In the mid-1960s, when I was around ten, I spent a Sunday afternoon with my cousin, Harriett. She was a slight girl and I was a well-fed tomboy. We didn’t go to the same school; I lived in a neighborhood a few miles from town, while Harriett lived on the outskirts of town. Some might have called her Marion neighborhood the wrong side of the tracks, yet it was an area dear to me because of my mother’s family members who lived there. My maternal grandmother had lived just over the Southern Railroad tracks, a short walk from Harriett’s street and near the Clinchfield cotton mill village where my mother grew up. My family often visited relatives in this area, and I enjoyed going there.
During our Sunday afternoon together, Harriett and I mostly played outside. The back side of her frame house was elevated so we had a crawlspace to play in. As we sat on the dirt floor, two neighborhood boys came by and made a vulgar remark to us. Their words embarrassed me. I wasn’t accustomed to boys talking this way. The boys in my neighborhood were polite and treated me like a sister. One neighborhood boy, Mike, taught me to ride a bicycle, and when he spent the night with my older brother, he read stories to me from my Golden Treasury of Bible Stories. The rude boys who confronted Harriett and me, thankfully, didn’t linger.
Harriett’s house was unkempt, with shabby furniture and a stale odor. But in her front room stood a bookcase with a set of encyclopedias, similar to my family’s World Book Encyclopedias that I loved to read, sitting cross-legged on our hardwood floor. I was impressed that Harriett’s family had encyclopedias, and I wondered if she and her older brother and sisters ever looked at them.
Harriett and I had the run of her small kitchen and made a mess trying to bake brownies. Her mother, Daisy Mae, was a pretty, sweet woman who let us do what we wanted. And my easygoing uncle, Archie—my mother’s younger brother who did odd jobs around our house—didn’t seem to mind my presence.
Harriett’s next door neighbor was a bootlegger. At the time, I didn’t understand why people parked in front of the small house and went in, to come back out carrying a brown paper bag. During our visits with Archie’s family, I noticed this steady flow of people coming and going.
“Is that a store?” I asked my mother. She didn’t say much, but I was told not to wander down that way. (This was an era when my county was dry, and the only alcohol sales were illegal.)
The view of a mountain range from Harriett’s front yard was stunning. As we stood and looked at this vista, I wished I had my family’s binoculars to get a closer look. At home, from the top of my block, I could sit on a neighbor’s front rock wall and with binoculars study the blue northern mountains and spy hints of a faraway mountain town. This was one of my favorite pastimes. The view from Harriett’s house was even more panoramic.
Toward the end of my stay, Harriett and I walked up her street. We met an older gentleman, dressed in a black suit and fedora, who was taking a stroll.
“Good afternoon, young ladies,” he said, raising his slim hand in greeting. He introduced himself as the preacher of a nearby Baptist church. “I hope you will attend our evening service,” he said.
I told him I would be going home soon, and he asked if my family had a church. I told him we did. He said, “Well, that’s good,” and tipped his hat and went on his way. I wondered if Harriett had a church, but I never asked.
Harriett is gone now, like most of her family who didn’t live long lives.
Some people likely considered Harriett poor. I don’t know if Harriett perceived herself this way. I hope, though, that she realized she was blessed with a family who loved her, including me.