Eleanor Shirley Isbell

Living Moody’s amazing history for 92 years

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted Photos

Come, travel the backroads to meet a 92-year-old lady whose life has exhibited the love, joy and peace of God throughout the years.

Eleanor Shirley Isbell always has a ready smile and a chuckle or laugh as she reminisces about her life.

Although born in Acmar on August 18, 1934, her birth certificate lists Atmore, Alabama, as her place of birth.

“Mamas didn’t go to the hospital to have babies in those days,” she explained. “So, on my birth certificate, they’ve got Atmore because in Montgomery, they had never heard of Acmar.”

Eleanor sworn in as first woman on Moody City Council Judge Edwin Holladay

Clyde and Edith Bishop Shirley lived in the St. Clair County coal mining community of Acmar when Eleanor was born, and Clyde worked the mines. Sisters Linda, Margaret and Mary arrived at regular intervals.

From Acmar, the family moved to a house in today’s city of Moody. She remembers well living there. “In one side of the house was mama and daddy and us kids, and in the other side was my grandmother and grandfather Bishop. I spent a lot of time running back and forth,” she chuckled. “And I remember grandmother had this wood cookstove. It had a warmer on it above the stovetop, and after breakfast, she would put the leftover biscuits in the warmer. So, when I was going through there, she would take a biscuit and put some sugar in the biscuit for me,” she smiled, relishing the memory. “It’s a wonder somebody didn’t give us a whipping for running through there!”

The Shirley family moved a few times, and then Clyde built a house on today’s U.S. 411, a dirt road in those days. Eleanor described Clyde’s method of construction. “When my daddy built something, he just built it. No measurements. No nothing,” she said. “At this house he built, it had a grocery store in front, and we lived in the back. But, again, not a professional builder,” she emphasized.

Her sister Margaret’s room was next to the store, and the plank wall had knotholes. The flickering shadows that came from the store through the knotholes frightened Margaret every night.

It seems Clyde enjoyed building because Eleanor remembers living in other houses he built with his “saw it and nail it” method. He may have been a little like the self-taught country carpenter whose policy was, “It may be a little cattywampus, but it’ll all come out in the wash.”

She attended Moody Elementary and Middle School, graduating from the ninth grade there. For high school, she rode the bus to St. Clair County High School in Odenville, where she graduated in 1953.

Eleanor and Milton’s 50th wedding anniversary

In 1954, she married Milton Isbell – and that’s a story of its own.

“You know how in Junior High there’s always one male student that all the girls are in love with,” she began. “There was no way that I was ever gonna get to date that one because his father made whiskey.”

With eyes still twinkling, she continued. “Here’s the deal. Milton was friends with the boy that all the girls were in love with, so my first date with Milton was a double date with the whiskey maker’s son – who was the driver – and his girlfriend. Me and Milton were in the back, and I dated him because the other boy was in the front seat.

“We dated a few more times – and Milton used to say I chased him, but I don’t remember chasing him. Anyway, we got married after he joined the Navy.” And the marriage lasted until Milton’s death, August 28, 2018 – 64 years.

Milton was in the Navy when they married and stationed in Alameda, California, so Eleanor bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco.

Crossing the US to California, she recalled, “I didn’t think much about it until I got that one-way ticket, and I thought, ‘Oh, no! I may never be coming back to Alabama!’”

Her fear was unfounded, though. About a year later, Milton was reassigned to Pensacola, Florida, where he worked in the print shop. He worked at that job until he was discharged from the Navy, and he kept the same print shop job as a civilian when he was discharged from the Navy.

Their son, Tim, was born in 1955 in Pensacola, and the Isbells lived there until he was about a year-and-a-half old. On the weekends, they would head back to Moody.

“One time when we were going back from Moody to Pensacola, and we hit a mule. I was in the front seat holding Tim – back then babies didn’t have to be in the back seat like they do today. We hit the mule, and it went up in the air, and it came back down, through the windshield the side I was on. And that mule got up, shook itself and ran off.”

Trying to locate the owner of the mule was a lost cause. “Nobody owned that mule,” she laughed. “Nobody claimed it, and of course we had to have a lot of work done on the car.”

The weekends traveling back and forth grew old, so the family moved to Leeds. Later, they moved in with Milton’s mom and stepfather. That house was right up the hill from the new Civic Center in Moody. Eleanor and Milton had two rooms at the back of the house and daughter Susan was born there in 1958.

Their next house was built by a company who just put up the outside walls. “So, that’s what we got,” Eleanor recalled. “We moved into that house and wasn’t anything done inside but studders. Not anything, and Milton gradually got it fixed, and we lived there 49 years.”

Father knows best

Pop, Clyde Shirley, could give good, blunt advice. Eleanor told of a time he kept her and Milton focused. “Daddy gave us a lot next door to them. So, we got the foundation built, and somebody was going to Florida, and we wanted to go. We didn’t have any money, so I went to my daddy to ask for money to go to Florida, and he said, ‘Do you want to go to Florida, or do you want to build a house?’” After a hearty laugh, she added, “So, we didn’t go to Florida.”

The Isbell family

Career paths

Including the Navy, Milton held down several different jobs. He worked for a little while at Ft. McClellan until they had a huge layoff. He was a milkman for a while and then he worked at Murry’s Garage. Then he went to work at Greystone Golf Course. Eleanor enjoyed several tournaments and met some famous golfers while Milton worked there. That ended one day when Milton had a confrontation with his boss, picked up his toolbox and said, “I’m going home.”

