Condolences go to Pastor Marvin Sapp and family for losing their wife and mother, Dr MaLinda Sapp after a battle with colon cancer. My thoughts and prayers go to you at this time.
I must be about 22 books into my 30 book challenge and challenge it IS. with a library card in arrears, I have to read the books at the library in order to get anything done; At the same time, other issues pull me and but I'm trekking along on this. I must talk about one of the books well the last book I finished for the challenge. fellow Alabamian Irene Latham's Leaving Gee's Bend, which gives a good story about love and family in Depression era Alabama, which is geared towards teens, is also a great read for those who are familiar with the area(I found out that it's a 142 mile journey by car for me). while working at one job here in Mobile, I have met some who are related to folks there.
Ludelphia Bennett is ten years old; Her mother is pregnant again, and she fears the baby won't live. On top of that, the mother doesn't feel well, all hands are needed to do the sharecropping work and it worries Ludelphia. When her good friend Etta Mae Pettway comes home after working in Mobile for a time, she is branded a witch due to the fact that the baby left in her charge has died and she is blamed for it. So, she comes home just in time to help Ludelphia deliver the baby her mom was carrying but her mother was scared of Etta Mae due to the rumors running about her, and also she was delirious with fever as well. Seeing that no help can be rendered here, she decides to go to Camden, and ask the doctor to see if he could help her mother. Now, here's the thing. Depression era Alabama is not the place for a girl to be out and about;especially a young black girl. but with determination and grit, Ludelphia goes out and get help. She encounters once she gets over the river, a family who feeds her but then the lady who just lost her husband is mad about that and over the fact that he was kind hearted to the people of Gee's Bend and she takes the girl into town to try and sell her, but that don't stop Ludelphia from getting away from the lady and finding allies in the Doctor and his wife who feed, help her and the wife being good, helps give Ludelphia the medicine she needs for her mother to get better. On her way home, she encounters the lady who wants to sell her again, but inadvertently, she gets her home via the person who tried to warn her not to trust the woman who is now on her way to take everything from the people of Gee's Bend. along the way she encounters her brother and Etta Mae, whom she tells about the raid, and with barely enough time, she goes and divert the family from losing all of their things. Of course, the lady strips the whole commumity of their livelihood(this being a true occurrence) but thanks to Ludelphia writing a letter to the Red Cross asking for help for the people of Gee's Bend, they are soon helped by them and save the day.
Gee's Bend(official name-Boykin,AL) still exists and is in Wilcox County; for a while, it was hard to get around to Camden, which is the largest town for them, due to the ferry service being taken from them during the Civil Rights era; thankfully, it was revived over ten years ago and fully operational today. what I like about the area is that those ladies took a skill and did great business with it. It is not easy living in that part of Alabama. if you don't have a car, your stuck. poverty is rampant, and those that are there, are just surviving. I had to answer a statement made by a journalist who spoke on the low numbers in the area during an election. I had to let them know that transportation is everything there and if you don't have it, your through. It is hard to think that that may be the case, but yes it is. please check out the other books on Gee's Bend as well as their quilts.
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