A Reaper of What She Has Sown

By A. Michelle McLeod

When you think of the South, what comes to mind?  Do barbeques and pig pickin’s come to mind? Do fried foods come to mind? Southern churches with long-winded preachers? When I think of the South, I remember my own experiences, places I’ve visited, people I’ve met, and television shows I’ve watched that poorly depict the South. I live in Vass, NC, that has lots of dirt roads and dead ends. The neighborhood where I’ve lived for many years has barely any traffic, and only the main road is paved.

When I was a child around the age of two, I began sneaking from my home that was down a hill on a dead end dirt road to my neighbor’s home across the paved road.  In my small town, no one thought twice about a child being harmed by a stranger. No one was a stranger. No one needed to include a last name when referring to someone who lived in Vass. Doors were kept unlocked all day and night. Years have passed and my former neighbor often tells me stories of things I did as a child, and we laugh at my innocence and curiosity. Neither my neighbor nor I knew at the time of my childhood that we would come together years later in a different setting.

On February 22, 1945 in Dunn, NC, a child was born to Lilly Yates, aged 19. The child was named Mary Elizabeth Yates. Shortly after Mary was born, her mother developed tuberculosis and died. Before her death, Lilly requested that Mary be adopted by her best friend. In those years, family members and friends could be appointed guardian of a child without any brows raised or any questions asked. It was assumed that a relative or a close friend would take over guardianship in the event that the birth parents were not able to do so. Mary’s adopted mother didn’t have any children so Mary was an only child. Mary’s adopted mother worked as a housekeeper where she cleaned, cooked, and cared for a child the same age as Mary. The family Mary’s mother worked for was a white family and although the family had no black neighbors or friends, the family treated Mary and her mother no different than their own race. Mary and the child her mother cared for played together while Mary’s mother cleaned and cooked.

At age six, Mary’s adopted mother was no longer able to care for her so Mary was sent to live with her maternal grandmother in Southern Pines, NC. Mary was heartbroken but eventually grew to like the new living arrangement. A young girl four years Mary’s elder also lived with Mary’s grandmother. The young girl’s mother had also passed. The two girls grew fond of each other and soon referred to each other as sisters. Mary’s grandmother was a very religious woman with strict rules. As a teenager, Mary and her sister were required to work in the local cotton and tobacco fields. Mary also worked as a babysitter to many families. It wasn’t unusual for a young girl to babysit. Work came as a priority over school. The school Mary attended was segregated. The grades ranged from K-12. In the South education wasn’t as important as providing for a family. Even though school started in August, Mary and other students didn’t attend until harvest season was over in late September to October. The teachers understood and would never count any of the missed days against the students whose families made them work in the fields.

No matter what the season, Mary had to tend to the family’s food supply. The family’s food supply consisted of hogs and chickens. The hogs were fed slop and fattened up with table food and other scraps and later became the main course for Sunday dinner. The chickens laid eggs that were used for breakfast and used in many delicious dishes. Many families in the 1950s often had to find other ways along with working to provide food for their household. Mary’s family owned a garden which harvested corn, okra, peas, string beans, lima beans, tomatoes, watermelons, and peanuts. As Mary’s school age was coming to an end, her grandmother allowed her to date, but she still had to abide by strict rules. Mary later married, but her jobs still consisted of working in tobacco fields and gardens, and raising chickens and hogs. Field workers had to work from sunup to sundown with an hour or less for lunch.

Mary always attended church, was involved in many programs, and was a member of the choir. Mary always felt like she didn’t fit in with the other children who were more promiscuous because of her religious morals that were reinforced by her grandmother. Mary continued to feel the same well into her adult life and approached her pastor. She was taken under her pastor’s wing and later was ordained as a minister. After obtaining the position as a minister for a few years, Mary was ordained as an elder and began to preach at various churches around NC. After being ordained as a pastor a few years, Mary felt that it was time she spread her wings and establish a church of her own. Being down-to-earth and having a kind heart was what made many people draw near to Mary. Mary’s Christian faith and morals were what Mary continued to cling to no matter what obstacles she had to face, and many wanted to learn what it was that made her steadfast and unmovable. Many wanted to learn how to be like Mary. Mary was ordained as an apostle after being a pastor of her own church for eleven years.

I have been a member of Mary’s church for a little over a year. Along with the Bible lessons, life lessons are also included in many sermons. I have learned a lot from Mary about hard work and faith. I have learned that faith and work go hand-in-hand. Many people don’t think about what earlier generations had to endure just to have food on the table. Many people, including myself, have never experienced working the fields, gardens, and hog pens. Interviewing Mary gave me a new insight and respect for her and earlier generations’ hard work and faith that hard work will eventually pay off.

