Another View of the Buff in the Early 50's

by Roberta Robinson Hudson

I am Roberta Robinson Hudson. Your mom was my Aunt Lucille. She was energetic and wonderful as she trudged from one end of the farm to another doing everything, collecting eggs, riding her bicycle and a million of other chores. She was so fast about everything that Dad and I could not keep track. In Kansas City in the early 1950's city people just ran for buses and street cars and lugged groceries from the local store, hoping all the time that it wouldn't rain before we got home. Anyway, Dad and I decided to pay a visit to your farm since Aunt Lucille was his only sister. She embraced us warmly even when we might have posed an interference in her daily routine. I can still feel her bear hug and her rapid-fire questions and answers as she and Dad remembered things that happened long before I was born. I enjoyed especially the stories that I had never heard before. The weather was hot in August, but we really didn't notice. The farm looked spacious and the White River beautiful. I remember there was, however, just a little excitement when Aunt Lucille discovered a snake that she thought to be harmful, so she raised her hoe and dispatched it immediately. I really did not understand what had happened until Dad informed me that it was a water moccasin and not an especially friendly one. When your calm and friendly father made an appearance he was unflappable when we told him what had transpired. His eyes seemed to make everything all right. As we were talking, two young boys, barefoot and wearing Huckleberry Finn pants and carrying fishing rods, came home, and the older one, Dale, enumerated his fishing success. My dad had read everything that Mark Twain had ever written and immediately dubbed Dale "Huckleberry," and I agreed. Thereafter, when we saw someone who resembled Dale, we both said "Huck Finn." What a wonderful summer that was. I got to see Aunt Lucille in action. (She wrote to us often and I knew her through her letters.) S.A. was your Dad and A.L. your older brother. She described what each of you was doing. She referred to Billy Gene, Shelby Arnold, Dale and Neil by name. She also described the canning of fruit and vegetables that she had grown herself. My own mother was amazed by her energy and wrote to her often, exchanging recipes and news about the families. My dad, of course, was interested in things from the past that he was too young to remember since he was ten years younger than Aunt Lucille. She was proud of him (perhaps because he was so handsome and looked like the movie actor Errol Flynn.) Later, before he died (he was fifty-six years old and diagnosed with a stage four brain tumor in nineteen sixty-eight) he spoke of Aunt Lucille and our visit to Crockett's Bluff in the early nineteen fifties. He wondered about Huck Finn and his brothers. Roberta Robinson Hudson BirdiegeneH@aol.com [The photo above of Dale and Neil Woodiel was made about the time of Roberta's visit.]