I spent summers with my grandparents P.L. and Maxine Barrow in the late 1970s and early to mid 1980s, “putting in” Tobacco in Greene County, North Carolina. My people were farmers on both sides in Greene County for generations. My summers doing farm work were formative and I am eternally grateful for having had a close relationship with with Granddaddy Barrow “Pa Pa” and Grandmother Maxine “Mama Mac” (my mom’s parents). This is a photo of a photo of them from the 1940s that I found in Mama Mac’s attic after she died in 2016.
Maxine was a vivacious, bubbly person who loved people and loved to talk—essentially the exact opposite of my granddaddy P.L. Barrow who would often answer questions in tones seeking amplification with a “yes” or a “no.” A stoics, stoic. My interest in genealogy was only just starting as Maxine passed, and I often lament this fact. She would have been a great genealogical informer, because she knew everyone and loved to tell stories. For example, I am unsure of who this is—a boy in a Tobacco field, with the plants towering above him, a picture I found in Mama Mac’s attic only after she died. My best guess based on the box is that it is my Great Uncle Rand Giles Wade, Maxine’s younger brother, though it could be one of the Barrow boys, including my grandfather. She would have said “honey that is ….” but she is gone, and I can only try and fill in the blanks.
I love sketching or painting scenes of rural Eastern, North Carolina Tobacco farms, and landscapes, more generally. When I drive down east and see a falling down Tobacco barn, I glimpse a type of beauty, I think because I know how much human toil was put forth in that place, how linked were the fortunes of the people to the land. How there are intrinsic, as well as economical values of land, especially in an agrarian society. This is from my very first sketch book (pencil on paper).
This is a more recent work of a pack house (acrylic on canvas), the place where harvested and cured (dried) tobacco was stored before taking it to the Tobacco market for sale. Surely it is ironic that my most highly cited scientific paper was published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2002, and is entitled “The benefits of smoking cessation for longevity.”
Here is Maxine holding my mother Marsha Barrow Tucker, sometime in 1943, the year my mother was a New Year’s baby. My grandmother was only 18!
Last week, I introduced you to Maxine’s mother Blanche Sugg, who was an artist and whose pen and ink drawing of a rooster was what spurred me to become a visual artist, and you will learn more about her life in the coming weeks.
My grandmother Maxine lived into her early 90s, four decades longer than her momma Blanche did, who died young in 1950 at age 52. Maxine never talked much about her mother or father Henry Sugg, which is notable because she loved to talk. However, the last time I was with my Mama Mac just a few days before her death on August 29, 2016, she was talking about her parents and especially her mother Blanche. She whispered inaudibly at times as she napped on the couch, drifting in and out of consciousness as her body was failing, but I could make out two words clearly— “momma” and “daddy.”
When she awoke and was lucid, she told me that when she was too young to work, her momma Blanche would send her to ride on a mule to the fields to tell her daddy that it was time for lunch. Blanche had been gone for 66 years that day, but Maxine was going back to childhood on a Tobacco farm near Hookerton, NC that last day I had with her, and one of her last days on Earth. She might have seen something like this as she approached, if her daddy was breaking ground getting ready for the planting season.
Don Taylor
Peter looks JUST like Maxine. Love reading these memories. Your ancestors have been part of my understanding of you since we met in 2016. Now there is so much texture such a sense of honor.