Florence Sellars

as Remembered by Rheba Kramer Mitchell

Florence Sellars was a very large woman who always kept her person neat as a pin and who kept an immaculate house, even when confined to a wheel chair in her later years. She always smelled sweet.

She loved to cook and would serve pork and beef and chicken and at least five vegetables, biscuits or cornbread (homemade of course) at one meal. On the sideboard, or buffet, they called it- would be a huge bowl of fruit salad called "ambrosia" and at least three cakes. Seven layer cakes of a course corn bread like texture. There was usually a chocolate one, a cocoanut and usually a banana cake. The cake part was always yellow. The other types she would make occasionally were pound cake and apple spice cake. There was also sweet potato pie.

Florence had a mischievous side that surfaced once her girls got older. Rene and Gracie were scaredey cats and always looked under their beds at night before going to sleep. One time when they came to visit, their mother made their younger sister Lonette hide under their bed to jump at them when they went to bed and checked under it. Lonette fell asleep and when Rene and Gracie checked and screamed, their screams scared Lonette awake. She screamed and pandemonium reigned for a while.

Florence’s bedroom was across the hall from the girl’s room. One night after getting in late, the girls checked under their bed and settled down to sleep. The felt something touch them on top of the covers. Gracie said, "Vi, was that you?" "No, wasn’t it you?" "No, ahahaha…" and they jumped out of bed screaming, only to find their mother had used a long handled ceiling broom to reach from her room to tap the girls who were in their bed!