Our Place in Time

By C.C. Crawford

In this debut novel, a white middle-aged war veteran reflects on his relatives' history as he faces the prospect of reuniting with his estranged family.

Grover McKeen feels a great deal of angst over an invitation to visit his father, a man

• Language: English
• Publisher: URLink Print & Media, LLC
• Release date: Mar 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781684863631

C.C. Crawford

C.C. Crawford is a native of Central Florida. She grew up in the all-white town of Ocoee and was educated in the Orange County Public School District. She still lives in the area. Among her many interests are gardening and sports. She was a Real Estate Broker by profession. Our Place in Time is her first novel.

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Title Page

Our Place in Time

Copyright © 2023 by Connie Crawford. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any way by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the author except as provided by USA copyright law.

The opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of URLink Print and Media.

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Published in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023901955

ISBN 978-1-68486-360-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-68486-363-1 (Digital)

23.01.23

To all parents who has known the pain and sorrow of losing a child, I dedicate this book,

Over the years, I have mourned with my characters at the loss of a child, but it wasn’t until I felt the personal loss of my third child, Ernest (Ernie) Bernard Crawford, Jr. On September 10,2021 that I truly understood their pain.

Contents

Prologue 

Part I: Family Roots 

Chapter 1 Coming to America 

Chapter 2 A New Beginning 

Chapter 3 Life in Savannah 

Chapter 4 Rumors of War 

Chapter 5 Connor Returns to Savannah 

Chapter 6 War Comes to Savannah 

Chapter 7 A Time of Sorrow 

Chapter 8 Learning to Survive 

Chapter 9 A Time of Decision 

Chapter 10 Sean 

Chapter 11 Brunswick 

Chapter 12 Journey to Florida 

Chapter 13 A new life in Florida 

Part II: Going Home 

Chapter 1 My Return 

Chapter 2 Monday 

Chapter 3 Tuesday 

Chapter 4 Wednesday 

Chapter 5 Thursday 

Chapter 6 Friday 

Part III: Saying Goodbye 

Chapter 1 The Melding of a Family 

Chapter 2 Forgiveness 

Chapter 3 Reunion and Tragedy 

Chapter 4 The Phone Call 

Chapter 5 A Mission of Hope 

Chapter 6 The Passing 

Chapter 7 Sadness and Promise 

Chapter 8 Surprise Announcement 

Chapter 9 The Family Continues 

Chapter 10 Reflection 

Prologue

My home town could have been any small southern town of the 1950s. The streets were narrow, paved with red brick, and shaded by the spreading limbs of large live oak trees adorned in gray Spanish moss. Along the main street of town were a small grocery, churches, a pharmacy, the local pool hall, the post office, and a barbershop with the familiar red, white and blue sign that rotated in the breeze.

Most of the town’s physical similarities compared with other towns but Ocoee, Florida was not your run of the mill, ordinary southern town. It was unique. History had been made in Ocoee. It was the stigma left on the town by the events of that historic night, and hatred and prejudices passed from generation to generation that so greatly affected my life as an adult. Those events, that stigma, those hatreds and prejudices were what separated me from my family more than thirty years ago.

The day I took my stand and choose between the woman I loved and my family, I had no way of knowing why my father so bitterly objected to her. I only knew her gentle touch, her soft voice, her kindness. Through all the years of exile, I have never regretted my decision. There were times that I would wonder about my younger siblings Charles and Katherine. In the early years, my mother would send a Christmas or birthday card to my office. This was a courageous act, but a very hurtful act since, in no way, did she mention my family. I always opened the cards, but they were left unanswered. She stopped sending them in time. That was the end of any contact with my family, the year was 1956.

