Nothing in my past would have precluded what I became, but neither would those things have helped to pave the way. My father was a man with great native intelligence but one who lacked the financial wherewithal or family support to develop himself, having to drop out of school in the 8th grade to work on his father's farm. My mother, like so many young women of the depression era, was needed to do work at home; so, she was never allowed to go beyond the 6th grade.
When my parents married, they had nothing but love for each other and the good wishes of their families to start a life together. They moved from the hill area of northern Mississippi to the delta region near Marks, a small town surrounded on most sides by cotton fields. My father started out as a sharecropper, a no-win situation except for the landowner, but he might have made a better go of it had he not been injured when his tractor turned over on him and almost destroyed one arm.
A competent local doctor patched him up, placing a plate inside the upper arm and leaving a large shoe-lace designed scar all the way up his arm, something which fascinated and scared me at the same time whenever I saw it.
This injury inhibited what he was able to do for some time, though he managed to carry on working on a large plantation in the area. By the time I was born, my mother had suffered a miscarriage and was told she probably wouldn't be able to have another child. I think this situation was the reason why I was so sheltered as a young child, but it served to make me quite shy early on. My cousins weren't allowed to treat me in the rough and tumble way that children often act in play, and I rarely left my mother's side until I started first grade.
My first two years of schooling took place in Marks and Lambert, Mississippi. I can still recall my beloved first-grade teacher, Mrs. Sanford, and her very large book which stood on an easel at the front of the class. We learned to read primarily through the see-and-say method popular at that time, and I soon developed a love of those books we had with the Alice and Jerry characters and Mother, Father, and Baby, plus some pet whose name escapes me. It delighted me that I had the same name as the female lead in the stories. There weren't many library books available at that time, and the few books I was able to bring home were precious to me. I can still recall one in particular which had little elves with pointed shoes who loved to play games of hide and seek in piles of autumn leaves.
Try as I might, I haven't been able to locate such a book nor anyone who remembered it from childhood. I know I didn't imagine it. To this day, when I see piles of leaves in the fall, I want to check for the elves.
