Photo courtesy of Carrie Sue Hinds.
Clara Dunaway HIstory of Shelby County
Clara Dunaway, a former cook at Indian Springs School, was interviewed in 1978 for an oral history project seeking to document life in Shelby County in the early 20th Century. Dunaway’s daughter said her mother was a hard worker throughout her life, especially when it came to cooking.
The following is an adaptation by Jeff Thompson of Submission, Strength and Purpose: Oral Histories Of Women In Shelby County, Alabama, written by Miriam Fowler in 1986. Fowler drew from oral histories recorded as part of an Alabama Historical Commission Project in 1978.
Before the Civil War, Shelby County was steadily advancing economically and was on its way to developing the rich mineral resources in its soil. Then, in 1865, Union Brig. Gen. James Wilson’s soldiers swept through the county and stymied development. After that, Shelby County maintained an isolated rural image until the 1960s.
Change to the rural society came slowly as poor road conditions made the automobile impractical. Therefore, the Victorian influence lingered longer in the lives of early 20th century Shelby County women, as was the case with Clara Dunaway.
Dunaway, the oldest girl of nine children, was raised in North Shelby County, and she began caring for her little siblings when she was 3.
“I can look back now and know that it could have been bad for a 3-year-old to be responsible for babies, but I only had an accident once. Mama told me to rock the baby in his cradle on the front porch while she went to the field to help Papa. I figured that if I tied a string on the cradle I could get out in the yard and play and still rock the baby. But I got to playing and rocked the cradle so hard that brother dumped right out onto the porch.”
She remembered her father as being a good man who was protective of her family. She said he was “one of the best-looking and nicest men” she had ever known. He hauled coal when he wasn’t farming to make a living for his children.
The amount of education Dunaway received depended upon how much she could get while staying reasonably close to her home and family. While she was growing up, the only high school was in the county seat of Columbiana. From her home in the Oak Mountain area, Dunaway walked three miles a day to a one-room school close to what is now Helena.
“I didn’t get to go to high school,” Dunaway said. “I had to stay home and help mother, but I learned as much in the time I was there as children do now graduating from high school.”
When she was about 15 years old — old enough to marry — Dunaway chose a man she had known all her life. He lived one mountain over from her, she said, and after they married they had three children together. Though she didn’t have extensive schooling, she did get help parenting from a medical book that she read from cover to cover.
“It helped me raise my children,” she said. “When they were babies, there were no other people living on the mountain, and I would have to walk to miles to get help. When there was an emergency with the children, like the time my daughter ate arsenic, I just had to doctor them myself from what I learned, and they did all right.”
When her children were young, Dunaway went to work in the Siluria Cotton Mills, located in what is now Alabaster. She stopped working soon after she started, she said, to stay home with the children.
Clara Dunaway’s daughter, Pelham resident Carrie Sue Hinds, said Dunaway’s last job before retirement was as a cook at Indian Springs School. Hinds said her mother worked whenever it was necessary up to her death at 97 years old, but her real love was being in the kitchen.
“She just loved life and people and loved to cook,” Hinds said. “Whenever she was going to a potluck, she didn’t bring one covered dish — she brought six or seven.”
