Alabama Poll Tax

Here's a Poll Tax receipt where my Great Uncle Joshua Drayden Smith paid his Alabama poll tax on December 9, 1920. I remember my dad and granddaddy paying poll tax so they could vote, but I don't remember any women in the family going to the polls in the late 30s and 40s when I was growing up.


He was number 61. You had to bring receipts to the polls so they could check to make sure you had paid your poll tax. If you skipped a year, the tax accumulated even though you didn't vote.


I copied this info about the passing of the 24th admendment to the US Constitution in 1964 to abolish poll tax or any other kind of tax to keep people from voting.
"The poll or capitation (head) tax in the United States was a lump sum tax levied by state and local governments on individuals, who often had to pay the tax in order to vote. Popularly associated with racial and class restrictions on suffrage in the South, it actually expanded the suffrage when it was introduced shortly after the American Revolution, it unintentionally discouraged voting by white women after 1920, it was exaggeratedly blamed for many of the South’s ills in the 1930s and 40s.


The Twenty-fourth Amendment (Amendment XXIV) prohibits both Congress and the states from conditioning the right to vote in federal elections on payment of a poll tax or other types of tax. The amendment was proposed by Congress to the states on August 27, 1962, and was ratified by the states on January 23, 1964. Poll taxes had been enacted in 11 Southern states after Reconstruction as a measure to prevent African Americans from voting, and had been held to be unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court. At the time of this amendment's passage, only five states still retained a poll tax: Virginia, Alabama, Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi. However, it wasn't until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections (1966) that all state poll taxes (for both state and federal elections) were officially declared unconstitutional, because they violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment."

I remember that when we moved from Kansas to Decatur, GA in 1957 in order for Jim to go to college, we went to the court house to register to vote. We had to read a part of the US Constitution and then copy it on a blank sheet of paper so they could tell if we could read and write! I couldn't believe this. I remember thinking we're back in the "ole' South". 

I don't think I've ever missed voting in a Presidential Election or a state election when electing a Governor. I always try to make it to the polls for all elections. Our son liked to vote and wanted to go to the polls early, often being first in line. I had to help him with his ballot but he told me who he wanted to vote for. He was proud of his "I voted" sticker and wore it all day on election day.

A Gathering of the Grimes Clan

Yesterday was the annual Grimes family reunion. It is always held on the first weekend of October (since 1918) which began as a celebration of my great grandmother Malissia Grimes' birthday. The 14 children have continued the tradition for the past 91 years.


I'm pictured here with my cousin Peggy Grimes Shirley from Montgomery. (She's the one with the gray hair!) We always enjoy spending time together at the reunion. Several of her children and grandchildren always come with her.


The past several years we have gathered at the picnic pavilion behind the New Ebenezer Baptist Church near the Grimes home place. Many of the Grimes family are buried in the church cemetery with Malissia's husband, James Shorter Grimes being the first person buried there. That's where we chose to bury our son James this past February, near my parents.


Now you know where we meet. Who's in charge? Nobody wants it to be "their time" to host the reunion! In years past, all you had to do was bring paper plates, cups, and eating utensils. This year my grandmother Fannie Grimes Wilson's descendants were the host family. Of her two children and their many children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, only two of us (my cousin Linda and I) were involved.


When I passed on the sign-in book and a few left over supplies, I also gave Uncle Toby's children a typed sheet of "instructions" on what they were supposed to do to get ready for next year's reunion. First of all you have post cards printed with a notice about the reunion (time, place, etc). Years ago it was word of mouth, reminding people about the reunion coming up. Each family was supposed to remember! Then an announcement was sent to local newspapers in later years.


The next step is to purchase supplies. These include good quality paper plates, tall plastic glasses, heavy duty plastic forks, knives and spoons, nice tablecloths for 12 large tables, big napkins, ice for drinks, name tags and pens, flowers for each table, paper towels for cleaning up, large 55-gal. trash bags for the 3 big barrels, plastic wrap or baggies for left overs to take home, and anything you want to have printed to hand out. This year I furnished a list of names and addresses of those on the mailing list (around 100).


You go to the area the day before and take soap, scrub brushes, brooms, hoses, leaf blower, etc. to clean the picnic area which is need of a good bath since it's not used very frequently.


On reunion day, you arrive early to get ready for those who want to come early and visit awhile. These are usually people who drive a long distance to get there from GA and FL, and other cities in AL. Some come the day before and stay in motels nearby.


The next time you hear of a big family reunion taking place, just know that a small handful of people are usually the "worker ants" and responsible for the work being done behind the scenes.


Times change and we can't go back to the "good ole' days" when everybody planned for weeks to get ready for the Grimes reunion, even buying or making new outfits to wear (we talked about this yesterday).


Those of us who attend every year still enjoy seeing all of our cousins and eating all the good food on the table, and hoping our family will have the most present. This year with 38 attending, we had the most with 9 present (incl. 3 children).

