Becoming a City Girl

Left: Downtown Jackson as seen from the rooftop of the 308 Electric Building. (Photo courtesy of Natalie Maynor.)


I didn't realize it when it was happening, but I was very much a "country girl" for the first nine years of my life. City life was non-existent in the Mississippi Delta, at least in the town of only 455 people where we lived. It was not until we moved from the Mississippi Delta to Jackson when I was nine years old that I got my first taste of city life.

We initially lived in a rental house in Richland, Mississippi, southeast of Jackson, while my parents looked for a house to buy. Richland is located in a heavily wooded area of tall pine trees, and at that time, the town still had a "rural" feel to it. It was a long way away from becoming a "city." Many years later now, my brother and his wife have raised their family in that same town. Needless to say, it is somewhat larger and more sophisticated today than when we were in elementary school. Ironically, my nieces and nephew graduated from the same school their father and I attended, and before school each morning, so my newphew told me, students continue the tradition of ringing the old school bell, just as we did, that still sits in its original location on the school's front lawn. Traditions, like this one, are among the many things I treasure about my home state.

In September of the year we moved, my brother and I found out just how rural the area was, when we rode on a school bus for the very first time in our lives. Although we were not sophisticated ourselves, we certainly didn't act like some of the other children who rode that bus. The first morning, we received the "new kid" experience, when a boy on the bus shot corn kernels at us, using a homemade slingshot that was popular with young boys back then. Welcome to the neighborhood, and welcome to fourth grade!

I really don't remember much about our house, school, or neighborhood during the few months we lived there, except that my dad was sick with pneumonia that first month, and we had a goldfish pond in the front yard. I also remember that my teacher, Mrs. Haddon, gave each of her 20-odd students, including me, a small framed picture of herself for Christmas. I thought this was slightly odd; it certainly was not the type of Christmas gift I had expected. I haven't seen Mrs. Haddon since that fourth grade Christmas party, but I still have her picture.

The Richland experience lasted only until the Christmas Holidays of fourth grade. During the Christmas break, in early January, my family moved into the house in northwest Jackson that I would call home until I graduated from high school. It was there that I began life as a "city girl."

The Ever-Lovin' Kate Adams - Part II

Several months ago, I wrote a post on my original blog Attala County Memories about the Kate Adams, a steamer that traveled down the Mississippi River in the early 1920's, and one on which my paternal grandfather, Clark Commander Branch, worked for a time. A photograph of the steamer, from the American Postal Museum, courtesy of the Smithsonian Photography Initiative, appears here. According to other information posted there, the steamer was actually built in 1882 to be used as a U. S. Mail Steamboat on the Mississippi River.

On Tuesday of this week, I received an email from a reader in Ohio who was searching for information out on the web about the Kate Adams, and she found my post. Here is an excerpt from her email:

"I was surprised and pleased to see your information on the Kate Adams Riverboat. My grandparents were co-owners of a road construction company that built many roads in the area of Marietta, Ohio. They lived not far from the Ohio River and enjoyed seeing and hearing the boats, especially those with a calliope. Among their pictures from their road building days is one my dad took of an Ohio River boat. My grandmother had written the name of the boat on the back. I decided to try to find more about it on the internet. When I typed in its name, Kate Adams, it went right to your website. I was surprised to hear that it had started as a Mississippi Riverboat before coming to the Ohio. When I saw it had burned in 1927, I was even more surprised. Grandma wrote that the picture was taken in 1927. It may be the last picture of the Kate Adams. Do you know where it burned?"

Unfortunately, I did not know the answer to the reader's question. I had failed to find that piece of information myself before writing the post. So yesterday, I again searched for something that would reveal where the steamer burned. What I located is included in this post today.

According to The Arkansas City Journal, published in Arkansas City, Arkansas, on December 23, 1882 (Vol 4, No. 9), the Kate Adams made her maiden voyage from Memphis down the Mississippi River. An excerpt from the article states:

"AT THE LANDING As soon as she was made fast, people flocked on board in crowds, and all confessed that no prettier or more complete steamboat ever touched at this port. Her magnificent cabin was an especial theme of admiration. The whole boat, from pilot-house to the railway tracks in the hold, were carefully inspected and the verdict was She is a good one, and no mistake! LANGUAGE WOULD FAIL...were we to attempt a full recital of the beauties and excellencies of the bonnie Kate. Suffice it to say she is more than equal of any boat in the river in point of fittings, furnishings and equipment. Built at a cost of $95,000, she lacks absolutely nothing that goes to make up a literal floating palace. ROSTER OF OFFICERS All of the officers of the Dean Adams, except Steward Matson, were transferred to the new boat. Their long and faithful service in the line entitled them to this recognition, and certainly the patrons of the Dean will be glad to find on board the Kate Adams all their old friends. The roster is as follows: Mark R. Cheek, Master; A. L. Cummins, Chief Clerk; W. Outlaw, Second Clerk; A. L. Cummins, Jr., Bill Clerk; Henry Powers, Chief Mate; Thomas Kelly, Second Mate; Louis Botto, Chief Engineer; John Botto, Second Engineer; William Hopus, Pilot; Elisha Evins, Pilot; Frank Norris, Steward; Joseph Flynn, Barkeeper. Every one of them well known and deservedly popular in the trade."

Further searching led me to an article about the Kate Adams that appeared in the New York Times just a few years after her maiden voyage. The article detailed a serious fire with a number of fatalities that occurred at Commerce, a Mississippi River port just south of Memphis. Apparently, when the steamer suffered the fire in 1927 that sealed her eventual fate, she had already burned at least once before. Unfortunately, for a second time, I was unable to find the location of that fire.

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Too much icy precipitation and too many low-lying clouds prevented me from getting a really good picture for posting here today, but the scene is almost the same as this one taken in early March of last year, just a week after we moved in. The big differences in today's picture would be landscaping and much more sleet and ice. From our windows, the trees in the distance look like a crystal forest. Last night's "winter mix" is the result of our fourth (and hopefully last) ice storm of the season.

Italians in the Delta

Yesterday, I wrote a post here in which I mentioned that a few small towns in the Mississippi Delta have Italian-sounding names. Although I recall that my parents and grandparents knew a few Italian families in the Delta, and I knew others with Italian ancestry when I was growing up in Jackson, I knew very little about how or why these families or their ancestors had settled in Mississippi. I recall reading that many Italian immigrants had settled along the Mississippi River after their arrival into the Port of New Orleans, and some had traveled further north, making their way to the river towns of Natchez and Vicksburg. Since I wanted to know more about Italians in the Delta, today I decided to do a little research to answer my own question about how, and maybe why, these people had settled in the Delta. As a result of that research, with the help of my loyal friend, Google, I found "Mississippi History Now," the online publication of the Mississippi Historical Association, and in it a feature story written by Charles Reagan Wilson, Ph.D.

Wilson's story, "Italians in Mississippi," is well researched and written, and I encourage you to read the story in its entirety by using the link provided. Although Mr. Wilson's feature story more than adequately answered my original question about Italian settlers in the Mississippi Delta, I was surprised by some of what I read. I was not surprised to hear that many of the Italians who traveled up the river in the 1880's ended up working as laborers on the levees and as farm laborers. In order to have work, other immigrants worked in these types of jobs, as well. More often than not, it was the only way many could make a living after arriving in a new and different country, where their own ethnicity and language were huge barriers.

According to Wilson, however, others who settled in the Mississippi Delta went there as a result of American "labor agents" who imported them from central Italy into Ellis Island in New York. The Italians who came into the United States in this manner traveled directly from New York to the Mississippi Delta to work on plantations there, through pre-arrangements with the owners of those Delta plantations. Workers who came in by these means were already indebted to the plantation owners when they arrived, since the owners had paid for their transportation. Once the Italians began work on the plantation, their wages were withheld by the owner as repayment for what monies he had already paid to the "labor agent."

One very well-documented example of this type of arrangement occurred when Italians arrived in 1895 at Sunnyside, a plantation near Greenville, Mississippi, established by planter, lawyer, and politician, LeRoy Percy. Percy's son, poet William Alexander Percy, who was a planter himself, wrote about the work ethic and the evolving Mississippi culture of Italian workers in his book "Lanterns on the Levee: The Recollections of a Planters Son." According to Wilson's story, Tennessee Williams based one of his plays, "27 Wagons Full of Cotton," on the involvement of Italian workers in plantation life. Some may recall this Broadway play later was made into a movie named "Baby Doll."