The very next day, Milton went to work at the Cahaba Country Club golf course, where his son Tim was employed. Tim had started working there when he was 14 years old. Milton worked there until he retired.

Eleanor also held several jobs during her working years. She spent 20 years with Dun and Bradstreet. “I worked a little while in every department,” she said. “Over the years, I must have been private secretary for eight or nine men at Dun and Bradstreet.” When she asked to be in sales because she knew those men earned the most, they refused her request, and she left the firm.

From there she spent 15 years in real estate. Then she tried retail sales for a while but quickly grew tired of that job. But that led to work she probably enjoyed the most.

The family was members of Leeds Assembly of God where Dan Ronsisvalle was pastor. One day she was at the church with others to go visit the sick and shut-ins of the church. The pastor pulled her aside and asked her if she would be his secretary. The secretary, his wife, wanted to give up the job. Eleanor agreed to take that church position

After she had been there for some months, she had surgery. As she recuperated at home, Pastor Ronsisvalle called and said, “I don’t like bookkeeping. I want you to be the church bookkeeper.” Eleanor said, “Well, I’ll have to pray about that.” Ronsisvalle replied, “You don’t need to pray about that.”

She became the bookkeeper, but it wasn’t long until the church needed a treasurer, and he asked her to take that job, and she did.

“At Leeds Assembly of God,” she reminisced, “I was secretary, I was bookkeeper and treasurer – and I did everything but sweep the floors,” she said. “I really enjoyed working for Ronsisvalle. I would go dragging in some days, and he’d come bouncing in, singing and carrying on, and say, ‘Good morning, Sunshine!’ And here I was with my head on my desk. He was always so happy.”

She paused and added quietly, “And I miss him, I miss him. I worked for my church for over 20 years. I worked until I was 81. My last day was July 4, and I turned 81 in August.”

Chronicling history

Eleanor wrote an article titled, “Moody, Alabama, “Then and Now,” which was published in Cherish, The Quarterly Journal of the St. Clair County Historical Society in October 1993. In it, she told how Benjamin Epps Moody arrived in St. Clair County. “He came with his family from the hills of North Carolina in 1820 to homestead a section of land granted to him when James Monroe was the country’s president.

“Mr. Moody built a one-room log cabin with a chimney at one end. He worked many long hours at building his chimney, digging the clay from his own land and molding the bricks by hand and baking them in an open fire. Years later, when the growth of his family demanded more room, the log cabin was torn down from around the chimney and a new house was built in its place.” The house has been reworked several times, but it and the chimney still stand in 2026.

Other families came to the area. “The good news had spread to North Carolina,” Eleanor wrote. “Soon there were homes belonging to the Moores, Kerrs, Lamberts, Taylors, Spruiells, Kirks, Adkins, Hawkins and Fulmers. Many of these family descendants live in Moody presently… These [early] folks were hardworking and loved liberty and opposed slavery. Not a single family owned slaves.”

People on foot, horses and wagons wore trails in four directions from the Moody home, and the community began to be called Moody’s Cross Roads.

Eleanor herself has lived and remembers a great deal of Moody’s history, since her dad, Clyde, rallied forces to found the town of Moody. Eleanor calls it “Pop’s last adventure.”

In 1962, Moody citizens learned that Leeds was interested in annexing the Moody area into the city of Leeds. Clyde went into action. He chose a group of men, one of them an attorney, who went to Montgomery and had the City of Moody incorporated.

“You’ll laugh at this,” Eleanor chuckled, “Pop hand-picked the first mayor and five counselors, and the election was without opposition. Mayor, A. E. Moore, and as counselors, he was counselor number one. Then, Hermon Waid, Hubert Adkins, Rodney Miles, and Jimmy DeShazo.” Milton Isbell was the first City Clerk, but that only lasted about two meetings, and he knew that job was not for him.

The first Town Hall was an addition to Clyde Shirley’s Swap Shop. “Remember, Daddy was not a good carpenter,” Eleanor laughed. “He just threw things up, you know. No measuring tape or anything. Well, that’s what the Swap Shop was – just thrown up. So, for the first Town Hall, Daddy just added a little more to the Swap Shop.” She paused and added nostalgically, “My daddy was something else!”

Living history

In 1980, Eleanor herself made Moody history for being the first woman elected to the Moody City Council. She recalled that she was preparing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches when “a still small voice said, ‘Run for Moody City Council.’ ‘Why would I do that,’ I wondered, but I knew my Pop would love me serving on City Council.” She got her name on the ballot with two others who were campaigning for the office. The general election ended in a runoff. Eleanor won the runoff.

After winning, she had a lot to learn. She spent many hours reading legal papers and learning laws and procedures. She credits then City Attorney Jim Hill as helping her the most in learning the ropes.

She ran for re-election, losing by 35 votes in a run-off. During that election, she recollected, “My mom said, ‘I will vote for you, but I pray that you lose.’” She laughed, and added, “God delivered me from politics!”

In her Cherish article, Eleanor pondered the future of Moody. “Who knows,” she wrote, “where the [present] growth will end? My dad paid $300 for seven plus acres in 1948. A couple of years ago, an acre of that same land sold for nearly one hundred thousand dollars. No one can be certain how much bigger Moody will get. There are rumors of a large discount store such as Wal-Mart or K-Mart coming to Moody. The rumors come and go. However, no matter how big it grows or how busy it gets (thousands of cars traveling daily on Highway 411), I still can close my eyes and picture two dirt roads known as Moody’s Cross Roads, where there was little traffic and only two stores, Hannon’s and Forman’s groceries, and a few friendly folks. It was home then, and come what may, Moody will probably always be home sweet home to me.”

