Mobley Creek, Our Legacy Land

Some of my relatives, other descendants of Jesse Strange, researched our family tree and complied the information in a book called Reflections of a Proud Strange Family, which we simply refer to as “the book.” During this research, my relatives learned more about a family property, Mobley Creek. I asked one of my cousins, Barbara Jean, to tell me more about this property. 

Transcript

Some of my relatives, other descendants of Jesse Strange, researched our family tree and complied the information in a book called Reflections of a Proud Strange Family, which we simply refer to as “the book.” During this research, my relatives learned more about a family property, Mobley Creek. I asked one of my cousins, Barbara Jean, to tell me more about this property.

Barbara Jean  

I learned about Mobley Creek when we started writing the book. I knew nothing about the word "Mobley Creek." I never heard my father, anyone, speak the word "Mobley Creek." Any of the brothers or sisters. That was my first time. After they start going to the courts and getting records and stuff like that. And of course, I was raised on what they learned later was “Mobley Creek.”

Teresa Roberson 

Your father was Jessie Strange, right?

Barbara Jean 

Yeah, my father was the second oldest child from the second marriage. He is the first of like, your grandfather and the rest are all brothers, whole brothers. 

My grandfather, Floyd B. Strange, the eleventh child, was one of Barbara Jean’s uncles.

Uncle Richard is the first child from the first marriage. So, I grew up on Mobley Creek. It was like, I always called it "The Garden of Eden." Now that I'm looking back because it was so much there on that land. And we had about... I think about... you know all about five houses. About 1, 2, 3, 4, about 5 houses on that land. And it was just so much land. We had a lot of tobacco, corn, molasses. We made our own molasses. All types of fruit trees that grew in this area mainly grew on that plantation, including persimmons. We made beer out of persimmons. And there were other trees that they call “honeysuckles.” They were long sickles that you could eat. Actually had meat in it, fruit, delicious. It was just so much I can remember on that old farm. And that's about as far as I got from that farm other than when I would come to Cascade after I got a little older like about, I remember about seven years old coming to Cascade a lot to visit Uncle Daniel and Uncle Floyd. That was the main house, Uncle Floyd and Uncle Daniel, the main houses that we visited. Of course, Uncle Theodore was much younger. He and my oldest brother with about same age, Percy. 

Daniel was the third sibling and Theodore was the twelfth sibling.

And I didn't go to North Carolina too much. You know, the last one's always had stay home. Of all of the siblings, I was the 12th sibling. Even though we were twins, I'm 20 minutes older than my brother. 

Teresa Roberson 

So, Cousin Jean, you lived on Mobley Creek, but you didn't know that that's what it was called?

Barbara Jean 

That's true. I don't think any of us knew it. I'd never heard the word "Mobley Creek."

Teresa Roberson 

And how many years did you live there?

Barbara Jean 

I lived there until I started living with my sisters because of the school situation. I guess about eight years old, maybe something like that, but I always lived there. I went to school. I stayed with my siblings to go to school because if we didn't have a school that I could go to. I had to walk about five miles. So, after all my siblings had gone, then I started staying with them, including sometimes I stayed with your grandmother, because the school was such a horrible situation for us to go to school there.

Although Cousin Jean doesn’t elaborate, I’ve learned about the “horrible situation” she faced as a student before schools were racially integrated, starting in 1954.

Teresa Roberson 

Okay, so what was the closest town or city to Mobley Creek?

Barbara Jean 

Well, there was no such thing as a town. But there was Highway 58. Brosville High School. Well, that was about two miles from my house down into the woods about maybe two and a half miles, walking out or driving out or riding a horse out or however. Danville, of course, was about 20 miles away. 

Teresa Roberson 

Where did your sisters live in order for you to go to school? 

Barbara Jean 

Well, my sisters lived in Cascade. I stayed with Gladys when she lived in Cascade. When I was in elementary school, then I lived with my sister, Kathleen. She stayed with your Uncle Jug. James was his name. 

My Uncle Jug was one of my grandmother’s siblings. Although her first name was “Beatrice,” we usually shortened it to “Bea.”

