(NOTE: The following appeared in the 1985 Odum Homecoming program and was written by Hazel Dean Overstreet. It is being reproduced here for the Odum, Georgia website….KH)
Mrs. Susie remembers the thin strips of wood they used to split and use for staves in their bonnets. She remembers distinctly how they had to make soap, go to the woods, cut down green oaks, and burn the wood until it was clear white ashes. This was then used in the soap-making process. Occasionally, Mrs. Susie made another batch of ‘homemade’ soap to keep in practice the old custom of soap making.
Another interesting remembrance of Mrs. Susie’s is when she used to watch her parents strike flint (rock) with steel to get a spark. A wad of cotton was laid close to catch the spark, and fat splinters of wood were handy to transfer the flame onto.
Her papa, Thomas Dent, also made his bullets. Over a fire, he melted hot lead and then poured it quickly into molds.
Mr. Melton Boyd, as a boy, remembers playing in this vicinity with some of the boys of the old families Mrs. Susie mentions. Mr. Boyd said he had many a time being told by Allen Spence (later judge and lawyer in Waycross) that if he would get up on the old Indian Mounds there in the Altamaha Swamp and stomp up and down and holler “What are you doing?” the old Indians buried there would say “Nothing.” Mr. Boyd says he used to stomp ’til he would be purple in the face, but he could never make the old Indians say ‘nothing.’ That is, he says until he learned the joke!
Another group of early settlers was the Aspinwall family. Coming here in the early years, they have many descendants numbering in today’s population. The former Willie Mae Aspinwall has spent many hours and years compiling the Aspinwall family history, searching out old records at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. and many other places, and has unearthed many interesting lights. The family, in England, were shipbuilders. Today, the Aspinwalls are lumber and timbermen, barbers, landowners, farmers, etc. It has been stated that the Aspinwall history is connected with the history of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who served several terms as President of the United States. It is hoped if a complete history of Wayne County is compiled, this complete family history can be recorded.
By the turn of the century, 1900, progress was coming to Odum. Activity began humming. Doctors were settling in the town. Families from the outlying farms (or children of these old families) were marrying and moving to Odum.
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