In God’s providence, Eleanor has lived to see and know how the City of Moody has grown. She recently expressed her joy, by saying, “In thinking back to the add-on first Town Hall, I stand in awe of our lovely City Hall today, the great library and Civic Center.”

Although she deals with several health issues, Eleanor is the same cheerful Eleanor she has always been. Retired St. Clair County Judge and current State Rep. Jim Hill’s observations about her suit her well.

“When I think of Eleanor Isbell, it makes me smile, because every time I saw her, she had a smile on her face. She had a great outlook on life and was a pleasure to see and to be with.

“I met Eleanor probably 40 years ago. She was a Realtor in the Leeds/Moody area. I was a young lawyer, and a fair amount of my practice was real estate. Many times in church, we talk about the fruits of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, etc. Eleanor not only knew what they were, she exhibited them and lived them.

“I would be remiss if I did not mention Eleanor’s husband, Milton, who was just like her. They were a wonderful couple and perfectly matched.

“They say everyone makes you happy. Some people when you see them coming, and some when you see them going. Eleanor always made you happy when you saw her coming. She is truly a special person. If the world were full of Eleanor Isbells, it would have a lot less problems than it has now and be a much better place to live.”

And all who know her agree. Thank you, Eleanor, for your 92 years of blessing the lives of others.

St. Clair Training School

Historic site receives official marker

Story by Carol Pappas
Submitted Photos

Jennifer Gover gazed up at the historic marker with gold letters etched across the deep blue background and smiled.

It was that unmistakable look of satisfaction at the end of a long journey home, her work was done. St. Clair County Training School is now an official, historical landmark.

The school is already listed in the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage. Thee marker with the official seal of the Alabama Historical Association was erected by the St. Clair County Training School Alumni Association, led by President Don Allen and Vice President Barbara Collins.

Thelma O’Neal Jones addresses the crowd at the dedication

In late June, alumni unveiled the marker in a special ceremony at the Pell City school site, now known as The Legacy Center, during the Alumni Association’s reunion weekend.

The marker tells the story of the school and its origin – history Gover researched and worked in collaboration with the Historical Commission to develop.

It was dedicated in 1922 as “the Colored Industrial Institute, also called the Rosenwald Negro School at Pell City.” It began as a one-room classroom on two acres with one teacher. The land purchase and construction were made possible through the Julius Rosenwald Foundation and local community matching funds totaling $2,900.

A 1922 Birmingham News story described it as “the largest and best equipped school for Negroes in St. Clair County.”

In 1934, the state Board of Education was requested to change the name to St. Clair County Training School and add an extra teacher. Four years later, the St. Clair Board of Education approved extending the high school department to meet training school requirements and the state department approved the name change.

Willie Mae “Snookie” Turner Beavers, the oldest living alumni at 99

As part of the federal New Deal Program, the Public Works Administration allotted funds to build two more classrooms and make repairs.

From its beginning in 1922, the school educated Blacks in the surrounding communities of Pell City, Cropwell, Riverside, Piney Woods, Ragland and Acmar with the final class graduating in 1969 when the school closed for integration – 15 years after the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education decision called for an end to “separate but equal” schools.

Over 100 people attended the June ceremony, where former elementary school principal and SCCTS alumnus Thelma O’Neal Jones delivered the keynote address. “Our grandparents dreamed of a better future for us,” Jones told the crowd. “We were the first generation of education achievements,” many of whom went on to college. 

The lessons they learned there extended well beyond academics. They were lessons “upon which our lives were built,” she said. “We celebrate more than a building. We celebrate a legacy.”

Videssa Woods talked of the history of the school and its importance in all of the alumni’s lives. “Without history,” she asked them to remember, “there is no present.”

Pell City’s historic mural

Sometimes the path to taking a good idea to reality presents more than a few challenges along the way. But when you see the 86-foot mural welcoming you to Pell City’s Downtown Historic District, you’ll know the journey was well worth it.

Three years ago, Pell City Historical Society envisioned and began discussion and planning for a historic mural, which led to a red-carpet ribbon cutting ceremony in late May paying tribute to the artists and all who played a role in making it happen.

“The mural is beautiful and nicely depicts Pell City’s historical past, and I believe it will inspire future projects our community will support and accomplish,” said interim Historical Society President David Murphy.

The mural isn’t the first project the Historical Society has spearheaded for downtown. Historic downtown flags were provided for Cogswell Avenue lampposts, focusing attention on the city’s historical roots firmly planted downtown.

Artists Sundi Hawkins (left) and Penny Arnold do the honors as Denise Olivastri observes

Local artists Penny Arnold and Sundi Hawkins created the new mural that majestically stretches across a white wall backdrop and depicts the founding of the town and key elements of its growth – a train, the mill, its businesses.

“When people look at this mural, my hope is that they feel a deep sense of pride in our city and see the boundless potential of our community,” Councilman Jay Jenkins said during the ceremony.

Denise Olivastri led the project, participating in the mural content along with Vicki Harmon, developing the letter of consent, securing the artists and the location at Glitz & Glamour, 2007 Cogswell Avenue. Pell City Council put its stamp of approval on the proposed artwork, and the artists went to work, completing it in record time.

“This amazing artwork serves as a visual bridge connecting our historic past with our bright future,” Olivastri told the crowd gathered for the ceremony as she acknowledged all who had a role.

