My True Story in My Own Words

By Estella Lyles Jackson

This book was written in the hopes of helping, inspiring, and encouraging someone. I wish to tell others that no matter life’s situations, there are always others who have experienced similar, if not exactly, similar situations.

Nicknames and other wordings have been used to give a more personal feel of My True Story.

Thank you in advance for purchasing and reading my book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798887511849

Book preview

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My True Story in My Own Words

Estella Lyles Jackson

ISBN 979-8-88751-183-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88751-184-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Estella Lyles Jackson

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Part 1

The Beginning in the Early Years

Part 2

My Closing Statement

About the Author

Part 1

The Beginning in the Early Years

First, I want to introduce myself. I was born in Russell County, Alabama, to the loving couple Milton and Lillie Lyles in the year 1935. They married at an early age. Daddy worked at the brickyard for the Brickerstaff. They owned the Brick Company, and they also had a plantation. They built houses for their employees, so Daddy and my mother lived in one of those houses.

Their firstborn was my brother, who was named Milton after Daddy; we called him Harry. After two years, I was born. After that, my mother had a set of twins, but they died. So it was just us two, Harry and me, for a long time.

I called my mother Sister, I called her mother Ma and her daddy Papa. Ma had a child the same age as my brother. He was a month older than my brother. My mother's younger brother was two years older than my brother, Harry and my aunt Annie Bell. So when I was about four years old, my mother started working. She worked for my daddy's boss, Frank Jr. Sometimes she would take me with her to work. Most of the time, Harry and I were at Ma's house.

Well, when I was about five or six years old, I started swelling. My mom wasn't working then. She and Daddy took me to the doctor, and when they did, the doctor told them that I had kidney problems, so I couldn't eat regular food. I could not eat sugar, salt—there was a lot of food I could not eat. The only thing that I could eat was crackers with no salt, unsweetened orange juice, fresh milk from the cow. And I didn't like sweet milk. My mom would cook food, and it smelled so good, and I couldn't eat none of it. My brother Harry and my aunt Annie Bell could eat it, but I couldn't, and that made me feel bad.

One day Ma came down to the house. My mom had bought me some graham crackers, and I was eating some of them. When Ma saw them, she asked my mom why she gave me those graham crackers. My mom said, I thought it was all right if I let her eat them because they are not really sweet. But Ma said, It ain't alright. She is not supposed to have nothing with sugar in it, so it's not alright! She has got to drink milk! I cried and said, I don't like it. Ma said, If you drink this milk, then I will give the graham crackers back to you. I started to drink the milk, and when I started to drink it, I heard Ma when she whispered to my mom and said she was not going to give them back to me. I started crying and told Ma, I heard you! You said you ain't going to give them back to me. I started crying again and didn't drink the milk.

So the next day, my mom cooked beef, rice and mashed potatoes and corn bread and made lemonade for supper. It was on a Friday, and that Saturday she would warm it up so they can eat when Daddy got home from work. You see, Daddy got off work every day at noon. My mom and my brother, Harry, would carry water from the pump where my mom used to work. They had a water pump there, and that's where the ones that lived on the hill where the other house were, got their water. And before they got back with the water, I got out of bed and went in the kitchen and fixed myself some food and ate it before they got back with the water and got back in bed. When my mom asked who had been in the fold, I told her that I had gotten out of bed and fixed myself some food and ate because I was hungry. She didn't whip me for doing that, but she was upset because she thought it was going to hurt me, and she was right! It did make me sick. So she and Daddy had to rush me to the doctor, and I didn't do that no more!

After Daddy started raising chicken, he ordered them from somewhere I don't know. All I know is that he built little pens for them like little houses. So they could keep warm, he put some kind of light in the pens so the beedies could stay warm. And when they got a little larger, he called them fryers; but when they got grown, they were roosters and hens. The hens laid some eggs; the roosters crowed. They will wake you up early in the morning crowing. My brother played with them; he loved playing with the chickens, so I had to play by myself. I had a ball. I bounced the ball in the house. While I was bouncing it, the ball rolled in a hole in the wall of the house. You see, our walls wasn't wood or sheetrock; they were pasteboard boxes and paper walls. As I was bouncing my ball, it went in the hole. To find it, I got a match and struck it, got on my knees, and tried to find my ball.

The paper wall caught on fire. I went in the kitchen and got some water to put the fire out, but it got bigger. I was still in the house while it was burning. My brother, Harry, must have smelled the smoke or saw the fire because he ran and got my mom. My uncle Willie and his wife came running to the house to get me out. They got me out, and one of them went and got my daddy, but when Daddy got there, the house had burned to the ground. Almost the only thing was saved out of the house, as I can remember, was a bench that Daddy had made for the kitchen table. All Daddy could do was lay his head on the steering wheel in the car. I was young, but I know now that he was hurt.

After the fire, my mom and daddy stayed with his mom and dad, Grandma and Grandpa. Harry and I stayed with Ma. It was getting close to Christmas when that all happened. Although our house had burned down, we still had a merry and happy Christmas. We had plenty of food, we had toys and clothes, and we had a loving family that cared for one another—and that's what matters most.

After the holidays were over and the weather got a little warmer, all the men that worked at the brickyard went back to work. After Daddy had worked a while, he moved in another house on the plantation. It was close to the road. There were more houses then, and they were closer to one another.

So Daddy bought more chickens, though not as many as when we lived on the hill. He built some more chicken pens, larger than the first ones. These were enough for me to put a playhouse in, but before I made me a playhouse in one, I still was going with Harry and my cousins. You see, Harry had to take care of me because my mom had started back working. When he went with my cousins, he had to take me, and they all took care of me. What they did, I did too. When they climbed the trees, I climbed them too. They shot marbles I shot marbles too. If they swung on trees and vines, I did too. I was a little tomboy. See, they couldn't let nothing happen to me because I was the baby.

After I got a little bigger, I didn't want to go with them. I played by myself. I put me a playhouse in one of the chicken pens. I could stand up in it. Sometimes some of the other girls came to play with me, and sometime I went to their house to play with them. When I wasn't at Ma's house, Harry and I, and Harry and Charlie used to play together, and Annie Bell and I played together. Harry and Charlie used to make the roosters fight; they would make slingshots and go kill birds.

After they killed them, they would tell