Work Cited

Kelly, Mary. Personal interview. 24 Jan. 2013.



Note: A. Michelle McLeod, who lives in Vass, NC, is pursuing a degree in medical office administration at Sandhills Community College. She also is employed at Peak Resources Pinelake in Carthage, NC.

Grandma’s Journey from North to South

By Tramaine Pride

My grandmother has lived through some of America’s most interesting decades these past 65 years. She was in school when desegregation began, angry when “King” was killed, saw man go to space, bought herself an iPod, and has lived to see the first black president in Barack Obama. In our interview I asked her about these events and others that happened during her lifetime to understand a Southern black woman’s view of them when they happened. Bringing up these events brought up an immense amount of memories and stories which led to us having a two-day interview because apparently “our family tends to be a bit longwinded.” Although born in the North, she has used Southern values of church and family to overcome the daily challenges that she has faced.

My grandmother is the youngest of five children who all were born in North Carolina with one exception — her. Her father, a New York native, wanted to move his family up north so his children would have a “better chance on life” rather than one in North Carolina where he had had many problems as an African American. After my grandmother was born, the family stayed in New York until she was around ten years old when her parents divorced and separated. Although her oldest brother and her father stayed in New York, she moved to the South during a time she described as hectic. Though she had heard about desegregation, she didn’t pay it much attention because she had gone to school in the inner city with all “colored” people her whole life. She always knew race was an issue growing up, but she is admittedly ignorant to marches and protests that I was so eager to find out about. “You just didn’t want to stir up any problems down here,” she explained.

She grew up in North Carolina in a single-parent home with two brothers and a sister; everyone in the family played their parts in helping support the family. Her mother did her best and taught them how to use the water pump and how to handle their business in the outhouse. She wasn’t used to the Southern way of life after living in New York. She told me that her mother kept chickens and that she learned to catch, kill, pluck and cook a chicken with great goory detail. Reflecting on this practice she laughed at my face and told me how lucky I am to have Food Lion now. Though the chores and living were harder in the South, “You did them because you had to for your family, and that was true love. I did all that because we had to, and I loved my family; mean as she was, I love my mama.”

During high school she worked for the Pinehurst Resort (“The Hotel”) as did most of her classmates and neighbors from Taylortown. Her oldest brother went into the Army, the other brother went back to New York for college, but she and her sister stayed in the local area after high school working and “courting.” She had fun partying on the “hill” in Taylortown and being the center of attention for the local male population. My grandmother was married four times total and is currently still with her fourth husband. She tells me the reasoning behind these marriages was because “It was the right thing to do. Marriage was how you stayed in a relationship with a man. One did not just move in and live together because you were in love; it was a sin called shackin’ in the church I was raised in.”

Her second husband, my grandfather, was “real country boy” raised in West End North, Carolina, by some “Indians and white folks,” she says with a laugh, “Why you think your mama’s so bright?” In that marriage she had four children and was a true housewife. “I cooked like my mama, I cleaned like my mama, and I loved hard like mama too.” She learned about root medicines and home remedies from my grandfather’s Native American mother. My grandmother was suspicious of some of those practices like most southern blacks; she referred to them as “witchy.” She took her family to the same A.M.E. Zion Pentecostal Church that her mother went to in Taylortown. The church was what kept and still keeps the family together. She made her children sing in the choir and attend Sunday school, they were all christened there, and she had three of her four weddings there too. Her two children who are married, my aunt and uncle, were married in the same church. Life was pretty much the same from generation to generation, her children had children, and I was subsequently raised in Taylortown.

We discussed some changes such as her interaction with white people. For a long time she didn’t deal with white people outside of being a service to them. Most of her adult life she either worked for or served white people, many from the North. She served these rich victors who came to Pinehurst for golf and recreation while she was young and later served and nursed them when they were old in the retirement and nursing facilities in Pinehurst too. In her early ‘50’s still working in nursing, she decided it was time for a change, and that change was her education. Growing up in the South she “didn’t care much about school as much about making money and helping the family survive. That’s just how everybody did it; you worked and survived but never really elevated yourself beyond that.”

She says her children and grandchildren were her inspiration to focus on her education. She attended community college and received an associate in arts degree with honors and elevated her pay and status. She credits her family for helping her along the way. In high school I remember helping her to use a computer and prepare presentations and spreadsheets. She had white classmates who have become her white friends now. “I took me long enough,” she says with a smile. When I asked her did she think race was still an issue even with Obama as president, she responded, “It’s really a beautiful thing how far we’ve come, and I hope y’all just love on each other till all that’s gone.”

