In the Backwoods

RyKell remembers being about four or five years old, sitting on the side porch of the house on Rock Head creek, Tennessee. She was sitting on the bottom steps of the stairway that led up to the "boys' room" (that was what it was called by the entire family) upstairs. There was also the inside steps in the family bedroom that led up to the "girls' room" upstairs. She recalls holding a little puppy in my arms. She also remember that the neighboring white mill children (those whose parents worked at the mill), especially Jordan Alfred and Lavonne, liked to carry her around whenever they came from their little mill house down the road over to RyKell's mama and daddy's house.

The family consisted of her daddy, Twen Giarc, her mother, Annoc, four brothers and two sisters and herself, RyKell. Our home was situated across from a creek far back in the remote part of Middle, Tennessee, in the backwoods called Rock Head creek in Yrrep County. RyKell's grandfather daddy's father, built this house. It was a fairly sized house with two tiny bedrooms upstairs. The community was very sparsely populated. There were only a few white families scattered very far apart. RyKell's Daddy farmed the poor soil that was poor and rocky, planting and harvesting corn, soybeans, and peanuts. He also logged with his mules and wagon whenever he had laid his crop by and if there was an opening at the local sawmill for a team of mules and a log wagon. Now her Daddy was around the age of forty-eight when she was five. He was what people called a mulatto. He had a very light complexion, with straight black hair. His facial features were that of any Caucasian, and he had a tall and skinny framed body. He chewed tobacco, dipped snuff, and smoked a pipe, and played the violin (fiddle).

RyKell's Mama stayed at home and kept the household in order for the rest of the family. Her Mama was about forty-three. She was small in stature, about five feet. Her complexion was a pretty dark brown. She often told all of her children ever since RyKell could remember that her daddy nicknamed her from the time she could remember. He called her his "pretty black girl." She was just that. She was very pretty.

The Giarc family was the only black family on upper Rock Head creek, so RyKell never saw or played with or communicated with any other minority families and their children, and neither did her other brothers and sisters.

Daddy had sent the oldest one of RyKell's siblings, Neleh, to live with his sister Emmy in Aashville so she would be able to attend school. The rest of her brothers and other sister were homeschooled by my mother. There was no public school for them to attend because they were black. No school was provided for blacks to attend on the head of Rock Head Creek. The white children were able to ride the big yellow school bus to the elementary and high school in town called Nednil. Mama taught RyKell's other brothers and sisters Rad, Cara, and Yor at home. RyKell was not of school age yet, but was always present in the room or on the porch when Mama taught the rest, so she started learning at first grade level very early. The other two older brothers, Twen Junior ("Brother," as he was called by the family) and Donny Mack, had already abandoned homeschooling and had taken up work at the local sawmill. This was approximately in the year of 1944.

Since the children had no one else to communicate and play with, Cara (who was five and a half years older than RyKell, which made her nine and a half) and Yor (who was three and a half years older than me, seven years old) spent their time playing with all of the dogs, puppies, cats and their kittens, all of which ran rampantly about the outside and inside of the house. They even had a pet pig, chicken, and a billy goat. Rad, who was eight years older than she, making him about twelve years old, stayed busy helping Daddy around the farm and engaging in all kinds of mischief whenever he had the opportunity. Yor was RyKell's faithful comrade and playmate.

They all had the God-gifted ability to appreciate music and play some kind of instrument. They had no formal note reading, just the ability to hear and play. It was an inherited characteristic, because her Daddy and Mama both could play musical instruments. Daddy and his brother played the violin and Mama the piano. RyKell never did see her Daddy's brother play the fiddle, but her Daddy said that they used to play their violins together when they were growing up in the same house that we were still living in on Rock Head Creek. So all of the seven children of Twen Giarc were genetically inclined to play some type of instrument.

The local white neighbors and their friends always gathered together and came to their house, especially on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. For their entertainment, they played good country music. Twen Junior, Donny Mack, and Cara only knew the three chords on the guitar, C, G, and F, so they only played the guitar to amuse themselves. Neither of the three could sing either. But on the other hand, Rad played the guitar well but had no vocal ability. Yor, RyKell's best playmate and comrade, well, Yor was enormously talented. He could play any instrument that he wanted to. I never saw in the latter years any instrument that Yor could not play — guitar, banjo, mandolin, violin, piano, drum, harmonica, and something that mama called a juice harp. Yor had a voice for singing and he could sing, sing, and sang. Yor was just monumental in his ability with music. I could sing. I could...