Parmele

From Childtimes: A three generation memoir by

Eloise Greenfield and Lessie Jones Little

Vocabulary

• Collards- green leafy vegetable – like lettuce

• Patchwork quilts- blankets made from scraps of material sewn together

• Sharecropper- a farmer who gives part of his crops as rent to the owner of the farmland

• Commence- begin• Hovering- hanging low above

something as if floating on air

Spelling Words

• Glisten• Wrench• Gnarled• Cleats• Steeple• Clover• Carve• Popcorn• Carpet• Waffle

• Angle• Civil• Crouch• Shower• Countless• Ankles• Porches• Stroke• Thumb• Around

We would visit home

• Every year we would visit down home in a town named Parmele

• Daddy and Mama would get everything ready for the trip in the car and then we would commence with the journey

• There would 6 of us in that car, and the kids would sit in the back, on top of the suitcases

• This all happened before cars had air-conditioning, radios, trunks or heaters

• The roads were small and the speed limit was low at only 45 miles per hour

First we would go to Norfolk, Virginia

• There we would visit with Grandma and Grandpa Jones for about a week

• To pass the time on the road, we would play games and say rhymes with the Burma shaving cream billboard ads on the sides of the road

• We also saw on the sides of the roads something that made me scared- Chain Gangs- which were lines of black men in jail suits, repairing the roads, and were watched over by white men with guns- The idea of a chain gang frightened me

• The sight and the sounds of the chain gangs made me nervous and scared

In Parmele, there were few trains

• Parmele was a quiet town• People spoke differently- saying “hey-ey” instead

of “hi”- it sounded kind of like singing• When I was really little, I would run around the

town with the chickens, play with the cousins, and take long walks

• What I really liked and remembered about visiting Parmele was seeing my Pa and Granny and all my relatives

Pa and Granny were my Daddy’s parents

• Others in town called them Mr. Mack and Miss Williamann or Uncle Mack and Ain’ Williamann

• Granny was thin and white haired, and wore aprons over her dresses

• She would sew patchwork quilts and make apple jelly and pickles, and garden her collard greens

• Both Pa and Granny wanted so much to give their grandchildren whatever they wanted

Pa was a sharecropper

• He worked in the farm fields but didn’t own the land

• He got paid in a share of the crops he raised• He also had other business’s to run- a meat

market, an ice house, cleaners• Pa was a member of the Marcus Garvey Group

who would meet on Sunday afternoons• There were many groups like this of the United

Negro Improvement Association, and they would talk about being proud of being black skinned and of someday returning to Africa

Pa wasn’t afraid of anything

• Except the frogs on the farm- those he hated• He had part of his thumb cut off in a farm

accident and he kept the piece that got cut off in a jar on the mantle- I was fascinated by it.

• Pa would tell stories and all the kids loved them- especially the ghost and scary stories- he said the ghosts were hovering in the fields still

Pa hated it when we left

• He always said he might not be around the next summer when we came back

• Eventually he would stop making Daddy feel guilty about leaving and help him pack the car up with peanuts, and fresh corn

• We would hug and kiss everyone good-bye and then be on our way down the dirt road, back to Washington

Pa would never visit us

• He would make excuses and sometimes Granny would come by herself

• One year, he had a stroke and got sick and part of his memory was lost

• Mama and Daddy brought him to be with us in Washington so they could take care of him

• He would ask people on the street how to get back to Parmele, but he never did get to go back

• Pa died 18 months later at the age of 78• I still miss him and those wonderful times we

had together in Parmele years ago.