In Memory of Bear Edward Baucom

A Page from the Baucom Family Bible

Click on the images for higher resolutions.


I believe this Bible page (below) was from the Bible of Mettie Lambert Baucom. Mettie (shown above on the right) was married to Charles Baucom (Left). They were the parents of Estelle "Doc" Baucom and around 12 other kids if I remember correctly. I could be wrong about the total.
In later years, the son of Charles E. Baucom and Mettie Lambert Baucom, one Doc Baucom, rose to regional fame as the man who ran the peanut stand at Eastlake Park.







And in later years became the second husband of the widowed Lessie Carlton. And Mama Lessie was the mother of the most famous man in Sweet Tea, (in Birmingham anyway) MILO CARLTON!

All that having been said, if you click on the Bible page image, it will expand in a new window where you will be able to read all the names and dates and different notations. I'll try and transcribe them.

The Magic of Going Home – From The Birmingham News, by Frank Baucom

The Magic of Going Home – From The Birmingham News, by Frank Baucom

Around out house we start the holiday season rather early. My music loving daughters have been playing Christmas records since the first week of November. While listening to the familiar strains of the old favorites, I couldn’t help but notice how many were about home or going home.

Christmas means gifts and brightly lit Christmas trees to the young, but for children now grown it brings memories of home and thoughts of going home, if only for the holiday.

In 1943 when I was a lad of 4, my parents moved to Germania Park, a little community between West End and Powderly. Around the turn of the century a group of Germans settled there, building sturdy homes with foundations of hand carried stones from nearby Valley Creek. There was once a small amusement park there, complete with a carousel.

We lived in a large nine room house with a covered front porch along its entire width. In the 1920’s the house was known as the Lula Foster Home for Boys. On many a Sunday afternoon we’d see a young man afar off, walking down Lee Avenue and we knew it was one of the now grown “boys” that had caught the #3 trolley from Birmingham to come and see the old home once more.

Our property, then owned by the state, was a tremendous 150 ft x 500 ft. It was completely enclosed by a 5 ft high wire fence with 2 x 4’s planks along the top, from post to post. Almost every foot of the back fence was covered in red climbing roses and honeysuckle. In the springtime and fall it was a place of rare beauty.

Behind out home was a good 20 acres of woodland that we could have purchased for a song. But it was just after the war and we didn’t have much to sing with. Eventually the woodlands were cleared and houses were built all around us. The roses lost the fence they’d climbed upon, and as time passed my siblings and I all married and moved away to start families of our own.

Never the less, at Thanksgiving and Christmas our hearts always called us back home, as we still called it. My mother and father were never happier than when their children and grandchildren were gathered together again, even if for just one day.

But time in its way won its usual victory. The old home deteriorated beyond repair and was sold to a builder who wanted to divide the property for new home construction. So one afternoon I drove out from Huffman to see the old home place one last time. I wish now I hadn’t gone because a few days before a bulldozer had completely leveled our old house. I got out of my car and walked over the now vacant lot, overwhelmed with feelings of loss and despair. Memories of youth and childhood flooded over me and a single tear rolled down my face.

As I made my way back to the car in the deepening twilight, my thought turned toward home, my home, where my wife and young children waited for me. When I arrived, the smell of an apple pie in the oven and the sound of my daughter S onja singing “White Christmas” greeted me.

A writer of old once said that “home is a little picture of what Heaven must be like,” and I know now that how true that is. My home is here, with those I love, who love me. One day they’ll be grown and gone, but coming back home for Christmas, hopefully with grandchildren! I look forward to that day.

I guess my purpose in writing this has been to say, don’t wait too late. Go home if you can, while you can. One day, you’ll be glad you did. (Written by Frank Baucom, published in The Birmingham News, early 1970's.)

Lessie Jordan Baucom and Mickey Baucom Sr.

Uncle Lloyd Jordan "In Memorium" by Frank Baucom - continued

This post continues Uncle Lloyd Jordan "In Memorium" by Frank Baucom. Part 1 is below.



"In looking back on our friendship, I think about the things we have done, and the things we could have done. Always there was that joke about me being a jinx whenever we went fishing. We probably got more fun and laughs out of that than anything.

[Editors note: My dad WAS a fishing jinx.]

It was nice years and about four months ago that we last camped and fished together. I was working six days a week at Miller's and didn't have too many chances to take time off. But this was Labor Day weekend I somehow managed to get Saturday, Sunday and Monday off.

We took my tent and camped (and fished) at Payne Lake. It was lovely weather all the way. I mostly worked around the campsite, keeping busy with the trivial things that need to be done, and I was happy to do so. It was a luxury to me - not having to work at the store.

Frankie Jr. and Uncle Lloyd were messing around in a little flat bottomed boat, just drowning worms and feeding mosquitoes. Frank Jr. is not a half bad jinx himself, for Uncle Lloyd only caught one fish.

(Photo taken at Payne Lake during this trip.)

I laughed about that, but Uncle Lloyd said there was no such thing as a jinx. According to him, they'd drained the lake recently and there was not very many fish left. (But before we left that weekend, he got a better idea of what the truth was!""

