Leavin' a Testimony : : Portraits from Rural Texas / / Patsy Cravens.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Cravens, Patsy,
• MitwirkendeR: Boles, John B.,; Patten, Bob,
• TeilnehmendeR: Boles, John.; Patten, Bob.
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2006
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Focus on American History Series
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (327 p.)

First settled by Stephen F. Austin's colonists in the early nineteenth century, Colorado County has deep roots in Texas history. Mainly rural and agrarian until late in the twentieth century, Colorado County was a cotton-growing region whose population was about evenly divided between blacks and whites. These life-long neighbors led separate and unequal lives, memories of which still linger today. To preserve those memories, Patsy Cravens began interviewing and photographing the older residents of Colorado County in the 1980s. In this book, she presents photographs and recollections of the last generation, black and white, who grew up in the era of Jim Crow segregation. The folks in Colorado County have engrossing stories to tell. They recall grinding poverty and rollicking fun in the Great Depression, losing crops and livestock to floods, working for the WPA, romances gone wrong and love gone right, dirty dancing, church and faith, sharecropping, quilting, raising children, racism and bigotry, and even the horrific lynching of two African American teenagers in 1935. The Colorado County residents' stories reveal an amazing resiliency and generosity of spirit, despite the hardships that have filled most of their lives. They also capture a rural way of life that was once common across the South, but is now gone forever.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Stories -- Ethel & Hattie Lee Wilson -- Ivory "Pie" Steward -- "Rasper's Meat Market, Since 1917" -- Jack Fields -- George Braziel -- Eva Mae Glover -- Bennie Charles "B.C." Glover -- Myrtle Glover Toliver -- Leroy Glover -- Ida Mae Mitchell -- Charles Trefny Jr. -- Emma & Charles Trefny Sr. -- Charles Trefny Talks about the River -- Rosie Lee Hasty -- Hosie "Sonny" Hasty -- Odie D. Townsend -- Lillie & Richard Freis -- Elizabeth "Lillie" Lemons Atkinson -- Jaynice & Jodie Feyrer -- Rosezena Woodson -- Romona Woodson Cheeks -- Cassie Woodson McGrew -- Mary Hausner -- Lillie Williams -- Marie Williams -- G.A. "Big Boy" Williams -- Walter Williams -- Lee Andrew Williams -- Lillie Williams Barnes & Wilbert Barnes -- Oliver "Junior" Williams -- Lisa Williams -- Alex Williams, Tycie Williams, & Tennille Almeida -- Quentin Steitz -- Truman McMahan -- Lonzo Dorn -- Beulah Dorn -- LaVon Simpson & Mary Ann Nicholson -- Willie Beyer -- Willie Walchar -- Bud Greak -- Isabel M. Garcia -- Mamie Johnson -- Clarence Johnson -- Dorothy Lain -- Leora & Louis "Bug" Henry -- Ruby Hicks -- Jim Kearney -- Paulina van Bavel Kearney -- Sarah Elaine Kearney -- Lacey Henry -- Pearl Ray Bremby -- Bessie Mae Williams -- Irizola Wilson -- Early Wilson -- Sadie & George Dorn -- Lillie Kahlden Freis -- Lonnie Coleman -- Roy Lee Coleman -- Willie Mae Denley -- W.B. "Bennie" Isgrig -- Ernest Brown -- Emma Stancik -- Lillie Poenitzsch -- JoAnn Vornsand -- H. C. Taylor -- Andrew Jackson Gillespie -- Jim Carter -- Josephine Carter -- Harvey & Ruth Steward -- Mary Mann & Rev. Melvin Jack Williams -- Selma & Walter "Jack" Johnson Jr. -- Juan Ybarbo -- Stella Taylor -- Tracy Vlasta Koller -- Father Victor Schmidtzinsky -- Melvin Houston -- Heine & Earlyne Beken -- The Pesak Brothers -- Olga Mae Hefner -- Em Hay -- Herbert Baines -- Leila Jackson -- Medie Mae Scott -- Henry Grays -- Joe & Nicolasa Ramirez -- RoseLee Ann & Frankie Neiser -- Henry Lee Williams -- Gabriel Almeida -- John Webb -- Afterword