miss Zula Hight of Kittrel, North Carolina, earned a pure-bred Registered China Pig in just seven days, and Bertha said that you could do the same thing if you just put your mind to it. She said to own a pure-bred pig is a mark of distinction for you and your community and will start you on the road to prosperity. It will mean the laying of a foundation for a comfortable income for you all of your life, and when old age overtakes you.
Idgie just got her brand-new Philco radio at the cafe, and says anybody wanting to hear "Amos 'n' Andy," or any other program, is welcome to come in and need not order anything to eat. She says the sound is good at night especially.
By the way, does anybody know how to get rid of dog tracks in cement? If so, call me up or come by the post office and tell me.
. . . Dot Weems . . .
JANUARY 12, 1986
Evelyn opened her purse and gave Mrs. Threadgoode one of the pimiento-cheese sandwiches she had wrapped in wax paper, and brought from home.
Mrs. Threadgoode was delighted. "Oh, thank you! I love a good pimiento-cheese sandwich. In fact, I love anything to eat that's a pretty color. Don't you think pimiento cheese has a pretty color? It's so cheery. I like a red pepper, too, and I used to love candied apples, but I cain't eat them anymore, because of my teeth. Come to think of it, I like anything that's red." She thought for a minute.
"We had a red hen named Sister, once, and every time I'd go in the backyard, I'd say, 'Sister, don't you peck my toes, girl, or I'll fry you up with dumplings,' and she'd cock her head and walk sideways away from me. She'd peck everybody else except me and my little boy, Albert. We never could eat that hen, even during the Depression. She died of old age. When I get to heaven, with all my people, I hope Sister and Cookie the raccoon is go
"I don't have any idea where Sipsey came from... you never know where colored people come from. She was about ten or eleven when she started working for Momma Threadgoode. She'd walked over from Troutville, the colored quarters across the tracks, and said her name was Sipsey Peavey and she was lookin' for a job, and Momma just kept her. She helped raise all the Threadgoode children.
"Sipsey was a ski
"But, with all of her spooky ways, there wasn't a better cook in the state of Alabama. Even at eleven, they say she could make the most delicious biscuits and gravy, cobbler, fried chicken, turnip greens, and black-eyed peas. And her dumplings were so light they would float in the air and you'd have to catch 'em to eat 'em. All the recipes that were used at the cafe were hers. She taught Idgie and Ruth everything they knew about cooking.
"I don't know why Sipsey never had any children of her own. You never saw anybody love babies more than Sipsey did. All the colored women in Troutville would leave their babies with Sipsey overnight when they wanted to go out and have a good time. They knew she'd take good care of them. Sipsey said nothing made her happier than to have a little baby to rock. She'd rock those little babies and sing to them all night long, sometimes two at a time, and just pine away for one of her own.
"Then, one afternoon in November, right around Thanks-giving—Momma said it was freezing cold outside and all the trees were bare—Sipsey was upstairs making the beds, when a friend of hers from the colored church came in the backyard, hollering up to her. Her friend was all excited and told her that there was a girl from Birmingham down at the train station that was giving away a baby. And she said to hurry up 'cause the train was fixin' to leave.
"With that, Sipsey ran downstairs as fast as she could with nothing on but a thin dress and her apron. When she ran through the back door, Momma Threadgoode said she yelled at her to put her coat on, but she called back, 'I don' have time, Miz Threadgoode. I got to go get me that baby,' and was gone in a flash. Momma stood on the back porch and waited, and pretty soon she saw the train pull away, and here came Sipsey, gri
"So we never did know the baby's real name. Sipsey said since he came off the train, she would just call him George Pullman Peavey, after the man that invented the pullman car. But whoever his real daddy was, he must have been a big man, because George grew up to be a six-foot-four, two-hundred- fifty-pounder.
"When he was a little boy, Poppa took him over to the store and taught him how to be a butcher. He was slaughtering hogs when he was only ten, and Sipsey was so proud of him . . . she couldn't have loved him any more if he had been her very own. She used to hug him and she would say, 'Honey, just 'cause we ain't no kin don' mean you don' belong to me.'
"And later, when Big George was on trial, she dressed up and went to that courtroom, come rain or come shine . . . she must have been close to ninety years old. Course, you can never really tell how old colored people are.
"She was always singing her gospel songs . . . 'In the Baggage Car Ahead,' and I’m Going Home on the Morning Train' . . . always singing about trains. The night before she died, she told George that she had a dream where she saw Jesus all dressed in white. He was the conductor of a ghost train and he was coming to get her and take her to heaven.
"But I would venture to say she was still cooking over at the cafe well up into her eighties. That's the reason most people came, because of her cooking. It sure wasn't for the look of the place. When Idgie and Ruth bought it, it wasn't nothing more but one big old room. It sat just across the street from the railroad tracks, down from the post office, where Dot Weems worked.
"I remember the day they moved in the cafe. We were all down there helping, and Sipsey was busy sweeping the floor when she noticed that Ruth was hanging her picture of the Last Supper. Sipsey stopped sweeping and studied that picture for | while, and then die asked, 'Miz Ruth, who's that sitting up there at the table with Mr. Jesus?"
"Ruth, who was trying to be sweet, said, 'Why, Sipsey, that's Mr. Jesus and the Brethren.' Sipsey looked back at her and she said, 'Oh. Uh-huh. I thought Miz Mary just had the one boy,' and went on sweeping. We "bout died laughing. Sipsey knew exactly who that was in the picture. She just liked to play with people.