The last day or so, everything on Fb is making me flash back to the 50s, when almost the whole family lived in three houses on Broad Street. Dr. Prather owned all of the houses. I think we were related to him, but I dont remember how. Mama and Yay didnt have birth certificates. For some reason, they both needed one. They had to get signed statements from people (not family) who remembered them being born. The three of us, I was still going to Girard Elementary, got into our car (it was a Hudson, for God sakes), and headed to Union Springs. They showed me the house they all lived in when they were kids. It was a big, one story, wooden house, with a porch that wrapped around three sides of it. They were looking for these two sisters who had been friends of the family. They had never been married, and still lived in the same house. They found them. I dont think I said ten words that whole day. Listening to Mama, Yay, and those two sisters was like a history class in Southern life. Those sisters were old as dirt. They were talking about a shirt factory where everybody worked. They remembered the whole Howard family, when they were all little children. Before then, I had never imagined my mama as a little girl. At the end, the sisters refused to sign anything that was going to be used by the Federal Government. Their reasoning was simple. The U.S. government had killed their granddaddy back in the Civil War! Mama and Yay remained polite while we were still at the sisters house, but once we were in the car headed home, they called those ladies names I had never heard before. So its 2:30 in the morning, and Im sitting here writing about things that happened almost 60 years ago. Your brain can be a lot of fun, if you just let it play!
Posted on: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 07:55:34 +0000
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