Page 1 of 7

COX MILL

The Grimsley Hobbs family lived as caretakers in the big stone Gimghoul
Castle in Chapel Hill from 1948 - 1951. Castle living was idyllic, a great view
to the horizon, surrounded by woods but close to town. How could we ever get
back to life on a city street.
It was time to move on when Grimsley finished graduate school and he
was lucky to get a teaching job at Earlham College in Indiana. I was working
as a social worker in Chatham County and found an old farmer and his big
covered truck. He had never been out of North Carolina but he was eager to
take our furniture to Indiana. We packed up and hoped he would meet us
700 miles and two days later. We headed to our next adventure.
The college rented us a second floor apartment in an old house on
College Ave. The unfortunate family downstairs, the McDowells, were small
quiet people. Imagine their reaction to this bunch of noisy Hobbs kids, Grim
5 and Louise 2, not to mention the over 6' parents stomping around overhead.

It quickly became apparent that we needed to move. The very next

morning after our arrival we piled into the car to look for old mills. Baldwins
Mill in N. C. could not be duplicated, but maybe there was something we
could make into a home. Looking for mills takes a certain know bow. First
there has to be a long hill to a bridge over a creek. Then you look for water
works like a head race or a dam. Next you hope for a dirt-cheap abandoned
 Page 2 of 7

building that is not beyond repair.

It took us several weeks to find Cox Mill seven mills from Richmond.
We walked around looking at the four story brick building with boarded up
windows and pigeons flying in and out. It looked too big, and too close to the
road. After several trips to scout the neighborhood and the beautiful
Whitewater River nearby we contacted the owner.
Mrs. Cook, a Quaker, was a widow living in Richmond. She told us the
mill was built by Joseph Cox, North Carolina Quaker in 1860. He went west
before the Civil War to escape the moral problems of slavery. This was not a
rough industrial building as we were to discover. He built Cox Mill with two
foot thick brick walls and many fine architectural details such as recessed
windows with wide framed boards. Mrs. Cook could not understand our
interest in making this a home, but she did give us the big front double door
key.
We rushed to get our first glimpse of the inside of Cox Mill. In the
darkness we had difficulty seeing more than the outlines of abandoned farm
machinery and pigeon manure a foot thick on the floor. Not an encouraging
sight. On the big open main floor was a built in industrial scale that we later
found to complicated to remove. In one corner was the mill stone and in the
middle were elevators running up to the floors above. We finally built the
house around these features and used them when we later began operating
the mill. At that time they look~d like obstacles.

The basement was two stories high with a platform where we later
stood bagging the ground grain from the mill stone above. In one corner
 Page 3 of 7

was the 10' pit where the turbine turned the machinery. The basement
became an important part of the development of our milling operation and
supplied room for a huge furnace, a basketball court, and a place where
Grimsley would one day start forging metal. It also provided space for a
gasoline engine to run the mill, a big tank for our cistern supply of water, but
all of this would come much later.
The three floors above the basement were virtually empty of anything
that had to do with the milling operation. When local mills closed because
big companies took over the operation, the machinery had been sold for scrap
metal. There were a few treasures here and there, lots of old jugs, old mill
records, old posters, but mostly trash.
We spent almost a year visiting the mill, making sketches of how to
divide up the space, but the question we most often came back to was "Where
would we put a kitchen"? With 12' ceilings and so much room it was hard to
imagine this as a cozy home. During that year Ruffin was born which added
pressure to the decision to move. The big problem was money- we had none.
Grimsley's salary was $3,800 a year. Only by building a barn for Earlham
College were we able to make ends meet the first year.
Grimsley kept talking to the owner and made an offer of $1600 for the
mill, one acre of land and water rights to an excellent artesian well on the hill.
At tliat time a benefactor of Earlham gave an endowment to be used by the
faedlty for down-payments on homes. We got $3.000 and by borrowing
$,2.000we would have enough. We hoped. I had many misgivings, but
Grimsley was confident and we proceeded.
Unfortunately we started in the colde~t ~onth, January 1953. We
 Page 4 of 7

would bundle everyone up and started shoveling pigeon manure out of the
windows. By the time we returned home cold and dirty, all we could do was
shower eat cold baked beans out of-a can and go to bed.
Our next adventure was to rent the big college truck and shop at house
wreckers in Cincinnati. Because many antiquated buildings were being torn
down there, old windows, 2x4,s and plumbing equipment such as a side arm
sink and a bathtub on legs were for sale at give- away prices. I scraped and
painted the windows on the kitchen table of the upstairs apartment during the
week, and we installed them the next weekend. Gradually the first and
second floors were closed against the pigeons and the cold air.
One day as we painted the flared wide wood framing around a big
recessed living room window, Grimsley and I saw its lovely proportions
against the soft orange brick walls. Suddenly we knew this would be a
beautiful room and we would have an outstanding home. There were many
other important additions to the living room such as the wide paneled doors
that Elton Trueblood gave us from their remodeling that we used as
w~inscoting, the elegant French doors we used to fill in the large opening
wbere the wagons had backed up to unload, the massive corner fireplace we
built later. The wonderful antiques Grimsely refinished - all this and more
made this 45'X35' living room spectacular.
But back to the early days. We worked feverishly every weekend
luwwing that we had to move i~ before fall because we couldn't afford to pay
rent. We had help from our friends and especially from Grimsley's family in
North Carolina.
They suggested that they take Grim Jr. 7 and Louise 4 for die summer,
 Page 5 of 7

