The Mississippi Byrd: From Rural to Urban to Suburban and Beyond

By Shedrick Byrd

The Mississippi Byrd: From Rural to Urban to Suburban and Beyond was written at the encouragement of many of his relatives and friends to motivate a larger audience. It is filled with challenges, excitement, and scintillation as it chronicles some of his adventure and misadventures. The book describes the tracks of Byrd’s life from rural Mississippi to urban Gary, Indiana to suburban Ann Arbor, Michigan and beyond including twenty years of service and travel in the U.S. Navy.

Join Byrd in the experiences, the travel and the transformation of his life as well as the summation of Lessons learned.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 18, 2008
• ISBN: 9781450069847

Shedrick Byrd

Shed Byrd was born in Brandon, Mississippi. He is the fourth of eight children. He grew up in Leland, Mississippi where he attended his first years of school. He had his first work experiences, working in the cotton fields, delivering newspapers and shining shoes. In 1953 he moved to Gary, Indiana where he graduated from high School. In 1957 he moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan and joined the U.S. Navy in 1959. he retired from the Navy in 1978, and from the civil service in 2000. he is married and has two children.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

There are many people whose interest and support inspired me to write this book. As I have talked about my life experiences, individuals have said to me time and time again, You ought to write a book! Along the way, I came to believe that writing my experiences from birth through childhood, migration to the Midwest, military and civil service career would be a good idea. I am grateful for all who encouraged me and whose lives inspired me as well as those whose lives are a part of this book.

I especially thank my wife, Helen, who found enough interest in my story to encourage me to write this book. She read drafts, asked questions, and continued to support me throughout the process. To my children, Robbin, Shedrick Tyrone, Doral and John, and my grandchildren, Sherice, Terrell, Margeaux, and Norman for yielding time with me and time at the computer. I remember posthumously my oldest sister, Clara Minor Fritz, and brothers, Willie Minor, Earl Minor, John Lee and Levi Jenkins, Jr. I express gratitude to my surviving siblings with whom I have enjoyed the recollection of life experiences: Dorothy Minor Harris, Charles Lee, Karen Lee, Earlene Jenkins Washington, Thelma Jenkins Kersh, and Barbara Jenkins Bridges. I also am grateful to my many in-laws, nieces, nephews, great-nieces, great-nephews, cousins, and other relatives.

I thank my many friends who encouraged me to tell my story. My gratitude is expressed to buddies who are regulars at local night spots who have listened to my stories and nagged me to complete the book. And lastly, I thank Rev. Ronnie Peace for an initial contact for a book editor.

There are several persons I wish to cite whose input helped to make the production of the book a reality. I thank my friend, Dr. Carole Morris, for sharing her expertise by review of the book for its readability. I appreciate the work of Velma Naylor who did the word processing of the first complete draft and the final camera-ready copy of the book. All of these persons, and more, have assisted me in the production of this book for which, I am solely responsible. May all readers find as much delight in reading it as I found in writing this tome.

Shedrick Byrd

August, 2007

PART I

The Rural Experience

ONE

The Byrd Enters

Just imagine a young woman, the mother of three children a divorcee living in rural Mississippi in the 1930’s. The last news she wanted to receive is to expect another baby. But that was the case of Ruth Byrd Minor in 1938.

December of 1938 was the dawning of my birth. I was born in a small rural Mississippi town called Brandon. Today, Brandon is about seven miles northeast of Jackson, Mississippi which is much better known than Brandon.

I was given the family name of Shed Byrd to carry the legacy of my Uncle, grandfather, and great grandfather. I lived with my mother, and four other siblings. My oldest brother, Willie Lee Minor, Jr. was six years my senior; the second eldest was my brother Earl Clifton Minor. Earl who was five years my senior. And my sister Clara Elizabeth Minor was four years older than I was. Three years after my birth, another sister, Dorothy Beatrice Minor was born into the family. Dorothy and I were born between my mother’s two marriages. I have vague memories about my life experiences in Brandon; however, I do remember that my brothers and sisters played a pivotal role in my life in Mississippi. They helped me to survive the rural experience.

In Brandon, we lived in a big wood shingled house set on top of a big red hill on the south end of town. Uncle Shed, one of my mother’s brothers and his wife Lanie, also lived in Brandon. Uncle Shed was a fair skinned tall man about six feet and Lanie was a dark skinned woman about five feet four inches tall with several gold teeth in her mouth. They lived in a little white house that was divided from our house by a field of sugar cane and corn. As a child, their house seemed like it was miles away from ours, however, after visiting Brandon as an adult, I discovered that their house was only a short distance away.

I, along with my brothers and oldest sister, often walked to Uncle Shed’s house to play in his yard. It was fun to go to Uncle Shed’s house because we could play with the chickens, hogs, and cows that he raised. Uncle Shed would let us help him feed the chickens, slop the hogs, and milk the cows. I really got a kick out of that. He sometimes paid us to help him with the chores. Most of the times, our pay was in the form of food or milk for our family. On a few occasions, we would get money.