She gave “a huge thank you to Pell City Sparklight for their alliance and cooperation in helping bring our city’s history to life! As funding co-sponsor and partner along with the Historical Society, they have joined us in giving our community a beautiful historic landmark that celebrates our roots. We are incredibly grateful to them for their kindness and generosity.”

She lauded city officials who were supportive of the historic mural undertaking throughout the project. “Your belief in the importance of public art and preserving the spirit of our downtown, helped make this vision possible. Thank you for recognizing how initiatives like this can bring people together, attract new visitors and create lasting memories for future generations.”

The mural’s location also deserved gratitude – “a huge thank you and much appreciation to Union State Bank who owns this building and to Pam Everidge and her husband, Steve, the owners of Glitz and Glamour, who generously and excitedly agreed to allow us to utilize the wall as the blank canvas for this incredible work of art.”

A special thank you went to Mason Roberts at Sherwin-Williams for supplying the vintage colors “to bring this mural to life.”

There were unexpected, but welcome role players as well. “We also want to thank Tim Mogren who just showed up and out and generously and freely provided the boom lift from THM Electrical which helped our artists complete their project in record time.”

Landon Honeycutt, who assisted with the scissor lift from The Rental Men, and Greg Gossett from the City Street Department, who installed the barriers around the wall perimeter to keep artists safe, were among those specially recognized.

Calling Hawkins and Arnold “incredible artists,” Olivastri stressed, “thank you is too small of a word for the talent, dedication and countless hours of hard work you put forth. Always smiling, always positive, you both worked diligently through long days and nights to bring this monumental vision to life, and your incredible creativity has added beauty, inspiration, joy and character to our dear city,” she said.

“This vibrant masterpiece of a mural will be admired by the masses for years to come, due to your tireless efforts, vision and skill. Our community is completely in awe of your work.”

Motioning to the crowd, Olivastri noted, “This historic mural belongs to all of us, and stands as a symbol of unity, progress and hometown pride. I hope it brings joy and a smile to your face every time you pass by.”

Mystery Man

How a train wreck inspired series of stories

Story by Elaine Hobson Miller
Photos by Mackenzie Free

In January of 1969, a freight train derailed in Springville, hitting propane tanks and triggering massive explosions that created a fire that scared the heebie-jeebies out of local residents and destroyed the train depot.

In 2023, that explosion triggered the imagination of a local non-fiction author who loves to read mysteries and wondered whether he could write one. “What if that train wreck covered up a murder no one knew about,” Joel Dison’s thought process began. “And what if that murder was connected to a current murder and the investigator had to solve the old one to solve new one?”

That’s how the “conflict series” was born, and how Dison, an ordained Southern Baptist minister, went from daily technical writing and inspirational writing to the world of fiction. The series began in July 2024 with Conflict of Interest, followed by Moral Conflict (November 2024), Final Conflict (March 2025) and The Bookkeeper (July 2025). The latter was supposed to be the finale, but Dison says a fifth book is rolling around in his brain.

“When I finished the first book, I realized there was more to the story,” he says. “It stuck in my head and I had to get it out. I probably have one more to do only because I don’t like leaving certain things in the books unresolved.”

Raised in Chalkville, Dison is a 2011 graduate of New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Although he actually wrote his first novella in a long-lost notebook while in junior high, he started writing books a little after seminary graduation. “I did a lot of technical writing for work before that,” says Dison, a bivocational minister until 2023 when he moved to Springville to help take care of his ailing parents. By day, he’s an electrical engineer for PowerGem, LLC., having worked for Southern Company for 34 years before taking an early severance. He says hewas always good at tech writing. “There was a lot of writing in the seminary, too, and that re-ignited the spark that began in junior high,” he says.

All of his books are self-published. The first three were non-fiction, inspirational books. “The first was a study on the Book of James, and it was published on Amazon and Barnes & Nobles,” Dison says. “I didn’t get many bites on B&N, although I did sell some in the United Kingdom.”

Of the four murder mysteries, he has sold somewhere in the 600 range. “Not great but not bad,” he says. “The nonfiction books did okay, almost 2000 in the 2010-2014 time frame, but some of those may have been free giveaways. I was actually surprised to see the number that high when I checked it. I don’t do a lot of marketing.”

Dison holds up the book that started it all

Dison never thought he had the imagination for an entire book of fiction, much less four, but he surprised himself. “I really wanted to do fiction,” he says. “I love mysteries, and writing one became a personal challenge.”

At one point while writing that series, he asked himself why a pastor would write a murder mystery and whether he should.He came to a conclusion that satisfied him and enabled him to moved forward with the mysteries. “Evil is a reality in this world, and as believers (in Christ), how do we deal with that evil?,” he asked himself. “And how as believers do we approach it? I wanted this to be clean, without cursing or gratuitous sex and not too much grotesque violence.”

Book One ends and Book Two begins with a moral dilemma. The first dealt with a lot of internal doubts and overcoming one’s own failures. The second opens with the main character still dealing with some of those failures. The third deals with how all of those things create internal conflicts, although the story is about external ones.

Dison says he could have ended the murder mystery series at three books, but Book Four re-opens that over-arching theme of conflict between the main character and his nemesis. “It deals with concepts of justice, which does not always look like what you think it does,” Dison says. “There’s a possible fifth one in progress.”

His “conflict” books were written in the third-person. Then a prompt from his Springville writing group made him ask himself whether he could write sci-fi, and write it in the first person present. The latter proved to be more difficult than Dison thought it would be. “I kept switching to the past tense in the sci-fi book, the Cymbrian Protocol,” he says. “But some people think first-person is more engaging to the reader because it makes them feel they are present.”