but how to get them there. To the rescue came Phil Shore's ( College
Librarian) parents. They were visiting for the weekend and volunteered to
take the children to North Carolina. They took two unknown children for
what was then a two day trip. What a generous brave thing to do! As we
heard from them many times later , the children were no trouble and the
children had a marvelous summer with their grandparents.
With only baby Ruffin to care for we began our big summer push to
move into the mill no matter what. The first priority was a clean first floor.
We bought a big load of heart pine that was torn out of an old house in town.
It was dumped in a huge pile with the linoleum still sticking to it and full of
nails. My job was to pull the nails and scrape off the tar and linoleum. As I
finished a board, Grimsley laid it. While we did this a friend installed the
plumbing, hooking up the bathtub and sink. He devised a gravity flow water
system from the well to the cattle tank in the basement. The college
electrician helped Grimsley run lines in the main floor so we had hundreds of
feet of extension cords and one plug.
When I think back I realize that Grimsley had no electric saw to cut all
those boards . We couldn't afford one. So we inched across the livingroom,
kitchen, hall, mill room and bathroom, with me cleaning the boards and
Grimsley carefqlly fiffi_P2 t'-~m ~ogether.
f ~n~Uy;twa,s tirqe fo ~s~ ~he heavy-duty sander. I was good at using
the edger but poor RuffiQ PQJI14Jl
't smnd the noise of two machines. He stayed
with a baby-sitter in town. T~~ 01~ mrand occasional missed nail ate up the
sanding paper. The wood p~we out a beautiful soft brown and with a coat of
shellac and two coats of ~~ly-urethane we had a marvelous big floor for
 Page 6 of 7

Ruffin to play on.

By the time the grandparents brought Grim and Louise back at the end
of August we had moved in. We had only a kitchen sink, just boards on saw
horses for pots and pans. No partitions downstairs, only 2x4,s showing what
was ahead. The second floor had furniture, no walls only chalk marks on the
floor.
The big project for the fall was to get some heat before it turned bitterl y
cold. A cement block chimney went up slowly in the back hall. Grimsely and
I went into the basement of a recently demolished house on main street and
took apart a huge coal furnace. As people walked by to watch us, we became
so black with soot we fortunately could not be recognized. A friend in the
heating business installed the furnace and gave us a coal stoker to go with it.
We were so lucky. They had the warmest fall on record and just as we turned
on the heat the cold weather came. That wonderful old furnace kept the first
floor warm even in below zero weather in Indiana, but we never attempted to
heat the second floor. Although a little heat would drift up between the floor
boards sometimes we would have ice on the inside of the second floor
windows.
By November we had sheet-rocked the walls in the main floor and we
decided to have a big party. We did it just like the Hobbs family in Chapel
Hilt, a big table with silver candelabra, someone cutting a ham at one end,
plenty of food, and spiked pu~ch at the other end. We invited everyone,
workers, friends, faculty, a parade of curiosity seekers who had never
believed we could do it. Our beautiful livingroom was filled with surprised
people.
 Page 7 of 7

Every vacation and every weekend we continued to make that old

building a showplace. Years later it was included on the State Historic
To.urs.
 Page 1 of 8

Grinding at Cox Mill

Even before the interior of Cox Mill was finished, Grimsley worked to get

the mill stones turning. We didn't own the water power source so we had to find

another way to run the mill. The idea for using a gasoline tractor engine came from

a neighbor, Dale Filby, a "Jack of all trades". In the comer of the basement he

installed an old engine which turned out to be a fire hazard. That part of the story

comes later.

The mill stones were located on the first floor, later also used as a T.V.

room. In the middle of the room a metal pole went up through a trap door to

Louise's bedroom above. We used the pole as a secondary fire-escape. Like a fire

department we required our family and baby-sitters to practice sliding down the

pole.

Charlie Andrews, an old hippie turned mill restorer of Bears Mill in Ohio,

became Grimsley's mentor. Charl~e and his wife Flossie came often to encourage

us. He gave Grimsley a seminar in mill stone sharpening. With special hammers ,

grooves had to be cut into sharp angles to prevent the grain from being mashed.
 Page 2 of 8

This was an ancient skill. Tiny stone chips shot up, wedged under the skin of the

hand making blue marks like a tattoo~ a proud evidence of this craft.

With the gasoline engine installed, the belts all connected, the mill stones

sharpened, Grimsley could not bring himself to start the engine and turn the

stones. What would happen? Maybe the stones would freeze together. Weeks

went by until one Saturday morning, we stood by holding our breaths.. Grimsley

. cranked- up the engine, threw the lever to engage the belts to the stones, and

miracle, the top stone began to turn slowly, then faster and finally at a steady

pace, just as we had seen in other mills! Com slowly dropped into the hole in the

top millstone and, surprise! the ground com meal came streaming out in the chute

below. Everyone jumped around cheering.

It took time to figure out how to adjust the height of the stone to the

consistency we wanted for the grain. The main thing was everything worked. A

wide belt ran through the counter top in the kitchen, up through what was to

become Grim Jr.' s room, and then up to the attic to tum the cleaning machine.

