Rivers of Sadness; Gladness and Fears; Struggles and Triumphs; Laughter and Tears; Bygone Years

By Barbara Myles Hampton

The message of this book voices the many struggles a family born, reared and affected by the times great poverty, yet great riches of spirit that helped them to endure and persevere. The house with its extremes, cold during the winter months and steamy hot in the summer, moved them forward. The five-room house with its lacks, no electricity, no inner walls gave them hope for better times.

There is one chapter in the book for each family member's deeds as seen through the eyes of the author. Documents and pictures are included to validate the contents of the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 2, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483658445

Barbara Myles Hampton

Barbara Myles Hampton The author was born in Copiah County, Mississippi. A cold, tin top, five-room, wood house, nurtured her, nine siblings and her parents for more than thirty years. The first twenty-two years of her life was spent there. Lowes Chapel, a two-room structure, was the home for her first eight years of school. Her high school education was completed at a small school in Crystal Springs, Mississippi. She attended Utica Junior College (now Hinds Community College) for two years and went on to Jackson State University where she earned a Bachelor's Degree in Language Arts. At Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, she earned her Master's Degree in Education. She retired from teaching after thirty-seven years.

Book preview

Copyright © 2013 by Barbara Myles Hampton.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013912638

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-5843-8

                  Ebook         978-1-4836-5844-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 07/18/2013

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris LLC

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

138130

Contents

Introduction

Credits

Prologue          Home Again!

Foreword

The Author       1938—

Chapter I The Mission

Chapter II Indefatigueable

Chapter III Dorcas

Chapter IV Two—William

Chapter V Naamarah, Sweetie, Sweet Mama

Chapter VI Achasah

Chapter VII Apphia

Chapter VIII Miss Mahon, Eunice

Chapter IX Syntyche

Chapter X Vashti

Chapter XI Adam

Chapter XII Obadiah

Afterword

•   Chapter Names Inspired by the Scripture

•   Area Pictures and documents throughout book.

DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to the memories of my most precious parents, Calvin Buck Myles and Vergie Henley Myles. Without their being the parents that they were, I would have become a shadow of a person, shallow and without substance. Their teachings and their lives have been models of excellence to my being through their forever caring, nurturing and by throwing on building blocks of character, accepted and rejected were those precious gifts, but never forgotten. I now long for that council, scolding I then felt, because it became an element of my character. It was not in God’s plan that they would be here to witness the writing of this book.

I asked God for the spiritual motivation to write and publish this book. Since the time that I diligently started bringing this work together, though some parts are more than thirty years old, I have struggled with many cannons of frustrations. It has been during those times that I have been able to pour out my story. I write what I feel, for it is the only medicine for the indigestion that I suffer when I have eaten too much or what I have eaten (pain) settled not in the right places.

May this book serve as an ode to my memories to some of my nieces and nephews and as an inspiration to others as their names resound here from the youngest to the oldest: Tamara Leighanne Myles, Calvin Demell Outlaw, Tobiath Laurencin Myles, Joseph Catrell Myles, Terrance Levelle Myles, Sr., Jacqueline Davis (deceased), Eunice Kay Johnson, Caroline Kinnard Brown, Myles Ashley Harris, John Henry Ervin, Jr., Darryl Jerome Kinnard, Vincent Carl Eric Myles (deceased), John Earl Harris, Donald Earl Harris, Desiree Ervin, Daniel Harris, Gwendolyn Davis Lloyd, Gregory Kinnard, Pamela Davis Moore, Sharon Ann Ervin (deceased), Joann Ervin Weeks, Jeffrey Kinnard, Linda Diane Johnson Robinson, Barbara Jane Johnson-Johnson, Willie Cleveland Davis III (deceased), Monte’ Davis Apostles, Larry Davis and Shirley Davis Eaves.

Introduction

Water is cleansing; cleansing is water. Water is healing. Writing releases cleansing powers because it is one of the cannons for beginning the healing process. It steals its way up and opens up all of the flood dams of beautiful, painful memories, and allows them to flow freely, unobstructed as rivers should be. As the rivers of memories flow, they take away dirt, silt, dredges, and all other impurities revealing the blue, peaceful, clear waters as they challenge quests for higher goals. These waters rush together at pivotal points giving rise to the painful by bringing again rivers of muddy tragic-filled memories.

