Working together toward a common goal

I was born in a government house between Opp and Elba, AL. It was a nice little house, but daddy moved us to the Old Holland Place on Route 4, Elba. That's where I saw little mice running in the big room and thought they were wonderful. Mama didn't think so! We lived in that house around 14 years.

Mama had gotten a job at the Kinston Manufacturing Company. She was making about $75 every two weeks. I remember her telling daddy, "Grady, let's build us a new house. We can buy supplies every two weeks when I get paid, and you can build it." Daddy must have liked the idea because he sat down and drew the plan on a piece of paper while sitting at the kitchen table. Soon the place was selected out from the old house, string was run in the shape of the house, and Daddy got started.

Here is a picture of mother sitting on the foundation of the new house. Daddy must have worked at night on it. I see a light cord and light running from the old house in the picture. They built the house and paid for it as they went.

For the first time in all those years we had an indoor bathroom, bathtub and shower. Up until then we had an outdoor toilet with a fancy commode that Daddy had found somewhere. He rigged us up a shower on a concrete slab out behind the house and fixed us a shower head out there. That's where we got our baths when we didn't sponge off.

But the point is that people can do about anything they set their minds to do if they think they can. Mama and Daddy thought they could, and they did. They worked together toward a common goal, and they reached it. There's a lesson for us there.