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The Corner Table The family home was begun more than fifty years before Mama was born, and completed over the same number of years - and more - as family needs changed. The back room of the house was sometimes called the "sitting room" by Mama, whose friends were often invited into the room to sit in the circle of chairs before the fireplace when they visited, or the "library" by Daddy, as its open, planked shelves housed the family's collection of books. In this room the family gathered to listen to Mama play the pump organ, just as Mama and her sisters had listened to her aunt play when they were young, beautiful girls with long black curls. It was in this room that Daddy courted her and asked for Mama's hand in marriage. Above the fireplace an old striking clock on the mantel kept stately account of the hours. A quilting frame was drawn to its highest point near the ceiling, ready to be lowered when more hands were available, or when Mama felt her daughters' hands were too idle. The round pedestal table stood in the corner of the room, its top, trunk and legs gleaming from lemon oil and frequent rubbing. No table cloth or doilie covered any part of its surface, but on it stood a large oil lamp - its globe bearing the insignia of the Aladdin Lamp Company and its motto "see the corners of the room" - and a Bible. Around this table, we learned more than scripture; we learned our ties to the people whose births, marriages and deaths were listed in the family Bible, and whose photos hung on the walls throughout the house. Here we sat with Mama and heard the stories handed down from her Aunt Mary Carolyn, that we would one day tell our children, and they would in turn tell theirs. Sometimes we sat quietly at the table listening to adults who, sitting comfortably before the fire or working around the quilting frame, might forget there were children in the room, as they talked about family members long dead, and a family history stretching back into a past too distant to imagine. The old homestead is gone now, and the grandchildren scattered. But thinking of naming the genealogy pages evoked a memory of that corner of the sitting room in the old house and the family history shared there. So I invite you, now, to join me and share a little of your family history, as I share with you the stories told to me by others of this line, around THE CORNER TABLE
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