Tears that flow down faces, like erupting volcanoes, are brewed in the heart and flows into the soul. Tears eminate from both pain and joy. They have their distinguishing character that come with real life.

Real life holds a juxtaposition in the rivers of life that swings like a pendulum between joys and tragedies. Rivers of joy meet new obstacles in their paths as do tears of sadness. The greatest misery of the body is when the soul/heart feels sorrow but comes no tears.

Writing this book has allowed me to spiritually connect with my parents again. Moreover, it is an appraisal of all the entities that have merged to make This Me.

I asked God to instill within me whatever is needed to write this book. Some parts of this book have been on paper more than thirty years though I did not understand why I was writing.

If no one ever reads this book except the Author, it has more than done its job. It has given the gift of freedom.

The poems interwoven within the pages of this book were written when I felt that I needed to cry out, but, felt that no one would hear my cry. I cried anyway, silently through pages that yellowed with age but are now green again. I am free!

Credits

I am eternally grateful for and indebted to those who have inspired my writing through their lives and those who have provided assistance during the journey. Their encouragements, presence, perseverance and guidance have greatly shaped my writing.

My parents and siblings have profoundly impacted my life experiences. They, therefore, permeated, hunted and figuratively guided the strokes of my pen. My life with them compromises much of the substance of my writing.

Sarah Gordon Chambliss, a gifted teacher of English and Author of two books of poetry, is my mentor whose spiritual guidance energized my writing. It was she and Lois Lockheart, another teacher of English, who gave long hours to the reading of my writing and have provided valuable suggestions. They made me feel that I could and moreover, I should. Barbara Lois McCray Harris, a former student and endearing Goddaughter, provided technical work in the form of printing the pictures seen in this book. Terrance Levelle Myles, Sr., my nephew and a God send, printing the pages of my book in preparation for copyright. Thanks to God! Thanks to you!

Image%201.1.jpeg

Home Again!

Prologue

HOME AGAIN!

Bits of Bermuda grass have woven the brick sidewalk, an amateur’s masterpiece, into a perfect checkerboard. The house stood holding her sagging porch out in front of her as a grandma would hold an apron of goods. Rhode Island Red and Dominique chicken had given the earth beneath the house the appearance of acne. One! Two! Three! Four! And I had reached the summit of the lop-sided steps.

I looked down the long porch that extended the entire length of the house. As I made my pilgrimage, I imagined that I had become the fingers on the keys of a piano. The large ten-penny nails aided the rhymatic squeak-squash-creak sounds that marked my every step. I reached out and allowed my fingers to move over the washboard-like outer walls of the porch that time had tarnished with an indelible gray. I counted the crude rafters and named them for the children who had played there so many years before. As I stared up, I recalled how the rain had played her percussion on the tin house top, a perfect pyramid.

From the porch, two, large sagging, square eyes stared back at me as I peered into the old house. From that moment on, I was mesmerized by the memories of times long past that seemed to draw me toward the front door.

I reached out, turned the rustic door knob, and pushed open the door that cried out a warning to the ancient house. I stood in the front door, slowly looking around the room and allowing my eyes to rest momentarily on each of the other three doors. I knew that each had stories to tell.

Slowly, I raised my eyes to ceiling, whose wall paper sagged in the middle like lines of pregnant women. Voices greeted me, young and ancient. They haunted yet welcomed me.

Mall, the oversized portrait of a distant relative, stared down on me from the above center door and sent her usual spine-chilling message. My eyes rushed away from hers only to meet the stares of two more pairs of ancient, great grand eyes. Cautiously, I move to the right of the great room and pushed open the best of the home-made pine doors. The large, wooden four-post bed stood as a reminder of the important guest who had once occupied the company room. The sun did its best to penetrate the lone, dusty cobwebbed window. I recalled how unsuccessfully I, and others as teenagers, had attempted to disguise the two-by-four that extended the length of the north wall like a varicose vein.