To get the grain from the basement to the attic cleaning machine, elevators with

cups ran up and down through fi?.eback hall. With clickety clack of these belts ,

noise and vibration were everywhere . Later when we had a telephone, we would

answer by saying, "We're grinding. We can't hear you. Call back later" Such
 Page3 of 8

excitement!

We found a good source of untreated, clean grain for grinding. When we

turned out whole wheat flour, I was launched into a new career providing good

wholesome bread for my family and friends. For twenty-five dollars I bought a big

electric antique hotel size Hobart mixer with a bread hook. It made six loaves at a

time. With heavy use it lasted forty-five years.

Soon we were grinding on Saturday mornings and selling flour to friends.

~ made a wood block print of the mill for our quaint bags. We sold flour

and com meal to the local A & P and to a bakery. It was only a marginal business

but provided a necessary supplement to our meager professor's income. It also

provided wonderful meals of W. W. pancakes, French toast, com bread, cracked

wheat cereal for breakfast, and our regular Sunday night supper of cinnamon toast

and hot chocolate. A steady supply of siftings from the com meal, and mistakes in

grinding, we used to feed chickens and sheep. Our children were involved at every

step of the operation, sifting com meal, bagging and stapling the final product.

Next we hung an artistic sign out front advertising our grains, sometimes our

neighbors eggs, the Alexanders' honey, and my fresh bread. This brought interesting
 Page 4 of 8

people to our front door. Some waited in the living room for the hot bread to come

out of the oven. One of these customers took an interest in us. He was Mr. Sparrow,

an old small town banker, who lent us money every year: we would make big

improvements, invite Mr. Sparrow out to see them, and then he would up our

mortgage to cover our expenses. He totally trusted us, and our house increased in

comfort and value.

Living and Working at Cox Mill

There were many ways Cox Mill shaped our family. Every afternoon the

children had to work for one hour. We had big projects, not made up work. For

instance, Grimsley got a load of old bricks to build a fifty-foot long high serpentine

wall. One of the disadvantages of the mill was its location close to a road. This wall

gave us privacy and kept the children safe. A ten foot high pile of old bricks needing

to be cleaned and stacked, was dumped in the yard to be ready for laying the next

weekend. One day Lisie at five years old was out chipping old cement off the bricks

when it began to snow. She said, ':Iwonder if anyone else in the world is chipping
bricks in the snow."

Because the children knew how to work, they were always in demand in the
 Page 5 of 8

neighborhood. Louise Alexander hired the boys at a young age to help in her garden.

She trained them and when they got to ~e twelve years old they graduated to work

in the honey plant for her husband Earl. This was an introduction to the real world.

They worked along side other older rough neighborhood boys and h~ld their own

against teasing. Louise baby- sat in the neighborhood and went off for one summer

as an au-pair for a wealthy Richmond family. Everyone learned to build, to run the

mill, to do housework, and take responsibility.

Our children wore hand-me-downs and thrift store clothes . I was great at

patching pants, but not at making clothes. This was the era of labeled clothes for

teenagers, and they wanted to look like their peers. What an incentive to work and

buy something new and "with it".

Grimsley never knew a job to high, to hard, or to complicated to tackle. One

summer he built a four story scaffold all around the building to replace the rotted

boxed eaves. It required somebody to hang high above the road to finish the last

painting, and that turned out to be Grim Jr. who was about to take the mid-night train

back to George School. With the daylight gone, he was out on the scaffold, a rope

around his waist held tight by his father, putting on the final coat of paint.

No matter what their age the children knew what went on at Cox Mill. A good

example was the gasoline engine in the basement. Spilled gasoline ignited when a
 Page 6 of 8

spark flew down from the engine. Only by quick thinking and risking his life, Grim

put out the fire before it got to the gas tank. A few days later our insurance agent

came to the mill to check out the house. Jace nine years old, welcomed him inside

and proceeded to tell him about the fire in the basement. Needless to say our policy

was cancelled immediately.

Finishing Cox Mill

It took several years before we had money or energy to finish the rooms

upstairs. In 1955 Grimsley received a Ford Foundation Grant for a year to study

Aesthetics with an outstanding professor at Indiana University in Bloomington. He

needed to be there one day a week, which gave him a lot of free time to work on the

upstairs.

To work on its fourteen foot ceilings, we made a wainscot of old paneled

doors and papered the wallboard above. A great open hall, inspired me to put up

wallpaper with big birds flying around. It was awful, one of several mistakes we were

able to laugh about. Each child had a large room, and there was always space for

more children. Three children wer.e born when we lived at Cox Mill, Herbert John

(Jace), July 10, 1954, Richard J.M., July 20, 1956, and Elise M .. December 20, 1058

and easily fitted into that big house.

 Page 7 of 8

We didn't try to heat the upstairs; long before electric blankets each bed was

piled high with quilts. It took time to warm up a bed but no one complained. Several

years passed before we had an upstairs bathroom. Many cold nights we shivered our

way downstairs, child in hand. The morning scenes were of children sitting on

downstairs heat registers to get dressed. This was what we were used to; children

were so healthy we didn't have doctor bills.