My grandmother was uprooted from the North and was raised in the South. Her life has seen many changes in culture over the years and she has changed hers along with it. But the Southern ideals such as church and the importance of family are still how she will live forever.

Work Cited

Baldwin, Toni. Personal interview. 8 Sep. 2011.



Note: Tramaine Pride, who is from Southern Pines, NC, is a university transfer student at Sandhills Community College where he is pursuing an associate in arts degree.

A Hardworking Woman of the South

by Lindsey Irby

A “blast from the past” was heard when I asked with my grandmother about her struggles in life throughout the years. I always knew she was a hard-working woman, but I never knew what a strong independent Southern person she really is. My grandmother’s name is Frances Irby, but I call her Granny. She resides in Pinebluff, but she was born in Kannapolis. The experiences and accomplishments she has achieved are unfathomable, and I admire her determination to achieve her goals. She shows all characteristics of a person from the South, and she has had very difficult experiences throughout her life.

First, as I asked many questions during the interview, I was absolutely intrigued by the hardships that her mother, three sisters, and one brother had to overcome. She explained, “Because there was very little money for medical treatment, my mother doctored us with folk lore medicines and techniques that she learned from her mother. For example, when one of us had a cold, she treated us with cough syrup she made by boiling wild cherry bark, a bud of mullin stalk, sugar and lemon juice. She treated us with croup or chest congestion by making a solution of kerosene, camphor, and turpentine and applying it to the chest area, and also covering the chest with a piece of outing flannel and kept us in bed or in a warm room.” Her father and mother divorced when she was six years old. While being the oldest was tough, she still had time to bring her vivid imaginations to life. As a child, Granny and her siblings would use bricks as cars and build a track to race them. “We would dig under roots and go over them, and we would remember exactly which brick was ours. We would rip up old cloths and make a playhouse with the pieces. We were all creative, and people nowadays have lost that sense of creativeness,” she said. Her mother, my great grandmother named Annie Morgan, was a single woman who was looked down upon for being divorced. “My mother had to learn to be both mother and father to all of us. She had to assume total responsibility for caring for the farm animals, gardening, and other activities that were considered to be male chores, such as building pig pens and chicken coops which she learned to do on her own.” My granny had to learn to be a responsible, determined woman at a very young age. I could see the remembrance of her past bringing a sense of a bittersweet happiness to her eyes.

Secondly, Granny stopped going to school after the ninth grade. “Education was not pushed or thought about because we were poor, but my mother wanted us to finish high school, even though none of us did. As I worked jobs that made little pay, I decided one day that I was not going to live like that for the rest of my life.” She later got her GED and completed her master’s degree. She has been a registered nurse, a nurse in the emergency room, and a member of a psychiatric unit. Also, she has taught nursing students since 1982. She was the director of nursing, and division chair of health science at Richmond Community College. My granny achieved many more accomplishments, but none of them would have happened if she had not gone to college. Granny is now retired with Social Security and state retirement, and she still teaches clinical once a week. She is completely satisfied with her life. She has no financial problems, and every accomplishment she has earned will never be taken away from her. “Education is the key to having a great life, and nobody can ever take your education away from you. You can have a million dollars and it be gone in a blink of an eye, but you will never ever lose your education.” My granny’s words of wisdom really motivate me to achieve whatever I want to do and stretch my limitations to the maximum while doing so.

Furthermore, I asked her about Southern culture and characteristics of the people in the South. She stated, “People from the South are at a slower pace than people up North. They would push and shove to get on a train up there and not have any manners about it. Southern people stop to talk to you, even though they do not know you. Manners are another thing you will find in the South. Many people are involved in church, and integrity is important to them. Honesty is very important, and I believe us all to be hard workers. Homemade specialties and recipes are passed down from generation to generation, and you can only find that in the South. Also, family is most important to me.” Then I asked what her expectations were for our family’s traits and she replied, “Helping each other, always being reliable, honest, caring, hard working, to have manners, respect, and to have an education.” She has been through a tremendous amount of trials and hardships, but she has surpassed every single one of them. I think that is the best Southern trait ever.

In conclusion, my granny is absolutely amazing. I have learned so much, and I am completely captivated by the struggles that my granny has overcome. She transformed from being a poor, uneducated, Southern farm girl to an independent, educated, strong Southern woman. She shows true Southern culture. I now have stories to pass on to my children in the future about how wonderful their great grandmother was and pass on some of her hard-working Southern skills to them. No matter how impossible a task can seem, my Southern roots have taught me that anything can be conquered with a little hard work.

Work Cited

Irby, Frances. Personal interview. 30 May 2010.


Note: Lindsey Irby, who is pursuing an associate of science degree at Sandhills Community Community and plans to transfer to N.C. State University, wrote this paper for HUM 122.