Out of the Fire

I stand in the cemetery on a sunny but frigid day in November, 2007 shivering from the cold as I stare intently at the ground. The emotions welling inside me are difficult to describe as I ponder the lives of the seven children buried there. Fifty years ago their lives, along with the lives of eleven others, had been snuffed out by fire and I was there on this day to commemorate them. The graves contained the bodies of my six brothers and my five month old baby sister. I collapse to the ground in grief, weeping with an almost tangible sorrow which seemed to come from the depths of my soul. The near frozen ground covering my brothers and sister is the finalization of their lives, but decades before this day, they had gone to bed expecting to get up the next morning and go about their day as usual. However, nothing was usual about the day that they died. I decided to write this memoir to give them the voice that they lost so abruptly fifty years ago. It was only by the grace of God that my voice was not lost along with theirs on that fateful, history making day.
To begin their story I need to go back to the 1920’s when my mother, Louise Crittenden and father, Sanford Reid were childhood sweethearts who grew up in rural Greenville, Alabama. They were both from poor families who made much of their living in the cotton fields and farming communities. Both received their limited education in a home-style setting since public education was unavailable for the poor blacks in that area. Books and other limited resources were passed from family to family and used again and again. Teaching was accomplished with an iron hand which sometimes wielded a big stick. Of course that is not allowed today, but back then not only was it allowed, children could look forward to more of the same (if not worse) once they arrived home. A few hours of schoolwork began the day before the children were released to work in the fields. The older boys worked alongside their parents, while the older girls made their way home to do chores around the house and attend to the family’s vegetable garden.
My father told me that sometimes their day would begin as early as 4:00 a.m. and continue past dusk. They did back breaking work, picking the cotton with their bare hands or climbing up and down the trees in the fruit orchards gathering apples, cherries, pears, and other fruits. Although it was toilsome work, the workers made the best of it by singing and joking together. The air would often be filled with the sound of old Negro hymns being sung in rhythm with the motion of cotton being picked and placed in sacks strapped to sweating bodies. Laughter and jovial chatter abounded throughout the fields. The lighthearted moments were a welcome break to the ceaseless toil. The workers were paid by the day, so everyone knew that they would be rewarded for their efforts before going home.
The workers looked forward to returning home in the evenings where many of them would gather together and drink. Even though Prohibition occurred during my father’s childhood, there was no lack of liquor. Bootlegging and moonshine were prolific in the deep south. There probably are stills that remain undetected to this day. Even though the liquor flowed freely most evenings, the farm workers always managed to be up before dawn to face another day in the fields. My father was introduced to liquor at an early age and it would become a pivotal part of his life and have a resounding affect on his family.
My father looked forward to the end of the day so that he could spend time with my mother. By the time he was fifteen, they were already seeing each other frequently. Most of the time this consisted of sitting on her front porch making idle conversation or going for bike rides on dusty trails. Later in life they would compare how different they were – my father was an only child; my mother was one of thirteen children. My father was somewhat of a joker; my mother was fairly reserved. My father developed an early taste for alcohol; my mother seldom indulged. Yet they complemented each other so much so that they married on October 9th, 1938. My father was eighteen years old at the time and my mother was nineteen.