Because we had a big indestructible house, Cox Mill was a center for

good times. We had parties of all descriptions. Families gathered to skate on the

creek in winter, and picnic and swim at the sucker hole in summer. On holidays our

home was the place for families to share pot-luck meals. The children went off with

their age groups, sometimes to make up a play and put it on later the same day.

Grown-ups gathered for interesting conversation around the big corner fireplace.

Students came out to square-dance or ballroom dance in our 35X45' livingroom.

Grimsley held seminars for his classes there. We had dinner parties whether we could

afford it or not

Cox Mill was on the first Historic Home Tour of Richmond, Indiana.

We hand dyed our old green area carpets to cover up the bare spots. We had to keep

the children from walking on them for a week. What a joke with small children!

Curiosity brought several thousand people to C~x ~11 for the two day event.
J
..'...: .."Ju:,~
+
 Page 8 of 8

In 1960 Grimsley r;,ceived the Doan Distinguished Teacher Award. The

Award provided three thousand dollars and a semester off to travel. Lucky us: our

family took our children for four months. We bought a new VW bug and camped

from England to Turkey, zig-zagging through Greek and Roman history.

This was the first time The Doan Award had been given to a young professor.

Grimsley was just 37 years old. We were told later that our home, which was the

.center for students and faculty, contributed to the decision by the committee. It also

figured into Grimsley's becoming President of Guilford College in 1965.

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Cox.Millwas a great placefor advtmme-for a restlss yeoeg'lx,Y..Wf1nipvecfirit.othe.nn11vm.en .
I wassixor.sevm four
afterlivingin at least other houses. I~ it ~ 1he first realplace I
. can callhome :~_.
_The t?DOmlfJUS basement andattic~ places of niystery ''.andthe )VpOdsa:ruf .
Whitewater Riwniearby~ my.wilderness. Y most pl~ ~es are of fi.slnngand .- _
~~gm _tbf:~ Riverthat; rannearlhe~ . It.:was
~t~~as# .fi.owecfovm
flat liii::i~ ;~ andloose bouldersieftby the glaciers.: Toe lim.estdne ~ -created.. .
widelow tiers of.fiills.and ooe1~ created - rapids-evmyfew1nmdre(ifeet: The.Jime#onefalls :..
~eked -up loag .sbaII(?W ili:e
~ vAn1~ ~ul.dera madefor.~ .'sections
"
# npples~ .... .
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There.weretwo deepei:pools eadi approximately a:half-~ -from the mill The upstreampool
:was the Sucker Hole and the downstream pool was the SwiwwingHol.e. \-?~: . ..:: . .
TheSucker Hole wasnamedfar the nsh,refeut:d to.as "suclan." becauseoftheirclown turned"
mouths for pidcigfood ~the bottom.They .could get about 'a footlcmg ~ were ~ ...
diffic:nlt -....
catdiif ycnihad.a reason to'try . The Sucker Hale-wasabout 30:feet wide_by :200 feet long and5 .
feet deep.at the deepest The'nmthside closestto the mill was bnis1iy aru:i
-steq>andwas readied
almiga path betweeiiJ:iedgeapple .uees Vlmichhadmmmous~cntheirtnmks. The south
sidewas a gm1:1.egrasscovered slope and was r-eadJecfbyfoidingat ~ fallsa~ ~y from
the mia Tl:ui :rtmaining distimrewascovered-by a:path alaeg th&waters edge:If -you tooka
piaric youvr.mtedtobeon tiie~ side. . . ' .
. .
Whenentering the water from the-DQithaide.therewas.astaoe. slab step abouttwo feet under .
water j;roin vmidiyou could dive. The best was to jmnp off thefour foot bank above bot you had
to. clear the st.me step below. The south side was gradual andsandy. .

.fumymemory
the Hobbs kids-swamthere several~ a week~ s~ of my .
the SllIIDDfl[.
friendsfrom Richmrod:liked~ swim-th.ere.tooas.did theki&from ~- .When-we
campedout we wuuldocai.siaoallystayup past midaigbt sitting in 1he
water and talking A
~d latchonto a foot ot 1~
of stayingin for a loog time-werethe leaches that '\1YOl:lltl

0neaf the games the Hobbs kick liked to play~ a type :of ~nhmarinetag.~ wouid swim
undervvater fora couot of tm an4tbe,oehers would c:ast:handf,;Jh of smallgravei vmere they
:thought 1he-swiimner mightbe. If the gravel drifted~ and~ you it meantyou were
."out". Jace had.a habit-of arming up and saying "I .didn't feel aihipg" evm thoagh youknew
yougot him.
. . .

Fishing from the Suoo:r Holet.o.the.fifils.{approximately 400") vuasfun but not particularly
produc:ti~ There were somelarge mouth bass but mostly rock bass (goggl~) that could be
caught with \WililS or with -the~meat from the tail ef a ~ The best fishing was in
the Alexander's paads in Middleboro but it was ~ of anadvmture to fish up the creek.from
the mill to the old dam about a mile up stream. There were wgerfish betweenthe bridge belcw
fue~ . to the SwimmingHole bqt there was. a lot'of. jmik . andtrash in the river
. .from Middl.eboro.

