The Pecan Orchard: Journey of a Sharecropper's Daughter

story.

I

The Beginning

In the Beginning

My immediate family history began on June 4, 1939, the wedding day of Willie Joe Hall and Charlie Allen, my mama and daddy.

Mama and Daddy struggled very hard to provide for our extraordinarily large family. Over a span of more than twenty hard years they reared thirteen children with me being number twelve. We were reared on hard work in cotton fields and pecan orchards, moonshine to supplement the family income, education from the back of the bus, and the discipline of an iron hand from Daddy. The fact that all of us kids lived long enough to grow up was a miracle. Many times we did not think we would make it, but we always did.

Mama and Daddy married young. Daddy wasn't even twenty, and Mama was only in her midteens. Mama's daddy, Papa, was not in favor of their marriage. He constantly told Mama that Daddy came from poor folks and that he didn't want her to get mixed up with his kind. Of course everyone was poor in 1939 including Papa, who was a sharecropper, but I guess Papa thought that excuse was as good as any to try to keep Mama and Daddy apart. The more Papa warned Mama, the more they wanted to get married. Papa also cautioned Mama that Daddy already had a family. At his young age Daddy had already fathered a son out of wedlock, and Papa warned Mama time and again not to get involved with him. He said there would always be trouble if she married Charlie. But Charlie was the one she wanted to marry no matter what Papa had to say about him.

Daddy used to saunter by the house every day on his way to work. Mama said he just did it to get a glimpse of her because his job was too far out of the way for him to be strolling by her house every day. It appears as though that's how courting was done back then.

After considerable thought, Papa eventually gave Mama his permission to get married—and his blessing. In early June 1939, Mama and Daddy got married. The wedding wasn't very big because no one could afford anything big in those days. It was a simple ceremony with just a few friends, family, and neighbors. Papa did kill two hogs for the festive occasion. One was for the wedding celebration, to feed the guests who had walked for miles to be there, and one was for Mama and Daddy. He wanted to get their new family off on the right foot because a family starting out with meat to eat was starting out right.

That was the beginning of the Allen family, my family.

Mama and Daddy started their life together moving from one white man's land to the next, sharecropping. There was always some old rundown shack in the middle of a field somewhere, owned by a white man who needed some colored folks to keep things going. There were also plenty of colored folks to go around. It seemed as if the white folks owned everything, including the black folks. Maybe they didn't actually own black folks, but they definitely controlled every aspect of black folk's lives.

After the wedding, it seemed as though in no time at all Mama was expecting her first child. In the dead of winter Mama began to have her first labor pains. The old house that she and Daddy lived in had holes in the walls and in the floors. It seemed to be just as cold inside as it was outside. Cold wind didn't hit the side of the house and go around, it went straight on through.

Mama was still a young teenager and the labor pains were scaring her as she did not know what to expect. Her mother had died when she was very young and she didn't have any knowledge of or experience with childbirth. All she knew was that it was extremely painful and she wanted it all to end. She had been having pains all day alone in that old cold house, and when Daddy came home from work that night, she told him about them.

It was time for the baby to come. And in those days a doctor was out of the question. There was, however, an old black woman who was the midwife for the black community. Everyone called her black but actually she was only half black; her daddy was an old white man and her mama was a black woman who worked for him. Each black community or settlement had its own midwife. Ours was named Rachel Driggers; she was as old as time itself and was full of wrinkles. No one in the community could remember her ever looking any younger, and she seemed to be at least a hundred years old.

Daddy headed out right away to get Miz Rachel. It only took about half an hour or so, but to Mama it seemed as if an eternity had passed. Miz Rachel went to work immediately and after a long night of labor Mama gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Mae Nell Allen. She had been named Mae after Mama's younger sister who had died in a fire several years earlier.

For the next twenty years, every eighteen months to two years, Mama gave birth to another child, constantly increasing the number of hungry mouths to feed. My sister Betty was born about two years after Mae Nell. Miz Rachel helped bring Betty into the world also. After Betty was born, my oldest brother, Thomas, whom Daddy had before he and Mama married, came to live with Mama and Daddy. Until this time he had lived with his own mama, but she had fallen ill and was unable to care for him. His mama died from tuberculosis, and soon after her death Thomas moved in permanently with Mama and Daddy and took his place in the family.

Ediffie was born a couple of years after Betty, and once again Miz Rachel came to assist. After Ediffie, Gracie was born. And then came my brother Floyd, the second son. He was followed by another sister Sadie, and then Charlie Allen Jr., whom we called Sonny. After Sonny, came Calvin, the forth and final son. Brenda was next, and then Janice, nicknamed Jan. After Jan, on November 29, 1959, I was born. And though I evened out the dozen, I was not the last to arrive. In July 1961, baby Diane was born. Since Mama bore children for more than twenty years, she spent a large part of her life pregnant. I know it was difficult caring for all of us, but I never heard her complain about having such a large family. Instead, Mama often called us her baker's dozen because she had thirteen of us. Growing up in lower Alabama was difficult for any black family, but it was especially difficult for such a large family. Just getting enough to eat was hard. The entire family struggled together to survive.

Mama and Daddy had struggled with difficult childhoods of their own. Both their foundations were rocky but strong, and they had each other in addition to all of us. Our family history was interwoven with the will and determination to survive, and against all odds, they gave life their best efforts. We labored fervently to surmount everything that life threw at us.

Sunshine

The word sunshine has a special meaning for the Allen family, especially for Daddy. That was the nickname given to him by Zell Coouie and his family. Zell Coouie was an old white man who lived with his family down in the woods off Highway 31, in the Wild Fork community.

Daddy was born on August 9, 1919, in Greenville, Alabama. He had a tough and troubled childhood that ended much too quickly. He was born to a young, unmarried, and quite beautiful woman named Betsy. His father, Anthony Allen Sr., had many older sons and daughters by his wife. There was Attie, Maple, Anthony Jr., Glen, Ed, and Mason. And then there was Daddy, who was fathered out of wedlock. His being fathered out of wedlock signaled the beginning of his difficult life. Many years later Daddy would boast about being his mama's best-looking child and her only boy. He was correct. His mama, my grandmother Betsy, didn't live long enough to bear any more children. Nor did she live long enough to raise Daddy to adulthood.

Grandma Betsy was a beautiful woman. Everyone said so. It was said by many that her beauty rivaled that of Cleopatra. She had fair skin, long black hair, and an elegant body. All the men loved her, or at least they wanted to, and it would be fair to say that she liked most of them too. Likewise, the women in the community hated her, whether they had a reason to or not. They were most likely envious of her gorgeous appearance. Grandma Betsy's beauty was both a blessing and a curse. Daddy often spoke of the time he and his mother were brutally assaulted in a hay field when he was a small boy. The two of them were returning home after visiting with a neighbor. The walk home was only a couple of miles and by taking a shortcut through the hay field the walk would be even shorter. It was a route they had taken many times before without incident. It was early summer and the grass in the field was about waist-high for Daddy, knee-high for his mama, Betsy. It was early evening; darkness was still hours away.

As they reached the halfway point in the field, they could see a large man coming toward them. As he drew closer, they recognized the figure. It was a white man who lived in the area, though Betsy did not know his name. Since walking was a common mode of transportation at the time, it was not uncommon to meet other walkers black or white when traveling, so Betsy was not alarmed by meeting someone else in the hay field.

According to Daddy, when he and his mama were within a few feet of the white man he began making remarks to Betsy, comments that were inappropriate, out of line, explicit. Before Betsy could react, the man grabbed her, tearing her dress, and began forcing his unwanted attentions on her. When she resisted, he began to punch her about the head and face. As the man beat on Betsy, Daddy beat on him. Daddy was only a child and Betsy was very petite; they didn't stand a chance against a man that outweighed them by two hundred pounds or more. Each time Daddy got close to the man trying to protect his mama, the man would turn his attentions to him, hitting him and throwing his small body onto the ground. After a few minutes, both Daddy and Grandma Betsy lay exhausted and bleeding. When they could fight no longer even though they continued to try, the man took from Betsy what he wanted. She had no money, jewelry, or gold. Even the now torn and tattered dress she was wearing was a hand-me-down garment, given to her by a stranger. So he took from her all that she had. He took her self-respect. As a parting gesture he forcefully slammed her head to the ground once more, pinned her there for a moment, and then spit in her face, taking the last remaining ounce of her dignity.

There was no one to tell and no place to go seeking justice for such an incident. There was no law that would take Betsy's side in what had happened to her and Daddy. In those days white men often took what they wanted from black women. And sometimes, as in Grandma Betsy's case, they took everything. After a time, both Grandma Betsy and Daddy's physical wounds healed. But Daddy's mental injuries never did heal.

Grandma Betsy, who continued to be a free spirit, never married. But she died when she was fairly young. In the early 1920s on a cold Sunday morning an altercation occurred outside the church. Of course church was where every black soul went on Sunday morning in those days. Where else would they be but taking their burdens to the Lord? And Mount Ida Baptist Church, a small single-room building nestled among a grove of trees on a dirt road about one-quarter mile off Highway 31, was no different from all the rest. The little whitewashed church had a small steeple on top. The steeple was the only thing that distinguished it from any of the other old small buildings. Small and plain, it was typical for the time. All the folks in the surrounding community attended Mount Ida.

That Sunday, as Grandma Betsy was leaving the churchyard, she was confronted by a woman. Some said she was a jealous wife, but no one really knew for sure. The woman accused Grandma of spending time with her husband. Grandma Betsy denied her allegations, but to no avail. The entire congregation quickly gathered around to watch as the women started yelling and screaming at each other. They began pushing and shoving as the argument grew more heated. Back and forth they went until suddenly the woman pulled a knife on Grandma Betsy. After a brief struggle, and with many so-called Christian eyes looking on, Grandma was stabbed several times. No one intervened. Finally, when Grandma was near death, a few onlookers pulled the woman off of her.

In those days medical care for poor black folks was nonexistent. So Grandma's wounds were never properly treated. Some folks said that even a doctor would not have been able to save her. Grandma Betsy hung on for a few days. Painful days for her and agonizing for Daddy, who watched his beautiful mother slowly die from her horrible injuries.

The sad funeral in the dead of winter was held at the same church where she had been mortally wounded just a few days earlier. Grandma Betsy was buried on a cold, wet day marked by a persistent pouring rain that had pelted the community for several days. Her body had been laid in a simple pine coffin that was placed on a wagon for the short trip to the graveyard. The wagon was flat bottomed, with neither side rails nor a tailgate that could be closed. It was drawn by a single mule that struggled to pull the weight of the wagon, driver, and coffin in the pouring rain; the wagon wheels dug deeply into the mud.

En route to the cemetery the wagon had to climb a steep hill that led to a bridge with an almost vertical incline. The old bridge was made of large noisy wooden planks, like those used for railroad ties, and the rain made them very slippery. By the time the mule and wagon approached the hill, the mule's strength was waning. Several men tried to pull the mule along from the front and prod him from the rear. The driver, who had started the trip atop the wagon, jumped to the ground to lighten the load for the struggling mule.

The mule reached the steepest part of the incline and could go no farther. He was stuck. The wagon began to slide backward down the incline. And then, without warning, the coffin tumbled off the wagon, landed on its side, and Grandma Betsy's body fell out onto the cold, muddy ground. The procession of mourners stood stock-still. No one knew what to do. This was the stuff of late-night tales, except it was real. Grotesque and terrible, but real. The water and mud washed over the stiff body as the men struggled to put it back into the coffin. Daddy watched as the men placed the coffin back on the wagon. How much pain could one little boy be expected to endure? The cold, wet group of mourners finished the trip to the graveyard in silence. No one spoke a word, the picture of that overturned coffin and his mother's body lying in the mud was etched in Daddy's mind