Burrell G. and Jemima Ann (Mima) Griggs

On February 13, 1894 when Burrell and Jemima Ann ‘Mima’ were married, he was not quite twenty-two years old and she was not quite fifteen years old. However, it proved to be a great marriage considering that they lived together forty-one years until Mima’s death on January 30, 1935. They lived in the home they built for themselves, farmed the same land she was born on, and raised to adulthood eleven of their twelve children. There were no records of them ever living any place else. They took no long vacation nor traveled to other states or countries. They let the world and, whatever else they desired, come to them. Theirs was not only a good marriage, but a productive one as well. Their children were:

• Teadie Irene – Born August 13, 1896; died May 16, 1970. She married Jessie Lewis. When Jessie died she married Thomas Epaphroditus ‘Tom’ Howle. After Tom’s death, she married George Porter.
• Clarence Leroy – Born July 31, 1897; died March 11, 1920
• Amanda Lucille – Born September 11, 1900; died January 8, 1960. She married William Alfred Griggs
• Pauline – Born June 14, 1902; died January 23, 1986. She married Charlie Dewitt Chapman
• Maude – Born July 15, 1905; died January 8, 1970. She married Marion Pete Brunson
• Ruth – Born April 1, 1908; died June 29, 1974. She married Clarence LeRoy Moore, then at Clarence’s death, she married Dewey Jones
• Sonny – Born July 23, 1910; died February 7, 1912
• Madge – Born July 19, 1911; died December 23, 1992. She married Willie Gadi Chapman
• Kate Belle– Born November 12, 1912; died October 13, 1999; She married Bealer Dixon
• Grace – Born July 16, 1914; died January 3, 1999. She married Ollie Johnson
• Burrell G. – Born August 17, 1915; died August 13, 2008. He married Ara McFarland.
• William (Bill) – Born September 22, 1918; died January 7, 1977. He married Cecile Griggs.

Sisters with Mima (Mima - front; LtoR Mandy, Teadie Irene, Grace, Maude, Madge, Ruth, Pauline, Kate)

Maude Griggs Brunson, Bobbie Griggs Benoit and Margie Chapman Watson at Burrell's House

BG as a child

The first home that Burrell and Mima established was in a small log house located near the home of her parents, Mary and John A. Teal. It was on the land that Mary had inherited from her first husband, Alexander Clark. Later they moved to what we call the ‘old home place’ on Reedy Branch where they built their home. Later Burrell dismantled this house and moved it piece by piece to a new location on the farm. This is the same house Uncle BG and his wife, Ara, lived in after their marriage. Photo from left to right: Teadie Irene, Jemima Ann, Amanda, Burrell, Pauline, Clarence

The Burrell Griggs home place was always a beehive of activity. The house itself was not large or impressive. It started out as a small two or three room home, typical of other Southern country homes of the time. As children were born, rooms were added around the original house. There was no electricity, no running water – none of the conveniences of the modern world that we take for granted today. A wood burning stove was the only major appliance in the house. The house still provided a comfortable place to raise a large family, welcome visitors, and occasionally house school teachers who taught the Griggs children at the Cat Pond School. The summertime routine, as remembered and told to us by Uncle B.G. was as follows: "Around 4am, Pa and Ma would get up and start a fire in the stove. They then would read the Bible together, and for about an hour they would discuss what they had read. No doubt they would also discuss the children and the day’s activities. Pa then would go out to feed the mules and other livestock while Ma prepared the family’s breakfast. The family always had three cooked meals each day. For breakfast we had grits, eggs, pork meat, such as ham, sausage, side meat (bacon) or canned meat. We had berries and fruit in season and dried fruit, milk, biscuits, honey, syrup, and jelly.

1932 Party

The noon meal was ready about 11:30. It would be vegetables, biscuits, some kind of meat like chicken, pork, beef, wild meat and sometimes fish. We also are a lot of canned salmon, milk and buttermilk. Water was the normal drink. Evening meals were similar to the noon meal. We also ate cornbread and gravies. There were never many leftovers because all was eaten at each meal.

After breakfast everyone that was old enough went to work in the fields or at other assigned tasks. The major cash crop was cotton until later when tobacco was introduced. In addition Pa would cut cross ties for the railroad and poplar blocks. These items were sold for cash money. Pa was an expert when it came to picking out logs. No one was better. He could tell you how the tree would split. He later became involved in the production of turpentine.

The garden produced all types of vegetables. There were grape vines and fruit and nut trees. When not busy harvesting and preserving the garden products, the family was drying and canning food for future use. If extra food wasn’t canned, it was dried or placed in a hill such as a potato hill, to protect it during the winter months. Some potato hills had doors, but most did not. These weren’t ‘broken into’ until deep winter. Greens were raised in the winter months to provide for the winter food staple. There were kale, cabbage, collards and turnips in winter.

To provide meat for the family ten to fifteen large (200-250 pounds) hogs were slaughtered each year. They were not killed at the same time. Along about the middle of September Ma would request the first hog to be killed. Most of it would be used right away or would not be cold enough to salt it down. Then around Thanksgiving, five hogs would be killed and the meat would be salted and sugar cured using pepper and other spices and sometimes smoked. We also canned a lot of meat. The other hogs were killed later for fresh meat. There were no meat markets. The family always had lots of food. Corn was taken to Wilk’s Mill and ground into grits or cornmeal.

At 11:30am the family would all gather for the noon meal. After the meal was completed, Pa and Ma would go outside into the yard and each would lie down beneath a different tree and rest until about 2:00pm. Then they would return to their respective jobs until about one hour before sunset when everyone would return to the house in preparation for the supper meal. The stock would be fed, cows milked and all the animals secured in their pens for the night. Then the supper would be eaten after which the family would prepare for bed.”

This routine will seem boring today, but then it was necessary for the survival of the whole family.

Judging from the family they raised on very limited resources, Burrell and Mima Griggs were apparently a cut above the average parents of that time. At a time when life was extremely hard on most people in the South Carolina sand hills, the Griggs were doing relatively well with their cash producing ventures, garden grown food and meat preservation. There were many hams stored in the smokehouse. One time a man who worked on the farm stole a large number of them and carried them to Florence in a wagon. Someone told Burrell about it and he was able to follow the thief’s wagon wheel tracks to retrieve the stolen meat. There were so many hams curing in the smokehouse that he hadn’t noticed any were missing. Burrell was a natural planner, organizer and doer who was guided by deep religious principles and strong work ethics.

A great deal of credit belongs to Sarah P. (Aunt Sally) and J. Warren Johnson who raised Burrell. Sarah was called Aunt Sally by Burrell’s children, but she really was his first cousin. She was the daughter of his mother’s sister Elizabeth who married James P. Polk. It is also fitting to note that Burrell is buried very close to Sarah P and J. Warren Johnson in the Cedar Creek Church Cemetery less than a quarter of a mile from where he was raised. Once he married Mima Teal, it appears that his life revolved around the Teal family rather than his Griggs family. An exception is his relation to ‘Dink’ Griggs who was married to Burrell’s sister-in-law, Sarah Margaret Teal. They lived next door to Cedar Creek Church. We hope to expand this narrative on Burrell and Mima Griggs at a later date; however, it is fitting to close this chapter with the epitaphs carved on their grave stones:

Uncle Dink & Aunt Sarah Margaret 1950

Mima
We had a precious treasure one.
She was our joy and pride.
We loved her, perhaps too well.
Lonely are our hearts today,
For the lone we loved so dearly
Has forever passed away.

Burrell
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.