Fishing in the Yellow River

FISHING IN THE YELLOW RIVER.

All four of my grandparents died before my birth. However, my maternal grandmother {Elizabeth Ann Mask Dick (1845 - 7-3-1921)} lived into old age and died only a few years before my birth.

My mother told me a few stories about how hard her widowed mother worked to provide for her eight children after their father's untimely death when Mama was only 18 months old and her mother was pregnant with 8th child, a son, Irvin Dick. (Charles Dick, her father had gone hunting on Christmas afternoon. His "bad cold" turned into influenza and death in 1887 ). Elizabeth Mask Dick never remarried. She and her children lived in a house on the large farm land of her father Rev. Bogan Mask (10-27-1821 - 8-28-1898).

My sister Vera told me about Grandma Dick, in her old age, visiting on occasion and how much Grandma loved fishing. Grandma would tell Vera and Mary to be good and help Mama with the housework and kitchen chores and she would take them fishing after dinner.

Vera told how she and Mary would do as Grandma asked and help get all the household chores done. To quote Vera, "As soon as we cleaned up after dinner, Grandma would turn to Mama and say, 'Eula, I believe I will take the girls down to the river. They want to go fishing so bad!'" Vera added, “Grandma sure liked to fish."

Mama sure liked to fish, also! Perhaps she learned the secret of catching fish from her mother. Mama usually came home with a long string of fish. We either cooked the fish she caught or gave them to others to cook.

Many afternoons, when the weather permitted, Mama (Ieula Ann Dick Baird 3-6-1885 - 12-6-1973) would finish up the housework; and she and a neighbor, Mrs. Parnell, would head for the Yellow River with Mamie (Mrs. Parnell's daughter) and me in tow. Mamie and I sometimes fished, but more often, we just explored the woods, picked wild flowers or dug worms. We had learned to talk quietly so as not to " scare away the fish."

I never missed an opportunity to go with Mama on one of these fishing expeditions. (The photo to the left is the Yellow River dam at Milstead near Georgia Hwy 20 in Rockdate County)

My husband Charles Shaw told me stories about growing up swimming in that area of the river 16 miles by road travel from where my mother was fishing in the same yellow River in Porterdale Georgia) .

There was one problem with me going fishing with Mama, Mrs. Parnell and Mamie in the Yellow River? Poison Oak? Among the lush vegetation near the Yellow River bank where my mother and Mamie's mother fished was an abundance of poison oak. I had long since learned not to touch the "three leaf " poison plant.

Have you heard the lines:

"Leaves of three...Let it be!

.Leaves of five...Let it thrive!"

Although I avoided the plants touching my skin, wore long sleeved shirts and overalls and came home to bathe in Clorox water, I often broke out into a painful, itchy rash from being in the vicinity of the poison plant.