I just stayed around. I'd stayed with Aunt Bea because after all my siblings left that was like 18 years old, 17 years older than me. They left got married and left. Then my father would have to walk us halfway to school. And it was just too much. So, I was just kind of like all over the place that's why I'm so blessed, I guess. To have had so many loving family members that actually helped to take care of me because of the situation that we were in in Mobley Creek. We didn't have a school because if it rained, you could not get across the creek. Snowed, you'd better not go across the creek. Therefore, it was like almost springtime before you go to school full time. So, we had to do the best that we could.  I think that my father had a better school situation than his children because during those days, they went to school at church. The church that my father and your grandfather went to school at, I think, it was right out there at Cascade Church. I didn't know that until much later.

Teresa Roberson 

Was that Primitive Baptist Church?

Barbara Jean 

Yeah, that's still a Primitive Baptist Church. You know the one across the street from us? From Herbert's? 

Herbert is one of my uncles.

That was the church my father must have had gone to because that's how they went to school. So, they lived at Uncle Daniel's house. I learned that late too. I learned a lot. I learned along with the rest of the kids because I just didn't know anything about it myself what was going on. I always thought that all the older kids like your grandfather and my father and all the guys were born down at Mobley Creek. Because if you ever heard, you probably didn't because you were too young, but my Aunt Mary always talked about during the Civil War, how the Yankees would come through the farm by Mobley Creek, cutting through to go to South Carolina. They had a 20-room house that the master, they call it "master," but they never used the word "master," lived in. And because they fed the horses, the rebels burned it down. So, they never built it back because they said my grandfather told the master, I call it "master," but his name is Richard. The strange thing about this that I could never understand, now that I am looking back and listening and looking at Louis Gates every so often with the history of so many slaves. I could never understand why our grandfather came to this country with this white man that was named Richard and the black man also was named Richard. He never called him his slave. Yet, he called him his "Negro." That's what he always call him his Negro. That was, that has always been and always will be a puzzle in my life, in my brain. So, but during that time, I always thought that everybody was born in this house. But I understand that behind this house, evidently, you never knew, but where I lived, you could tell it was some kind of beautiful plantation because of the way the trees were. They had this, your mother will know, this big tree. But there was a tree that we had at Mobley Creek that stood out, and everybody that knew about it would come to see this tree.

Teresa Roberson 

What was so special about the tree?

Barbara Jean 

What was so special about this tree? This tree seem as though it covered, daggone, it was about, I guess you could put the whole house under the tree and still have a roof over. It had branches in the yard. The roots in the yard ran out like, like a river throughout the yard in different, you know, how are the branches of trees spiral out? Well, that's the way these branches under this tree had grown. That we could have a playhouse on one side. We could have dinner. And we did. And let's say when company came, then we'd stretch out a long table among that tree and the adult people be on this side. Theyounger people be on that side. It was like a house underneath the tree. That was something that I was so sorry that we never had a picture of. It was that tree. So, that was the house that made me believe that that was the plantation place because behind it evidently, was the house that I was born in. And that was the house that Uncle Richard, they said the little log cabin on that house, was where Uncle Richard, the first child, was born. Then after the house had been burned down, my great grandfather had this child, Richard. So, evidently, they must have bought the place at Cascade. And great grandfather must have moved up there. And was still working on the farm at Mobley Creek. And that's where the long story and the mystery comes in with the first wife. A lot we really don't know is only what we have been told. My grandfather married this woman. They had their first child. He was 27, I believe, and she was 16. And I believe that she must have been somewhere in Cascade, in that particular, area there because that's where they lived in that house up there where Uncle Daniel is. But I lived on this plantation where everything started from. Y'know the roots of it. That's where I come from.

Teresa Roberson 

Who owns that property now?

