Granny's Letters:
We made about 75 miles yesterday. The 22nd of November we reached the Florida line between 4 and 5 o'clock. We came through two fine towns in Georgia yesterday, one was Tiffton, it was divided by the railroad, one part of town seemed as large as the other. We went to a 10 ct. store, I bought 3 candles, Mrs. Bitner bought some canned heat. We had to detour from the highway through a big pine forest, every tree was tapped for turpentine. There is no underbrush in a pine forest. This woods had palms and the ground was covered with them. Some places they had little pots like those flower pots of red clay others had galvanized pans tacked on the trees, looked about like those old tin comb cases. At Sparks Ga. we saw some fine college buildings, don't know what college it was. There we saw our first snake, it was a moccasin, a truck ran over it first than our machine, the men got out and finished it, it was black and white spotted. Valdosta Ga. is one fine city, it has a population of about 15,000. The street we came in on had the most fine houses I ever saw on one street. It was a clean town, the people well dressed, they must have been very wealthy living off of the niggers and poor whites, I suppose. We found bad road this side of Valdosta the only mud hole on our trip, the Fords plowed right through but Carrie's Overland hung up. They got out their shovels and dug the dirt away, threw in some chunks and out we came and on we came through the jungles, no towns and few houses for 28 miles. We found a camp next to a small lake but it was so cold that we drove on it was almost night before we camped, we are in the church yard, the ground is covered with white sand, a colored man lives across the road he has 200 acres of land, he has lots of stock and sugar cane, he has a cane mill of his own, they are making molasses. They have a great lot of cane in the field. The men have gone hunting this is the first place they have had to hunt. Mrs. Bitner is washing. Mrs. Burns and myself are writing. We are going over and see them make molasses. The lady sent me a big basket of sweet potatoes, we will have to stop and sell some of our sweet potatoes or else get a trailer, I never saw such loads of sweet potatoes, they are digging them now, just great loads of them. The cane molasses they have here is not a bit like sorghum, I don't like it any better but the rest think it is fine. Carrie bought 2 gallons and Frank bought one at $1.00 per gallon. Expect we will have squirrel or wild turkey for dinner. Yesterday was very warm but today it is cooler and the wind is blowing but it surely is fine weather. Just now an old darkey went by with an ox hitched to a cart, that is the first that we have seen, this is the real back woods, they grind their cane with a horse hitched to a pole. Frank thinks that he would like to buy a farm here but he would find that it would be worse than Stelvideo. We have just returned from the cane mill, we took some pictures of the mill and also of the coons, they were very nice people, they are Methodists. This church that we are camping at is the Wash Foot Baptists. We are getting dinner then we will be going on. The men are back, they did not get anything, the darkey went with them. Frank shot a snake. I shall stay out of the woods. Madison Floriday - November 24th 1920-- We got so stuck on the place that we camped at that we stayed another night, the men hunted yesterday, did not get anything. Frank fixed the spring in the machine, it was slipped like it was last summer so it wasn't worth while to start out. They went hunting again this morning, Carrie shot a rabbit, Frank seen a rabbit and a squirrel but did not get them. The rabbits are darker than our rabbits. I took a picture of 2 little nigger girls, the largest one was Elizabeth the other one was Etheline Wyche, the old man's name is Peter. We bought a quart of molasses of them. We came through Madison, county seat of Madison county, just a small place, not as nice as Ansonia, and through Live Oak, county seat of Suwannee county. We had some awful roads between Live Oak and Banford, the place we stayed all night. We went out on the banks of the Suwannee river, a regular camp ground, there was a spring 40 ft. deep, the water was poor, it was hard water. The water they have in the wells here is like rain water or has been so far. We walked across a bridge, it was a fine place in camp. Mrs. Bitner and I went for a walk at the Wash Foot Baptist church day before yesterday just down the road a few yards to the Hard Shell Baptist Church, we walked back a path through the woods and found a cemetery, the most distressed looking place I ever saw and at least a dozen graves had old lamps on them for ornaments I suppose. Two graves had tombstones, one was Martha she was 96 and Lizzie a tree had fallen on Lizzie's tombstone and broken it. It is almost noon and we are sitting along the road at a large oak grove. Frank has gone in the woods to hunt a little while. Our next place is Ft. White. We did not get started on again until next day, we found a fine spring, I never saw such clear water, it was a fine camp, before night there was 8 cars in camp . The men had no success in hunting, Carrie shot one gray squirrel. The woods was full of magnolia trees, acorn trees, holly and all kinds of ferns. There was a river there that was something like 10 ft. deep, it was just as clear as the spring water, the water was soft. I washed some, the river started back in Florida a few miles and runs 6 miles underground. We ate our dinner (Thanksgiving) in the camp. We had rabbit and sweet and Irish potatoes. The name of the river is Ichetucknee. On the 26th day of November we started on, we had more bad roads, if they were not deep with sand they were deep with ruts, we had several miles of that we came several miles through the woods, just like a wagon track, until we came to a town called High Springs, from there on we had good roads.