His writing group, which has no name, often comes up with a topic, and each member writes 2,000 words in three weeks or more on that same topic. “Then we read, compare and critique,” he says. “In January, for example, the topic was a fairy tale.” The group is several years old, and Dison has been a member for about a year.

Dison self-publishes all of his books, a process that no longer carries the stigma it used to. “Self-publishing is becoming as viable and credible as traditional publishing,” he says. “But I would love to have an agent who could find me a publisher to edit and distribute my works. I’m not writing to be a best seller, but for the personal enjoyment and the hope that someone will read my books and enjoy them.”

Electronic publishing costs nothing, except for whatever an author decides to spend for editing and marketing. “So even with paperback it’s just my own printing costs,” Dison says. “It’s a low threshold, which is why so many people do it.”

He makes a couple of dollars on each book he sells, but says he’s not writing for money or fame. “I enjoy writing. It’s cathartic and calming, and exercises my brain. It’ a way of dealing with all the stress I’m going through, a coping mechanism. You lose yourself in your writing.”

Dison designed each of his covers himself, using a graphics editing tool called Canva, with a little help from ChatGPT. “Some images are AI generated,” he says, but he doesn’t use AI in writing his books. “That would be deplorable.” Readers can find his books by searching his name on Amazon, or by checking with Nichols Nook in Springville.

He hasn’t decided whether his sci-fi novel needs a follow-up. The first one came directly from one of his writing group’s prompts, which called for writing a short sci-fi scene. That led to the full book. “I want to find a good way to wrap up the Springville murders, then I’ll decide what’s next,” he says. He has thoroughly enjoyed the locally-set writing and would seriously consider that again in a different format, perhaps a historical fiction or maybe a ghost story.

Readers always wonder where a writer gets his inspiration. For Joel, who has always loved reading mysteries and sci-fi, it’s more about the challenge than the inspiration. “For the first book, the challenge was, ‘Can I write a murder mystery,’” he says. “For the sci-fi, it was, ‘Can I write a sci-fi and write it in the first person?’ I like to challenge myself.”

He has no aspirations of getting rich from his writing, but hopes people will read his books and enjoy them. “I want to provide the option of clean, enjoyable reading for those who like to read, but are bothered by the foul language, sex and violence in lot of popular literature,” he says.

Johnnie Mae Green

A woman of courage and faith

Story by Joe Whitten
Submitted Photos

Johnnie Mae Beavers Green may be 95 years old, but her dignified demeanor and perfect posture would make the biblical Queen Esther proud were she still around.

Having lived in the Pell City area for most of her life, Johnnie Mae’s memory is an encyclopedia of local Black history. Tonya Forman expresses loving gratitude for her help in assimilating local history for the Breaking Barriers section of the Museum of Pell City. “Mrs. Johnnie Mae is a treasured source of wisdom and history in our community,” Tonya said.

Johnnie Mae Green reading her Bible at Mt. Hillary Church

“Her memories and stories preserve the legacy of our families, churches and neighborhoods, helping to connect past generations with the present. She’s my personal historian. I can sit and listen to her talk and sing all day.”

Guided by faith

Known for her faith in God, Johnnie Mae’s life has been guided by the Holy Bible and her faith in the God of the Bible. She has a godly heritage reaching back 200 years in St. Clair County’s African American church history. In the 1895, A History of Colored Baptist in Alabama and North Carolina, Charles Octavius Boothe records a brief biography of her great-great grandfather, Rev. Jasper Beavers.

Born a slave in 1825 in Easonville, Beavers learned to read and to write and became a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. According to family history, Rev. Beavers preached the inaugural sermon at Blooming Light Missionary Baptist Church when it was organized on the first Sunday of July 1884.

Born July 18, 1930, to Herbert and Elizabeth Gibson Beavers, Johnnie Mae grew up in Tuscaloosa County until she was 13 years old. Her mother was native to Tuscaloosa County while her dad was native to St. Clair County. On Dec. 29, 1942, the family moved to the Crossroads community, south of Pell City.

‘Life was good’

“There were two boys and two girls in our family. I was the third child,” Johnnie Mae recounted recently. “We were share-croppers. We farmed. We raised pigs. We had a good milk cow. And life was good.”

A summer garden produced fresh vegetables as well as produce for canning for the winter months. “You know what we grew it with — fertilized it with? The manure from when they cleaned out the mule stables every year. And that’s how we fertilized the garden.” When a listening friend commented, “You had the best fertilizer in the world,” Johnnie Mae replied, “It grew a lot of grass! The animals ate the grass,” she laughed, “and we had to get it up.”

Charlie and Johnnie Mae Green

When asked about the best dish her mother cooked, she quickly replied, “apple cobbler. She could just naturally cook. No recipes.” Then she laughed and confessed, “And I’m gonna tell you the best thing she ever cooked, and that was opossum,” and she told how they prepared it.

“My dad would go hunting at night, and he would catch croaker sacks full. And he had a great big barrel he would put them in and keep them there about a week and feed them until they were fat enough. Then he would kill one. They burnt the hair off and then scraped it down so the skin was clean and pretty.”

After her mother had dressed all the innards out, she boiled it for a while before baking it in the oven with sweet potatoes.

Johnnie Mae declared her mother’s baked possum to be “Good eating,” then laughed and said, “One day me and my sister came home from school, and we ate the whole possum!”

She learned from her mom how to cook them, but by the time she had a home of her own, eating possum was out of style. “I don’t think any of my children ever tasted possum,” she said.