That night, I grilled a big sirloin steak for us. Uncle Lloyd thought it was a most excellent piece of meat, and I had to agree with him. he boiled some little red potatoes, something Frankie Jr. and I had never had while camping, and they hit the spot with our big juicy steak.

(For years afterward, Frankie always called those type of potatoes "Unlce Lloyd potatoes.")

I think they next night we had some grilled pork chops. The flame grill did it's usual good job on them, with a little help from me. We talked about what good food we were having on this trip and what a great time we were having. We had a campfire going and the low hissing of the Coleman lantern and stove were soothing background music for us as we sat peacefully along the banks of Payne Lake.

We talked for hours it seemed, before turning in for the night. My big red and white Thermos brand wing tent provided ample room for our three cots and other supplies. Here is how our camping site looked:

Editors note: I'll continue to transcribe my dad's journal entry about Uncle Lloyd and this trip they took together. And it only gets better! Let's just say it involves something Hitler-esque, an almost blind man with a gun, and a kid who could sleep through anything!)

Uncle Mickey Baucom's Giblet Gravy

Back in the early 1990's I called Uncle Mickey to get his recipe for Giblet Gravy. I asked Nanny first, and she said she always liked Mickey's the best and to call him. So I called him at the lake and wrote the above recipe for his famous giblet gravy down. He was very firm about the 1/5 of an onion part. "Don't over do it," he said.

Uncle Mickey was a great cook. Meats were his specialty, and if it was off the grill, even better. But he could also put out one of the best turkey's you've ever tasted and his ham was the best. In fact, the first turkey I ever tasted was at Uncle Mickey's when he lived in Hoover. I remember that day so well, Aunt Katie came, and John was with her. He was just a little fella then and we all just fell in love with him.

I remember when Uncle Mickey died, Nanny had a boiled egg that she had just cooked for lunch. She stuck it in the refrigerator and didn't eat it that day. The next day she wrote the date on it.

Several years later I was cleaning out the fridge for her and I asked her about the egg with the date on it. She said "Leave it there, that was from the day Mickey died and I don't want to throw it away."

So I left the egg right there, dated 11/19.


Left to right: Charles Lloyd Baucom, Mary Katherine Baucom Ellis, Frank Baucom, Mickey Baucom.

Frank Baucom, West End High School, Class of 1958

This is his junior year picture.

This is Dad's sophmore year varsity basketball photo.

My dad's lifelong friend Bo Linn is in the lower basketball photo.

(Photos are from the West End High School, Birmingham, Alabama . . . 1934-1958 website.)

Uncle Lloyd Jordan "In Memorium" by Frank Baucom

Click on the image for a larger copy.I believe Uncle Lloyd died in 1979, although I could be wrong about that. So the date given in the journal I believe reflects the date that Dad started writing about Uncle Lloyd. (In 1974.) Then the memorium portion starts and should be dated 1979.

I'll try and transcribe as I get time.

It begins as follows.

June 15, 1974.

Uncle Lloyd Jordan

I wish that I had cultivated my relationship with Uncle Lloyd Jordan at a much earlier age. Of course, years ago I only got to see him once or twice a year, whenever he would come to Birmingham for a visit. He worked for years in the fabric mills of Massachusetts. (I think in Chicopee, home of the manufactures of Savage, Stevens amd Fox firearms.)

He was very adept at repairing machinery and consequently it was always easy for him to find employment.

(This portion of the journal ends, it appears that it was not finished. Now, the memorial essay begins as follows.)

Today, this morning sometime, Heaven became a a little sweeter. My friend, my camping and fishing buddy, my letter correspondent and favorite uncle by far stepped over into another place to check out the fishing for himself and perhaps to see if there were any big bucks there for me.

Mother [Lessie O. Jordan Baucom] called me tonight to tell me. It saddened me of course, but I know how much pain he suffered the last 2-4 years. I talked to him a few months ago and he told me that he prayed nearly every day for the Lord to take him.

Sometimes we can not understand these things, but take comfort in Him who does. I'll miss him, but I'm glad the painful ordeal is over for my friend. Now he has passed from life to eternity.

(To be continued.)

A letter from Uncle Lloyd Jordan ~Gone, but not forgotten~

I remember my dad reading letters to us, from Uncle Lloyd. There were quite a few of them at one time. But many of my dad's files were stored at a warehouse owned by a friend. That man died and his sons cleared everything out, so a lot was lost. But some things remain. (Click on the image to read the letter.)

Uncle Lloyd never did make back to Alabama, just like he figured. In fact, he died not too long after this was written. Dad wrote a tribute to Uncle Lloyd after he died. I'll try and copy it later this week and post it here, it was beautiful. ~Gone, but not forgotten~

Foster Maddox family

Back row, left to right: Foster Maddox, Virgie Snider Maddox (holding infant Bettye Matthews), Dorothy Maddox Matthews, James "Bud" Matthews.
Front row, left to right: Unknown, Clint Maddox, Earl Maddox, Sue Maddox, and Ima Maddox Niemeyer. I believe this photo was taken in 1943, in Purvis, MS. The infant is my mom. :-)

Foster is my great grandfather who had Marfan's. His sister, Ruby Maddox Delbridge was the grandmother of author Melissa Delbridge.