Great Grand Parents

William Benjamin Northcutt

Born just after the War Between the States

Into red clay Reconstruction Alabama.

A farmer and a farmer's son.

At twenty-two he married

Red-headed, eighteen year old Lucy Camella Glenn

And they moved from Forest Home to Evergreen.

Just over a year and their first child was born

My mother's father, Victor Huborn,

Who told me, how when he was young

His mother took him and his brothers and sisters

(John and Lillie Belle, William and Lallah)

To visit her parents -- a day's drive away.

Coming back at twilight, drowsy children wrapped in quilts ,

A storm came up and the creek they had to ford

Was running high and wild.

"The mules didn't want to cross it,"

The old man told me, leaning forward, his eyes ablaze,

"But that girl, she slapped the lines across their rumps,
Told those mules to 'Git up!'

And we all got home that night."

Eighty some years ago and the memory was so fresh

That I could see my great-grandmother -- 'that girl,'

Determined to get her brood home safe

And out of the wet Alabama woods.

Lucy Camella died when my grandfather was twelve --
And widowed William, no time to grieve
with six young children and a crop in the fields,
Married a  handy cousin. 
Minnie Lula Northcutt Northcutt
Gave him two more children.
But my grandfather, still grieving
Left home.