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This page is included in the program of the Curtis School Reunion which takes place on Saturday, October 10, 2009, 6 miles west of Elba, AL in the Curtis Community where I attended a country school for 9 of my 12 years. The last 3 years we went to Elba High School.

___________________________


Your Reunion Team - Nell Gilmer and Janice Hudson


Back in 1985 we held the first Curtis School reunion in the back of the Farmers Coop building, among the bags of fertilizer and other farm    equipment, and had to fan the flies off the food. It was very HOT inside the building. But that didn’t matter. It was a great time and nobody wanted to eat anyway. They were so busy greeting one another and visiting. Janice and I worked on the reunion via mail and telephone messages since she lived near Opp and we were living in North Carolina.

We arrived at the Farm Coop building around 10 a.m. to check things out and there were people there already! I remember some people came from Birmingham and Pensacola. Thus the Curtis School reunion was born!! And now 24 years later we are still carrying on the tradition. We have had lots of help, especially Janice’s sisters and brothers and our good friend Ralph Crocker, our classmate.


For several years our classmates would meet on Saturday night after the reunion lunch earlier in the day, and visit some more. The past few years we have had fewer attending and last year we met at 4 p.m. so everybody could get home before dark.


This year our classmates all turned 75 - 3/4th of a century, and we’ll probably eat a big lunch, visit a little more, and go home and take a nap! That’s what happens when you get old (so I’m told!).


Neither Janice nor I would get upset if someone tells us that they want our job. Step right up folks. We’ll be happy to teach you “How to Have a Reunion”.

Elba High School Homecoming

When you live in a small time, any event is special, especially the  homecoming parade and football game.


Yesterday was no exception. It was a rainy week and students and teachers worked hard on their floats, knowing there was a 70% chance of rain yesterday. That didn't dampen their spirits.


We took our folding chairs and cold drinks downtown to the court house square at 3 pm and settled down in the shade to wait for the sirens announcing the parade was coming down the street. James loved the parade and Jim and I were sad that he wasn't there with us watching it.


I think the alumni returning for their reunions were more excited than the students. This year those classes ending in "9" really turned out and rode on floats. Classes of 1949, 1959, 1969(68,69,70), 1979, 1989, and 1999 were in the parade. The class of 1979 - 30 years- was the school "honor float". Many of the classes had events planned for the week-end.

As you can see in the photos, there were dark clouds hovering overhead and the air was heavy, hot and so humid. But that didn't damper the spirit and excitement of the parade.


At 6:30 pm the homecoming queen and her attendants were crowned before the ball game started. Fathers (or other sponsors)escort the ladies as they march across the field to be introduced to the home folks. This year the coach's daughter was crowned queen.


I was disappointed that Jim didn't want to go to the game. Jim wouldn't have missed it for the world and I was sad not to be there for him. Instead we stayed home and watched a PBS movie about Albert Patterson cleaning up Phenix City in the early 1950's!


I couldn't wait to find out the score at the end and it was the first one posted on Channel 12's Friday Night Fever - Elba 40 and Geneva 18. YEAH! I went to bed and slept like a log.... my Tigers won, 5 in a row.
Enjoy a few of the floats as they passed by "my review stand".

My Kind of Music

Tonight Jim and I went to Enterprise to attend the first Coffee County Arts Alliance program of the season. It was held in the Sanctuary of the First United Methodist Church, a beautiful old Gothic type building built in 1903.

We were treated to beautiful voices of the Enterprise-Ozark Community College Wiregrass Honor Choir. Students from area high schools auditioned to sing with the college group. They were directed by Dr. Thomas Smith, retired from Auburn Univ.

The choir opened with the Star Spangled Banner. Then we settled down to Bugler's Holiday. The band left and then the choir took over and sang mostly acappella. Or with faint strains of piano accompanient. The harmony of the voices was beautiful. Three of the selections were in Latin.

They sang a very moving and haunting selection at the end that has become a symbol of the terrible tornado three years ago when lives were lost; "May the Music Never End". Many of the choir as well as the audience were wiping their eyes as they remembered their family and friends who lost their lives.

Afterwards there was a reception in the new fellowship hall where we met up with friends and had an opportunity to congratulate the students for their moving performance.

Tonight was "home grown" talent. Future programs will be artists who were selected to appear during the year. We are looking to hearing "Three Red Neck Tenors" from Paris, TX in February.

The music was different from the last concert we attended in the NC mountains a few weeks ago. We enjoyed both types of music but tonight was more our kind of music. We loved it!

Homesick Cafe

I once read a book called "Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant" by Anne Tyler and the title intrigued me. I think often of foods we ate when I was growing up and I get "homesick" for some of them. Unfortunately my husband Jim did not grow up eating the same southern dishes I enjoyed so I don't prepare my favorites too often. He does admit to enjoying fried canned salmon patties.

