By invitation of Mrs. Ralph Owen who as the society-page used to put it, will be remembered as Miss Virginia Eatherly, we discussed Greenville folklore with her fifth-grade students at Em Boyd Elementary School last Monday afternoon.
That is, we thought we were appearing there for the benefit of Mrs. Owen's pupils. But. at it turned out, our audience included also those fifth-grade sections taught by Mrs. Clark Johnson and Mrs. E. D. (for "Scottie") Elliot.
Mrs. Mildred Avera, principal at Em Boyd School and a friend of several years standing, also sat in on the proceedings. Furthermore, we might have lost ourself among the many corridors of Greenville's most recent grade-school, but for a young Samaritan named Harold McGarrh who showed us the way to the auditorium.
It seems that there Is project cooking in the Greenville grade-schools regarding Mississippi history, both state-wide and at the local level. In presenting us to the class, Mrs. Owen remarked that, in her opinion, history, like charity, should begin at home.
So we tried to tell the children about the Greenville we remembered, and the town as we remembered oldtimers describing it when we were young. Of Court School that was the courthouse before it became the empire of Miss Susie Trigg; of the "Peavine" train that plied its rambling run from here in Boyle and back, always taking the long way round; of shanty-boats tied to the cottonwood trees along the river bank, from Alexander Street to Central Avenue; of Greenville's first automobile, owned and driven by LeRoy Wall who now looks after the parking-meters: of Washington County's first railroad, a narrow-gauge deal some nine miles long, from here to Stoneville; of Mr. E.E. Bass, who came here in 1884 to practice Law but, praise the lord, swapped professions and taught school instead.
We tried to describe the floating fish dock and market at the foot of Washington Avenue, with buffalo and catfish being weighed out to customers, while yet alive and flopping on the scales; of Front Street, Mulberry Street, and Locust Street which having long since tumbled into the river’s changing channel. We even recollected "the man who walked upon the water and how the school-children were permitted to gather at the river to watch the miracle, but didn't see it since it was a terribly cold day, too cold for water-walking, the man said. (He had little boats that he wort? on each foot like you see people on water-skis today, and was on his way, they said, from Pittsburgh to New Orleans.)
Then there were the little brown electric street-cars, "Josephine" and "Adalla," that ran from one railway depot to the other, and the later red-and-white one that worked Broadway, Poplar, Nelson, and eventually, got as far as Greenway Park.
That's a lot of recollection, with a heap of it bordering, we fear, upon the trivial before time ran out on us. Did anyone care to a question? If so, we would do our best. How big was Greenville when we got here? Maybe five thousand (1899). When were parking meters first used? (Maybe I949). How many people founded Greenville? Maybe as many as fifty. Did they have talking pictures when we were a little boy? ("Maybe" gets a rest here since they, definitely, did not. But there were colored slides of topical songs, children, and a graphophone playing a record of the song In a corner beneath the screen. Had it ever snowed here? Oh yes, and as recently as 1951.
Meanwhile, we passed around some snapshots of Greenville in flood time, saved across the years by the late Mrs. Louise Valliant Eskrigge, from 1890 to 1927.
Now a hand shot up. Just as the bell was ringing, and Mrs. Avera said the time would be extended, by executive order, to take care of this one last question.
When asked a sturdy lad, were guns invented? Again, we fall back on "maybe," six or seven hundred years ago. Silently we ponder the relevancy of such an inquiry. Maybe the boy was wanting a gun with which to slay a visiting lecturer.
BC
