Throwback Thursday - Topashaw Canal Revisited
My childhood was shaped by my family and their stories. I grew up idolizing many of them, especially the ones that seemed to carve their lives out of nothing. They were bold and brave and took chances that cut against the grain of society at the time.
They were single parents in the 1920s, bootleggers in the 1930s, traveled to California in the 40s to build roads and ended up fighting in the fields of France in WWII. They fought in the water and the air in 1950s Korea and began a career in truck driving in the 1960s. In the 1980s my own parents built a log home and a farm with their own two hands. And all these people were my heroes growing up. Not movie stars, not sports stars, and there were no internet celebrities back then. I lived for these stories of bygone days.
These stories made me search out and read about anything that pertained to what I heard. My great-grandfather’s trapping stories inspired me to read about the wild west. Another great-grandmother was part Choctaw so I read all I could about Native Americans (hello Indian in the Cupboard.)
I’m a momma now but I can’t wait to tell my daughter all the stories I have stored in my brain. Stories passed down to me of backpack whiskey stills, feeding babies with canned goats milk, and riding to Mississippi State on a horse. But there are my own stories too. Galloping Spanish Mustangs with my best friend, traveling the state in our 1991 Dodge pickup, running barrels in the rain, mud, snow, sun, dust, and a couple of times in the pitch dark when the area lights shorted out. And of walking by myself with nothing but a pistol and a camera in the canal on my grandparents property taking these pictures. And maybe someday hearing my baby’s stories from her own adventures.
All pictures were taken with a Nikon D90 and either a pinhole cap or a holga lens.
I, too, lived for the stories and listening to the conversations of adults. I'm glad I can remember so much of what I heard. My siblings were much younger and they missed out on this remarkable gift of stories. (My brother is working on family history, I still think we are related!)
ReplyDeleteWe very well might be. I think you said you had Pepper relations from Mississippi. We had Pepper and Lancaster family that moved to Texas. My great grand-father was John Henry Pepper. His father was Sam Pepper.
DeleteWas John Henry's wife Maude? A quick search of my confusing notes lists a John Henry Pepper with a date of birth of 12/23/1869. I think my great grandmother's mother was Lucy Ann Pepper. I'll check some more. My mother always thought that her grandmother was part Choctaw. Interesting, by the time my mother was born they all lived around Monte Vista in Webster County. Many are buried at the Baptist Church in Monte Vista.
ReplyDeleteThat's probably someone in the family but my John Henry Pepper was born around 1909 (? Don't have it in front of me) and passed away in 1987 when I was 5. He was married to Ethel Pepper. We do have family that lived at Buena Vista.
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