Image Workshop - Documentation and Download Option(s)
 1951-1960 |
File Identification:Nashville-037 | Date Scanned:ephoto | Source of Scanned Image:- | |
| Original Source of Image:William H. Outlaw Jr. | Digital Archiver:William H. Outlaw Jr. | Image Restorer:- | ||
| Original Image Size: | Scan Resolution (dpi) (Reduced files=200 dpi):300 | Exact Date of Original Image: | ||
| Estimated Date of Original Image:1956 | Basis for Date Estimate:Berrien County Centennial | Unreduced File Size(px):1620 x 1636 | ||
| Location:W.H. Outlaw Farm | Background:hallway wall | Activity:- | ||
| Unreduced File Size(MB):1.5 | Reduced File Size (px):792 x 808 | Reduced File Size (KB):190 | ||
| Information with Photo: | ||||
| Subjects:Commemorative Plate Berrien County Centennial |
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| Comments:I glanced casually at this commemorative plate for decades and rarely gave it a second thought. My parents had three (I guess, one for them and one each for Carolyn and me). In the past few years, though, I have become fascinated by the plates and have one in my office and another at the farm. The plates have little or no pecuniary value, in that regard like most of the stuff I cherish. The main thing is, the designer (or design team?) succeeded wonderfully in capturing the essence of our home county. The courthouse takes center position, as well it should, having represented the county since its construction was completed in 1898. It was, in many ways, one focus of my life during my growing-up years. My father (County School Superintendent, 1952-1964) occupied the suite of offices on the southwest side of the ground floor. My mother worked for him, and thus this was where she spent much of her waking time, too. The world was small and seemingly relaxed--because I was a child--and I often spent after-school hours there. On a typical day when I was, say, in the fifth grade, Daddy would drive me to school and Teddy would be there in the afternoon to meet me. (During the day, Teddy slept under Daddy\'s car, which was parked outside Daddy\'s office.) Teddy and I would walk home (which was never locked) and there we¡Çd make a snack. Then we\'d walk uptown and I¡Çd visit Mama, and Teddy would hang out as usual. Maybe Leith (Carlton) LeQuier would be in the office (she had a desk there and was the visiting teacher (in current parlance, truancy officer)). She got a kick out of taking me fishing, so some of the best laid plans were hatched right there. Everything happened at the courthouse!!! Court was held, drawings were held, voting took place, taxes were collected, liquor stills were busted, election results were announced, the county commissioners met there, it housed the sheriff¡Çs office, a band played in the gazebo. In other words, it was the most important building in the universe. As one\'s eyes move around the plate in a clockwise fashion, Berrien High School first attracts one\'s attention. In my opinion, the construction of this school, permitting consolidation, was a turning point: from the early 1950s onward, all white students from the entire county attended high school there. Obviously, consolidation enhanced educational opportunities (a relatively vast curriculum--4 years of science, 4 years of math, foreign language, 4 years of English and so forth, each with a specialized teacher). Consolidation also had a large impact because future generations would identify more with Berrien and less with the individual communities. Agriculture was the source of most of the wealth in the county; tobacco was the major cash crop and for a time, the tobacco allotment of a farm figured heavily in the value of the farm. I spread inexhaustible memories of working in tobacco around elsewhere on Southern Matters. Corn was widely grown and was generally sold as pigs. Cotton was hostage to insects, and late in the afternoon on hot summer days, a thick blanket of insecticidal dust covered the land. Churches ALWAYS were major influences in the county. At the time, a small Jewish population in the county attended a synagogue in Valdosta, and a very modest Catholic church was in Alapaha. In broad measure, though, religion meant Protestantism, which covered the range from a snake-handling church out near New River to Missionary Baptists all around. All my family were Baptists of some sort, though not hard-shell (else, how could one whip a child for doing what he is predestined to do?). Not genetic, of course, religion is heritable and the religion one is born into does make its mark for the better or worse, depending on the eyes of the