"Dinner's Ready!!!"

When the clock strikes twelve, the dinner bell would ring them all in for dinner. In the traditional south, the noon time meal is dinner - not lunch.

And you have supper in the evening, not dinner.

The old bell has stood in the same spot as long as any one can remember. When Mama married Daddy (75 years ago - May 20, 1933), the old bell was old even then. The children, as they grew up in the late thirties and forties, were warned not to pull on the rope for fear that the bell pole would break and fall. And yet, it still stands proudly on the south side of the house. Flanked by Pecan and Dogwoods, its silence speaks volumes. The witness the old bell could toil out if it had voice. The history of the farm recorded in the rusty patina.