Continuing to reminisce about her mom’s cooking, she said, “Mom could cook almost anything because we had to make do with whatever they had.” One make-do vegetable growing wild in Alabama is the pokeweed that when cooked is called poke sallet. The Beavers family enjoyed it. “Poke sallet was a basic food,” Johnnie Mae recalled. “You could just go and gather that. Mom would clean it. Boil it good. Squeeze it out and rinse it, and then she put it in a skillet with onions. My daddy liked it with onions. Or you could mix it with turnips or other greens. That was a good dish.”

Quilting legacy

Mrs. Beavers also made quilts for winter warmth. And there was some make-do with that as well. When a garment was no longer wearable, Mrs. Beavers would use the garment areas that were still good. Nothing went to waste.

Mrs. Beavers made the girls’ clothes. Many dresses were sewn from colorful feed sack fabric. The girls would go with their dad when he bought feed and choose the sack they wanted for a dress. When enough feed sacks of the same pattern were accumulated, they would have a new dress.

Those vintage feed sacks from the 1940s today sell for between $20 and $45 per sack, depending on the design.

“Mom was a quilter,” Johnnie Mae reflected.  “And she used every little scrap she could find. You know we had to find little strings of cloth about an inch or two wide. She would cut a newspaper square and sew the little strips. And when you made a block, you tore the paper off.” Those were called String Quilts and were quite colorful with a kaleidoscope of different fabrics.

Johnnie Mae quilted all her life until she was 90. Then other things took up her time, and “I filled my little quilting room up with junk,” she said. “And I just got it cleaned out so I’m quilting again, and I’m not stopping anymore until the Lord stops me. I can do one a week.”

Growing up

She still lives in the same community and has good memories of growing up there. “It’s a funny thing, but it’s true. All the Blacks were on the Mt. Hillary Church side of Blue Spring Road. And the white families were across over here in their neighborhood. And it was just like one big family. We borrowed, and we visited, and we played together. We didn’t have any problems. So, we named it the Black Crossroads and the White Crossroads,” she laughed, then added, “And the funny thing, we thought we had a little more than they did. And they thought they had more.”

The Crossroads children played games that are now memories to folk of Johnnie Mae’s generation. “We played Auntie Over—throw the ball over a building. We played hopscotch. And jump rope, but I never could jump rope. We played Dropping the Handkerchief. And the number one game was Hide and Go Seek.”

Crossroads was a peaceful community, but when feelings got hurt or a misunderstanding arose, there was a solution. “If you had a falling-out with your neighbor,” Johnnie Mae reflected, “before you went to bed, you had to go and beg pardon of that person. And I thank God for that.” This principle is based on the Bible verse Ephesians 4:26, “Do not let the sun go down upon your anger.”

Such a rule kept harmony among the members of the communities, and Johnnie Mae was oblivious of color differences until one day in Pell City. “Back in the day,” she reminisced, “my daddy would carry us up to town [Pell City] in the wagon. It was summertime, and I got thirsty. I said, ‘I want a drink of water.’ So, we went to where the fountains were, and it said White and Black.  Daddy said, ‘Get over there and get you a drink,’ and pointed to the Black fountain. I said, ‘I don’t want no black water, I want clear water. I will never forget that,” she laughed. “I didn’t know anything about segregation until that day.”

After a pause, Johnnie Mae recalled a friend’s deprecating comment about another person’s ethnic background. Then she made a singular observation that deserves contemplation.

“I said, wait. Let’s talk for one minute. Do you think that when God spoke the earth into existence, and then he decided on making man, do you think He went and found brown dirt, red dirt and yellow dirt and made everybody?” Her speech tone was pulpit worthy. “No. He made every single one out of the same dirt. So, how can we put a separation between each other.”

There is silence as she ponders a few seconds and then she laughs, “I’m not gonna lie. There are some good people that are hard to deal with, but I love them … and love is what God teaches.” Again, she reasons from her knowledge of Scripture.

Education

When the Beavers family settled at Crossroads, the children attended The St. Clair County Training School in Pell City, and Johnnie Mae was in the 1947 graduating class. “It was the biggest class that had ever graduated from there,” she recalled. “There were 27 that graduated. What made our class big was that we had kids from Margaret and Acmar in our class.”

She was athletic and played on the Training School’s girls’ basketball team. “We had a great basketball team,” she recounted. “We won all of the little districts’ games. Maxine Jones was our coach. She was the principal’s wife.”

She remembered two of her principals. One was of short stature and without a strong personality. He could not control the students — especially the male students. If a student needed paddling, he would send for his wife who taught at Cropwell at the Greenfield school, and she would hitch up her one-horse wagon, come to the Training School, paddle the student and return to Cropwell.

To solve that problem, the Board of Education sent Professor Ruben Yancey to be principal of the Training School. “When Mr. Ruben Yancey came,” Johnnie Mae recounted, “he grabbed those boys by the collar, and it made a brand-new school. He taught them respect.”

Professor Ruben Yancey ended his career as principal of Ashville Colored High School. Professor Lloyd Newton and the Black community petitioned the St. Clair County Board of Education to rename the school Ruben Yancey High School, which they did in 1965. Sadly, Professor Yancey died shortly before the name change, but he lived and died well-respected by both races.

Life after high school

After graduating high school, Johnnie Mae attended Stillman College in Tuscaloosa for a year-and-a-half. However, she reflected, “The only reason I didn’t stay in college, I knew my parents were not able to send me. There were no student loans.  I knew they didn’t have the money, and I came out.”