TheSwimmingHole was an eatirely diffeROt experiencefr-omthe S~ Hole. It was

about
eightfed; deep and the over all size was that of a 1aigeswimmingpool. At the foot of the pool
-wererapids made up of boulders. Most of theMiddleboro.boys swam~- To getthere we bad
to walk down a rocky drivewaytpat led to a farm- house and barn far backin the fields. At about
the half way point~ was a ~ stream Yhefethe trail ledt&the left~ the water ;
 --~ ......... ~VYwl. ;:, .Li1.I..Wp~ lot. 'lhe banks of the SwimmingHole were wom bare from '
swimmer'sfeetand there wag;a treeleamng over the water for high.dives. Becauseof Dad's .
wammgs
_ cm::w.iter .quality and bec:ausethe 'Middl.ebarofolks daimed there was a.caveunderthe
banks that hadbeeci th.e'cause- .af several &ow.nings swimmmgthere was.notas ~ -fi.mas the ..

s~;:::~;~~~.rLl\:/:/t\t\::)
Onthe ~
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, :. ,. .:... \./_(-;,
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-of.the rapi.ds-aboye ~ $~ ];Igle~several tall sycamore trees1 likedto
!

climb
s it:on
' - thenignestb:ra:ncbes
,' .. , ..
m d:oont
.. ~, ilatethe vuorlci
.
I remember
.
feelingtbe:mioot:h
. . . .
warm ba.i:ktbat:was '.$cehun:im-skin::
-The "M'Jite .aedtaa eolms-werebeautiful againstthe darker
trees and~ remain~~yorite tree ~.Thiswas near the spot~ an one''.occisi.oo,I
threwa1mge~~the ~otbof~. vuas.followingmeim:Qthe :woods.r can still see
the tra.fectory .as.it.gotcloser.andcloser to1rim~ fjnally hit him squarely an thenose. -~ the
. bleeding ~Ipaidmm 'ii-.mekfnat k'tell ~aD.ovvedhim to came along. -.. - .
:._... .-~.~_
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The cabin was.my~ design-buildproject.'mpartnership with Elmer .Brown. . . . -- .' .-
~ and I vueregood.friends-'and -liked to.:exploreth.e .woock.we briilt the cabinwith old :_
boards and tin salvagedfrom our~ - aill.ecti.ans. The '*bin
was big mouglifor two or three
peepleto sl.eq,CJ!l
tbe-dirt-floor,, -It:was
.
weather tigbtmrainand-:seo.wandbatf~ winaow:and a
oe
door that "COUldl<>C:'bg.._.Mr.'Brown gave us a smallwood stove that heated so.well.it could. ,
drive you out
even\WJ!ntt was.freezing out.side . Tbere:\\6e ibelves fQr food and ~ supplies
mostly .courtesyof ~ u.s.Arrey. :.r.am.still~ ofthat 'cabin.We kq,t its l~an secret for a
.lcmgtime but evmtuaily the-1\fiddlebem-boys feued it mid-began-vanda]izingit.m a regular .
basis
: .. ... .-~. -::. . .. . . .. . ....:_
.
. . .
Thereare nofiner roemmies.;,af my cl,n1dbood
than playmgin the woodsand almg the
Wbitewat.er.There"was always sometbmg
.. : .. . . .. .
nm to do and advemmes to undertake.' . . . . .
.
In 2002 Taylor and I made a pilgriroagetoRidunood-to seethe~ apd theplaceshehasbeani
about through the years . Ebner heipedset 1lfl a tour .of the mill with the current OWDfli'and V'.'.8
spem:
:most.of a day,riding around to. checkcmtheimn-bridge swimming bole, the Haney Plant
and the rockquariy swimminghrileinNew Paris. It didn~ttakeus loog to return. to 1hosefun :
days.anditvms good to see-myeldmee.dHe-i&jest as-EEtln,si:astic ~ interestedin all sorts of
subjects as he used to oe.
Elmerlias~ more 1hanbisshare of hardships but he retains a
vuaodemJl~ of perspectfye.aodacceptance that i..jngpiring 'Whenwe bad dinnerhe .
reme.mberedvisitingme in Gol~ )Wm -Camerw. was side. He said be 'WclS .searchingfor the .
frierufhe used to know. I-am
-~ sere,wmhe :fotmden-that oc.casien but .that fi:imd is still here . .
Vlrithsome :and :wear.ley memones of the mill wmalways include my friend(and
mil.e.age
officialbloodbrother) -El:txier
: .

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Memories of Cox Mill .. -' , Ruffin Hobbs._December2004

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.When I think back to those .daysa.1::Cox Mill'it seems J.ikeai:iother]ifetimeago._ I was

