The past of a small community located on the edge of the Mississippi Delta comes to life in Sarah Payne Reeves’ book “Holcomb Memories.”
Reeves, a lifelong resident of Holcomb, has gathered almost 400 pages of history, photos and stories, all painting a picture of the way life once was in the community years ago.
“I wanted to preserve what Holcomb used to be, and I wanted people to know or remember that,” Reeves said about what inspired her to write “Holcomb Memories.”
The book begins in the late 1800s, and tells of how Holcomb soon formed on June 12, 1905, when Gov. Jas K. Vardaman issued a proclamation incorporating the village of Holcomb.
Along with preserving the community’s history, Reeves also keeps the history of many Holcomb families, including her own, alive in the book.
“I wanted to not just tell the history of Holcomb; I wanted to tell the stories of the people and their histories,” she said.
When Reeves first began researching her book, she started talking to local families about their histories in Holcomb.
“I had a little voice recorder, and I took it with me to different peoples’ homes,” she said.
Reeves would ask the people she interviewed to talk about their childhood memories and about their grandparents or stories they could remember their grandparents telling them about Holcomb.
“I asked them to tell me about your life, your school years, growing, funny things that happened, hunting stories and fishing stories, and this is the result,” she said.
The family stories are divided up into chapters such as “Depression Years,” “Hardships and Heroes,” “Happy Memories and Small Town Life,” “Family Memories and Mischievous Boys” and “Holcomb: The Best Hometown,” to name a few.
In a story from “The Curry Family,” Jack Holland Curry said, “I remember my mother and I riding the Doodlebug train to Greenwood. We would meet my grandparents down there, shop and visit, and ride the train home. When the train stopped running, all engines were removed, but the tracks were still there. After a while, a man came up with the unique idea. He took the wheels off his car, reversed them, and they fit perfectly on the railroad tracks. He would run this railroad ‘car’ back and forth from Holcomb to Greenwood ... and charge people for this service.”
Reeves said, “As you read about the adventures, the simple way of life, fun, hard work and sadness, you will hopefully have a different outlook on your life. You will laugh and maybe shed a tear or two.”
To illustrate the history and family stories, “Holcomb Memories” features many antique pictures, with the oldest dating back to 1908.
The book also includes the history of Holcomb schools, churches and businesses and what the community was like in its heyday.
“When you read it, you’d think it’s like a fairy tale because it was like ‘Little House on the Prairie,’” said Reeves. “That’s really what it was like. (As children) we would wonder the streets at night and walk to the theater, and no one ever thought about anyone bothering you. We roamed the woods and played, rode bicycles, went swimming and never thought about anybody hurting us. That’s the way it was, and these stories will bless your heart.”
The book’s cover features one of the two cotton gins that used to be in Holcomb and was created by artist Ronnie Hamilton of Cleveland. The picture on the back, also by Hamilton, is very sentimental to Reeves. It features the three-room shotgun-style house where Reeves was born 70 years ago and grew up in.
“I was born in the front room,” she said. “Holcomb was just a small place then and had very few houses. ... Although our house was in the middle of town, we were the only ones who didn’t have electricity.”
Reeves goes into detail describing the house in “The Payne Family,” a story about her family’s history in Holcomb.
“The wood frame house had never been painted,” she writes. “The roof was covered with rusty tin, which was loose in places causing it to flop in the wind sometimes.”
Reeves still lives on the same street where that house — the place where she was born — once stood.
The author said she has always loved her hometown and wanted to preserve the way it was when she was a child.
After years of research and a year of writing, “Holcomb Memories” is not only a comprehensive telling of the history of the community, but it also recalls what small-town life in Mississippi was once like.
Reeves, a retired nurse, has been married to Wyomman Reeves for 53 years, and they have three children, three granddaughters and one great-granddaughter.
“Holcomb Memories” is available at TurnRow Book Co., located at 304 Howard St., or online at www.turnrowbooks.com.
TurnRow will donate half of the proceeds from its sales of the book to Holcomb Volunteer Fire Department.
• Contact Ruthie Robison at 581-7233 or rrobison@gwcommonwealth.com.
