Celebrating Hazel Sumner
By: Karen WeHunt Harden | wharden1950@gmail.com
Hazel Sumner turned ninety-five years old this October. She praises God every morning for her life and for the life she has been allowed to live. A life-long resident of Enoree, South Carolina she had it hard and worked hard. With six sisters and four brothers they worked in the field and gardens. Hazel shared, “We knew we had to do it. We had nothing to brag about. We lived day to day. Being poor seemed normal. We were all in the same boat”.
Hazel learned to cook and can. They had a mule to pull the plow and they hardly ever saw a car. They carried water from the well. There were no paved roads and no indoor plumbing. When they had company, the cousins would sleep at the foot and at the top of their beds – up to six in one bed.
“After school, we changed our clothes and went to the field. At Christmas we received Brazil nuts and candy”. She never had a baby doll.
Clyde Layton had a truck to come by and they would sell their eggs or trade eggs for BB Bat taffy candy. They bought flour, meal, sugar and coffee from T. Wright Cox.
“We had buttered biscuits or biscuits and gravy for breakfast. Mama fried out fat back and made her gravy. If we only had a little sweet milk, Daddy got it for his coffee. Dinner was vegetables and cornbread. Supper was whatever was left over from dinner. We had chicken and dressing on Sundays. Mama made the best dressing and was the best pie maker”. Hazel fondly remembers her mother’s delicious sweet potato pies and banana pudding. Fried chicken, green beans, cabbage, tomatoes, cantaloupe, cucumbers and pickles were shared at reunions. They set up big tables out in the yard under the oak trees. For fun they played ball, swam and went to the bowling alley the mill provided.
“We went barefooted in summer and if Daddy sold a bale of cotton, we could buy our school clothes. If not, we made repairs and wore hand me downs”. She learned to yodel by listening to Arthur Smith and His Cracker-Jacks on the radio. She yodeled for me today.
Hazel’s high school sweetheart was Russell Ray. They would drive to Dell’s Drive In, court, and eat in the car. At the age of seventeen she graduated high school and waited on Russell to return from the Pacific. His group was sent to recover the equipment the Japanese confiscated. “I didn’t look at any one else.” They married in January, 1945 at the parsonage. “We enjoyed life”.
“Times are so different now. Our young people would never survive back in the day. We had to put up with it. I’ll never forget it. We had to chop stove wood, pull fodder, cut cotton stalks, and sweep the yard. Mama fired up the wood stove and milked the cows before we went to school. She made biscuits and cornbread every day. We rode the school bus and did our chores right after school. It was usually around 9 o’clock before I could do my lessons”. Hazel’s advice for young people is “To learn all you can while you’re small because you’ll need it when you get old. Find something you are good at and work at it”.
“I’m a tough old lady” Hazel stated after our two hour interview. She enjoys going to football games and hopes to go before it gets too cold.
Hazel has beautiful skin due to never drinking and using Oil of Olay daily. She is trim. Her posture is perfect and her mind is clear.
The greatest takeaway was the love she expressed for her family. Hazel said, “Mama never asked for anything and she never spoke badly about anyone”. I believe Hazel takes after her mother. She was kind and gracious and I look forward to being with her again soon. I have much more to learn about making the most out of what you have to work with.
About the author: Karen Harden is a local author from Spartanburg, SC. She authored Hope From Stalag Luckenwalde: Fifteen Pounds of Love Letters. It was written after Karen and her brother discovered an old cedar chest filled with love letters written between their father and mother, Clarence and Sara WeHunt, during WWII. The love letters document much of their everyday lives while Clarence was over seas and Sara was living in Woodruff, SC. You can find her book Hope From Stalag Luckenwalde: Fifteen Pounds of Love Letters on Amazon.
Author: Tracy Sanders