Last night at a Chamber of Commerce "Taste of Elba" dinner where many local restaurants served their specialities, I latched onto one of my childhood favorites - rice and tomatoes. Mama Wilson made the best, and it always had a lot of black pepper in it, and was probably seasoned with lots of butter and chicken stock. Mama was a good Cajun cook although she lived all her live in rural south Alabama.

What I don't miss is having to chase the chickens to have for a meal. Have you ever seen a chicken with its head cut off? When I was a young girl, we would catch a chicken from the yard, and that chicken would have the "honor" of being our Sunday lunch. Sometimes we would just "ring the neck", but other times we would actually cut the chicken's head off by placing the head of the chicken on a block of wood and actually chopping the head off with a hatchet or ax. I did NOT like doing this! But I loved fried chicken or chicken and dumplings (and still do).

Of course, we use the saying "running around like a chicken with its head cut off" to imply a lot of "activity", but no real "direction"! If you're like me, you probably feel like you're racing about like that proverbial chicken. Life just has too many options, too much stuff, and sometimes way too many issues that demand our attention. This shouldn't be the case of retired people. I wonder how we ever found time to "work".

When we have family coming to visit us I start getting food ready to bring the family together over food. I go to Kelley Foods to get the delicious sausage we grew up on, and their good hams. Then I make sure I have peas and butterbeans (no okra, please!). I buy extra fine corn meal to make hoecake (cornbread). And lots of cookies and other desserts they relate to "home cooking".

I guess I related to the book since Ezra Tull tried using the restaurant to get his family together as his mother Pearl was dying. What a dysfunctional family in that book. Ours isn't anything like that. We all love one another and love to eat and get together - every chance we get.

Okay, Judy and Guy, the homesick cafe will be in business the 2nd week of October when you travel north from central FL to visit us for our little country school reunion. You will find all your favorite foods on the table that day. There will probably be a big pan of fried fatback for everybody to enjoy and chicken and dumplings.

Our week-end get-away to Mountain Song Festival in NC

Jim and I experienced something new this week-end when we traveled to Brevard, NC to attend an open-air music festival at the Brevard Music Center. We've taken picnic baskets and spread our dinner on the ground and listened to orchestras in several cities where we have lived but we've never gone to a music festival that goes on and on....

First we drove to Charlotte, NC and spent the night with one of my younger sisters (Alice) and her husband Jerry. Then Sat. morning we left Charl0tte and drove to Brevard in the NC mountains for Mountain Song Festival. They love attending bluegrass festivals in N. Wilkesboro, NC every year and thought we might enjoy going to an "indoor" festival with them.

The music center is a large covered facility with beautiful stage and lighting, but no sides on the building - it's open for the nice mountain air to flow through. The padded seats are very comfortable and the acoustics very good.

We met our granddaughter Nerissa who drove up from nearby Clemson and parted around 1 pm for us to go to the music center and find good seats for the concert. She stayed behind to study all afternoon.

I never saw so many people and so many cars, and not very many parking spaces. I am glad we went early.

The music started at 2 p.m. and different groups performed every hour. We had never heard of the any of the entertainers except for actor Steve Martin who can really play the banjo. He played with a group from Asheville, NC called the Steep Canyon Rangers. They received standing ovations and had to keep coming back for encores.

The 2009 Mountain Song Festival kicked off Friday September 11 with a Pre-Party program featuring local favorites, Moon Shine Babies, Town Mountain and Steep Canyon Rangers. Shannon Whitworth and the Refugees, The Seldom Scene, Steep Canyon Rangers, Steve Martin and the David Grisman Quintet.


We enjoyed walking around outside the auditorium to check out the arts and crafts, as well as the food vendors. You could smell the barbecue cooking outside while the music was being made inside.

We left the festival around 6 pm to take our granddaughter and her boy friend out to dinner and later we returned to the music center to hear the last performers of the day. It was a quintet made up of these instruments: flute, mandolin, bass fiddle, drums and guitar. After listening to them for a hour, we decided we had heard enough and decided to try to find our way out of the park. It was so dark outside. We got back to our hotel and I was so tired and had breathed so much fresh mountain air, smelled so many good "smells", and listened to so much pretty music, that I hit the bed and don't remember anything else until this morning.

Watching the sea of faces filled with delight as they listened to their favoritemusic groups was a great experience. Something I will treasure for a long time. While we enjoyed this experience, I think we will settle for one concert, one group at the time. Maybe we're getting too advanced in years to sit still that long. I'm just thankful we didn't have to sit on the lawn on a blanket or folding chair like many of the people were doing. It was certainly worth the extra money to have a ticket for the inside cushioned chairs!

By the way, I observed that the crowd was mostly over 50, including a lot of gray hair or bald heads, and people with canes to help them get around. Maybe this was the grown-up Woodstock crowd??