Southern Legitimacy Statement: Not a bone in my body is non-southern. Brought up by my grandparents, whose people spent a hundred and fifty years moving south from the Northern Neck of Virginia through North and South Carolina. Finally, in the early 1820’s, they fetched up at the highest point of Mississippi, where the dirt is red and the roads careen like rollercoasters, in a county named after the Cherokee word for “the cry of the panther”. As a child I ran free in the little town of Crystal Springs, where I seemed to be related to every other of the 5,000 souls who lived there. Spent my adult life in New Orleans which, as every good southerner knows, is southern only by virtue of geography. It made for an interesting contrast. My grandmother and her four sisters were great talkers. I grew up listening to their stories which is probably what made me want to write stories of my own. My grandfather found life uproariously funny. His voice was deep, his laughter boomed off the walls. My people are all buried in the churchyard of the little country church founded by my great-great-grandfather who was a Methodist minister. All, with the exception of my great-grandfather, the minister’s son. My great-grandmother was his second wife and considerably younger. When he died, Great-Grandmother Cornelia had Great-Grandfather’s mortal remains buried next to those of his first wife, in her family’s private cemetery. I’ve always wondered about that. I think there’s a story there.
Marie Margan
Marie (emphasis on the first syllable) Margan was Mrs. Margan’s daughter. Mrs Margan lived around the corner from my grandparents after they moved to the house in the New Addition. Mrs. Margan must have been a widow. She lived in house with a broad front porch and faded blue paint and spent most of her time in her vegetable garden. Every time I ever saw her she was wearing an apron and a sunhat. I don’t think I ever saw her face because of the sunhat so I couldn’t tell you what she looked like.
Marie had gone away to the city to be a nurse in a hospital for patients with tuberculosis before my grandparents moved to the New Addition so I had never seen her either, not until she contracted the disease and came home. My grandmother told me about it. “She’s very sick, she’s going to die,” she said. “I want you children to be quiet when you’re around Mrs. Margan’s house.” My friends and I roamed the neighborhood like a pack of feral dogs. And Gran was right, we were prone to be noisy.
We were also curious. In her way Marie Margan was a celebrity in the neighborhood. There was something, I don’t know, romantic, about the story. The components, the glamor of the city, the illness with its death sentence, were somehow titillating. And so we of course had to investigate. We went to visit. Quietly, as my grandmother had commanded. We found Marie lying in bed next to a large window which overlooked the front porch. She was propped up against several pillows. Her voice was weak and she was paler than anyone I’d ever seen. We were polite children so we introduced ourselves, one by one: the twins, Tommy, Connie, Chippie, me. Marie Margan was also polite. She thanked us for coming to visit her. I think she was genuinely happy to see us. Living alone there with only Mrs. Margan for company –after living what we imagined to be a very exciting life in the city–must have been tedious for her, even if she was sick. So we went back every day. Tromping up Mrs. Margan’s front steps to visit Marie through the screened window became one of our scheduled daily stops. We expected to see her slowly get sicker but she always seemed the same, weak-voiced, incredibly pale but happy to chat with us, her admirers.
I think it was Tommy who gave the signal that day. It was in the morning and we usually didn’t begin our neighborhood rounds until after lunch but Tommy knocked on the door and asked my grandmother if I could come out. The twins were already in our front yard. We ran to Connie and Chippie’s and then the three blocks back to Mrs. Margan’s. I’d expected to see an ambulance but it was the big black wagon from Flowers’ Funeral Home. Two of Mr. Flowers’ men were just coming out with a stretcher. Something was on the stretcher, covered with a thin blue blanket. We knew it was Marie. For the rest of the day we didn’t know what to say. Or do. Somehow everything seemed changed after that. But we couldn’t tell you why if you had asked us.
