| Biographical Non-Fiction posted June 2, 2024 | Chapters: |
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An unusual character in my story.
A chapter in the book At Home in Mississippi
Our Neighbor, Joe Seay
by BethShelby
Down our little dirt road from where my parents’ home stood, on the left and over a small hill was my grandparents’ older house. It was about a five-minute walk away, unless I was inclined to dawdle and climb the embankment, where I could satisfy my sweet tooth with the juicy flavor of the wild plums when they were in season.
Still on the left side of the road, past my grandparents’ home and another five-minute walk further down, stood an old two room shack which was the home of a neighbor named Joe Seay. Joe was as colorful a character as you would ever want to meet. Since he moved about in my world, often in an irritating way, no book about my life would be complete without covering Joe.
This book isn’t intended to be only about me. It is also about Mississippi, our way of life, and of the times in which this story takes place. Sometimes, I might feature a member of my family or a character who stands out for some reason. This chapter is mostly about Joe.
Joe and his wife, Maggie, were living in the old run-down house before my birth, but my first memory of them was when I was around three. Back then, Maggie didn’t stand out in my mind as anything other than another adult. She used to come over and sit on my grand-parent’s front porch and visit on Sunday afternoons like people did back in those days.
Then one day, Maggie wasn’t around anymore, and Joe was excitedly telling people Maggie had tried to kill him. “That woman tried to poison me,” he told anyone who’d listen. “I’d be dead if I hadn’t a learnt what she was up to. She put rat poison in my cornbread.”
I don’t know if Joe’s story was true, but Maggie divorced him, and we never saw her again. Divorce was a word you didn’t hear often back in the forties. Years before I was born, Joe and Maggie had a son, who had died of a ruptured appendix when he was still a teenager. Joe was illiterate, and people said he was `simple-minded’. If he received mail, he brought it to Mom to read it for him.
Even at my young age, I could tell Joe wasn’t like other people. He’d make all kind of funny faces and gestures, and he enjoyed teasing me. He’d pretend he was going to steal a toy away from me. I’d even heard him barking at the neighbor’s dogs.
Joe had a few acres of land and a small orchard. He farmed his land with a mule and grew many kinds of fruits and vegetables which he shared willingly with his neighbors. In spite of his poverty, no one could accuse Joe of being selfish. Whether you wanted it or not, Joe showed up at the door of all his neighbors almost daily with a bag or a bundle of fruit or vegetables he’d grown on his land. All he wanted in return was some of your time to talk about whatever might be going on in his life or to pass on news he picked up from another neighbor. Even after Mississippi instituted a welfare program for older people who had never worked outside the home, he was willing to share the free cheese or peanut butter he'd been given.
Mom would tell me, “Beth, be nice to Joe. He doesn’t mean any harm. He is like a kid himself, but he’s got a good heart. He’d give you the shirt off his back.” I wasn’t interested in his dirty, stinky shirt, nor the wormy apples, melons or freshly dug peanuts, still covered with dirt, which he was always offering. The things that irritated me most about him was his constant picking and teasing. I also hated his coming to grandpa’s house to listen to the news on their radio, because I had kids’ programs I was listening to.
In 1944, the Justice of the US Supreme Court was disliked by many Southerners because the court had declared segregation to be unconstitutional. There were billboards all along the highways with the words reading “Impeach Earl Warren.” Joe got very animated over news about this. I still remember hearing him vehemently declare. “He needs `peaching. We got to see to it we gets that man 'peached.”
His intense interest in the political news of the day seemed out of character for someone with the mind of a child. He might have had a learning disability, causing him to quit school without learning to read. He had educated siblings who wanted nothing to do with him. Joe’s father, John, lived with him for a few years after Maggie left. His siblings seemed to have disowned their father as well.
After John’s death, Joe set his mind on the idea of getting himself another wife. I couldn’t imagine anyone would marry him, but I was wrong. One day, he came to tell us his exciting news. “I’m getting me a wife. I can’t wait for Yaw’ll to meet her. She’s a big ‘un’.” Big was putting it mildly. Virgie was nearly a foot taller than Joe and weighed over 600 pounds. She had just gotten out of a mental institution to be cared for by her sister. The sister heard about Joe and did the negotiating. She must have been desperate to unburden herself of the responsibility of caring for Virgie. Virgie had been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
The marriage seemed to work out for a while. Virgie declared herself a business woman and went to work for a catalog company selling dresses. Each week, the company sent her new pages with pictures of the dresses and a cloth swath of the material with instructions for ordering. Often Mom would order a dress for herself or for me. After a few months Virgie’s salesmanship personality switched gears.
Back then, few believed multiple personalities existed, but Virgie had at least four separate personas. Sometimes she was like a child of about seven. One of her personalities, in which she referred to herself as Jinny, was that of very promiscuous young woman. Her lurid descriptions the sex acts she talked about made mom desperate to get me out of earshot immediately. Her other personality, Virginia, was a very conservative Christian lady. Today there would be treatment for such people. Most are very intelligent and have usually suffered traumas as children. Becoming a multiple is a coping mechanism.
Joe must have been very confused, since instead of getting one wife he had a harem. It took him several years before he decided Virgie had slipped over the edge, and was `too crazy’ for him. Once again, he declared his wife was trying to kill him. Since she was about four times his size, he had good reason to worry. He contacted the local sheriff and had her taken away. We never heard him mention needing a wife again. We all felt a little sorry to see it end that way.
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After I married and left home, my parents continued to show compassion to Joe. Dad gave him rides into town when he became too crippled to walk. My mother made sure he had special food at Thanksgiving and Christmas and a gift or two. As long as he was able, he kept bringing my parents something he’d grown in his garden or orchard.
After I married and left home, my parents continued to show compassion to Joe. Dad gave him rides into town when he became too crippled to walk. My mother made sure he had special food at Thanksgiving and Christmas and a gift or two. As long as he was able, he kept bringing my parents something he’d grown in his garden or orchard.
Dad alerted the local government of his needs. They constructed him a newer house since his was falling down. They put him on a pension and food stamps and gave him free cheese and coffee. When Joe died at ninety, my parents learned Joe had left them the 15 acres farm land of he’d inherited from his Pa along with the the little house the government had build for him. He had relatives in another county, but they didn’t even bother to attend his funeral.
It pays to be kind to everyone. Joe wasn’t the only neighbor my parents reached out to with compassion. Mom and Dad did what they could, never expecting anything in return.
If you continue reading this story, you’ll learn more about Joe and realize that I wasn’t nearly as kind and understanding of his quirky personality as my parents were.
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