Interview with Edna Fix - Part One

Edna Fix and I met in 1976 and we have been friends ever since. During a recent phone visit, something Edna said made me recall that her family had had work horses when she was a kid, so I asked if she could tell me what she recalled of the horses, and I’d include her narrative in the blog post. She readily agreed. Here is her narrative:

“Back when I was a kid, my dad always had a couple work horses. Dad used the horses for farming. I remember years ago that was when [my brothers] Marion & Eddie was still living.

He had Coalie & George. Dad and Marion and Eddie would cut the logs down in the woods, and the horses would pull the logs up to the house.

In the summertime Dad would use those horses to plow the fields. Dad would get someone to mow for him cuz they had a tractor. And then he would take the horses & we’d follow along behind & throw the square bales up on the old wagon.

After Coalie and George, he ended up getting Kate & Bill…those was the last 2 that I remember; he didn’t any more horses after that.

Question: Did he use them for anything besides the farm work?

Edna: “Basically they did the plowing of the fields & dragging in the wood.”

Question: “Where were you living then?”

Edna: “You remember when I took you to the home place? [Referring to the first time I visited her in Virginia some twenty years ago.] That was in Lexington (Virginia) We were in school - Joe &I were still in grade school. There was a woman used to come by. Dad was plowing the field, and I don’t think he was cutting the hay with the old side sycle. That woman would park down by the side of the road…she was an artist..and she would paint Dad and the horses.

One time - there was another person came up there and took pictures of the old granary, with an old wagon sitting next to it, and it got published in some old book, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get to see it. But people around here tell about the picture and that book.

Question:Do you know what breed the horses were?

Edna: “No, I don’t. Bill was not a big horse- he was white-looking and Kate was a black horse. Joe would ride Bill but not Kate..He’d just unhitch him when they were done working, and he’d ride him up to the house”

To be continued....