Susan had a strong Ozark type accent and way of expressing herself. Nevertheless, she was a smart woman who had eight children and raised six of them to adulthood. She suffered from asthma all her life but lived to be 94 years old. She had dementia in her later years.

INTERVIEW WITH SUSAN WOOD TRENT—1977

With Rachel Trent Levesque and Dorothy Ailleen Trent Smith, her daughters.
Recorded by Sherri Park

How Susan and Jesse met:

I met him at what they called the Possum Trot Schoolhouse. It was a literary. Different ones would get up and do things—different acts. I went with Erdie, my brother and his girlfriend. Your dad (Jesse Housley Trent, Jr.) knew her so he told her to ask me if he could take me home.

I said, "No. If he doesn’t have guts enough to ask me himself, he can’t take me home. If he wants to take me home, he’ll have to do his own asking."

She told him what I said and he come over then and asked me, "Can I take you home?"

So that’s the first time I met him and the first time I’d gone with him. I don’t think I went with him anymore for a while.

Then, me and Ben Hines were coming from down in the Hollow schoolhouse, where we’d been up to some kind of meeting. We were walking home and your daddy (I forget who was with him now), they overtook us in buggies and your daddy asked to take me on home. We went together off and on for quite a time, about a year. I was fifteen at the time. We got married when I was 16 and he was 20.

Another time, I had been going with him and we went to this Possum Trot Schoolhouse to a box supper. He was supposed to take me home. He had gone to a box supper with Annie Green before. He bought her box and eat with her and take her home. Boy, was I ever mad.

I thought, "I’ll get a chance to get even with him someday."

So, it was Easter and they were having egg rolls over at Rosie Cupp’s house. Erdie was going to take me and Clara. So your dad come a driving up and Uncle Erdie said, "Well, you can go with him. I’m not going to take you."

So, I figured this was my chance to get even with him because I had a date with _ Jones to take me home. So, I went over with Jesse and when we got out, I said, "You can get out and stay but I have a date to take me home." He got mad and drove off. He wouldn’t stay. So, I got even with him on that deal.

Before this, I was picking strawberries with Annie Green. I said to her, "I’m going to get even with him one of these days".

She said, "I’ll help you".

I said, "No, you won’t help me. I’ll help myself. I don’t need your help."

So, I got my chance to get even with him and I did. He found out I could keep up with him pretty well. For all of 54 years, I done a pretty good job of keeping up with him.

On the death of their first baby, Mary Ruth Trent:

When my first baby was born, there was something about her that wasn’t right, I guess. She had an opening at the back of her head, here. And it never did close up. She lived about three months and a half. She cried all the time she lived, nearly. A doctor delivered her. She never would nurse the breast. We couldn’t hardly get her to nurse a bottle. When we couldn’t get her to nurse the bottle, we called the doctor who delivered her, Doc Langly, and he thought maybe she was tongue-tied. He come out and looked at her and said all he could see wrong with her was just meanness. She had red hair. You know Grandpa Woods had sandy colored hair before it turned gray. It was just about the color of his hair.

On the death of their second baby, Eunice Trent:

The next baby was an eight-month baby. We named her Eunice. She only lived from about 8 in the morning until about 6 in the evening. She was a blue baby. (Further discussion indicated Darrell Trent and Kay Trent both had a problem with their thyroid being enlarged at birth. That may have been what was wrong with Eunice.)

Times of illness:

You know your daddy had the pneumonia that time so bad. He stood out there and fed the cattle one day when it was so cold. He took the pneumonia fever and liked to died with it. Doc Sales come out and doctored him. He left this medicine for him. I gave him a dose of it and he just went out of his head, plumb out of his head. I called him and said, "I want to know what you give him. He’s talking out of his head. He don’t know what he’s a saying."

So Doc Sales comes right out and says, "I’ll just take this medicine back."

He give him something he shouldn’t have give him. We found out later that Doc Sales took dope. He didn’t do it intentionally. You know, Grandpa Trent helped him get through school to be a doctor. His son was a doctor, too. I don’t know whether being an addict killed him or not.

Clarence was born when we was living down on that old McCulligan place, out where Zelda’s place is now. We lived in an old house that was about ready to fall down. We didn’t have much of a living then. Grandpa Trent was drilling out for that oil when we got married. We just barely had enough to exist on. After someone moved out from that place down on Monarch Springs, we moved down there. It was a cold, old house. (Rachel remembers pushing dirt and rocks down through cracks in the floor there.)

We all had flu and you (Rachel) almost died of the bug. We was all in bed. You was a laying on my bed to the side of me and you took a convulsion. It just like scared me to death. I knew you was dying. Jess’s folks (Pa and Ma) wouldn’t come. I lifted the phone and called them and said, "If somebody don’t come…"

We had hired girls but they all had it,too. I said, "We just dying entirely if you don’t come and see about us." So they finally come over and come in the house and they never did take it.

