Sunday's Sentiments

Clothes of swimmers hanging on a telegraph pole, 

Lake Providence,Louisiana. The children from

the nearby farms and neighborhoods go swimming,

on Saturday afternoon and Sunday, in the lake.

When my family lived in Oak Grove in West Carroll Parish, Louisiana in the 1940s to 1958, we lived near many of our relatives. There were paternal Lee relatives and related families and maternal Coon relatives and related families living near our family. East Carroll Parish was a neighboring parish south east of West Carroll. Lake Providence was in East Carroll and our relatives also lived there in the Lake Providence area. Daddy moved our family away from West Carroll Parish in 1958 seeking better employment. Memories of living near Lake Providence has been tucked away for many years until recently.

I was on the Library of Congress website looking at the photos, then I came across a photo that caught my eyes. It was an interesting one and a scene that brought back memories of long ago when my family lived in West Carroll Parish. The photo was a telegraph pole beside Lake Ponchartrain and hanging on the pole were clothes. Someone had decided to take a swim in the Lake. 

One afternoon Daddy came home and told Mother there was a drowning in Lake Providence. Lake Providence has a large six-mile oxbow lake, named Lake Providence. The lake was formed when the Mississippi River changed its course many years ago. Lake Providence was a popular swimming hole for the locals. It was a great place to take the family and have a fun filled Sunday afternoon with family. Folks during those years learned to swim by watching others, or a family member taught them, they were self-taught. There were no swim lessons at a local YMCA or city sponsored swim lessons.

Daddy came in and shared the sad news with Mother and they were upset. The person who drowned was a young male cousin sixteen-year-old. It was a shock. He was in the lake trying to swim, and he got too far out in the water and couldn’t touch the bottom. Went under and never came back up. As the story unfolded, the kids were sitting around Daddy and Mother listening attentively. Not understanding what it meant to drown, or die. This was the first death that my three younger sisters, brother, and I had ever experienced. We didn’t understand what it meant to drown. I was about eight years old at the time. Daddy shared the details of the funeral. What is a funeral I thought to myself? We didn’t ask questions, but listened as Daddy shared the details with Mother.

The funeral arrangements were planned, and our family made plans to go to the funeral home to view this young cousin’s body. This was my first experience with death. Daddy and Mother took us inside where the casket was with the young body on display. The casket was open, and he was lying there as though he was asleep. He was a handsome young man with dark brown hair and fair skin. He was at peace, just sleeping. Those were my thoughts of my first sight of a person who was dead. Our family stood there a while and viewed this young man. Then, my family visited with others, and we left to go home. Of course, we children had questions about death, but no answers. This wasn’t the time to ask those questions either.

The memories of this have been long ago forgotten until I saw the photo of the lake and those clothes hanging on the telegraph pole. That scene jogged my memory, and the events of that tragic story came to life again. There was a young boy’s life cut short that day! On a day he was out to just have fun. My siblings and I didn’t understand the events that happened, but life went on for us. This tragic accident wasn’t discussed again by our parents, and we didn’t ask questions about death.

Photos are a useful tool when writing family stories. Events that took place long ago are still stored in our memory; however, they can be recalled with a little help, just as the memory of this long ago tragedy of a young cousin whose life was cut short was brought back to the present.

African American's tenant's home beside the Mississippi River levee.

Near Lake Providence, Louisiana, June 1940.