Notes |
- Emma Henson, the Basketmaker
Story by Vernie Henson Christain
http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/9824995/person/6105278584/media/5?pgnum=1&pg=0&pgpl=pid%7cpgNum
"My mom Rose Ann Emmaline "Emma" SISCO HENSON was good with her hands and taught herself how to do many things. She made baskets using "Buck brush" runners and "White oak" splits, then sold them to help supplement our income. I remember she and I, with maybe one or two of the other children, walked around the mountain with as many baskets as each of us could carry in both hands, going from house to house peddling them. Other times we would walk over the mountain to Mt. Judea and sell them. There was no one else around at that time who made baskets. She got from twenty five cents to five dollars for a basket depending on the size. Once dad took a wagon load of mom's baskets to Horace MOTEN'S store on the corner in Western Grove and left them there to sell. When a chair needed a new seat mom would use white oak splits, which my brother Richard and I helped her get, and wove a new seat in it. You had to cut a small white oak sapling and split it open then split it again to get the width you wanted. Most of the time you can peel the splits with your fingers but some times a sharp pocket knife comes in handy if the split starts leading off and getting too thick."
|