Determined and courageous young woman that she was, however, she enrolled at Ruth’s Poro School of Beauty in Birmingham and took the six-months course to become a licensed cosmetologist. “It was hard, but God knows I enjoyed it. Cutting and pressing and curling hair.” When she started, that process earned her about $3 per person.

When asked about the location of her shop, Johnnie Mae replied, “I went. I travelled. I did a lot of invalid people — the ones that couldn’t get around.” She paused a moment, then laughing, said, “A friend came to the house yesterday and said, ‘Well, you’re 95 years old, and you’ll soon be up there in heaven fixing mother’s hair.’ And I said, ‘I’m not gonna work when I get up there. I’m gonna sit down and praise the King.” Among the laughter, somebody said, “Amen!”

Kimberly Moore said of Johnnie Mae’s skillful work, “She was excellent with hairdressing. Just about everybody I knew growing up, she pressed and curled their hair!”

In addition to hairdressing, Johnnie Mae worked the looms in two cotton mills. She worked for two months at Avondale Mill in Pell City, then took a job in Talladega at Crown’s Textile. “I had about five less looms to run than I had at Avondale, and I made $5 more an hour. I retired from there.”

Then she explained why she retired. “I drove by myself for seven years. Just me. There wasn’t very much traffic on Highway 34 then. But one night I had a flat tire, and over here at what we call the Twin Bridges, there was an invalid white man lived right on the road. And he heard me out there with my flat tire. He was feeble and on a stick, and he had a big dog and came to where I was.

“Finally some Black folks stopped, and he said, ‘If you all will change the tire, I’m going back to the house.’ But he left his dog there, and he told the dog to lay by my door. Bless his heart! I’m telling you,” she said, with thanksgiving in her voice, “every time I went to work, I stopped and hollered at him. He was dynamic. And that’s why I quit work, cause I thought next time it might be worse.”

She retired from the cotton mill, but she didn’t retire from working. She worked in the kitchen at the Black and White Nursing Home for a while and then at the Rosewood Manor for about four years. She left Rosewood Manor and worked briefly at an assisted living facility on Dry Creek Road; however, that facility had a short life. “They closed down,” she said, “and after tha,t I came home. I stopped working.”

But not really, for she continued to go to women who were confined to their home and dress their hair beautifully. And in that ministry, she spread sunshine and the love of God to the women.

Marriage, family and faith

In 1950, Johnnie Mae married Charlie Darnelle Green from Perry County. They were parents to four children — three boys and one girl. The Greens also took sisters Linda and Wandra Beavers into their home when their mother went to New York to work. Jobs were scarce back in that day.

At home, Johnnie Mae taught her children about God and his love, and they grew up in Mt. Hillary being nurtured by godly ministers there. “I’m so thankful,” she testifies, “that I had good children. They may have fallen out, but they made up and got along.”

Celebrating 90th birthday with family

About rearing children, she commented, “I tell you, it don’t cost but just a little to train a child the way you should train ’em. And when they’re old, they won’t depart from it,” quoting from the Bible. Then, reflecting of current troublesome times, she added, “I don’t know about that now. But I don’t think they depart, they just were never trained. Maybe God will fix it one day.”

It is worth noting that the Perry County Green family knew Coretta Scott King, and Johnnie Mae knew her as well. Furthermore, Rev. T. D. Jakes has genealogical connections to the Green family.

Charlie Green was a miner. When he stopped working in the mines, he took a job at Anniston Army Depot, where he worked until he retired. “It’s been a good life,” Johnnie Mae reflected, “and I don’t regret any of it.”

Mt. Hillary Missionary Baptist Church became her home church about the same time the family moved to Crossroads. Having already been baptized in Tuscaloosa County, Johnnie Mae joined Mt. Hillary in 1944. She told of her baptism as a 7-year-old. “I was baptized in a creek. I was scared of the turtles, and there was a terrapin coming towards me. They had to catch me and put me back in the water!”

When asked if she had sung in the church choir, she replied, “Yes, I did. And we had a little quartet. A little group, The Rose of Sharron Gospel Singers. There were six of us — Mertis Truss — O’Neal was her maiden name — was our musician. Her sister Josie sang with us. I was one of them. Then we had Livi Threatt, Flora Threatt and Nellie Mae Threatt.”

The Rose of Sharron Singers would pray before they went somewhere to sing, for they felt like they were worshiping the Lord through singing.

As she approaches year 96, Johnnie Mae’s faith in God is strong. How has her faith sustained her all these years? “It’s the song I sing all the time, Amazing Grace.” Then she quotes in a strong voice, “Through many dangers, toils and snares, I have already come, God’s grace has brought me safe this far, and grace will lead me home.”

A quietness settles over the room as she comments on her faith. “I told my church the other Sunday, ‘I have one thing to work on.’ They say, ‘What?’ And I say,’ My faith.’ I said, ‘The Scripture says if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can tell the mountain, ‘Be ye removed,’ well, I can’t move a stick. But I’m working on I,t and I trust Him. When I get up or when I go to the store, I say, ‘Lord carry me and bring me back.’ He is the only One I have.”

Although she may think her faith is small, her unwavering faith in God inspires many of her family members and friends. And the words of Andrae Crouch‘s hymn “Through It All,” fits her perfectly.

Through it all
Through it all
I’ve learned to trust in Jesus
I’ve learned to trust in God
Through it all
Through it all
I’ve learned to depend upon His word
Oh, I’ve learned to depend upon His word.

