Livin’ Down South in the Land of the Pines

by Jordan Beck

“It was so safe. You never had to worry about crime, and no one thought about child abductors.” As Gayemell Shepherd’s sweet southern draw serenaded my ears, my mind floated back to the early 1960s when she was growing up in Sanford, North Carolina. An idyllic life of happiness, the American Dream, and strong ties to the South hovered in my consciousness like a honey bee over a magnolia flower. Such was the life of the then Gayemell Campbell, born in 1956 and raised in Lee County. The mother of my best friend since the day I moved to West End, NC, from Freehold, New Jersey, in 2004, no other woman besides my own mother ever took such good care of me. In a life defined by strong southern roots, the end of segregation and subsequent integration of African Americans, as well as the evolution of culture, Gayemell’s life paints a picture of what it means to be a Southerner.

The daughter of a farm-boy turned soldier turned chemical salesman, Gayemell Campbell grew up in a comfortable neighborhood. She recalls always being outside, as “there was more play than now where technology’s screwed up so much.” Whether it was spending a quarter for a cone at an ice cream truck, fishing with cane poles, or riding bicycles through clouds of mosquito-killing DDT, Gayemell described a childhood free from worry. “It was a much simpler, helluva lot easier life,” she said with a smile. Of Scottish descent, the Campbell family has deep ties to the land. The farm Gayemell’s father grew up on remains the family’s today. Recipes were passed down by the women, as were china, crystal, and silver. Gayemell still recalls getting her first Mix Master and learning how to make a pound cake. Food was a key component of life, “with extra salt and butter” she said with a grin. Chicken and dumplings, pound cakes, grits, fried chicken, collard greens, biscuits, and potato salad were staples, yet canning was equally important. Without freezers, picking green beans and preserving them was the norm.

Life, however, did not stay so idyllic, especially as segregation ended as the effects of the Civil Rights Movement reached Lee County. When integration began in 1968, her eighth grade year, Gayemell recalls the rioting of both blacks and whites. “It was a very uneasy time,” she said, “Whites didn’t like blacks, but blacks didn’t like being there either.” She remembers the more volatile students sharpening their belt buckles to use should a fight break out. Graffiti was everywhere. It was “scary as a 13 or 14 year old,” she stated. Yet, over time, things started to change. Athletics paved the way and while “tension was always there, it became the exception rather than the rule [to fight]. There were still groups who were volatile, but with athletics, it was better for victory together than victory apart” (Shepherd). The realization that integration was not going to change also moved things along. “You had to get used to things,” mused Shepherd, “but you always looked over your shoulder for those who had an axe to grind.” In truth, it wasn’t the students who had a problem in Shepherd’s experience, but rather the parents. Gaymelle’s husband Dale, also a native North Carolinian, interjected, “As student body president in high school, my vice president was a good friend of mine and an African American. He was a great baseball player, and while we were friends in school we never saw each other outside. It just wasn’t possible.”

After graduating from Greensboro College and working as an exceptional education teacher in Goldsboro, Gayemell Campbell moved to Moore County and married Dale Shepherd, a Wake Forest alumni. They had their first child, my future best friend, Talmadge, a year later in 1994. The changes to life were drastic, most notably with technology. Yet Shepherd mentioned her sadness at a part of life grown increasingly rare as time’s passed: visiting. “Every Sunday after church you’d get in the car and ride without seat belts to a friend’s house. You visited. You made homemade ice cream and sat on the churn while someone cranked.” Gayemell and her family try to keep a similar tradition going, and the Shepherd household continuously buzzes with other people. More changes to life revolve around the church. “There were fewer churches back then, but fewer conflicting activities too. You’d always get together for lunches and parties there with all your friends,” she reminisced, “now there’s so much that gets in the way.”

While the modern world certainly has its differences from Sanford, North Carolina circa 1960, one thing that won’t change anytime soon: the people. In Gayemell’s words, “It’s the people that make the South the South. The hearts of the people. You know your neighbors and you depend on each other.” That’s what it means to be Southern. You can eat all the collard greens, biscuits, and pound cakes you want, but if your heart lies outside the South you aren’t a Southerner. After all, home is where the heart is.

Work Cited

Shepherd, Gayemell. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2013.

Note: Jordan Beck, who grew up in New Jersey, is pursuing an associate of arts degree at Sandhills Community College. He plans to transfer in fall 2013 to N.C. State or UNC-Chapel Hill.

The Town Time Forgot

By Christy Evans

Nothing is more interesting than learning about “how things used to be” — that’s exactly what I did by interviewing my mother-in-law, Emma Jane Brown Evans. Born on October 4, 1950 in Robbins, NC, she was the younger of two children of W.C. and Denese Brown. According to Jane, life growing up in this small southern town has not changed very much over years.

"The biggest thing about our town I remember from my childhood was a huge sense of community. Everyone looked out for each other, and love your neighbor was our code of life.” When growing up, about 15 kids on her block always got together to play in the streets, go to the movies, and go trick-or-treating every Halloween. “You didn’t have to worry about the meanness then that you have to look out for now. It was a God-fearing town.”

The event in the South that had the most effect on her life is the integration of schools. Until 1965, she attended school with only other white children; however, when entering the tenth grade, integration began taking place in Robbins. The all-black school closed, and all the students from it began attending North Moore High School. For her, this wasn’t an issue, but some seniors who were graduating made huge deals by “taunting the lower classmen about having to share their school with people of color.”

According to Jane, when she was growing up, her parents did not raise her to be prejudiced but to love everyone. However, not everybody in town shared those beliefs. Even though integration was going on in the schools, it wasn’t going on in the neighborhoods. No black families were allowed to live inside the city limits of Robbins. “If a house was for sale and a black family tried to buy it, then someone else in the community would buy it first so that the black family couldn’t.” She also said, “As far as I know, that still happens today. I guess that some things will never change.”

Like most other Southerners, family and church were very important. Parents taught and instilled values and manners in their children. A child was expected to show respect to elders and address them properly. Another important element of her childhood was church. “That is where you were supposed to be on Sunday morning, and if you weren’t then Grandma would show up at your house afterwards wanting to know why.” After church every Sunday, family dinners consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade biscuits. It was a time to sit down with family, enjoy their company, and catch up on everyone’s lives. Teenagers weren’t allowed to date until they were sixteen, and “women had more respect for themselves by not letting everything hang out. Churches and their preachers pretty much ran the town.”

Jane’s parents brought her up with the mindset that attending college was a must, not an option, and that’s what she did. She started at Sandhills Community College, got her associate in arts degree, and then transferred to UNCP where she received her teaching degree. Jane said, "Education is a must to survive in the world today, not only in the South but all over."

One last nugget I learned is how Robbins seems to be “stuck in the past.” According to Jane, neighboring communities describe Robbins as “the town time forgot” because even as everything in the world has changed, Robbins still stays with the simpler way of living.

The changes in life — and resistance to change — are so interesting. My mother-in-law taught me that some of the “good ol’ days” are still alive in our neighboring communities, and we should hold on to as much of Southern culture and value as we can.

Work Cited

Evans, Emma Jane Brown. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2011.

Note: Christy Evans, who is from Aberdeen, NC, is a nursing student at Sandhills Community College where she is pursuing an associate in arts degree.