.born there in Richmond in 1952: My :5.rst .mekorie s~s~ late16mi,i ~ght l:iave.b~ five. I
remember little Mike Brown.came tovisitvilth hi~ Mo~ - He badhurtbis am{and had a leather
. b~e on his forearm. It seems we played ~-th~-~ee_~ous~_: ~ ~s r~~~ctibn going to my ot
Catholic School and then Pleasant.View,is good. .Th ~ s9 J.l!BDY things I remember sp I will
chose afew that are special to me and
mis~-so'UJWY .oth~ ~:-.> ~ \ ~ ...;,.: .... ..
. One thing that I rememberwell istheweather.: We had full.blown winter back then and
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with that came sledding and ice skstini. Ther~~-a good~ right across-th~:roadand an even
better one quite a hike ~ .past the ball fiel~ , I have vivid nieniori~ofthe-ice skating.
Sometimesthe river was so smooth, sometimesyoucould fii through and had a frozen walk
home. I remember the aching cold of tho~ walks. . :. . _ ..
I had such fun wtth my friend Mike Brown who is gone now. Gim helped me put
. together two walkie talkies, I was
reallyexcited. They reached .about two hundred feet. Mike
and I triedthem out for range, except I :followedhim all the saying I was milesaway. That fune
wasfim..
I did some bizarre things like once I~ upon Glen Locke's.out building in my
underwearwhen he.drove up! .
Baseball was a big deal for me. We used to play a:lot in the front yard and occasionally
broke windows. There were really ~ WfFS to play 8Hand a~ p~ field up the road. I
remember when I could hit the.baU..PJ~ .~ ~~~, -.f~w.i.g.verr ~wl. EvCI)'.time I ~ell ne~
mo~ .grassI think back to those <ffiY~the ball field. : '\_ on
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. Another-goodmemory is ~e ~adup tb the "IronBri<:ige".I rode that so many furies all~
ran _it too. Y9_u could make a complete loop~ Theriver at the bridge was. another swimming hole.
I h~ it'wa:s dangerous so I never swam there. . . . . .
I have other memories of the ''ruff housing" we would dom the livingroom. We had so
much fun_wrestling and acting out. I feel so luckyto have so inany siblings to play with.It. ha4
was a specialchildhood. We were a close family withsolid principles, clear rules, lots of love
and mends. Who could ask for more.. . . . . .
 Louise Hobbs

My first memoriesare of Cox Mill and my family. I used to nap in the room, which
later became Richard' s. It was sunny and I had trouble falling asleep. I imagined that if
you made your eyes water, it would be like glue and stick your eyes shut. I remember the
wallpaper in my room, turquoise background, green vines, and red cardinals. Degas
dancers hung on the walls. At night, the car lights would come down over the hill, shine
lights through the locust tree, and across the walls of my room. My room was next to the
bathroom, which had another entrance the boys used The bathroom door was always
getting locked, so you had to go around.

One night, I got up, the bathroom door was locked, and so I went around. On the
other side was a cluster of chutes connecting the mill machinery from downstairs to the
attic. I got tangledup in the chutes so my main goal became getting to the bathroom.
When I got there, I lay down on the floor and went to sleep.

Winter morningswe used to run downstairs to sit on the heat registers. Ruffin one
time set up mass on a heat register to re-create his experiences at Catholic school.
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There was a big climbing rope with knots in it for a while in the open part of the
upstairs hallway. I enjoyed climbing it to the ceiling high above. Portraits of Mom and
Dad hung in the hallway and other pictures, above the wainscoating. The open hallway
led back to a dark tangle of chutes on the way to Grim' s room and the bathroom. Our
bedrooms openedonto this hallway, except you had to go through my room to get to
Lisie's .

We played a lot together, team sports in the lower yard with the batter in front of the
French doors, or in the field above. Sometimes neighbor kids from up the road or
Middleboro wouldplay with us, and sometimes Earlham faculty kids. We made up ice-
skating base gamesfor the river, and played cards. We would write, direct, and perform
plays for our parents on the fireplace hearth, and make buildings out of blankets and
chairs. I rememberMom and Dad sitting outside on the patio, talking, while we caught
fireflies and put them in jars.

I loved to swim in the Sucker Hole, walk around, and sun on the flat rocks at the
rapids, around where the Quarry was. The people who lived in Middleboro walked up on
the other side of the creek, but did not often swim. My brothers played in the woods. For
ten years, I was the only girl, so I spent a lot of time by myself in the woods. Walking
back through the cow pastures you:had to be careful where you stepped. One dayI made
a point of lookingup instead of looking down, looked around at the trees and landscape,
and said I was goingto remember this moment for the rest of my life.

I remember skatingup t4e creek by myself when it was iced over even into the rapids.
It was a fairyland I loved fairytales, and read every book in the Richmond, Indiana
library. One of my favorite activities was sitting in the sun on the sofa with a good
fairytale book, tea or popcorn. Sometimes I would sit on different window seats and
watch the passage of storms.

We would walk down to the store where our nickels were exchanged for gum, candy,
flavored wax body parts, drinks, and comic books. On the way back home, you could
cross the bridge, and then climb down into the orchard, linger, munch, and read comics.
There were blackberrybushes there too. Sometimes we would walk around the
Middleboro loop to visit friends or for Halloween. On this loop, the Holfackers had
monkey cages perched on the edge of the riverbank. Paul Holfacker who was a little
older than me had been injured, and kind of walked like a monkey. Mrs. Craig gave me
sewing lessons. Louise Alexander gave me piano lessons. The Parrots lived across from
the store. They ma.deme think of gypsies. Charlie Parrot and his relatives had black hair
they greased back into ducktails. They wore black leather jackets. Kay Raines was my
friend We all, with the Filbys up the road, played softball together, and sometimes the
Burdettes. They were up from Kentucky. There were quite a few greasers who lived
nearby. Above the house, the road rose and dipped like an undulating ribbon heading off
into the country. Below, the road went over the bridge to Middleboro, and then seven
miles into Richmond,going past Pleasant View school which I attended for grades 1 - 9.

