Claud Lee Cook & and wife Minnie Rebecca Garrett Cook (1934)
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Claude Lee Cook, Sr. (1887-1974)
Claud Lee Cook & and wife Minnie Rebecca Garrett Cook (1934)
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As a boy, he would help his father drive cows and pigs to market in Liberty and Walhalla. Since they could only make about 10 miles a day, they would have to stop at several boarding homes along the way to spend the night. They would put their herd of animals up in a corral or pasture for the night. Most of the time they would also bring apples to sell at market.
On one of the trips to Liberty, Papa Cook heard about the new cotton mill that was being built in Cateechee which was 5 miles away on the 12 Mile Creek. He got a job making bricks for the mill and met Minnie Rebecca Garrett (Mama Cook) when she brought lunch to ??______________.
They married in Pickens County April 15 1905 with Papa Cook's sisters Stella & Bessie serving as attendants. His mother, Ann Bone Cook, died shortly thereafter. (4 - 1/2 months on Aug. 31) He took Mama Cook back to Wolf Mountain where Roy was born. (On the back side of where the Owens Christmas Tree Farm is now.) She thought the winters were too harsh and missed her family, so they moved to Cateechee. One of Mama Cook's Uncles had a house near Cateechee that they lived in for about 2 months until they moved to the base of Six Mile Mt. into Mr. Kennemore's house. (This house is across the road from Six Mile's new elementary school) Little Irene was born at the Cateechee home and she was soon followed by 2 sets of twins born at the Six Mile home. (Mildred & Lillian and Leland & Lucielle)
One day while Mama Cook was milking the cows, Irene (who was about 2 or 3) scared her when she brought one of the newborn babies out to the barn when it started crying. Not long after this Irene fell ill with diphtheria and died. Mama Cook was saddened by this. We have a post card sent a few days later to her brother ________ asking him to come get her so she could go to Cateechee to visit with her family.
The man who owned this rental house (we think it was a Mr. Parrot ??) had an offer to sell it and asked Mama Cook if they would mind moving early. She said she wouldn't mind since she thought the water from the well on the back porch which was full of minerals was causing her to have twins. Papa Cook had a crop of wheat growing in the field and would have lost it if they moved so the man that owned the property bought the crop from them. They moved to Lay Bridge road where Grandpa Garrett had about 75 acres.
They eventually moved to a 4 room house near the railroad crossing in Norris behind the grocery store later run by Harold Gaines and had to add a large room onto the back for the 6 boys that came along. Only 5 boys were ever at home at a time because Roy was in college by the time John Marion came along. This was the home Mama and Papa Cook would live in the rest of their lives and was the only home known to most of the children and all of the grandchildren. Wallace later bought the homeplace at the estate sale and lived there when visiting from his home in Virginia.
Claud Lee Cook family (1954)
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Papa built several barns around the homeplace. The barn directly behind the house
had the work shops and storage bays and on the left end of it Papa had his corn
crib. Another large barn was to the left of the first one and was used to house
the horses, mules and to store hay overhead. Ole Blue the mule was the last work
animal Papa had.
Papa Cook took every opportunity to visit Wolf Mountain he could since he loved the mountains and had several friends he grew up with living there including the Owens and Galloways. As a business man, he was even able to pay for several trips by bringing back a load of locust posts for fences or white pine saplings for reseeding forests. It has been over 30 years since he sold any locust posts but I hear from people whose fences are still held up by posts they bought from him. He kept the posts stacked beside the road at the end of his deck built out of railroad timbers. He sold the posts for 25 cents in the mid 1960's. Whenever he would return to Wolf Mountain he would bring watermelons each visit because the people didn't have them there and were so excited to get one. Papa owned property on Lay Bridge road just 2 miles from his house and it reminded him of Wolf Mountain with its laurel thickets.
Papa Cook hauled cotton bales from the Norris rail road freight depot to the Cateechee cotton mill and finished fabric back to the railroad.
Papa Cook was a farmer, owned a small cotton gin, moved people (all over, 1927 to Detroit, 1933 Chicago World Fair, Several trips to Miami to deliver carpet to repair home damaged in hurricane. Rielly Garrett went but wouldn't buy gas on Sundays, , ), Papa Cook owned several rental homes and would park his car at the street corner near the old post office once a week and the renters would come by and pay him. He would buy a new car every few years. The last one was a 59 Pontiac. While farming, Papa Cook would have a large rock at each field where he could stop and take a rest. He would usually have a cup of hot coffee because he said it helped him cool off. He was a big hunter and taught his boys how to hunt deer, squirrel and rabbits.
Story: About hauling a hog in the back of the truck. It started moving around and got the truck off balance and it overturned in the cotton field in front of Jesse Gillispee's home. Roy may have been driving the truck.
Story: When I was about 8 or 9, several uncles were going squirrel hunting and asked my dad if I could go. After he finally consented we headed for the woods. I didn't have a gun. One of my uncles would say, "That looks like a good squirrel tree. Johnny go around behind the tree and see if you see a squirrel." As I walked around the tree I didn't see a squirrel, but about half way around I heard my uncle's gun go off and saw a squirrel fall to the ground. We picked it up and kept walking. When we came to the next tree the same thing happened. As I walked around the tree they shot another one. This happened over and over till we had a mess of squirrels. It wasn't until later that I realized that they had used me to get the squirrels. As I walked around the trees, the squirrels would hear me russeling the leaves and try to hide from me on the opposite side of the tree which is where my uncles were standing with their guns. When we had our limit, we headed back to Mama Cook's and she fixed the best squirrel dumplings I have ever had.
Please contact me at [email protected]
John M. Cook, Jr.
