James Madison Tarrance
Madison Tarrance, 83, has farmed all over Boyle County during his life.
The son of Thomas Tarrance, a farmer, and Rachel Rowe Tarrance, a seamstress, he is
married to Mabel Boatwright Tarrance.
As a boy, Tarrance attended a one-room school called Clifton, which was on Clifton
Road off Lancaster Road.
It was about two miles and a half if you ran through the field. And if we went around
the pike it was about three miles. The county scales, where everybody weighed stuff on
there, if it had been raining, we'd stop in there, and then when it let up a little bit
we'd tear out and go on down and turn in Clifton Road and there was an old empty house up
there that you'd stop in there. And we'd stay there and then go on up the hill to school.
The school is still there now but somebody bought it and built around it, made it into a
house. You can still see where the old school part was. Now it's called Clifton First
Baptist Church, and why it's called the First Baptist Church, they had a Sunday School up
at Hubble and the old people up at Hubble belonged to the church down at Clifton, but it
was so far to Hubble they couldn't walk. The children couldn't come because there was just
room in the buggy for the old people to come. They had Sunday School in the afternoon at
Hubble, and they called it Clifton Second Baptist up there. It went on that way. And then
finally under Rev. William Harris, he got them to stop having Sunday School up there (at
Second Baptist) and come on down to First Baptist.
After he was married, Tarrance set up housekeeping on a skimpy budget. They bought
a stove for $3.50 and then went shopping for furniture.
We didn't have nothing to put our dishes in and I got an old refrigerator box made out
of pasteboard or something and I made me some shelves so I could put my dishes in and I
bought a new bedroom suite, gave $85 for it, right here in town at Baugh and Garner.
Traded a hog for an old couch.
(B15)