Knowing this, you will understand more clearly why the arrival of that strange blue envelope in May of 1987 was such a shock. I call it strange because neither the paper nor the words were anything like I remembered my father. The paper was light blue with dark blue ink, not the white bond paper with black ink that my father had always used. It was note size instead of the letter size paper. The print on the top of the small page announced from whom it came, From the desk of Ryan McKeen. The surprise at seeing those words sent a shock wave through me unknown to any emotion I had felt before or since. As the paper fell from the grasp of my hand onto the floor, my legs grew weak, and I reached for the nearest chair. My hands shook and jerked when I tried to retrieve the letter, but my fingers were beyond gripping anything. So, I sat and stared at the paper, wanting to know its message and then not wanting to know. A message from my father could only be bad news. I knew the time would come when a family member would depart this earth, Father and Mother were getting up in age, but I wasn’t prepared for that event. I had prayed throughout the years that attitudes would change and hearts would soften and our family would be reunited before we were separated by death.

As I sat staring at that light blue paper on the floor, tears ran down my cheek, and my body heat fluctuated. First, I was cold, then hot. The sweat beaded on my forehead, my hands were moist, and I felt my shirt stick to my damp back. The longing to return home enveloped me, and the heat I felt became the heat of the Florida sun beaming down on Jim, Jerry, and me as we sat in the old row boat with our fishing poles in hand, waiting for the fish to bite. On the bank beneath the spreading arms of the maple tree sat my high school sweetheart, Allison, waiting patiently for me.

I loved Ocoee. I had spent many happy hours of my youth running through the orange grove between lakes or running through the white sugar sand of the scrub oak forest playing hide and seek. My mind once more began to play tricks on me, and the smell of wild sagebrush filled my nostrils. I could hear Jim’s and Jerry’s voices calling to the dogs as we ran through the woods looking for possums or fox or whatever crossed our paths. In a flash, I was cold again, and I could feel the cool water of Rock Springs as I parted the water on my descent from the diving board. The water of the spring was a constant temperature of 72 degrees year around. On a hot summer day with the temperatures in high nineties, the water felt cold as it rushed from the big rock and started its journey down the river. The scrub oak forest and the sparkling springs had made the land so peaceful, so wonderful.

At that moment loneliness entered. I yearned for the friendships of my youth. What hand had life dealt Jim and Jerry? Had they gone off to war as I had? Did they return home, marry and raise a family? Had they, too, been consumed by the events of that night? Did they know why I never returned to Ocoee? I drifted into my own dream world and imagined what my life would have been had I returned home and married Allison. We would have had wealth, social standing, and the love of my family.

The love of my family was all that I could see missing from the life I had chosen. I had never regretted marrying Valory. She was wonderful then, and she is still wonderful. She is truly a man’s dream of perfection. All the money in the world could not buy what I had earned in life, and Valory had played a big role in making me what I am today. She stood by me in sickness, reasoned with me when I was depressed, stood fast when our love was tested to the ends and gave me the courage to stand up to the ghost of the past and greet the future with enthusiasm. Had I returned to Florida, I would always have been Ryan Mc Keen’s son Grover. I would have stood in the shadow of my father and would never have achieved my own identity.

The closing of the kitchen door and the sound of Valory’s voice when she called my name startled me. As she entered my study, she stopped astride the threshold and exclaimed, Grover, whatever could be the matter? I tried to speak, but the words would not come out. I pointed to the blue paper on the floor. She took a few steps forward and stooped to pick up the note. She showed no emotion, although I knew she had to read the heading. The letter was transferred from her hand to mine. Read the message, she encouraged.

Slowly I formed the first word.

Your mother and I would appreciate the two of you visiting with us at the family home in Ocoee. Reply with a date of convenience, and I will forward airline tickets for your travel.

My mind went wild with questions. Was the note an appeal from an old man, sick and broken, looking to ease his conscience before he died? Was I to forgive him and go home as though nothing had happened? No. There was nothing to indicate he had changed, nor that he was soliciting forgiveness. The handwriting was not that of a man who was ill. The letters were perfectly formed and written in a straight line. Why then would he be making this overture after all these years?

They must mean Valory and I, since the note was addressed to me. Was he not aware of our two children, Gregory and Deborah? How can he expect me to forgive and start anew if he is not willing to acknowledge all my family? I felt the heat rise within me and my eyes brim over with tears.

Well? a distant voice asked. Then I realized Valory was still standing in the room.

Well, what? I asked.

Well, are we going? she queried.

