Section II, Chapter 5

Tales From the Watermill (Continued):  The Community Strongman, A Personal Insult, and Anything to Please a Customer.

I don’t know the history of the watermill.  I don’t know if Latson Douglas Anderson founded it or bought it, but it was a fixture of the community.  Not only did it produce cornmeal and grits – which, along with molasses and meat, were staples of the early 20^th-century southern diet, but it was a community center.

I have photos of Latson and Wiley Jane (Illa) Anderson.  Her photo is of an elderly women gifted with a cherubic face that exudes personality.  My mother, who was stingy with a compliment, upon seeing the picture said, “She was such a sweet-looking old woman.” I don’t know if mother knew her in life, or only from the photo.  That is one of the things I regret never asking.  Cook Anderson looked a lot like his mother.  When I first saw a photo of Latson Douglas, I thought it was my father – Daddy was a spitting image of him. It is funny how traits can skip a generation.

Although Latson was not a big man, Daddy said he was incredibly strong – one of the strongest men in the community.  From the following tale from my father, I gather there was a store associated with the watermill:  A “drummer” came by touting his wares, and displayed a pair of shoe strings that he said were practically indestructible.  He offered anyone who could break them a free pair and a dollar – a lot of money it the day when it would buy groceries for a week.  Latson took the challenge:  He wrapped an end of the shoe string around each hand and pulled as hard as he could.  His arms began to quiver, but he continued to pull then – snap!  He broke the unbreakable. The shocked drummer stood good on his offer and said that many people had tried, but Latson was the first one to break his shoe string.

The original millpond dam was made of wood (as is the one at Sciples’ Mill pond in Kemper County).  When winter rains came it required constant attention, as high water, drifting logs, etc. could damage it and logs could clog the mill race, so Latson had to wade into the cold water to maintain and repair the dam.  Daddy said that, in his old age, Latson suffered terribly from arthritis (he called it rheumatism) and had to walk with the aid of two walking sticks.  He attributed it to the amount of time he spent in the cold water. We all remember how stooped Cook was, and I never remember a time when he did not use a walking stick.  Maybe it is in the genes, cousins, and we who live long enough are fated to spend our final days like that.  I hope not.

I gather Illa did much of the grinding, for these two stories, passed down by my father, feature her: Watermills, by their nature, grind slowly.  A man brought corn to the mill to be ground.  The old woman poured the grain into the hopper, threw the lever, the stones started turning, the corn was distributed onto them, and meal started flowing, miserly, from the trough.  The customer said, “You know, I could eat that meal as fast as it is coming off that stone.”  Illa took the remark as a personal insult – sort of like the mother of an ugly child when someone confronts her with the truth.

“Yeah, but for how long?” she shot back.

“Until I starve to death,” he replied.

The modern-day equivalent would be eating crabs.

Then there was the community curmudgeon.  No one could satisfy the old fellow, who complained about everything.  Every time he brought corn to the mill, he complained that the last bunch was not ground fine enough, although Illa had adjusted the stones to the finest setting without burning the meal.  This time, she decided she was going to do her best to satisfy the old grouch, so she invited him to examine the meal as it was being ground and to advise her when it was fine enough.  She started out with the stones at their normal setting.  At the ground cornmeal emerged, the old man would take a sample, rub it between his thumb and forefinger and say, “Just a little finer.”  She adjusted the stones to a finer setting.  The old man would, again, examine the meal and say, “Just a little bit finer.” This process continued through a succession of progressively finer settings until the stones were so close together  sparks begin to fly and the meal was scorched, but the old fellow continued to say, “Just a little bit finer.” Illa began to back off on the stones, and the old man replied, “That’s getting better, just a little bit more,” She continued to back off, to his approval, until she reached the normal setting, and he exclaimed, “That’s it!  That’s just the way I like my meal.”

From then on that was the procedure, the old man would rub the meal as the stones were brought to together, then backed off, continually saying “Just a little bit finer,” until they were back to the normal setting, when he would exclaim, “That’s it!  Grind the rest of it just like that!”

Anything to please a customer!

The watermill, along with farming, I am sure, sustained a family of twelve – the parents, eight girls and two boys, Cook and Otis.  Can you imagine being Cook or Otis and growing up in that household?  I know that at least two of the girls graduated from Forrest County Agriculture High School, a boarding school, with their expenses being paid by their father supplying the school with cornmeal and grits.

All of the girls (except Onie, who was retarded) married well and, along with Cook and Otis, became pillars of the community.  Laddie Married Clarence Woods, who was comptroller at Mississippi Southern College (now the University of Southern Mississippi) and a building on campus is named for them.

The mill was eventually sold to Cassel (sp?) Lowery.  Eventually, he developed it into quite an operation, and he constructed a sawmill at the site.

The old watermill no longer operates but is now the site of a popular eatery:  The Old Watermill Fish Camp