Recollections - Legends of Yesterday: The Polstons of Holmes and Jackson County

This is a reprint of original articles by Hugh Woolley, a longtime resident and community leader of Graceville. Woolley published these articles in The Graceville News more than 20 years ago.

Originally published in the January 16, 2003 edition of The Graceville News.

I am beginning to know what it is to be old. Some say that you are as old as you act. I became an octogenarian a little over a year ago and I have felt the years past. First, there is glasses, then hearing aids, then the walking sticks. I was more agile a year ago; I would think nothing about jumping out of the bed of a pickup truck. This past year I take time to climb out. This week I developed inner ear trouble.

Here is an article that was mailed to The Graceville News last week for the county Heritage Book. Time is running out. Don’t be left out.

The Polstons of Holmes and Jackson County

Submitted by Wilmer O. (Buck) Polston

I personally graduated from Poplar Springs High in May 1949 and joined the Army in June 1949. I served two tours of duty in Viet Nam, having had several overseas tours previously, then I had progressed to the grade of Major in 1968 and retired in 1971. I had raised my family in Arizona due to an asthma condition of one of my sons.

My late wife, the former Amalene Garner, died of heart failure in 1988 and was buried at the Post Cemetery, Fort Huachuca, Arizona. I am now married to her classmate, the former Juanita Wright. We have been living in Columbus, GA since 1989. (Incidentally, Juanita and I remet at our 41st Poplar Springs Reunion.) At the time we had not seen each other since 1957. (Our classmates, particularly Red Corbitt and Heavy (Earl) Williams, take full credit for getting us together.)

My most fondest memories are the times I was growing up in Holmes County with my parents, Benjamin Eddy (Ed) and Tearsie Holman Polston, along with my five brothers: Olon, Oliver Samuel, Sidney (a long-time resident of Graceville and former superintendent of the peanut mill there). By the way, his wife Hawtence Toole Polston worked for Pa Liddon of Liddon and White for many, many years as his bookkeeper. I also had two younger brothers, Clarence and Wesley.

As I said, when coming up on the farm during the Depression and later years, we were dirt poor, but didn’t know it. We thought we were well off, because we had some clothes, shoes, food and shelter, and loving parents and mean, but supportive brothers.

When Thanksgiving and particularly when Christmas would roll around, my dad would somehow afford to pick up a lot of fruit, candy, and a few inexpensive gifts for all of us (probably bought with Doog-A-Loo from Pa Liddon’s Mercantile Store). Doog-A-Loo was Mr. Liddon’s way of financing farmers from one year to the next. He would count out so much in bills and coins to dad and other farmers (all Liddon & White spendable money, at his store). When we sold cotton and peanuts in the fall, then daddy would settle up with Mr. Liddon, then repeat the same the next year, which came in handy when it was time to buy seed and fertilizer for the next planting.

I may be exaggerating a wee bit, but at least it seemed like my daddy and we six boys would clear new ground for watermelons every single year. If you’ve never cleared new ground with a young pair of colt mules and a two-horse turning plow, then you’ll never understand why I joined the Army the next month after high school graduation. I think that I could now go and walk off a strip of land reaching from Holmes Creek to Wright’s Creek that we, as a family, cleared for watermelons (no joke).

When we were young boys, we would take the tiny rim from an old wagon wheel and a piece of heavy-duty clothesline wire, bent to specifications, and roll that little rim up and down dirt roads, racing other boys in the neighborhood when conditions allowed. We would take a gallon syrup bucket (daddy operated his own cane mill for some number of years), then punch holes in the center of the bottom and center of the lid, fill it with sand, and using a piece of bailing (hay) wire, we would pull these tailor-made toys about a million miles per year (seems like).

Guess what? We were content, happy, and loved. We thought everyone did the same. It was only after I went on tours of Third World countries, like Korea, Viet Nam, etc., that I realized we were really lucky to live in such a wonderful and great free country.

Other Polstons in Holmes County, particularly while I was young (in the 1930s), were my Grandpa and Grandma Polston, Samuel Alexander and Sally Caroline Harrison Polston). They are buried at Mt. Zion Methodist Church Cemetery, between Graceville and Bonifay, along with my parents. My daddy’s brothers and one sister were Mary Polston Patterson; Walter and Dora Polston; Alto and Felia Mae Polston; Warren and Margarette Polston; Coy Lee and Flora Mae Holman Polston. My Uncle John, my dad’s oldest brother, was killed in WWI and is buried at Elba Church, Elba, Alabama.

My mama was a great, great and loving person. She was loved by everyone with whom she came into contact. So were Aunt Susie McCall and Aunt Emma Lee Mims, her sister.

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