I don’t know, I stammered. I don’t know his intentions. I just don’t know.

If you would like a vote from the peanut gallery, she said with a tease in her voice, I think we should go and give things a chance. Then she walked out leaving me with the ultimate decision. At least I knew she was willing. But then Valory was not one to harbor ill will. She was always the one to bring things out in the open for discussion. I sat for a long time pondering my feelings. As a child, I feared my father, in adolescence, I respected his authority, as a young adult, I did not understand him, but through all times, I loved him.

Our last meeting had begun in a loving, caring way, but had ended in a very hurtful exchange of words. I had seen him rail in anger at the hired hands in the groves. Sometimes he would make cutting, cruel remarks to my mother, choosing words that cut deep into the soul; but he had never focused his anger toward me. That day I could feel the fire of his emotions and the sharp cutting edge of his sword of words. His words are etched in my memory; the scar remains today. I did not understand his anger.

Today, I do not understand the meaning or purpose of this informal note of invitation to my wife and me to visit the family home. Had his advancing years caused him to change his bigoted social attitude? The human psyche is a mystery in itself. What causes the human being to hate, to love? Is it circumstances of life or experiences, or is it an inherited trait? Perhaps it is neither but the inability of the human being to break loose from social influences and tradition. I have pondered these questions in relation to my father all these years and still today I do not understand him anymore than I did as a child or an adolescent or a young adult. I tend to think his feelings and attitudes toward people who think and look different from him is an inherited trait brought about by events in family history.

What I know about my ancestors and events in family history, I learned from diaries kept by my great-uncle Connor and my great grandmother Iva. Connor was a writer and had chronicled life on the plantation between the years of 1855 when he had arrived in Savannah, Georgia after the loss of my great- grandfather Patrick’s first family, until the final disposition of family land in 1874. My great grandmother wrote about the meeting and life she shared with my great grandfather.

I had found the old diaries in a trunk while plundering through the attic of the family home when I was in my early teens. If my parents knew what the old trunk contained, they had not said. I was so fascinated with the revelations of family life on the plantation, the Civil War and the hardships endured after the war, that I took the diaries into my possession and never told anyone.

Part

I

Family Roots

Chapter

I

Coming to America

The roots of the Mc Keen family in the United States trace back to my great-grandfather, Patrick Mc Keen, He was a man of little more than average height with reddish brown hair, piercing blue eyes, a fiery temperament, and stubborn as a mule. He was also a man of conscience and determination who, toward the end of his life, was tormented from within and brought suffering to people around him. Thus, he was remembered by his brother Connor who chronicled Patrick’s move to America and life on the plantation.

He left Ireland along with his wife and two children in 1846 to escape the potato famine and settled near Savannah, Georgia to be near a seaport. His intentions were to grow potatoes in the states and export them back to Ireland. He worked hard for five years to develop a potato of quality that would withstand the long sea voyage but his efforts were to no avail. The fifth year found his funds low and a potato of quality non-existent. He turned to crops the locals were growing with success.

With the help of two slaves and a mule, he cleared the land one acre at a time until he had twenty acres of producing cotton. The demand for cotton grew over the years, and he bought more slaves and cleared more land until he had one hundred acres of cultivated land, most of which was planted in cotton. He reserved twenty- five acres of land to grow fruits and vegetables to feed the family and slaves that worked on the plantation.

In addition to the old mule that worked the fields, the Mc Keens kept a pen of hogs downwind from the mansion. Two milk cows were staked out to graze each day, and chickens walked around the yard grubbing for any worm that might unwisely show itself. Chicken eggs and butter churned from milk not needed for household consumption were sold in the city or bartered for items that could not be grown on the plantation such as sugar, coffee, and tea.

One sunny summer afternoon in June of 1855, my great grandfather waved goodbye to his wife and children and set out by carriage for Savannah to sell the farm goods and catch a train to the state capitol at Milledgeville to attend to financial business.

The trip to Milledgeville was long, hot and dirty. The weather was dry, and the red clay whipped up by the passing train settled on the passengers. As the train left the southern part of the state, it passed through beautiful