We have heard it said many times as we grow older, we are always reminiscing and talking about the things in the past. The past we know, we have lived it but the future is known only to God.
Some years ago, my mind wandered back to my childhood and my earliest recollections of my home town, Buncombe, Ill. I sat down and wrote the following.
It was an Armistice Day Parade after peace had been signed following World War I in 1918. Every boy and girl of any size, was dressed in clothing made from red, white, and blue bunting. We marched proudly down Main Street led by a short Uncle Sam, completely regaled in striped pants and a tall silk hat, and carrying an American Flag. The parade ended at the C & EI depot, amid a deafening din of tin pans, cow bells, whistles and even shot gun blasts. Everyone was deliriously happy, for now our boys would be coming home. Of Course, there was also sadness too, for the ones who had paid the supreme sacrifice.
Buncombe was a thriving little town in those days, not that it isn't good now, for it has some of the nicest people on earth living there today. As the song says, "I love those dear hearts and gentle people who live in my home town." It was larger then and we lived in a much smaller world.
The business part of town was laid out in a "horse shoe" shape as I remember it. The big, sprawling Wig-Wam was across one end, with shops and stores on either side. The depot, with passenger trains stopping three times a day, two north bound and one south bound; the flour mill and the mill pond, where we all skated in the winter time, were back of the Wig-Wam and the stockyards were north up the railroad tracks.
The Wig-Wam was situated where or near where Route 37 is now and it was truly a complete store. You could buy everything from drug sundries to lumber to build an entire house. It was owned by J. B. Suit, and Thad Proctor and one of the clerks was my beloved Sunday School teacher, Miss Lou Smith. Another person who is fresh in my memory along with these, is Aunt Kit Watkins, who lived in the Suit household.
On the left hand side, Uncle Marion Walker had a good general store and was helped in its operation by his six grandchildren, the Hanklas. He and his wife reared them after their mother's death. He also, bought the farmer's cream, chickens and eggs. Almost all stores would trade merchandise for fresh eggs in those days.
W. A. (Uncle Alfred) Walker owned the next store and the home of M.D. Walker's widow, Roxie Walker, is in its place now. Then there was the drug store owned by Uncle Will Barnett, where you could get every kind if medicine for your ills and some sage advice for your welfare. The new post office building was erected on the ground where the drug store was situated. The scales were adjacent to the drugstore and the farmers weighed their grain and livestock there. Uncle Tom Gourley and sons owned a general store next to the drug store and besides, the usual merchandise, they had a feed store.
Across the way or road, Burnett Mcginnis had a up-to-date dry goods store with the fashions of the day. Between the Gourley and McGinnis was the town pump, an endless source of water, with a trough alongside where Uncle Lock Ridenhour watered Old Dock, his dray horse. The next building was owned by Uncle Eddie Montgomery, I believe but I don't remember what business he conducted. Later it was owned by Bennie Mullinax and housed Dr. Russell Main's office and family. Bill and Edith Kerr own the building now.
We had a veterinarian then, Dr. W. P. Robertson, right on Main Street. A big rambling post office and general store run by C. D. Walker and Lula Robertson was on the corner. That spot now is the new City Hall. the post office had a long side room, containing among other things, coffins for sale.
Few of us can ever forget our blacksmith shop or jovial old Uncle Wilkes Gower. He was the personification of the "smithy" in Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith" to every Buncombe boy and girl.
On the other side of the "horseshoe" on the east end was a two-story store owned by John N. Elkins (I can't remember it too well). Next was the First State Bank with Calvin Mathis as cashier. The brick building which housed the bank is still standing. Next door was a barbershop operated by Andrew Jackson, better known as the "Squire" where you could get a haircut for "two- bits," a legal paper drawn up or get married, as he was also a Justice of the Peace. Then there was a big, vacant lot where tent circuses, medicine shows and ice cream socials were set up. In later years, my father, Samuel F. Elkins, owned a two story building that housed a grocery store with an ice cream parlor and a 5 and 10 cent store section. The upper story was rented out for church revivals, lodge meetings, etc. At one time it was home to the Elkins brood.
Across the street from this store was a large "hole," the basement of a burned out building. Jack Willyard's home was built there. As a child, I expected a big monster to jump out at me, when I passed that way, after dark.
The big livery stable owned by Everett Carlton was lively in those days as a place for the men to loaf and swap tales. It was also our only means of transportation out of town, especially to the east and west. The rigs were for hire or they would chaffeur you any place you wanted to go in the deep mud.
"Drummers" getting off the passenger trains were boarded at Martha Ellen Peterson's Hotel, as well as some of our eligible bachelors.
The Central Station or telephone office was next door and was capably operated by Mrs. Andrew Jackson, the mother of Willis and Everett Jackson. The first restaurant I remember was next to the livery stable and the owners were Uncle Coon Newton and his wife.
People came from miles in all directions in topped buggies, buggies without tops and in wagons to trade in our town. There were hitch racks on both sides of the streets and all around the Wig-Wam and depot.
Dear old smiling faced, Dr. Charles D. Nobles lived just off Main Street. He had his office near the street and I could imagine I smelled the pills as I walked by. I wonder how many babies Dr. Nobles delivered in and around Buncombe? I know he delivered me and my six living brothers and sisters.
There were two churches, the Presbyterian and the Methodist. Mt. Zion Baptist was about a mile east of town (It still continues with services over 150 years, 2002). The Methodist Church has lost its steeple and acquired a new front and basement but otherwise remains much as I remember it when I went to Sunday School there. I am sorry to say the church building was sold to the school a few years ago and now houses the cafeteria and school official's offices. The Presbyterian Church has become the Church of Christ.
I started to school in an old two-story frame structure with a winding stairway in the center of the building and a bell tower on top. Eunice Ragsdale was my first teacher and taught me through the third grade. We didn't have a kindergarten then, but started out in the Primary Class. I was promoted to First Grade the first day of school because I could count to 100 and recite the alphabet. So you can see there are advantages to having older brothers and sisters. Brothers in my case.
Buncombe was named, so I have been told, for a county in either North or South Carolina. Most of our ancestors came to Johnson County from those southern states according to our histories.
Outside stairs were added to the building as a fire escape and the inside stairs closed off when I was in the Eighth Grade, I think. Soon after, the old building was torn down and we had classes in a two-story building known as the Swain house. The present school building is where I went three years in High School.
Another thing that "sticks" in my memory is the Barney Penrod Sorghum Mill which we visited each fall on our way to Grandpa's.
We didn't know much about the "outside world" then, we didn't worry about atom bombs or energy shortages. We didn't know how to get a man on the moon, we were just happy to be alive, well and among friends. Maybe those were the "good old days."
As the poet, E. F. Richardson wrote:

"There ain't nothin' fine er fancy,
Ner no stummick aching style,
For to loosen yer liver and incite yer blood to bile;
Hain't no keepin' up with the Jones,
With frills and flouty gown,
But there's sane and simple livin'
in that little Buncombe town.