On grandma Anna Trent’s death:

Your grandma Trent died from the flu right about then. And your Daddy Trent got right up out of bed and went to see about her funeral and had her grave dug and everything. And I just knew he would take a backset (setback). He went to Clara’s and ate a whole chocolate pie. She made the best chocolate pie. But he did take a backset. When Pa and Ma come out the first time, they didn’t come in. He went out to talk to them in his bare feet. He took a back set and almost died. What a time that was. A bad time.

Do you remember the time when we all had the measles? That’s when I (Susan) got asthma for the first time. _ Kerr stayed with us. She was the laziest thing. When you got so you could get up, you had to do all the work. I took that in my bronchial tube and liked to choke to death. She told me that I was just putting on. I didn’t like her for nothing. She was lazier than a dog.

Rachel remembers, "I brought the bread pan to the bed and you mixed it for me. I went down and put it in the pans and baked it. I can remember slicing meat and cooking eggs and bringing it to everybody in bed. I don’t remember if it was Marion or Clarence who wouldn’t eat it. I remember saying, ‘Your mother said if you don’t eat that, she’s going to come in here and make you eat it.’

He says, ‘Well, I don’t like your cooking.’

I said, ‘I don’t care if you like my cooking or not.’ I was eight years old at this time. I still like to cook."

Susan talks about food:

We lived on taters and gravy. I used to make two big pans of biscuits for breakfast every morning. One time during the war, we lived on cornbread because we couldn’t get flour.

Rachel says, "I remember going with Daddy to the mill. He always stopped on the way home and give out flour to this family and that family. He never met a stranger. When we killed hogs and something, we always gave something away."

Susan talks about Jesse Trent, Sr.:

Grandpa Trent sold the lead and zinc mines that was on our farm. He sold it for $350,000. He gave all nine of his kids 80 acres of ground.

Susan talked about the time her sister, Clara Wood, came over to invite her to lunch. She had cooked two squirrels. Susan was not a fan of squirrel but she said yes just to be nice. When they got over the house, the cats had made short work of the squirrels so they ate something else. Susan was happy about missing the squirrel lunch.

Susan ived in Carthage since moving there from Granby in 1936. Member of the First Christian Church.

Marriage certificate.

1900 CENSUS OF BENTON TOWNSHIP, NEWTON COUNTY, MISSOURI:

Jessie T. Wood, born Feb. 1861, age 39, MO, MO, AR

Martha A. Wood, born Jun. 1868, age 32, MO,

Dau. Cora M. Wood, born May 1887, age 13, MO

Erdie, born Jun. 1889, age 10;

Susan E. born Jan. 1891, age 8, MO.

1910 CENSUS OF GRANBY TOWNSHIP, NEWTON, MISSOURI: "Trent, Jesse, Jr. white, male, husband, age 22, born in Missouri, father born in Missouri, mother born in Delaware. Susan Trent, white, female, age 18, born in Missouri, both parents born in Missouri."

1920 CENSUS OF GRANBY, NEWTON, MISSOURIi:

Name: Jesse H Trent

Home in 1920: Granby, Newton, Missouri

Age: 32 years

Estimated birth year: abt 1888

Birthplace: Missouri

Relation to Head of House: Head

Spouse's name: Susan E

Father's Birth Place: Missouri

Mother's Birth Place: Maryland

Marital Status: Married

Race: White

Sex: Male

Home owned: Own

Able to read: Yes

Able to Write: Yes Image:

Household Members:

Name Age

Jesse H Trent 32

Susan E Trent 28

Clarance Trent 8

Marino Trent 6

Rachel Trent 4 1/12

Evert Trent 2 2/12

In the 1930 Census of Groveland, Lake, Florida. For some reason, Jesse Trent, Sr., age 79,moved to this area with his daughter, Ellen, age 54. He reports that he was born in Missouri, his father was born in Virginia and his mother was born in Tennessee. Ellen reported that she was born in Missouri, her father in Missouri and her mother in Delaware. In the same area of the same census are Julius H. Trent, age 35, his wife, Anna L., age 38, Florence A., age 12 and Julius H., age 9. My mother, Rachel Trent, told me that her parents and siblings also moved to that area but her mother, Susan Wood Trent, hated it and refused to stay. SusanTrent was especially upset about the spiders and other insects. She said the grass cut like razor blades. It was a humid and nasty place. She told her husband she was going home to Missouri and he could come with her if he wanted to.

After women got the vote in 1920, Susan was determined to vote. Her husband told her that her vote would just cancel out his vote so she should stay home. (I don't know which side she favored but she valued her vote and voted every time.

Susan Ethel Wood