Barbara Jean 

Everybody owns the property, honey. We've never gotten that property straight. We tried and we tried, but the bulk of the property is owned, on the records, by your Uncle Herbert and Theodore. In the earlier years, grandfather, my father was the administrator over that land. Their parents told them, "The land should never be sold." And that's what they believed. This land, they call it "legacy land"? But anyway, meaning that it could only stay in the family. That was their belief. Had they put it in writing, it probably would stand still today. But I don't think that would stand up in court today. But since it has never been divided, they did make my father the administrator of the land. So, I was told. I bet that wasn't written in the court either. One thing I can tell you about that family tree: my father and his siblings, I'd never knew them to say one thing about one another. They never fought. They never had any arguments to my knowledge. I know my father would have been the first one to say something. They always looked up to him because he was the oldest. And Uncle Floyd was the first to actually build the house, that they were so happy. They were moving up then. They were getting better jobs and everything. And of course, by dad having so many kids, I guess Jessie was the best to stay on the land because he had a bundle of them. I'm glad he did because I learned so much. I remember every inch of that land almost. Oh, getting back to who owns the land. Who owns the land, if you go to court, everybody owns the land. But every year when it was time for the taxes to be paid, I remember all of the siblings Aunt Lucinda, they always come to Floyd's house because Floyd was the only one at the house that they could go to at that time. 

Lucinda was the eighth sibling.

So, they would all meet every time the taxes come, everybody would come home that could and I think all of them came home. They would get together and they would put their monies together and then they go downtown, and pay the taxes come back have a good time a family reunion in the house. Uncle Floyd's house. So that's what went on for many, many, many many years. Then later on in the years, things started to grow. I never will forget my father told me, here we have 200? on the record today, 289 acres of land at Mobley Creek. I was on all this land and I was crying. I wasn't crying, but I was whining. I told my father, I didn't have anything one day. I was very small, but I remember this. He looked at me, he said, “Baby, you like the crow, that sat over the barrel of corn and starved to death. You have everything.” But I didn't know what he meant then. And he was absolutely right. We did as a Black family. How many Black families own what we have today? Even till today. We didn't have to buy anything other than sugar and what else? Coffee. And we thought, of course, cold cuts, like bologna and hotdogs, that was a delicacy for us. But we had all the ham, we needed. All the chicken, we needed. All the flour, we needed. All the corn, we needed. All the food, we needed. We had everything. Only thing that we didn't have that big white house that they burned on that plantation. Had we had someone with financial experience, or, I think the mindset of my grandfather that had a business mind, and I think, great grandfather too. I don't believe my grandfather was one of the White men that just came over like the regular White people in this country. I looked it up and a lot of people Stranges names were in England. I think he was actually a kind of an educated man. Because he had to be smart. Because he had to be a smart man to acquire such land. And I believe to this day if you dug my grandfather up he would be a Black man. And I do believe that to my grave that he was White. You know he probably had a White mother and this black child that was our grandfather was his brother, little brother. That's my belief and because you know, whether you know it or not, I understand there's a lot of, not a lot of them, but there if you look at the courthouse there's a lot of Stranges in the courthouse. They had nothing to do with this Black set of Stranges. Nothing to do with us. I think they were that group that split. Didn't have anything to do with this other man that stayed with his little Black brother because they knew in America you could not accomplish anything being Black. So, they stayed on the other side of the fence.

Teresa Roberson 

Well not easily during that time. 

Barbara Jean 

Not easily, not period. You can't run around here and being White and call yourself Black without having obstacles, but you know what? This man was very smart. Because, you know, he could have had slaves on his land, but he didn't. I don't remember having slaves. I think Dionne traced some record down where they said there was some runaway slave, but you know, they maybe had to put that there to get him back. 

Dionne is one of Cousin Jean’s children.

I don't know. But I've never heard anyone say that there was any slave labor on that land. And I've never heard anyone say, not even my father. They had sharecroppers. And they were Black. We didn't have any White people on that land. We had about five houses.

Teresa Roberson 

Were they all relatives?

Barbara Jean 

No, not all were relatives on the land. I don't know why people didn't treasure what they had. I just couldn't understand it. I think because everybody was trying to get to the factories. It was just like here. Everybody want to go in the government. But at that particular time, they had been so used to cotton field and tobacco fields and when things start opening up the factories, they just give up everything and just let go and just want to give up. You know, just we're tired of this. They didn't know what they had. They didn't know the richness that they were giving up. I think it was just the lack of education. But looking back, I treasure all the moments that I had with the farm. I learned so much. And it was such a beautiful, beautiful place. We raised everything there. We raised our own molasses. We planted the cane, and we had the pan that we cook the molasses in. Then they had the mill. That's why I knew this had to be the plantation farm. Because everything that you see only in the movies. It was there. 