beholder. To the best of my knowledge, no bankers attended my grandparents\' church (Ruth Forrester) and no tenant farmers attended the First Methodist Church, which was about 100 yards from our house. Hiway 129 was a major travel route from the north to Florida before the construction of I-75. It literally put us on the map and generated badly needed outside revenue (e.g., Toby Powell\'s truck stop in Alapaha, Maluda\'s Motorcourt south of N\'ville, restaurants; closer to me: most of the gas sales at Jack Morris\'s Gulf Station--where I worked for three years--was to the tourist traffic). The livestock image is telling. The mood in the mid 1950s was optimistic; no war loomed (that was before the Cuban crisis and after the Korean Conflict), the economy was good, and farming practices in Berrien County were being modernized. Modernization occurred along a jagged front, and did not fall on the land with an even hand. At the time, Uncle Cornelius and Aunt Lena still cropped tobacco by hand, selected seed corn from the crib, and stacked peanut vines (for hay) by hand. Meanwhile on an adjoining farm, my grandfather was planting hybrid seed, had invested in a tobacco harvester, and was the first--or one of the first-- in the county to have a corn picker that shucked and shelled the corn while it picked. Thus, farmers like my grandfather introduced purebred bulls (we called Herefords \"white faces,\" and the polled gene was favored) and upgraded herds. One notch up, a few in the county--like our physician, W.W. Turner--had purebred herds. All this is the substance for a very very long essay, which would have to begin with a definition of \"improvement,\" of course. The original cows (Pineywoods, descended from Spanish stock) had evolved adaptation to the hot humid south and thick underbrush and could tolerate the biotic stresses. They could almost make their own living with little or no supplemental feed. Grandpa had a little guinea cow, too, her teats were small and she objected to being milked (as she demonstrated to Sam one day when she kicked the boiler he was milking into, tearing two of the three rivets off the handle). Likewise, chickens were chickens, who lived a chickeny life, in sharp contrast to the cruel short existence they endure today. . . . another essay on our dominion of beasts. Really, if I were to change something about the plate, I\'d give the pig more credit. As far as I know, pigs are the only domestic primarily meat animal (that would exclude dogs, cats and horses, though they are eaten) that can care of themselves. At the time of the centennial, pig genetics in the county were being upgraded, too, by the introduction of Poland China, Duroc, Hampshire, Landrace, Yorkshire. Thus, the original hardy stock, also descended from Spanish introductions (such as the feral population of Ossabaw Island), as well as from West Africa, was a thing of the past. (Feral pigs, razorbacks¡½a different animal, which has Russian boar genes¡½are a nuisance, of course, today.) Then, the marbling was bred from swine and we now have \"the other white meat\" grown in huge polluting Confined Animal Feeding Operations. . . .another essay. Before the Europeans, along with their African accomplices, conquered the south, vast areas were covered with longleaf pine. Indeed, Bartram complained that the countryside was so monotonous that travelers would lose their way. These forests depended on fire, which was set by lightening and by Indians. The newly constructed roads served as firebreaks, and along came the now-discredited Smokey. Forestry still plays an important role in the county (my trusses for the farm house were build in Havana, Florida, from southern pine milled in Alapaha!) I am an incorrigible nostalgic, and I long for the past, including the small mills (like Elison Henley had), the turpentine barrels . . . . As a means of pacifying this longing, I am attempting to convert most of the land on my family farm so that it resembles its former self. Just about everybody takes pride in having the biggest of anything! The referenced oak tree was located at Britt Dorsey\'s, not far from Sandy Bluff. I\'ve not driven by there in years and I assume it must be gone since Berrien County does not currently have any national or even state champions. It is possible that the claim was exaggerated (the trunk of a southern red oak in Cedar Park, Maryland, was thirty feet in circumference 4.5 feet from the ground, and several even larger oaks are reported from Europe). Supplemental Image A is the unreduced file. |
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