After rereading and posting my review of Dan Miller’s biography of writer Erskine Caldwell, I recalled that the Caldwell family had moved to Wrens, Georgia in the summer of 1919. It was a very bad time to live in Wrens and Jefferson County or anywhere else in the cotton belt of the South.
Everyone knows of the arrival of the boll weevil, but I encounter very few people who know about the financial crisis that was even more damaging to southern farmers: the rise in interest rates after World War I. Whether farming themselves or staking their share croppers, farm land owners routinely borrowed money to plant their crops and set up their share croppers to cover their expenses until the crop was “ginned” in the fall. Years of experience has taught me that when you bring up economic or financial issues in your history class or almost any conversation, most eyes glaze over and you may just as well skip on to other subjects..
It is helpful to lay the subject out in human terms and I have done this in several pieces on this website. My review of William Rawlings’ book A Killing on Ring Jaw Bluff offers readers a coherent and exciting explanation of the impact of interest rates on southern farmers. And, I trace my great grandmother Wright’s experience , in my essay “Arminta’s Quilt” and outline her incredible effort as a widow raising a brood of kids on a cotton farm and dealing with the boll weevil . She had little choice, but in fact most acts of courage manifest themselves when there seems to be no choice to make.
My efforts to discover the history of Gough, Georgia by writing short biographies of my grandfathers, Calvin Sego and White Kitchens, offers alternate perspectives on this time of disaster and transformation in the deep South. One grandfather, White Kitchens , loses the bank he built with the help of his father-in-law, Isaac Jackson Gay (a big landowner in Burke and Jefferson Counties). The two men tried to adjust by tempting buyers into purchasing small farms as the larger landholdings were forced onto the market by falling land values, out-migration by the labor force, and rising interest rates-a trifecta of trouble. Isaac died in the midst of these difficulties, and White closed the Bank of Gough, accepted a teller’s position in a Tampa bank and moved his family there, just as the Florida real estate boom collapsed and many banks in Florida defaulted on their depositors. Many simply closed their doors. White came back to Gough to work in the cotton gin in nearby Waynesboro, Georgia. He worked there there the rest of his life.
My other grandfather, Calvin Sego, became a tractor mechanic and opened his garage at just the moment in time that tractors began to become an essential part of the ravaged farm economy. Tractors meant less reliance on labor. In practical terms, only wealthier landowners could afford to buy a tractor and were, in fact, forced into buying tractors as the sharecroppers left for any kind of job they could find. Calvin earned a modest living and offered an indispensable service to the remaining farmers. He kept their farm equipment working. A deacon in the church, sometime president of the Lion’s Club and father of a World War II soldier, his life was a success in many ways.
These intersections between history and memory fascinate me. Local history interest me little unless I can find the point at which larger events change the course of the lives of identifiable, ordinary people. Or, when ordinary people make choices and act in ways that influence the course of history.
In the South especially, family stories often illustrate how war and economic cycles define the course of our lives. That is why the 1860 US Census-the last one prior to the Civil War- is the “Golden Bough” for southern family members as they begin their pursuit of ancestors. The settled nature of southern farm life and the dislocation that follows makes 1860 a good place to anchor the family story. This helps us understand the larger picture, the larger story.
In the end, individual experiences define our family history, much more so than DNA sampling or genealogical charts. My observations are not meant to discourage genealogical research, but to offer some examples that suggest that the greater story as well as the individual one requires more than submitting a saliva sample or linking to a family genealogy “tree.”.
Like most people, I enjoy Dr. Louis Gates’ genealogy program “Finding Your Roots” researching the family trees of celebrities, media stars and cultural icons. What makes the program worthwhile is having a wonderful historian (and his team) place it all in context. The story is always more than just the family tree.