beginnings

My parents were both born in 1952 in north Mississippi-- Dad in Booneville, a town so small it had a negative population count, sustained only by the small junior college it held. Mom was born in... well, I don't know where. New Albany I think. They moved around a lot: New Albany, Memphis, Tupelo, etc. I know she graduated from high school in New Albany, the kind of place that has one main street downtown, with one jewelry store, one clothing store, one dry goods store, where people still park their cars on the double yellow line in the middle because that's where the horse hitching posts used to be. She had a segregated prom-- that was the last year before her high school was integrated. It's about thirty minutes from Booneville down a windy dirt road. There's an ostrich and emu farm on that road, now paved, and we used to beg to take that route when we would travel from New Albany, where my dad's grandmother lived until her death at age 97, to Booneville where my dad's mom lived until she remarried in her 70s. They met at that small junior college-- he played trumpet in the band and she twirled a riffle. They came to Ole Miss together too, and married right after graduation. 

My roots are here. I got interested in genealogy this summer and traced both sides back as far as I could. We moved to Mississippi early on, with most of my ancestors arriving here in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Too poor to care about the civil war for the most part, we were farmers in Kosciusko, Tallahatchie, New Albany, Greenwood. There's only so much you can tell from a name, place, and a couple dates in a census record. I want to know why those people chose this place, what kept them here, what their dreams and goals were, if they would be proud or ashamed of the prosperous yet disconnected life we seem to lead now. There's something to be said for working the earth, putting your heart and soul and blood into farming, growing your own sustenance, living for only yourself and your family. I think of them as if they lived in a Faulkner novel. He wrote about this area, grew up about 10 miles from here. Dirty, shoeless, full of fire and life, hard working and street (or dirt road) smart. Is that really the way they were? 

My dad's grandparents eloped to Blue Mountain and got married in the road in the middle of the night. His family didn't like her family; she had money and he didn't. But it was love, and they stayed together over 50 years until he died two years after my birth. She lived 20 more and died a few weeks before her 98th birthday. She was a strong, fiery, fearless, and brave woman; she told you exactly what she thought and made it known who was in charge. But she was kind too. And boy could she cook. She had a hard life, losing one of her children very early, struggling to make it during the Depression years. My great-grandfather was a spitfire kind of guy too, so I hear, a small man with a big personality. I imagine that they were a lot like the ancestors I try to imagine. Country, uneducated but smart nonetheless, industrious and vivacious, ready to take on the challenges thrown their way and knowing how to celebrate the victories or mourn the losses while keeping their feet firmly on the dirt. I try to remember my granny and try to emulate her in the difficult points in my life. There are only maybe 6 people who really had a hand in making me who I am today, and she's one of them.