Family Stories

I thought I might should write some of this shit down. Memory and everything.

My mother's father died in 1938 when mamma was 10 years old. He had grown kids up in Georgia older than Granny. When he died, his will left all the land to Granny, and the children from her womb. {love the old legal stuff}

A few months after he died, James, his oldest son showed up to claim the land. He raped my 13 year old aunt, and threatened to cut Granny's throat. My uncle was 11 or 12 at the time. He ran to the nearest house with a phone {2 miles on a cold winter night in his night clothes} and called the sheriff.

The sheriff came out and arrested James. But the next day turned him loose with a letter for Granny to sign to drop the charges. He came back out to the farm. Really pissed this time. He started abusing granny and my uncle came out of the bedroom with the old double barrel shotgun. The first shot hit James in the hand. My uncle followed him into the yard and shot him again, killing him.

Mamma didn't tell me this story until not long before she died.

There was an old lady who lived up the road who was like a 3rd granny to me. Her name was V V. She died about 15-20 years ago.

V's brother was a mean drunk. When he came home from WWII he went missing. The last person to see him alive was a log truck driver who gave him a ride to within 5 miles of home. There was an old house that burned that night, so some thought he burned up in it. But he was never seen or heard from again.

V had been good friends with a neighbor named Jr. F. Not long before Jr died, he called Mamma and told her the following story as told to him by V.

The night V's brother came home from the war he was drunk and got into a fight with V's husband. The husband ended up hitting the brother in the head with a dust bin {a heavy steel trash can} and killing him. They buried him in the field, then put up a fence around it.

Mamma told V's daughter S about it not long after Jr died. S said she remembered that spot in the field that was fenced off. When she was a kid, they were not allowed to play inside the fence. But no explanation.

She has since found the spot, cleared it off and put in a little marker for her uncle. But as far as I know, no one has talked to law enforcement about it.