The kids would walk around together in the woods, especiallywith Middleboro or
Earlham friends. Up the old race were some rocks and concrete pilings where you could
dare yourself to jump across over the chasm. It was thrilling to dare yourself and then
jump, and to watch other people do it

I remember camping outside onetime with my brothers under the stars with sleeping
bags in the orchard During the night, it rained but I slept through it, and everyone else
had left

There were parties when we stuck our legs and arms through cut-off chutes in the
floor near Richard's room. We could see people when they walked directly below. On
occasion, I would go down and watch the Johnny Carson show with Dad by opening the
trap door in my room and sliding down the pole in the study. Ifl had walked down the
stairs, other people would have heard me.

Christmas was a magical time. The basement turned into Santa's factory, and was off-
limits. One time, a gymnasium for the boys was created down there. Another Christmas,
I got the door to my room, another- bedroom furniture. We could hardly sleep
Christmas Eve. Walking down the stairs Christmas morning was enchanting. Grim
handed out the gifts one-at-a-time. This was when we got the things we needed,
including skates from Nick's Sh~e Store, a second-hand shop near the Richmond
railroad

We had big meals where you moaned afterward, laying on the couch. We talked
during dinner, sometimes about words, which we looked up in the big Webster's
dictionary in the dry sink by the table. There were louvers and wainscoating by the table,
which separated it from the kitchen. Mother did most of the cooking, but sometimes I
helped her. She taught me how to make her dishes. Often I made desserts, which she did
not often make except for cherry cobbler . I made tapioca pudding , coconut cake, and
other kinds of cake. In Home Ee, they taught us to make candy, taking sugar to the
softball stage , and one Christmas I made many boxes of candy and sent them out to all
the relatives .

Grim used to trade me books and money for washing the dishes (putting them in the
dishwasher). I ended up with most of his book collection, and he owed me millions of
dollars which he later told me he would repay with "play money. "

