Born Mark LaRoy Felix, I always knew him as Papa, Cora Mae (Patten) Felix I knew as Mama. They are my maternal grandparents. The house I remember them living in was on Evans Street. It was set back on a large lot with a long driveway. Perhaps the lot only seemed large because the house was small! We called it The Doll House. I remember the house having 3 rooms total. There was a living room, kitchen, and bedroom. Off the bedroom was a small room that housed a toilet so I guess you could say there were three and ¼ rooms. There was no bathtub nor shower in the house. Mama said she would take a basin to the kitchen and bath there. I don’t remember a lot about Papa. He had gotten sick when I was little and passed on when I was seven years old. The memories I do have of him are sweet and fun. Mama and Papa had cement chicken, rooster, and chick lawn ornaments. When we went over there, Carol would move the hen. Cilla and I would move the chicks. Then we would run in and tell Papa the chickens were running away. Cilla remembers him getting up saying, “them naughty chickens”. I remember him coming outside to help us round them up. Playing with him like that was a lot of fun! Papa had a “cat with a birdcage” sliding whistle. He was good at playing it. I loved that whistle. There was also a blackbird wind-up toy. If we were good, we were able to play with it. It was like a jack-in-the-box type toy. As you turned the handle it played “sing a song of six pence”. Blackbirds would pop up from the pie when the sentence about a dainty dish set before the king played. There were no words. Just the tune.
Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.
When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing—
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?
Kit: Faded Memories - Connie Prince