Later, Sicilian sugar cane workers who had first settled in Louisiana after arriving at the Port of New Orleans, gradually migrated up river to the Greenville, Mississippi area. Although there were social and cultural differences between the two groups of Italians, those who had ties to the central farming region of Italy and those who were from Sicily, they were all united by their Italian ancestry and their Catholic religion. According to Wilson, Greenville, Mississippi became the home of "the largest population of Sicilian immigrants of anywhere in the Delta."

Wilson, a professor of history and the director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi, concludes this extensive feature story with his unbiased discussion of some of the social and cultural prejudices felt and experienced by Italians in Mississippi, including those that dealt specifically with ethnicity, skin-color, and religion.

Whether you are a Mississippian with Italian ancestry or someone who is not, this well-told story by Dr. Wilson is both enjoyable and enlightening. I hope you will read it and enjoy it as much as I did.

Where Do I Begin?

Mississippi is such a beautiful state, from its wooded hills and rich Delta land along the mighty river of the same name, to its sandy beaches that parallel the Gulf of Mexico. And it has such a rich cultural history. When I sat down to write the first real post on this new blog, I asked myself a very direct question: Where do I begin? The answer to my own question was obvious. I would start at the beginning.

For me, the beginning was a small Mississippi Delta town where I was born, a place so small that only a few people in my entire life have ever recognized its name. Those people, of course, were all from Mississippi. I had always believed the name of that town was of Indian origin, like so many other Mississippi towns and counties. Little did I know that many years later, I would find accidentally find out the name was actually an Italian word that means "beautiful island." To me, this information seemed very, very strange, at least for a town in the Mississippi Delta. Interestingly, two other small towns nearby also have Italian names. After searching many places for the answer, I have yet to find out how these towns were named.

Although we moved to the big city from the Mississippi Delta when I was only nine years old, I still have a fairly good recollection of those early years. I recall that our family was a farming family, with the exception of my father, who worked "in town." He drove away to work each day in a new, shiny car, while my grandfather drove a tractor and worked to keep his cotton crop growing. Later, I would learn that my father was one of only a handful of his family who had resisted the occupation of "farmer." I recall my mother and my grandmother working on sunny days in their vegetable garden, and my mother caring for the colorful flowers she grew in our yard. And I remember early summer fields of tall green cotton, with large blooms of yellow and pink, and fall fields of brown stalks that had been stripped of their fluffy white fruits. I also learned from watching my grandfather and those who worked for him that farming was very hard work, with hours that began at dawn and often ended in darkness.

I will never forget my early childhood years in the Mississippi Delta. Those years gave me the foundation for who I am today. And in order to know where we are going, we need to remember where we have been.

Welcome to Mississippi Memories

Thank you for visiting my new blog where I plan to write about memories of my home state. Effective today, 110 posts previously published on Attala County Memories can be read here. As you may note from the new blog title, I am expanding the area about which I write.

First, I will continue posting pictures and writing stories about Attala County family history. I also plan to begin writing about families who pioneered and lived in Holmes County, Madison County, as well as a few other counties, primarily some of those formed when The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed with the Choctaw Nation in 1832.

Second, the new blog site will allow me to post pictures and write stories about other things of interest, some possibly not genealogy-related, about my home State of Mississippi.

My third goal is to have this new blog become an interactive blog, one where I can post your pictures and the family stories they tell. Please contact me if you have anything you would like to submit for publication. I look forward to hearing from you.

The Pineapple - A Sign of Welcome and Hospitality

If this is your first visit to Attala County Memories, welcome! I hope you return often. If this is a return visit for you, welcome back! Beginning today, and on each Saturday, I plan to write a slightly different type of post here, one that is still somewhat genealogy related, but not quite as focused on people and dates. Today's post is about a simple object, the pineapple, and its historical significance and symbolic meaning. Use of the pineapple as a symbol actually dates back to colonial Virginia. During that period, the pineapple was often used to represent hospitality and friendship. Often, a pineapple was placed near a door to show visitors and other travelers the house was a safe haven in what was sometimes an unsafe or hostile environment. When the colonial capital of Williamsburg, Virginia was restored, the pineapple was featured in many of the elements there to serve as a symbol of hospitality to visitors. Years later, replicas of colonial furniture often feature a pineapple among the carvings on the pieces.

Today, many home decor items, from door mats (I had one myself) to place mats, candles, china, napkins, coasters, and tea towels, often use a pineapple in the motif. Christmas ornaments and yard art are often created in the shape of a pineapple. But the symbolic meaning, many years later, remains the same.....Welcome!