page 1 - Mature Living in the Southeast

feature storyPassing His Blessings AlongHelped by many,Callaway looks to serveBy David TootleLyons Recreation Director Anson Callawayas born a “miracle baby” near Collins, Georia,in 1935. He says that the lessons he learnedrom his loving family and the blessings he hasnjoyed from his earliest days have shaped himnto the person he is today.“I was the fourteenth child in a family ofourteen,” Callaway told us. “We had sevenoys and seven girls. I was born four years aferthe doctor told Daddy and Mom that theyouldn’t have any more kids, so I was called airacle baby. I’m just thankful that I was noral.”Callaway’s earliest recollections are ofrowing up at a crossroads with forks leadingo Collins, Cobbtown, Metter, and Claxton. Beauseof their location at this intersection, theyould see the mailman, fish truck, and schoolus come by multiple times each day. Theirather, however, insisted they catch the bus toillview School the first time it passed.“Daddy wanted to discipline us to alwayse ready on time,” said Callaway. “He wouldn’tet the bus pass by and let us catch it the next time through; heaid that would cause us to drag around and not get ready.”In that day, a rolling store would traverse the countryside,topping house-to-house seeing what children and their parentsight purchase. For the Callaways, this event happened on Tuesayeach week, and young Anson and his siblings would beaiting beside the road.“We heard it rattling and coming from about a mile away,”e recalled. “All of those people who came by were importanto us, but not as important as that rolling store because at theack of it was a big jar where we could get a cookie about theize of a large pancake for a nickel. When you walked up theack steps of the store and smelled all the smells that were gongon in there, for us that was like going somewhere like Nework City.”The children rarely went to town, but sometimes made the6Mature Living Winter EditionENJOYING FAMILY - COACH CALLAWAY AND HIS SISTER, JOYCECORRY (LEFT), ENJOY A MOMENT WITH HIS GRANDDAUGHTERCASEY GEORGE.Saturday trip to Claxton for grocery shopping. Occasionally,Anson’s father would get his youngest son out of school at lunchtimeon a Friday, and the boy would help take sausages fromtheir smokehouse to Hinson’s Grocery in Claxton to barter forgrocery items.“We cured our own meat,” Callaway remembered, “and whenI was probably eight or ten years old, Daddy started makingsausage in the wintertime. We killed hogs and made liver puddingand hoghead cheese; we would save every part of the hog.When we started killing six or seven hogs, he said it was toomuch to be doing out in the open, and he built us a sausagehouse. It had a cement floor, a drain, and a pulley above theboiler of hot water where we would scald the hog and scrape thehair off. Then we would move them inside and butcher them ontwo tables and make sausage.”On these trips to Claxton, Mr. Callaway would let youngContinued on page 8