Nancy Ann Kirk
1862-1946
By Mamie Frick Page, granddaughter of Nancy Ann Kirk, January 3, 1981

My maternal grandmother, Nancy Ann, was a joy to know even if you were not family. Raising thirteen children on a small rented farm was a difficult and sacrificial role, yet she possessed a deep faith and patience which imparted a sense of calm and well-being to all around her.

Nancy Ann never knew her father for he died the year after she was born. Life for a farm family without a father was most grim in the latter half of 19th century America. The family lived in Eastern Rowan County about a mile from old Zion Methodist Church on the Stokes Ferry Road, where they attended church. The children worked on the farm and attended school for only about three months in winter, therefore Nancy’s formal education was very meager. And even during winter there were many chores to be done such as cutting wood, animals to care for, spinning of yarn & thread, weaving for family clothing, churning, quilting etc.

In her youth Nancy was of medium build and attractive with hair parted in the middle and worn in a bun just to the back of the part. As the years passed she grayed rapidly and put on quite a bit of weight.

June 10, 1893, at age 21 Nancy married Eli Eagle and moved to the village of Liberty, ten miles east of Salisbury on the Stokes Ferry Road. Here she lived the rest of her life in the house where Eli was born. This was a log structure to which had been added a lean-to kitchen and two small bed rooms. One of these little bedrooms was known as the “Fisher Room” because a guest minister by that name had slept there. In spite of the overcrowding in the old log main house with its thirteen children (the fourteenth died in infancy) none of the family ever slept in the Fisher Room. It was reserved for the most honored guests, usually a Methodist circuit rider.

It boggles the mind of her grandchildren to imagine how Nancy Ann ever finished all her chores. Besides being “with child” fourteen times and nursing babies most of the time, she cooked on a wood stove and in an open fireplace, washed out of doors on a wash board with water heated in a huge black cast iron “wash pot.” This “wash pot” also served as the utensil for making soup, and for heating water to scald hogs at “hog killing” time. A “cold spell” was always chosen for hog killing for it took a day or two to cut the meat, make liver mush, cut the scraps for sausage, and clean the intestines to use for sausage casings. There were the family clothes to make (ready-made were practically unknown to her family) and then to keep washed, ironed and mended. She knit sox for the family. Besides the daily chores and feeding chickens and milking the cow, there were all the staggered chores such as churning butter in a wooden paddle churn, working in a garden, canning fruits and vegetables. All this was done without benefit of indoor plumbing of any kind except a sink to run water out (but not in) of the kitchen. And there were the endless trips to the spring house about two to three hundred feet from the house. Of sheer necessity the children were all put to work at an early age. It was the only way such a family could exist and feed itself.

Regardless of how busy the week days were, Nancy Ann saw that the family was dressed and in the church pew on Sunday morning. It was plain to see that she came expecting and receiving the Lord’s blessing for that day. Her church was always one of the most important things in her life. In her later years, I recall, she wore a rapt expression as she listened to the Sunday sermon and you could sense the deep respect she held for all her pastors. So evident was her spiritual thirst that it must have been a treat to be her pastor. She sang with gusto in church and at home. When the wind drifted from her house to ours on summer evenings it was not unusual to hear her singing, “I saw a way-worn traveler in tattered garments clad . . . “ I know now that she must have felt a great kinship for that way-worn traveler. On other evenings we would hear her from her barn as she arrived to do the milking, “Su-Cow-Su-Cow-Su-Cow”

Grandma’s spring house was a great joy to her. It was her refrigerator, somewhat a luxury. Her milk and butter were always cool and delicious. It was a matter of great trust when she allowed a grandchild to “fetch” butter from the spring house. In winter corn bread was baked in a covered skillet in the fireplace.

One day when we were washing dishes for Grandma someone washed her rolling pin. This was one of the few times I ever saw her thoroughly perplexed. Such thing had never been done before and she was amazed that anyone should do such an unorthodox thing to her rolling pin.

Behind the eating table in the kitchen were large unchinked spaces between the huge logs of the original structure. These were used as shelves for glasses, cups and small kitchen utensils. In one corner of the kitchen stood a large “pie safe” which reached almost to the ceiling, covered with ventilated tin sections for ventilation. The legs of the safe stood in metal cans and a bit of kerosene was kept in each can to keep insects and ants from entering the “safe”.

Any grandchild in handy range was handed a bucket and sent to pick up apples from the “June apple tree”. Everything was saved – eaten, canned, or dried. Dried apples, called “snits” made wonderful apple jacks in winter.

Grandma never had time to be sick. Some where around middle age she had a mastectomy, but had no further trouble in that respect.

If Grandma ever owned a cook book I never saw or heard of it. After my mother died I sought Grandma’s help with my cooking problems but she was never much help in that area. Her cooking was never reduced to a formula; it was an instinctive art. So when I asked how to make “chow-chow” like hers she looked puzzled - and then told me to use some chopped cabbage, a few onions, a little green pepper, a Bit of salt & pepper and mix with some sugar and vinegar. Lacking any sense of proportions regarding her ingredients, I never had the heart to try her recipe. If she owned a measuring cup or ever measured any ingredient in cooking I never detected it.

After Eli died, Nancy Ann was very much alone. Always her Bible lay on a little table by her side. One day when a granddaughter expressed concern for her being alone, Grandma scolded, “Law, child, I’m not by myself. The Lord is with me!” On Sunday afternoons she sat in her rocker by the window and watched the road. Maybe Walter would come – or Jim – or Grover. Too often no one came except a few of us who lived nearby.

In her eighty-four years Grandma saw a doctor very few times. Only in desperation would she give consent. It was so in her final illness. She insisted on staying at home, but finally consented to go to son John’s home near by. The doctor was called but she had advanced double pneumonia which did not respond to treatment. She lived two weeks at John’s home then was moved to Stanly General Hosp. in Albemarle where she died the next day, March 29, 1946.

Her young pastor, Lester Furr, conducted Nancy Ann’s funeral service (shortly before his own death). As he sought to comfort the family he declared emphatically, “Do not think of this as Grandmother Eagle’s burial day. This is her Coronation Day!” And so, I am sure, it was.

Grandmother Eagle is buried by the side of Eli, her husband in the cemetery of Liberty Methodist Church, Stokes Ferry Rd. Rowan County, N.C.