Uncle Shed had an old tom turkey among his chickens. That turkey was the meanest old bird I had ever seen. He seemed to always be mad at me and every time I tried to get close to him, he would chase me across the cane and corn fields to my house—pecking me with his beak and whipping me with his flapping wings. I was scared of Old Tom, but every chance I would get, I would pick at him to make him angry.

Living in Brandon left me with some impressive memories. My mother like my uncle Shed was fair skinned with straight long black hair.

My mother was the main breadwinner for our household after she had separated from her husband, Willie Lee Minor Sr., who was in the army. Fortunately, she did receive some assistance and support from three of her brothers, Uncles Shed, Henry and Albert.

My mother made her living by washing and ironing clothes for white folks. They would bring their dirty laundry to our house two or three times a week. My mother would wash, iron, and fold the clothes and the white folks would pick up the newly washed and ironed clothes and drop off a new load of dirty ones.

My older brothers and sister would help my mother with the washing and ironing—mostly in protest. I was too little to be of much help. My contribution was cheering them on with encouragement or teasing them as they worked.

My fondest memory about Brandon, Mississippi was how well the community came together to support one another. I gained a sense of what it meant to care for others. I was extremely impressed by how the families in the community came together each year for what I called a wintering-over gathering.

The wintering-over event occurred around September or October of each year. I chose the name wintering-over for this event because it was held in the fall of the year to prepare for the winter. The gathering usually lasted for a period of two to three days. Each family who participated brought something to the event. Families would bring canned goods, quilts for the bed, or other goods to trade or give away to make sure that another family had enough food, bedding, and other necessities to last through the winter. At the end of the wintering-over gathering, each family had plenty of food and other items to last them through the winter.

The wintering-over gathering was truly a rural experience because I have never seen that type of expression of care displayed anywhere else in my entire life. Therefore, I concluded that this kind of love and stewardship could only be found in a rural environment.

In addition to the food and other items shared in the wintering-over season, men would go into the woods to chop down trees so that each family had enough firewood to keep them warm throughout the winter. Sometimes I would get a chance to go into the woods with them. I would get in the back of the truck near the cab to be safe from falling out as we toiled and tumbled through the makeshift roads in the woods.

The men would look around the woods to choose which trees they wanted to cut down. Once that decision was made they would take out their axes and begin to chop. I could never understand how the men who chopped down the trees knew which way the tree was going to fall. All I remembered was the loud calls of, timb-e-e-er!!! as the trees were coming down. As soon as you heard that call, you’d better know which way to run! Later on, I learned that the woodchoppers knew where the tree was going to fall by the way in which the tree was being chopped.

After the men chopped down the trees, they would trim the trees by taking the leaves and small limbs off. They would then cut the trees into logs, load the logs on the wagon or truck, and haul the wood in their mule pulled wagons or old pickup trucks to the homes of family, friends, and neighbors. Getting wood to our house was quite a task because we lived on top of a hill. It looked like the old truck would strain, sputter and spit as it climbed to the top of that hill. If the wood was being brought to our house in a mule pulled wagon, it seemed to me that the wagon driver would nearly whip the poor old mule to death, as the mule tried to get the wagon up that steep hill.

The purpose of the wintering-over event was serious but it seemed to me that everybody who participated had so much fun. I later understood that having fun while you worked was a part of the Black culture. During those two or three days, the women sang old spirituals, talked about everything under the sun, cooked plenty of food, and helped the men any way they could.

While the wintering-over events were taking place, the kids who came with their parents would have a good time too. We played games like tag, hide and seek, kick ball and other games all around a big old house. The older kids played some of those games, but most of the older kids were more into wooing one another. The little boys chased the little girls, and the little girls laughed and ran away from the boys.

All of the hard work required meal planning, the men would kill chickens and the women would fry them to feed everybody who was at the gathering. One thing about those times that is unlike today, nothing was ever thrown away—not even chicken feet. My mother would boil the feet, make some chicken feet gravy and pour it over cooked rice. M-m-m, that was some good eating.

The men slaughtered cows and hogs. They seem to have a working system that they all understood for doing the work, but to me it seemed so hard. As they began to work, you heard the hogs squealing as the men tied them down to make them ready for the kill. Although the hogs kicked and squealed for dear life when they were being slaughtered the cows just stood there and never moved when their turns came. I never understood why the cows never moved. As the men worked, I heard my Uncle Shed talk to them. He seemed to be in charge. He would be dressed in his white overhauls with a chow of tobacco in his mouth between his gums and cheeks. He would tell the other men how to hold the cow’s head while he took the butt of the ax and bashed the cow’s head. Once the cow buckled and fell to the ground, Uncle Shed or one of the other men would get on his knees and with a big sharp knife, slit the cow’s throat. Blood would squirt everywhere some getting on the man who did the cutting.

