By: Coachjhurt
This weekend was a difficult one. Our family lost two great women. The best of us were laid to rest on Saturday and then again on Sunday. Joyce Harper and Sharon”Fuzzy” McMurtrey passed within hours of each other, and they leave behind quite the legacy. Both had the difficult task of baby-sitting me and many of my cousins at various times. And then they helped us grow up and watched us from afar as we all tried to do something useful in this world. I am grateful.
Of course, death brings about reflection. And when I think of all the Harpers we have lost recently (too many to name), I feel a sense of sadness in knowing that an entire generation and really a way of life is slowly slipping away. This is the way of life. You can’t stop time. So really, I hope in this short journal to not mourn the passing of time and our loved ones, but to think about and perhaps revel in the past that took one small moment somewhere and led to such a vibrant family, still connected enough to gather together in large numbers not once but twice in Summer Shade this weekend to honor our own.
To be clear, I do not work for ancestory.com nor 23 and Me. If my goal was to provide a lineage or family history, I would fall woefully short. But, I do want to take some time to consider how we arrived where we are. I want to consider how one small thing often leads to a lot of big things.
To my mind, that small thing (not really small at all) was the joining together so many years ago of Ernest Harper and Delphia Spears who later became known to me and a whole community as Granny Harper. I don’t know the ins and outs of how they met or what caused them to settle together. I know they farmed and ran a little country store, Harper’s Grocery at the bottom of the big hill in downtown Persimmon. My understanding is that the location I know was not the original location. But, that is the place etched in my memory.
As I recall it, understanding that memories are often flawed and I was but a small boy at the time, the store was one room with a wooden floor. The counter was in the middle and the wood stove was in the back. As I recall it, Granny Harper and others used to sit near the stove in the winter surrounding an old black and white television with rabbit ears bringing in the daily soap operas. As they watched their shows and talked about the goings on of the day, they sewed quilts and dolls. So many quilts and dolls. At Christmas, Granny Harper would give a doll to each of her grandchildren and great grandchildren.
There was a wooden porch on the front of the store. By the time my memories form, Ernest had long passed from this world. I know him only from a few pictures. One of my favorites has him leaned back in a chair on the front porch of the store surrounded by the numerous glass soda pop bottles that had been returned. People say he wasn’t afraid of much, but did have a real aversion to snakes. A story passed down through the years has it that one of the Harpers once threw a fake snake out onto the porch much to Ernest’s surprise and chagrin. I believe that happened only once, which tells you two things that are universally true about Harpers. They have a great sense of humor and are not afraid to pull a joke at anyone’s expense. But also, they can be pretty ornery and are not afraid to set people straight.
From that house and farm and store came a big family that has branched out into Pages and Hurts and Shaws and Hodges and more Harpers, and from there even more families. But at the core we are Harpers, everyone of us. And as I think of it, all the cousins I ran around with who were more my best friends than cousins, all my uncles and aunts, all my children and their cousins too, it all started years ago in Persimmon.
Persimmon. What a thrill and a blessing growing up in Persimmon. It seemed like the whole community was just my family. I knew everyone in every house and could come and go anytime. I wish I could recreate that experience for my children. I can’t. I have taught them how to play pitch. So that’s something I guess, but they will never be able to truly experience one of those big Harper family pitch nights with so many tables going, hot coffee in every cup, cigarette smoke wafting through every hall, the adults playing each hand as if it were the World Series, but also taking time to needle each other every chance they could, young children sitting in whatever empty crevice was available and trying to emulate those games with 47 card decks. Those game would last until the wee hours of the morning.
And the summers were just as good. Hard work gave way to fresh watermelon and long wagons covered with gingham table clothes and piles of fried chicken and vegetable dishes and various desserts.
I wish I had appreciated it more at the time. But human beings just aren’t wired that way. We never know how good we have it until we look up and realize we don’t have it anymore. That is one of the real hard truths about this weekend. One of the real hard truths in general.
Still, this weekend made me stop at least for a moment and remember those pleasant days growing up just over the hill from Harper’s Grocery. And it made me thankful for all the life that sprung from that one simple spot that most people will never know existed.