Teresa Roberson 

Did you guys make your own clothes? Textiles? Or was that store bought?

Barbara Jean 

No, we bought or made our own clothes every so often. The girls would maybe buy something, but yeah, my mom, she sewed. Everybody was sewing at that time. Everybody that I've known that was near my mother's age sewed.

Teresa Roberson 

So, they would go to town to buy the fabric? 

Barbara Jean 

Yes, they would buy the fabric and they would make their own clothes. Everybody had a sewing machine just about. Those big old sewing machines that you see when you go to the laundromat. You see those old machines back there, maybe if you see ever seen one. You work them with your foot. My mom had one. They made their own bedding, their quilts, and they would hang a rack in a room. And then these women would have quilting parties. I remember: women used to sit around to quilting and they would gossip half of the night and eat and just drink coffee. Just have a wonderful time and make their bed spreads. There were some older guys in the community could take the straw and make chairs. They would buy the frames and then they would make the chairs. A lot of stuff was made. Didn't have furniture factories until much later. And then one day, of course after all my siblings left home, the farmers just left there with my dad and my mom. Nobody really cared about farming. The boys didn't care about farming. They had gotten over that like Uncle Floyd and Theodore. They had gone to the mills and that was like a big thing. You know, there was nobody who wants to work on the farm. So anyway, we were left. And so finally my dad got so old, that he could not take care of the farms. That is the worst thing that ever happened to this family. We should have rented that farm out to somebody. Someone should have gone down there and raised the garden every year. The family should have had a garden there because the land was just absolutely perfect for everything. We had fields and fields of wheat. Fields and fields tobacco. I think we had about five acres of nothing but blackberries. Just nothing but blackberries. People come from everywhere, driving down that road, picking berries and my father never charge anybody a penny for anything. So, I called it "The Garden Eden" because everything was there: plums, pears, apples, plenty apples, peaches, not a lot of grapes. We had a grape vine in the wrong place. My mom had this thing about a flower garden. She had about one acre. Everybody knew her for this flower garden that she had. They put a fence around it and she had every flower that she could. When the kids got older, they would order different flowers from books, so she had every kind of flower you could dream up. So, she mainly worked in the house and all the kids they worked in the field. Tobacco, plenty of corn, plenty watermelons. We'd go out in the field and a whole acre and just burst watermelons for the heck of it. Because it looked like it was a good one to eat.

Teresa Roberson 

So, what makes a grapevine in the wrong place? You said it was not in the correct place?

Barbara Jean  

The grapevine was in the wrong place because my mom put everything that you wouldn't plant. I wouldn't. But my mom had this almost an acre of flower. She just went out there and had a grapevine. She just thought she put it somewhere. It was almost in the middle of that garden. It was a grape harbor. Then at the end of that fence, there was a peach tree that was, you know, naturally grown there. So, they just put the fence around the tree. But then she had problems with us going through her flowerbeds to get to the grapevine. So, that's where we got a lot of spankings from tearing up the flowers, getting over to the grapes. So, that's why I say she put it in the wrong place. It was just something that she threw out there and it grew to be a nice grapevine. And then she made a harbor out of it. And of course, you know, they made their grape wines and all that good stuff like that. They had their all kinds of wines that they made. Grape wines, mulberry wine. You name the wine, they made it. Had it for Christmas time. All kinds of wines for Christmas. And you don't have to say anything about the moonshine 'cause it was all through the woods of Virginia. So, it was just a place to remember. Corn. All the corn you needed. Wheat. We didn't have to buy any flour. After the harvest of the wheat, we took our harvest, it was up there by your grandfather's like going down to, we call it the baptizing pool up in Cascade. Where the post office is in Cascade. By the river. Going down the hill where the river is. We call it the baptizing pool. We just had a lot. We were just so blessed with everything.

Teresa Roberson  

Oh, Cousin Barbra Jean, thank you so much for sharing that with me.

Barbara Jean 

You are more than welcome. 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai