My Remembers : A Black Sharecropper's Recollections of the Depression / by Eddie Stimpson, Jr. ("Sarge") ; introduction by James W. Byrd ; foreword by Frances Wells ; illustrated by Burnice Breckenridge.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Stimpson, Eddie, 1929-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Farm life--Texas--Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.)--History--20th century.

Farm life.

Depressions--1929--Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.)--Dallas.

Depressions.

Sharecroppers--Texas--Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.)--Biography.

Sharecroppers.

African Americans--Texas--Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.)--Biography.

African Americans.

Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.)--Social conditions.

Dallas Metropolitan Area (Tex.).

Stimpson, Eddie, 1929-.

Stimpson, Eddie.

Physical Description:

xxi, 167 pages : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

University of North Texas Press 1999

Denton, Texas : University of North Texas Press, 1996.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

"I grow up a dirt farmer and retired a dirt farmer. Never got rich and didn't want to be. My childhood stomping ground is now concrete, stores and houses. I remember the good times and bad. It was not the money we made but how to stretch that last dime. It was not the wind, rain or snow. It was about the love that flow. It was not the hot sunshine nor the clouds that hung low. It was the grace of God that help us swang that hoe. I want my grandchildren to understand. My grands, your grands and their grands." In 1929, near Plano, Texas, Eddie Stimpson, Jr., weighing 15-1/2 pounds, was born to a 19-year-old father and a 15-year-old mother. The boy, his two sisters and mother all "grew up together," with the father sharecropping along the old Preston Road, the route used by many freedmen trying to escape Texas after the Civil War. His childhood was void of luxuries, but full of country pleasures. The editors have retained the simplicity of Stimpson's folk speech and spelling patterns, allowing the good-natured humility and wisdom of his personality to shine through the narrative. "Tough time never last," he writes, "but tough people all way do." The details of ordinary family life and community survival include descriptions of cooking, farming, gambling, visiting, playing, doctoring, hunting, bootlegging, and picking cotton, as well as going to school, to church, to funerals, to weddings, to Juneteenth celebrations. This book will be of extraordinary value to folklorists, historians, sociologists, and anyone enjoying a good story. "My spelling is bad, my hand writing is bad, and my language is bad," Stimpson writes. "But my remembers is still in tack."

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Letter to my grands and your grands and there grands

My Growing Up Days

Changes on the Farm

Famley Problum

A Vision of What Was

Famley Life

Getting a Wife

Come on Kids, Lets Eat!

Keep Clean

Sud Busting Day

Recration or Play Time

Medicines

School Day

After School Trouble

Hussling for Survival

Sending Messages without a Phone

Domestic Animals

Hunting Wild Animals

Dust Storms and Blue Whislers

Farming

Fear of Failure

What Kept Us Going

Run for Cover

Jack Rabbit

Fill Up on the Holy Spirit

Praise God

Funral Service

Troubled Famley Down on the Farm

Good Time and Bad Time

A Lonely Mother with the Blues

Caring for Your Nabor

Friends

Bonnie and Clyde

Millie and Ed Diner

Just a Thought

Closing letter to my grands and your grands and there grands

Appendix A: Family Tree

Appendix B: Stimpson and Drake Histories

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

1-283-92435-8

1-57441-489-5

0-585-30917-5

OCLC:

604325274