I attended George School at the time we moved from Earlham to Guilford colleges .
We were excited about the move and our new adventure . We left behind many good
times and learning experiences which will stay with us for our lives.
 '?t~or~!~utll~.~xJi.~
sr?t
Loiseyletteloved each otherdeeply and had createdan adv out of
housing and lifestyle. They had dreamed up and co-createdan venturous
lifestyle that they were eager to share with the community and ~ kids . Their
choice of hardshipand unconformity was deliberate and wlique
themselves. There were no other academic families aroundto fi '
community of back to the landers . Th.cchoice of cox mill was
counterculturc, daring and Wlpredictable.
I hand it to lois and grim for being the back to 1heland,p : hippies of
their generation, way aheadof the curve. Their artistry was the ' ill and
p~ and the familyenvironmentthey created with the kids., be self
reliant economy that the kids and this huge project necessitated, as just the
challenge they sought and relished. '
We kids gtew up in a homenot divided. Grim was not a co
in our early childhoods, the cox mill era. He was passionate
about the family home andmost of all about loiscylette.Wc w
dysfunctionalfamily,no smallfeat in this day .. Havinga consi
affectionateand available parentalmodel is one of the most ciai
circumstances one can have in life. Grim and loisanne were al s hugging
when they met and ~ they were discreet about overtJy1)1SS1 C>JU1ite
displays of affection,but we kids saw a model of marriagethat Ii envious
of to this day, even though I have found significantperiodsof '. led
happiness.We were very fortunate. !
By todays standardswe wereisolated,doing menial and repeti us daily
chores. living with mtir&inal sanitationand taking bodily risk in ~ e repairs
and renovations of that ponderous big millhouse. By todays we
were chic too, it has becomeromanticizedto go back to the land tI
think I know of the fifties in the u.s. is that people did not w&Dt . e old
buildings,furnitureand quainthousing.Newnesswas in, m '. fixtures,
buildings and lifestyles weremore that a fad, and here wasthe h s family,
digging old windows and bricks out of the rubble to rebuild a d ' fty and
dusty piece of Americana, coxmill. . at the timethe adventure . cox mill
was happening,we were outlandish,perhaps irresponsible,then I as the
project m~ a bit celebratedand respected. l
What it took.was consistent hard wo~ and grim and lois wereup to the
task. As I have developed my own building skills, I have becom~aware of
the kind of builder that grim was. He was consistent and he wor really
hard, which more than made up for his lack of detailed planning d care of
quality tools. He was a busy man,andhe went at work very phy ally and
with whatever he could scrounge from the many demolition proj . ts of the
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 -rko-rx:,
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so.s. he wu such an optimist.He d' ilSlli "that of us wo d reallyget
hurt; that the saw would"ruin its blade on the legionof nails~ dded
every timborthatwe ev got, andthatthere wu greatvalue in pile of
partially rotten timbers.He keJrt at it, loved to build,and by din~ f effort
built someadmirable structures. i
His optimismand love of building was infectious. First lo'
band wagori and then he cheered us kids on to do dailygrunting ]
would be hard to con a modernkid into. We all got the bug in
That there wouldl8lerbe trouble for the familyover our joint
the great tradgedyof om family, but cox mill wasthe golden
larger purposewasall wrappedup in the work that was in our at the
moment; a room for thenewbaby; the harvest of eggs and hon for
breakfast; salvagedcabinetsfor the kitchen. . l
For me, leaving cox mill was the end of an era; a timewhen ' parents
were really available;When the stimulation frommass culture , low and
my identity washappilycircumscribed by the nmningof our hold and
sports diversioos.We practically did not have television, asthe ' on
was so bad thatthepowerof this new mediumhadnot quite ~ ed out to
our booniesyet. !
Webad roomto moveabout.to get solitudeand to havell'\6TI,,_
adventures.We hada woodsthat went on for I don't knowhow t way
up past the old ironbridge.That alone was a luxuryfor a youna :
unending new exploringto do. I remember the old millraceand old
machinery that sat aboutII if they were ancient undecipherable I
never quit.eknew how it worked and there was alwaysa bit of m stery about
all the gcneratioosof milJin&that bad gone on there. There was e turbine
pit, with a mysterioustunnel Jeactingfrom it and the greatmudd)texpmse
under the old ~l pil Then there wu the big tnJck engine in . bottom of
the mill that was like a sleepinggiant. Om-home came to life g
grinding. and it wasonlythen that all that machinerymadeany nse to me.
The whole home shook+ the noise was deafening and the necessi of
teamwork bound us togetherlike few non-farm familieslcnow. e flour
flowed into the bagsandinto the kitchen where waffleswould~ being
made with a wholenew meaning of fresh andfrom scratch.
We even had the perfectcounterpoised culturalneighborsto our lives
the adventurethat it was.Bluntly, our neighborswere hica.I beli' e grim
and lois were the only ones with and education in a fivemile . I am
sure I am W'rOD& aboutthis but that is how it felt. Our parentstra . led and
had intenumonal mend& .The families around ua traveledwhen : military
serviceperhaps,but our lives, as simple es they were, were mo varied and
worldlythan the neighbor families. . ,
Cox mill to me was the last ~e I had good relations with sr.. I
rememberhimincluding me in the stoneworkbefore I could be fany help
at all. aime being convinced that the smallest trowel that he h was for
kids and 111'called it my trowel. He pretendedthat he bad found use for my
trowelandwouldI hand it to him please.I remember how muclj pleasurehe
took iri buildingthose rock walls in the yard, how primitive the .: ols, how
incrediblystronghe was, and how he led.us to do the work withj appiness.
That all dissipatedlater in my early teem so I look back to it as en my
fa~er wasa whole person, before the sufferingof life had taken;
from me,neverto be a real friend again. :
Perhapsthe highlight of my childhood was traveling with the mg
team with grim sr. I had been hitchhikingafter school to the co ge
wrestlingpractice.I was like the towel boy for the team, I did a w errands
but moltly I just attended a lot of practices.But I got the chance! o travel
with the team.We went to Terrehaute, as I remember, to a wre
tcnunament,and stayed in a walkup hotel that was more plain . can be
imagined,but it was sucb an adventure to me. Then we traveled pick up
grim jr. at scattergood, a trip that taughtme patience in that dad . id not talk
aHthat much.He pointed out a few things, and was generally h py, but he
had somethinkinghe was doing, and I got in the habit of just si ng and
looking.somethingI am st.ill trying to perfect. It was the best '1
communicationI ever had with him. 1
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I remember Loisanne, juggling an impossibleset of responsibi! ties with a
large familyand a lifestyle that took seven days a week I hardly
rememberher sitting down except to dinner,and man did she k . the
dinnerscoming. She became a real back to the land lady, ditli ' from her
childhood,and I don't remember her complainingat all. I just emberall
the workthat was getting done, and if she ever caught up, she w d
organizea big party! I know I could not do what she did, and I : n't think
many womencould. It was as iflifc bad given her a task that onf she could
do, and the very unique quality of it kept her going. I don't rem her her
dreamingof a fancierand perhaps better life. Shewas truly a do estic
dynamo,and as I now know, she was beautiful all the while. Owi other wa.iJ

tot.211ycommittedto her family and marriage, and while that maY,not be
unusual, in her case it took continuous effort, and she did it happ y. She was
an educatedand traveled woll)an,she had seen paris, and somel1q she
loved her life "down on the fa,rm"the best j
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 I havosome very personal memoriesthat will only mean muc~to me. I
rememberthe bloomina plum trees with bees all over the flow . I
remembersailina my mode)bo$l8in the flat water above the nd rapids. I
rememberthe special smell of the ooalbin,now I know ofthe ence behind
that. I rememberthe attic had all mannerof odd treasures to ex ore. I
rememberthe can shute , it makes less sense to me now than th ' I
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Its-riotso much the place or events of cox mill that matter to ' , it was an
adventurethat somehow showedme that I could build any dr ' I wanted,
that there was use and value in the castoffs of an overafDucnt .' iety, fixed
up old things are fine and fun to live ar0tmd, and how to work a team. It
eventuallyemboldened me to stand up in the fami1yfor the val '. that we
had espousedat cox mill, when I felt we were letting go of the Q re values
that mighthave made us as noble as we would like to think we ' .
I can't say I'm happy we moved away to the next challenge, r the
challengeof middle age would have been enough for lois and to
handle without the public pressure of college administration. I sh our
-happinesscould have beenunending, but the times were turbul t and all
owliveswere affected. Nothing stays the same. but to this day am looking
fa,,the cooperativeyet self reliant lifestylethat ~ cox mill. I enough
bits and pieces to call it a life.

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