Killing the hogs was not as easy as killing the cows. It usually took more than two men to kill the hogs. Normally two men would hold the hog down while another cut the hog’s throat. Unlike the cows that just stood still, the hogs squealed, kicked, and bucked while the men tried to hold them steady. But like the cows the hogs would bleed all over the place as they lay there dying.

During the killings, a couple of the men would work together to built wooden sawhorses. These sawhorses were made of five, two-by-four wooden boards that were nailed together in the shape of a headless horse. Once the cows and hogs were killed, they were tied to a wooden sawhorse then skinned and gutted.

The men boiled water in big black wash pots. They used the hot water to skin the livestock. The water was heated by piling sticks of wood around the bottom of the pot; dousing them with kerosene and lighting them with a match. The men would hang the dead hogs or cows on the sawhorses and dip them into the boiling hot water to make the skin easy to come off. After dipping them, they would take them out of the water and skin them.

Even in the midst of this gruesome work, the children found fun things to do. The women gave pig bladders to them that the men had cut out of the hogs. The children made balloons out of the bladders by blowing them up using a stick of macaroni as a mouth piece.

One thing I looked forward to eating was the crackling. Cracklings were made from the skin of the pig. The women would take the pigs’ skins and bake them until they were real crispy. I think all of us kids looked forward to eating cracklings.

Every now and then, the men took a break from the long hours of chopping wood and slaughtering animals. My mother’s brothers Shed and Charleston were the ones who always seemed to have the most moonshine available. On their breaks, someone would pull out a jug of moonshine that they had hidden in the ground or some other place. The jug was passed around and each man took a little sip or two of the corn liquor. After a few sips, they went back to the work of chopping and slaughtering—a little livelier than before. Someone, usually the short dark-skinned man wearing a blue flannel shirt with worn holes in the elbows showing his long underwear, and blue jean pants, would raise a hymn. The other men would all join in the singing.

I couldn’t understand why they liked that corn liquor so much because every time they took a sip they would make an awful frown. My uncles and some of the other light-skinned men would turn red as a beet as they made those ugly frowns. I sometimes heard one or two of them show their appreciation by uttering the word, Ahem followed by a wipe of the mouth with the back of the hand. As I remember those were some fun times.

My mother had twelve sisters and brothers. Most of them had left Brandon to live elsewhere. It, however, was always fun when any of her sisters or brothers who had gone away came back to Brandon for a visit. Every now and then, Aunts Beatrice, Ada, and Lou would come to visit.

Two of my mother’s younger sisters, Ina Bell, and Frances, played in a band called The Sweethearts of Rhythm. The Sweethearts of Rhythm was an all-girl swing band formed in 1937 at the Piney Wood Country Life School. Piney Wood was founded to educate poor Black children in Mississippi. The band played at black nightclubs throughout the country and entertained black soldiers overseas. Aunt Ada stayed in school but did not stay in the band because she didn’t like the travel. Aunt Ina Bell did and traveled all over the world.

Because the band traveled so much, I don’t remember Ina Bell returning to Brandon to visit before we moved to Leland. Nevertheless, it was still exciting to hear my mother tell us stories about Ina Bell, the band, and the popularity the band enjoyed.

On one occasion, when I was about seven or eight years old, Ina Bell took me to Philadelphia where she was performing with the band. While the band played at one of the nightclubs one of the women in the band brought me on stage and danced with me. I really thought that was something.

My mother’s younger sister Frances was the funniest among the sisters. Frances always had something to say and was fun to be around when she came to Brandon. She kept everybody laughing especially my mother. My mother used to tease Frances about the way she talked. Frances had what they called a northern proper talking accent. Frances would talk so proper until we sometimes had problems understanding her.

My mother had one brother, Jesse, who was her half-brother and her cousin. I used to hear my brothers and oldest sister whispering and laughing about Uncle Jessie being my mother’s brother and cousin. When I asked my sister Clara what it meant for Uncle Jesse to be mama’s brother and cousin, she would shoo me off. Years later, I found out what they were talking about after doing genealogical research, with my wife Helen, on the Byrd family.

The genealogical research opened the door for me to discover a lot of things that I had wondered about as I grew up in the Byrd family. In pursuing some of the answers to my questions, I depended on my mother’s relatives. One such relative was her cousin Flossie. Flossie told me all that she knew about the Byrd family. I asked Flossie how my Uncle Jesse became my mother’s brother and cousin. The story was that my grandfather Shed Byrd got up one night to go to the outhouse. When he returned he accidentally went to the wrong bedroom—the bedroom of his wife’s sister who lived with them. Nine months later, Jesse Proctor was born to her. Proctor was my grandmother’s sister’s child and had the last