Days of dirt streets and wood sidewalks A STORY WORTH TELLING
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”
— John Lennon
Nothing makes a writer feel his or her age quicker than reviewing their early works, especially when realizing many of the people whose lives he or she chronicled half a century ago lived and witnessed a rapidly forgotten history.
May 1 will mark 50 years since I penned a piece printed in the Naples Monitor on May 1, 1975. I interviewed a gentleman born when Ulysses S. Grant, a commanding general of the Union Army in the Civil War, was serving as the 18th president and the U.S. only had 38 states.
Burgess Peter Jacobs, aka “Papa Jake,” of Naples, had just celebrated his 99th birthday when we talked.
“Came here the 15th day of January 1907,” he said with a smile. “I stepped off the train at the depot with a wife and five kids. Came from North Carolina where I worked in a sawmill and raised a little patch of cotton.”
“There were no brick buildings,” he reminisced, recalling dirt streets and wood sidewalks as if it were only yesterday.
“Charlie Pope built the first one in 1908 or ‘09. You know where the Lee Davis’ store is?
Put his name in the brick. ‘Course, when Lee moved in, he covered up Charlie’s name.”
Jacobs’ crystal-clear mind revealed events as though reciting a history book.
“The big business here was the sawmill, but it shut down a few years after,” Jacobs told me.
Wit and humor surfaced when questioned about the occupations he followed through the years.
“Like everyone else, as little as I could,” he said with a laugh. “Two years in Bowie County and a year in West Texas before settling near Naples.”
He added, “I farmed mostly, until about 17 or 18 years ago. My house was in Morris County, but I farmed in Cass County. About as far as from here to the street.”
He looked out the window.
“Tax collector came one day. Spent the whole day measuring, lookin’ and askin.’ When he discovered I lived in Morris County, he tore up the papers and Ieft.
I could have told him if he had asked,” he said, chuckling.
Smiles and laughter reflected his zest for life.
“This fellow was runnin’ for sheriff in Cass County once and came by to ask me to vote for him. I told him that no one was coming that far to get me, and no one there was going to bother me, so I didn’t need a sheriff,” he said.
Jacobs was 99 years young the Saturday before I wrote about him. Among the many birthday cards he showed me was one from President Gerald Ford.
“Seen a lot of presidents come and go,” Jacobs said, proudly displaying the card. “But sure was surprised to get a letter from one.”
He said his family had commemorated his birthday since the early 1920s by staging the family reunion on the Sunday falling nearest his birthday. Family came large for Papa Jake.
Looking fondly at a picture of him and his wife, Quincey Adalee, he added, “I was married to her for 69 years, five months and a few days. I liked a little being 20, she was a little over 16 when we married.”
After a hesitation, he said softly, “She’s been gone about 10 years now.”
The couple had nine children and 42 grandchildren. Asked about great- and great-greatgrandchildren, Jacobs shook his head.
“I don’t know. I can’t count ‘em all. I just call ‘em my dirty dozen,” he said.
Papa Jake reported daily activities of watching “… right smart of television. Like to watch the wrestling. Listen to the news on radio.
I walk to the mailbox every day. Used to get the mail for the ladies around here ‘till I got to where I couldn’t see too well.”
Jacobs expressed pride in the roses that grew around his house, especially the white roses.
“We call them ‘Mama’s bloom,’” he said, holding his wife’s picture.
My story reported his birthday party Saturday night at the Naples Community Center and the family reunion Sunday.
“He did not miss a minute of the activity while spreading humor and warm smiles,” I wrote. “Posing for pictures with family that came from as far as California to attend.”
Papa Jake was a living example of the old saying that you are only as old as you feel. Seeing him smile while talking about his family and friends left me thinking I was the old timer in that conversation.
— Contact Aldridge at leonaldridge@gmail. com. Other Aldridge columns are archived at leonaldridge.com