Many lives have been blessed by Johnnie Mae’s life and faith and would say, “Amen!” to Kimberly Moore’s loving comments. “For as long as I can remember, my Aunt Johnnie Mae has always been a woman of faith and highly involved in the church. She is the rock of our extended family, and her strong belief in God is what I  use as a model for my own life. She has taught me that no matter what happens God is in control … she often says that we have to lean and depend on Him and His word … her unwavering FAITH is a true testament of his AMAZING GRACE.”

Johnnie Mae Beavers Green. Keep on keeping on in your journey of faith. You are an inspiration to your family, your church and your hometown, for through it all you have learned to depend upon God’s Word.

Women who wear hats

A tribute to tradition, culture, generations

Story and photos
by Carol Pappas

It’s a tradition whose roots run deep in history, culture and the church. Some might think it’s simply fashion, but for generations of Black women, donning beautiful, often elaborate hats, it’s an expression of identity, dignity and faith.

Ernestine O’Neal and her niece, Sherrell O’Neal, posing with the hat and photo of Ernestine’s mother and Sherrell’s grandmother, Annie O’Neal

The hats they wore to church on Sundays were a reflection of who they were – their personality – and each was distinctive, just like the women who wore them.

At First Baptist Church South in Pell City, members of the church wanted to capture the essence of that tradition in their own church and planned to have some of the women wear their ‘crowns’ on Mother’s Day. It was an idea church member Paula Jackson had, and the Women’s Ministry followed through with an impressive exhibit.

Illness caused the church’s original plan to change, and Women’s Ministry Leader Jennifer Gover decided to expand the reach, contacting women throughout the community to recruit for its “Women Who Wear Hats” exhibit. With the help of her niece, Chrissa Posey, the momentum grew into an exhibit on May 2, May 3 and Mother’s Day, May 10, to pay tribute to these women and their hats with 91 hats displayed from the women of 14 different churches.

“My lifesaver is my niece, Chrissa Posey, who has artistic inclinations and decided placement of the hats and suits,” Gover said. “She even prepared and set up refreshments for the exhibit.” Her behind the scenes work contributed greatly to the success of the event.

Elic Smith with the stunning suit and hat of his mother, Blossie Smith

From feathers to jewels to embroidery and lace, the hats ranged from simple, but elegant to elaborate and billowy. “We thought it was impressive,” said Gover. “It shows how the personalities are different. It wasn’t just something they wear on their head, but something from the heart.”

Nearby, a table of framed photos of the featured women – most in their signature hats – seemed to watch over the room as if surveying the handiwork that brought the event to fruition.

Elic Smith displayed the hat and stunning, matching suit worn by his 86-year-old mother, Blossie Smith. He couldn’t disguise the smile as he recounted his mother’s Sunday attire. “Miss B – You would have thought she would have been first lady.”

It’s a tradition that spans generations from slavery to present day, explained Charlotte Crawford. It was an outward expression of who they were within – “a classy, dignified lady. Each hat represents how they carried themselves. Ruby Sawyer Fomby always wore hats,” she said of her own mother.

Janice Carter echoed the recollections of others as she talked about her mother, Elnora Carter. “Mama wasn’t going to church without a hat or a suit.” Her grandmother, Mary Singleton, would buy two suits just alike and take a cuff or a piece from one and fix the other “just the way she wanted it.”

Elnora was a singer with B.J. and the Countryettes. “When she was singing, she had her hat, too.” It was like her personal signature for every performance.

“I grew up in a church where older women wore hats,” recalled Ernestine O’Neal. “You never wore pants to church.” The hats of Ernestine’s mother, Annie O’Neal, were a part of the exhibit. Annie was Sherrell O’Neal’s grandmother, and she noted that hats only came in one size, so women would sew or fasten material inside to make it fit tight.

Charlotte Crawford, daughter of Ruby Sawyer Fomby

To demonstrate, Sherrell tried on one such hat – a dainty, circular piece covered in blue feathers with a piece of felt placed inside – a perfect fit!

Bobbie Jo Swain of First Baptist Cropwell had the largest collection in the exhibit. Some in the overall display were vintage – 50 to 60 years old. Estelle Forman pointed to the hats of her mother, Bernice Joiner, and mother-in-law, Lizzie Forman, whose hats were featured in the display. Like the others, they were perfect fits for the way they carried themselves, she said.

An opening reception attended by 50 ladies – some of whom donated hats along with family, friends and others – shared precious memories the exhibit evoked.

One of the women asked if she could peek inside a straw hat with pink flowers. The label said Jack McConnell, a well-known milliner active in the mid to late 20th century. The hat’s owner was Caroline Gover’s mother, Della Jordan Gover. Caroline recalled it was bought 25 to 30 years ago at a small hat shop in Birmingham.

These women were serious about their hats, and they invested to get just the right one. They often shopped at a store in Ensley called Cotton’s. Later, they bought their hats locally from Kenwin’s or Mays and Jones with prices ranging from $50 to well over $200.

“They were willing to spend money on these hats,” Jennifer Gover said, and with good reason. It was as much a part of their personality as their smile, a laugh or a word of advice remembered long after they are gone.

“Today, women do not wear hats to church services as they did in the past,” Gover said. “We dress more casual, except for special occasions. But there are still a few who hold on to the tradition of bold and beautiful hats to complement exquisite suits or dresses.”

Remember, she said, “a hat is an expression of a black woman’s soul. It is something she wears on her head but belongs to her heart. It is the keynote of her personality – the finishing touch.”