So clogged was my head with gratifying memories that I hardly remembered leaving the room as I had entered it, crossing through the great room with the four doors, and stepping down an incline of imperfection into our room. I remembered and shivered in July, from sensual recollections of the chilling cold wintery winds rushing up through the opening and biting my ashy legs. Corrugated paper hung from the rafters. I used to lie on my back in bed and name different products from the ceiling of the room. The peeling dresser stood near the door bearing the largest of the kerosene lamps. A rustic, pot-bellied Fire King heater took shape as its pipe jutted through the crude flue. An old Maxwell House Coffee can stood on top of the heater holding water and rust. Two iron beds holding stir mattresses literally filled the room except for a few cramped spaces occupied by some old cowhide chairs. One picture still graced the wall. It was the only one that had ever been in the room. I, the artist, had drawn the silhouette of the youngest sister on the canvass of cardboard that was also the inner wall of the room.

Voices from that ancient house cried out to me. They urged me and haunted my longing soul as they demanded that I explore the lives of those whose voices called and pierced my soul with every move that I made inside the ancient forgotten house.

On Time

(A Glance Backward)

Oh, to recapture the wonderful and beautiful effects of yesteryears;

To go back and venture forward with any doubts or fears.

The sound of laughter, and of cracking peanuts and pecans;

The smell of popcorn freshly torn from the stalks

At the time when the leaves had fallen quietly around us

Joys unimaginable-all fears as to where tomorrow’s bread would Come

Forgotten, and in the house, not a taste of lust.

Many other houses filled with the poor

Loud noises pouring from them.

Babies crying, youngsters in mischief

Mothers scolding;

Grandpaws and Grandmas sitting around the fires

Listening to its crackling

Sewing, mending,

Quilting, knitting, dipping,

Chewing, whittling and—Aging!

The fields all white with cotton.

From end to end-sacks strung out.

The shuffles of those sacks;

The occasional barking of dogs;

Periodic mention of days and months and years passed.

And in the house, not a single fuss, fight or pout.

The family owned no land, except for the six feet that Buck often referred to behind the country church, Miller Springs. Some of the offsprings had lived in no other house except the five-room country shack on the farm where their parents paid one-fourth rent as tenant farmers to the land owner by giving him one-fourth of all products, grown: cotton, corn, potatoes, cabbages, tomatoes, peas, cows, hogs.

The house, located a quarter of a mile from the gravel road and thirteen miles from town, was home for ten children and at times twelve and two or three adults. A fireplace in the bedroom occupied by the parents was the main source of winter heat. There were two other rooms used for sleeping. The one for the younger children had a pot-bellied heater whose pipes went between the rafters and outside. This room had been constructed using green lumber when, after it dried, left large drafty openings that were stuffed with old newspapers by the children and their mother.

The majority of the children were well into their teens before they experienced electricity. All of the children walked for a number of years to the two-room school. For this family of children, they were blessed with a shorter walk of only five miles each day. Others walked as many as twelve miles over mountains and through woods.

Acte 1

Out of the night of the humble,

We came

Striving for survival is the middle name.

Brewed from that same liquid

Differing only in kind.

Simple lines; simple foods on the table of which we dine.

Good old mother nature brought the month and season which school bells rang calling youth to inquire

Bridal bells rang at a mutual time was for you (Mother and

Daddy) an inspire.

Coming into this world after the first ten months.

One of pretty pigtails who with trials must bump.

Twelve plus six, and a second child of blue

Born not to tarry for a moment in the new.

Sardonyx is her birthstone, a face like a peach

Into the world she came with desire to teach.

Fair of face and Daddy’s pride in the month of lilies came

You Baby she was called, and by Great-grand received her name.

The month of Christ came with a burst

Bringing a tiny weak she-bundle with asthma to entrust.

Born after the month that wedding are a symbol;

Born to be dressed in pink with a pure heart to remember.

The month of thanksgiving

Brought the sixth of dominant kind fourth

In resemblance of her father took the strongest oath.

Another of the dominant kind the seventh month bore:

Seventh month, seventh pink bundle of yore.

Three